Decade Series Discussion (NO MOVIE DISCUSSION)

[Phoenix512]

When I hear people saying that they will be sad that Decade is over with, I'm like "Not really." Because it was just an average series to me. Sure that the story isn't finished yet but it doesn't mean it could have done a better job overall while building for the end.

I began to realize the shortcomings of Decade about the time when they were in Nega World. There wasn't much development on the main characters themselves as most of the time was taken by the Rider of the 2 weeks. The main characters were just along the ride it seems. I feel that they could have made more time for the main characters to develop. Also I think that Decade should have its own unique villains instead of using the villains of the past. It would be nice for those unique villains to team up with the villains of whatever Rider world they were at at the time.

I think that Decade could be easily a 50 episode series if it didn't need to adhere to the formula it set itself at the beginning. Perhaps my thinking of Decade was influenced by Kingdom Hearts which it is. Kingdom Hearts did such a good job of using this concept which Decade could have done so well.

Unlike most of the forum members, I wasn't entranced on the fact of seeing the previous Riders. I didn't have fangasms when other Riders appeared. That's why I think people have a skewed view on Decade because of seeing past Riders overrides their objectivity of seeing the series of what it really is. So Decade isn't good but it isn't horrible as well. So it's just average.

[XIII]

I did become a tad bored of the rider of the 2 week format after a few worlds, it just seem repetitive, same with Den-O really, it just became boring by its own story telling,

A lot of the time I became frustrated by the lack of fight scenes, I was hoping for all out battles in the worlds, but that just never happened, as soon as it started to get going, the fight ended, normally in a pointless way, sometimes in the weakest possible way.

The main thing that did turn me off from the series was the fans themselves, seeing week in week out "I fangasamed over rider such and such" just made me groan and hate what Kamen Rider has become, but I guess thats to be expected these days,

Overall I did like the series and the concept behind it, it could have done with abit more development of characters and a change up in the format of the worlds department to keep it from becoming stale and predictable, as it did become, I think 30 eps was a nice amount, dragging it out for another 20 with that format would have drove me over the edge, not my favourite Rider series, but also not the worst rider series in my mind,

[Deka_Hero]

It's time for a serious look back. Decade started to much fanfare and great hype that we would see all our favorite riders again and have the whole series be one giant orgy of Fanservice.

But what we got was a Hit and Miss premise with characters that could have been lifted out of any other kid's series.

Ill give some examples:

Hits

Faiz World - Arguably the best world in the series, it had a good story (one of the few that could actually stand alone and do well outside Decade) good characters and a satisfying ending.

Agito World - The fact they combined all three main characters into one was interesting, plus we got so see more development from Yusuke. Not bad

Hibiki World - Putting aside the fact they got most of the original cast to come back (witch was frigging awesome), this world's story was a good and interesting one. Asumu having to kill the man he looked up to and the last battle Vs. the Crab monster with everyone joining in was what made this arc powerful.

Shinkenger World - This arc was not only historic, but was very well written as to not give the shinkenger's more attention than needed for the plot. Takeru and Jii where the only ones really involved with Decade and co., and we got some nice exposition from Jii about his role with the rangers.

Black/Black RX World - For a series that's goal is to celebrate the Heisei era, having a whole arc devoted to a Showa Era series was a pleasant surpirse. Even more of a Surprise was the return of Tetsuo Kurata as both Black and RX. It had a good story and the BLACK/BLACK RX Double rider kick was likely the only real Fangasm moment for most long time fan in decade.

Misses

Ryuki World - The Rider Trial idea sounds good, but i felt it could have been executed better. AU Shinji and Ren were ininteresting and Odin went down far too easily.

Den-O World - Despite some hilarious Taros possessions (i still fantasize about Ura-Natsumi), the whole arc was just one big Adverstisment for the Cho Den-O movie. Plus, at this point, isn't everyone just tired of Den-O in general.

Nega World - Even though they got Kouhei Takeda back as Otoya, this arc just had bad writing and failed to use Kouhei's talent in it's fullest. The omission of Nega Den-O and the inclusion of Orga still baffle's some fan's (like me).

Amazon World - Not really the victim of bad writing, just bad acting. Enrique Sakamoto really just said his lines instead of acting them. His Unenthusiasm really killed the arc.

The Ending - NO SERIES SHOULD END WITH A CLIFFHANGER!

Once you balance the good to the bad the series comes out as a Average series wit its share of good and bad.

[Draiken]

The only Kamen Rider series I've seen before/with Decade were Ryuki and Faiz (neither of which I have seen the entirety of. [Of Faiz I had seen none but the first episode before TVN released DVD versions of the episodes]), so I don't have nearly the familiarity with most of the worlds nor the "super cool" feeling of seeing past Rider actors as many of the other members here do.

While I agree that character development was sparse, it did help me get a brief sense of what the other worlds were about, so I'm pretty excited to watch the series in their original-universe entirety.

The last episode wasn't exactly satisfying though. :/ It certainly ended at an interesting moment, but it's kinda like some book series I read: I enjoy the books, but I can't stand how the books end on a cliffhanger. (While I appreciate knowing that there will be more to the series, I hate that I can't read what happens next until the next book comes out (for the more recent series). In this case, I'd like to just go straight to the next part and see how it ends, but I have to wait it to be subbed like everyone else. )
I think some of the post-Heisei-world episodes could have been better devoted to character/plot development. (While I thought Amazon's world was interesting in showing off Dai Shocker's influence, it really didn't do much except show off Apollo Geist in a few more episodes (in my opinion).)

[ZGMF-X20A STRIKE FREEDOM]

Hmmm well where to start

I knew they couldnt have kept this show alive for a whole year (with the exception of the cliffhanger), especially after that god awful Amazon world.

the character development was very mediocre obviously since everything is vaguely explained, the only reason we kept watching the show was basically to see our favorite riders back on TV again. We had some nice cameo's, granted only Den-O's world and Hibiki's world had a majority of their original casts return, it was still nice even with short ones made by The Hoppers, Ouja, Kaixa, Ryuga (even tho he just grunted and had the wrong voices for his vent cards lol), and IXA. Of course Kenzaki Kazuma gets points for just kicking ass more so than anyone that reprised their roles since he gave Tsukasa a nice beat down that was pretty awesome.

If theres one thing i enjoyed most out of the show.......is the Shinkenger crossover, it was nicely done, and epic, and if you hated the god awful blasphemy that Saban made, it washes the stain in your memory away nicely

so yea in the end, i guess it did accomplish its mission to give us some fanservice, while selling some rehashed and repackaged toys

[Aoiblue]

Faiz World - Arguably the best world in the series, it had a good story (one of the few that could actually stand alone and do well outside Decade) good characters and a satisfying ending.

Oh, noooo.
They overshadowed Faiz with Diend's Premiere.

If anything, it was Kuuga's. It really showed how well the production went.

And as a whole: Great concept, although not perfect I'm happy with what we got.

[William_Duel]

The way I see it, the Japanese in general have trouble with the fifty episode format of most shows. There are some very good ones but it's like... When they try these new things like splitting up what will be a fifty episode series into two seasons or splitting it up into the movie format which this seems to be, they have trouble with the pacing. The two episode format worked for the first nine worlds. If Decade had no set episode limit, then they could have explored each world as they liked. But they didn't so what they had worked.

But I too expected to see more all out rider battles occurring in the series. I thought that was the direction they would go in after they visited the nine worlds. And while it created fangasms, throwing in the Amazon and Black/RX worlds I think slowed the process down. Because if anything this showed us the potential Decade had to be longer and more thought out. Now character development is slow and I think this is because of the rotation of writers. But that's just the way it is. It's not all written or directed by one guy.

Decade had the potential for more, but the moments of greatness are just too few and far between. I liked the series. But like I said elsewhere, towards the end they could have had more interaction between the AU worlds. Hell they could have probably made nine movies (instead of a single DEN-O crossover) and it might have been more fulfilling. But I guess I reserve final judgement for the movies to see how well the story really unfolds. In a way it's almost unfair to judge these 31 episodes on their own. Well whatever. Diend World sucked.

[Orenohissatsuclimax]

Like eveyrone, good concept, bad execution.
Worlds 1-9, good. What people expected it to be, an alternate retelling of it. Den O and Hibiki would've personally have been better if they had a different cast maybe minus Imagin. When I got to Den o, I was already used to not seeing older actors.

I must be the only one who liked Nega World. I don't see why everyone is really hating on it. Sure, maybe it couldv'e changed to a dark world in general rather than opposite Natsumi no sekai but it served more use than Shinkenger no Sekai
Nega was a world where counterparts ruled over. You can say the dark world to the normal rider's "Good" world. (Orga was Faiz's dark counterpart counterpart technically so I don't see why everyone's being whiny over Orga. He's awesome too)
Otoya was in it (which was awesome) but not just as random dark Rider, but as in a way, an overseer, the guy who looked over the darkworld. A king in a way? He wanted Tsukasa to be in nega world because after all, he's the world's destroyer and what's more evil and dark than destroying the world? He also got his power up form. I personally loved Nega World.

Diend- Not unique at all. Just a rehash of Blade movie with Diend in there.

Shinkenger World, had no point. I don't see the hype on it. "OMG SUPER SENTAI AND KAMEN RIDER TOGETHER BBQWTFOMGLMAO" It was pretty much "Oh I must defeat you because your name is Decade, ONORE DECADE, I don't think you're a destroyer, pointless (but awesome) fight. End." The same plot of the 9 worlds but.. with no plot.
Was cool seeing the two together, but would've made a better maybe straight to dvd special.

Black/RX world. Awesome, made Tsukasa actually care about others more, cool fight, awesome battle music, awesome. Nuff said.

Amazon world, I actually liked. And isn't Amazon supposed to act like that? Broken english and speech considering he's basically japanese Tarzan. That kid was ugly with the makeup, but a fufilling episode with more background on Daishocker.

Final war world, I've gotten over the cliffhanger but wished that could at least showed 2 minutes of the other like 5 world (not counting Yuusuke's).

I actually like the characters a lot though. I've seen Tsukasa grow less into a dickeido, Yuusuke becoming just a little more mature, Natsumi.. I felt had bad acting on and off times, Grandpa was pretty much a schoolgirl in a old man's body, and yeah.
I still give it a 3.5/5

[Tetra_Urataros]

I understand and respect the opinions I've read on here; but, I just got to say that it has become a bother after a few episodes of the series. I'll start this off to say, "It wasn't what I expected; however, that doesn't mean it was a bad series."

When I started Decade, the best part of the series was the slaughtering of my favorite riders at the beginning of the series. After Decade received his major power-ups, that (meaning the beginning of the first episode) was still my favorite part of the series. IT had so much potential at the beginning, but they failed to utilize it. I'm guessing it's because of how short the series was set to be, anyways.

I had a few problems with the worlds because most of the plots behind them really contradicted the original plot for that series. Now, I admit I had random "fangasms"--if that's what you all call them, but it wasn't over what people stereotype it as. There were a lot of things that went wrong with the series that just didn't gain my interest, but I enjoyed it for what it was. It was pure eye-candy for certain fanboys and girls to bring back some of the series' most beloved riders.

On another note, I must say that if they had 50 episodes, or at least 49, I'm almost certain that the ending wouldn't have been too disappointing...and that's almost a very big uncertainty.

[DrinkItDown]

I would say that this thread is a little premature...the story isn't over yet.

[zeta_gundam]

I would say that this thread is a little premature...the story isn't over yet.

NOTE: Series discussion? The series finished its airtime?

I have to say I enjoyed the overall concept of Decade, and it really made the series rather different from previous series. But what I was expecting a fight between the Riders (i.e. Decade vs Rider of the Week), but we didn't get much of that. Overall, I think the 30 episodes was a nice balance of plot and fillers.

Lastly: the repackaged toys and recasts and stuff, FANTASTIC! XD

[Battra]

It was an average series, I guess it was kinda to be expected with the hype surrounding a anniversary bringing back the previous 9 Heisei Riders & in that sense it probably works. I'm glad they limited the the previous rider's to a 2 episode story arc, it gives a chance to people starting out with Decade to glimpse a peek into the previous rider series & maybe check them out to decide how they compare to their AU world counter parts.

When the Nega World hit is when the series just fell apart, yes it did regain a little steam starting with the Dai-Shocker arc but the cliffhanger ending just didn't need to be done. I think if they do something like this again for the next anniversary of the franchise they need to get a solid team of writers that have focus and can really do justice to the franchise. And I doubt either of the movies or their DC's are going to do much to go into detail about how all the loose threads connect.

[riderkicker]

I was disappointed with this series much like Kabuto. I had my ups and downs with this series, and when the time came to air the climatic storylines, they copped out. Apollo Geist, was the final villain?! And Tsukasa failed?! Oy.

The series should've been framed with Decade going to the AU worlds and then going straight into the Rider War. But they had to go and pad it out with a "Nega World" and two Showas when they could've done "vs. Great Shocker" for the second half.

[mateo360]

I agree that some of the worlds after the nine main worlds were just unnecessary like Diend and Amazon. If they really wanted to keep those worlds then they could have expanded it out more and actually filled the year. I would have liked to see an Ichi-Go world or a Shin world.

[Kamen Rider Raven]

I've mentioned before that when I first heard of Decade, I was expecting a Super Robot Taisen-eqsue story. Instead it turned into an episodic two week a Rider format. It was interesting to see how they changed things from the original series, but it just kinda came across as lazy in some instances.

Which is especially sad considering how well the Black/RX arc was, along with this final arc. It showed that they DID have some good ideas if they didn't have to stall to hype for the movie.

I reiterate what I said a few months back. Decade had a curious beginning, a kick ass finish, and a mediocre series in between.

It kinda makes me more excited for Double though. It'll be nice to have a story that focuses on one Rider without the need for fanservice.