KR Ex-Aid 05 released

[takenoko]

Said stuff.

Yeah, ditto chcoman. Show's got problems that I hope will get addressed sooner than later.

[Catastrophe]

Lazer Level 3 should turn into a handheld gun a la G1 Megatron.

Shit. That'd be cash. Should be able to change size like G1 Megs as well.

[Jehal]

Black-Aid being Parad made enough sense to the point you could argue that his random appearances where just him messing around. Finding out that it's Dan really raises a lot of questions. Mainly; what's the goal here? As has been said, this reveal shouldn't leave us confused. A good reveal like this would've been better if they did it later on after having him make appearances that put him in line with Dan's interest, so when we found out we'd realise how well it fits.

Forced villains aside; I don't really see the drama between the riders as being forced. They've all been given reasons to see each other the way they do, and none of them have really done anything to change each other's minds.

I was starting to be okay with Emu's clumsiness because it seemed like it was toning down, but this episode seemed like it wanted to make up for missed opportunities.

I am a big fan of RPGs, and I actually like Hiiro's character so far. I really want him to have a good Level 3.

[TokuCasual]

the chances of me dropping this series is pretty high right now.

Looks like we share close opinion. The last KR I like was Gaim as well, and Fourze prior. Dropped Drive and Ghost as they were pretty bad. Ghost was just straight up terrible. I really hope Ex-Aid fixes all the current flaws by ep 10. If not, this might be another one to drop unfortunately for me as well.

How hard is it to write an awesome story about people with super belts to Henshin and fight evil? Oh right, toy selling. Still it's not impossible to sell toys while making a compelling show at the same time. Writers needs to be more competent at balancing this. I know the target audience are kids, but Ex-Aid is a mess even by that standard.

[chcoman123]

the chances of me dropping this series is pretty high right now.

How hard is it to write an awesome story about people with super belts to Henshin and fight evil? Oh right, toy selling. Still it's not impossible to sell toys while making a compelling show at the same time. Writers needs to be more competent at balancing this. I know the target audience are kids, but Ex-Aid is a mess even by that standard.

I mean, Gaim managed it, though that had the unfair advantage of THE UROBUTCHER. Still though, the earlier Heisei series and even earlier Neo-Heisei managed it. It's not hard people!

Forced villains aside; I don't really see the drama between the riders as being forced. They've all been given reasons to see each other the way they do, and none of them have really done anything to change each other's minds.

Even if it isn't technically forced, it feels forced. Like they created conflict for conflicts sake just so that they can have Riders fight each other before they even develop their characters to any extent. It all feels so rushed, as we are introduced to five riders over the course of five episodes, with them quickly giving us there backstories and creating conflict early so we can have Rider on Rider fights, something that only typically happens towards the end of a series, not right from the very start. If you ARE going to do it from the very start, then you have to make me care about the characters first like what Gaim did. I feel like, as good as Gaim was, it's had a negative effect on Kamen Rider as a whole, as it feels like every series after it is trying to emulate it poorly. Think about it: tons of Riders who are constantly fighting for their own goals and ideals. Except here, the characters are unlikable and boring, not to mention the show has far too many fight scenes, which could've been spent for Character Development. But no, we HAVE to sell as many toys as possible, so keep shoehorning in new characters for no real reason and constant new forms too, with constant action to show the kids how COOL they are.

[takenoko]

I mean, it's definitely forced. Their goals aren't THAT mutually exclusive. That makes the drama feel artificial, hence why I'm reacting so negatively to it. I mean, Sentai is aimed at a lower age group, yet I don't think I've rolled my eyes as hard as I did with Emu in this episode. They don't feel like real people reacting in ways that real people do.

[Go-On Macaroni]

I feel like, as good as Gaim was, it's had a negative effect on Kamen Rider as a whole, as it feels like every series after it is trying to emulate it poorly. Think about it: tons of Riders who are constantly fighting for their own goals and ideals.

Did you just skim over Ryuki? That did multiple Riders fighting with own ideals first.

How hard is it to write an awesome story about people with super belts to Henshin and fight evil? Oh right, toy selling. Still it's not impossible to sell toys while making a compelling show at the same time. Writers needs to be more competent at balancing this. I know the target audience are kids, but Ex-Aid is a mess even by that standard.

I mean, Gaim managed it, though that had the unfair advantage of THE UROBUTCHER. Still though, the earlier Heisei series and even earlier Neo-Heisei managed it. It's not hard people!

Early Heisei though didn't have to postpone their story until after the first cour of episodes because Bandai wants to spam the first quarter toy catalogue (even Gaim did it, you couldn't go an episode pre-#14 without a new rider or lockseed being thrown at you)... Now, yes, good writers/producers/both/etc. can work around that but at the same time, the current mood (I'm speculating, ftr) after Takatera and the Hibiki screwjob seems to be that they'd just rather not argue with Bandai.

[Catastrophe]

So my problem so far is too much shit is happening to introduce the riders and then Lv3 in quick succession for the toy pushing angle. They should have paced the rider introductions like Gaim did so we got a feel for the characters. Like have Brave in ep3 and Snipe in 5 and so on.

We don't know much about Brave other than he hates Snipe and Snipe hates Graphite and Lazer is a nerd and wants to study the Bugster? At this rate, it feels like it'll end up early game ghost where they pushed forms for the first 12 episodes and then started two parters in the 2nd arc which kills the enthusiasm.

I mean, as I said, Gaim got this right and was fantastic. How hard is this to fuck up? Does the toy selling really come before all else because it's closer to Christmas? Sentai doesn't really suffer from this.

[chcoman123]

I feel like, as good as Gaim was, it's had a negative effect on Kamen Rider as a whole, as it feels like every series after it is trying to emulate it poorly. Think about it: tons of Riders who are constantly fighting for their own goals and ideals.

Did you just skim over Ryuki? That did multiple Riders fighting with own ideals first.

I actually forgot about Ryuki. But Ryuki also slowly introduced new Riders and focused on characters before fights, something which Ex-Aid has forgotten to do.

Early Heisei though didn't have to postpone their story until after the first cour of episodes because Bandai wants to spam the first quarter toy catalogue (even Gaim did it, you couldn't go an episode pre-#14 without a new rider or lockseed being thrown at you)... Now, yes, good writers/producers/both/etc. can work around that but at the same time, the current mood (I'm speculating, ftr) after Takatera and the Hibiki screwjob seems to be that they'd just rather not argue with Bandai.

I suppose what you say is true. But Gaim and other early Neo-Heisei series managed to distract you away from the obvious toy selling by having a good story with good characters. Not to mention that with Early Heisei, there was a lot of toy selling in the first quarter of their shows. Kuuga (tons of forms) and Ryuki (tons of Riders) really come to mind. And, I think it's been long enough since Hibiki for that general feeling to dissipate. I think it's more likely that writers are trying to replicate Gaim's success by just introducing new characters and Riders and having them fight each other without thinking about how to make it interesting or good, and instead just rushing everything so that they can sell toys and think that they are writing something great. It just makes more sense to me. Granted, the whole "They don't want to argue with Bandai" theory seems very plausible too, and that might play a factor in some parts of these series, but I look back at Wizard, Drive and Ghost, and all of them have good setups, but bad stories, so I'm thinking that people are legitimately trying, but failing.

[Go-On Macaroni]

>> Not to mention that with Early Heisei, there was a lot of toy selling in the first quarter of their shows. Kuuga (tons of forms) and Ryuki (tons of Riders) really come to mind.

There was, true, but it didn't come off as locked-in to the first quarter as it does now (which was partly my earlier point).

>> And, I think it's been long enough since Hibiki for that general feeling to dissipate.

One would think, yeah (since they let Tsuyoshi Kida back to write Wizard) but I doubt Shigeki Hosokawa (Hibiki's actor) or Producer Takatera are coming back anytime soon.

[perdana.aria]

This episode is good. Reminding me of Gaim. I hope the conspiracy or the twist is as good as gaim. Otherwise it won't make any sense about Why the bad guy distributing power. They executed well in Gaim for that part.

I enjoy Ex-Aid way better than Drive and Ghost.

[Jehal]

Even if it isn't technically forced, it feels forced. Like they created conflict for conflicts sake just so that they can have Riders fight each other before they even develop their characters to any extent. It all feels so rushed, as we are introduced to five riders over the course of five episodes, with them quickly giving us there backstories and creating conflict early so we can have Rider on Rider fights, something that only typically happens towards the end of a series, not right from the very start.

I mean, it's definitely forced. Their goals aren't THAT mutually exclusive. That makes the drama feel artificial, hence why I'm reacting so negatively to it. I mean, Sentai is aimed at a lower age group, yet I don't think I've rolled my eyes as hard as I did with Emu in this episode. They don't feel like real people reacting in ways that real people do.

I see what you guys are saying. I didn't really think about it like that. Maybe it's because in the first two episodes I had already come to terms with this series not being in my top 10, that it doesn't bother me so much.

[Cyborg-Lucario]

Not a bad episode, but I can understand all the comparisons that people are making between this and Gaim, and yeah you can say that Ex-Aid is a disappointment compared to Gaim, but I really hope hope Ex-Aid will be good and able to stand on its own (probably a bit too high of a standard to have for a toku aimed at kids).

[Mxylv]

I think this was a potentially good episode with some potentially great moments. The first quarter or so seemed to have everything I disliked about the show so far: lots of Poppy, lots of Emu being clumsy, and several other riders acting like jerks. That said, Emu clashing ideals with Hiiro actually worked for me a little bit this time, probably because they were talking about an issue more double-sided than giving up or eating something. I'm pretty surprised that Ex-Aid's getting a powered-up form this early (or maybe it's just this year's version of Eyecons?); although I like getting the form/character introductions out of the way, I recall that Ghost also felt really rushed in its first arc, so that doesn't bode too well here. I'm not sure the ending worked for me. Genm gets the heck beaten out of him by *one* Level 3 rider and at the end, he talks about how powerful he (the one who lost) is. It seems like they wanted a dramatic reveal and a disturbing "actually, the bad guys (sort of) won" ending, but it just feels forced here.

One plus I can say about the episode was Ex-Aid's involvement at the end. Emu still smiled before transforming, but he also looked pretty angry--rash, even. I'm hoping this ends up turning into a character flaw (that Genm--or someone else--can take advantage of later on) as opposed to something that isn't even mentioned.

[Victormaru]

Sorta good action this week (at least when it's the fight between the two Ex-Aids). Some real bad action this week too. The hammer strike doesn't even look like it connects with the Bugster.

I figured EX-AID went for some sort of earthquake-ish ground pound attack or something. Although it would've looked a hell of a lot cooler if the hammer did connect.

I loved how they hit us with all sort of mix-ups this episode. Making us think Parado was Genm in the beginning, then confirming the crackhead Gurafaito, then ended up being Kuroto out of nowhere.

Now that I think about it, I feel like all three of them were Genm at one point. Only because of the fact that Genm had never spoke a word until now. And he was much more forceful this time around, almost completely killing Lazer.

Then when Kuroto laughed at the end, I thought he was just excited to finally fight against worthy opponent, that being EX-AID in his new Level 3 form. But now that I think of it, maybe the "genius" he was referring to was the Genm transformation itself. Maybe it was his first time becoming Genm, because when you think about it, Emu did ask, "Why does he have that?" when Graphite whipped out his arm device and Cultivated. Maybe Graphite was in the Genm costume during Episode 50 of Ghost and Pallad could've been Genm in Episode 2 of EX-AID since he said something along the lines of, "Let's go and say hello" before showing up to attack Ex-AID and Brave. You feel me? I don't know, I can't sleep thinking about this!