Geats Series discussion thread and poll

[takenoko]

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It's that time again! What did you think of Geats as a whole? What do you think of Takahashi Yuya's writing this time compared to his previous works?

[Zimrence]

Love it. It has been a while since I last watched a Kamen Rider series weekly. Since Build, I think? Although not a perfect show, I enjoyed watching it together with my siblings. It went down from 10/10 to 8/10 in the JGP arc but went back to 9/10 the moment furry Jesus debuted. Just one thing.

Niramu was done dirty. Bring the food blogger back, dammit!

[Connie_Edogawa]

I gave this 5 stars.

as time passes and I look back on it, I'll likely settle closer to a 4 star rating, I bet, but this was still one of my favorite Rider seasons in a while, and definitely in my top 5.

there were for sure aspects that could've ended better. there were plenty of times where it felt like "ok, this character's arc is basically done. problem is, now they have nothing to do and they don't need to be around, but don't have a reason to leave." so they either have them killed off/retired/just plain leave to shoo them away (Niram, ben and john, most DGP players who aren't the main 4, Ziin and Kyun (especially Kyun)), or they just have them around and doing busy work (Keiwa's sister, eventually, and Punkjack).

that said, it was at least consistent for the most part, and while I'd ultimately rather we have everyone handled well, it's better than just leaving everyone around to clog up the cast (lookin' at you, Revice), and the rest of the good outweighs it enough that "Great show with a just OK ending" is still 4-5* material for me.

someone I follow on Tumblr has been doing a rewatch of Geats for the past few weeks and catching stuff that works even better on a rewatch when you know stuff like what Ace's whole deal is, what Buffa and Neon's wishes really mean for them, and what Kekera really meant the whole time with his "real Kamen Rider" stuff, so while I imagine my overall rating will probably differ in the future, this definitely feels like a show I want to rewatch with enlightened eyes and see if that helps it stay as liked as it is for me.

also just hoping the winter movie and future v-cinema(s) don't undo any of the good will the show left with.

[takenoko]

This was an easy 5 stars for me. It didn't land everything perfectly, which seems to be a Takahashi trait at this point, but it had so much potential, great characters, and fun action scenes that I was able to overlook the flaws

I liked Tendou 2.0 and thought he was a more balanced version of machoism, being cooler than everyone else, smart, with some vulnerabilities. Although he really just became more Gary Stuer as the show went on

But what terrible character arcs for these guys. Keiwa's probably had the most potential, but was handled with such a trite and 180 degree character reversal that it sort of killed any potential for nuance he could have had (it was also really late)

Neon is a lady in a Takahashi show, so her arc was basically how quickly could Takahashi get rid of her for like a quarter of the year. Even getting a last minute upgrade didn't help because she was barely in the end anyway and used her new power up like twice. Sorry you're a lady in a Takahashi show

Oddly enough, Michinaga got the best story arc? Going from an antagonist/anti-hero to a surprise twist revelation on his motives and ending up as a hero in the end. I still think he and Tooru should have got married at the end, but Toei would never dare, so he just ends up eating meat at the end

Sara was one of the better characters, her relationship with Keiwa is cute and I liked the little bit where she was a Rider. Things were always a little better when big sister was around

Tsumuri was just kind of there and a plot device? I like the actress though

Like why do Punk Jack and Ponytail get better character arcs than the main characters? That's super weird

The changing arcs was a smart way of refreshing the story every few episodes. I liked the future people. Beroba and Kekera are some of the most fun villains that we've had in a while.

Great music, both the opening and ending theme to the movie are excellent. I wish there were some characters that were brought back or some side stories that had a more satisfying ending, but what can you do. The least Takahashi problematic story so far

[Aeikozz]

It was okay, many times throughout the series it felt like it didn't know what it wanted to be it was like okay we're going down this path okay but it's starting to stink so let just something completely different. The ending still doesn't make sense to me and i'm tottally expecting a Directors Cut of that episode. But what it was, was FUN. it was a helluva lot fun to watch. I like Ace. He's cool and i really like the actor. I like Neon as well. I also like the actor that played the frog guy. I dunno why but he seems very familiar to me.

I give this a 4 out of 5. It's nothing amazing but it was fun and i enjoyed my time.

Thanks again guys! onto the the next one.

[takenoko]

>I also like the actor that played the frog guy. I dunno why but he seems very familiar to me.

https://wiki.tvnihon.com/wiki/List_of_U ... ogi_Shinya
It's because he's been doing faustian bargains for 20 years now and he's damn good at it. He was also the captain in Amazons

>Thanks again guys! onto the the next one.

Thank you for joining us on the ride!

[Kurow]

I don't know. I found it pointless... it was a lot of other kamen riders flavors mix into a blender.

This show felt like it was written every 2 weeks by a different person.

I will just list the good and the bad things

The good

1) The cast: The guys were good actors but the characters are so bad... Michinaga was wasted half of the series because his character was just stupid. Tendou 2.0 was ok until he turned so Gary Stuer that the final boss specially ability had no power on him because well... he was God. We got 4 beautiful girls in this show at the same time <3. I loved Beroba but she has no real reason of purpose to be messing with the people of this timeline. I liked how the relationship between Ace and Tsumuri ended up as brother and sister.

2) Geats IX: This suit was fantastic and one of the best kamen riders suits that they have made in a long time however the rest of the suits looked horrible and 80% of the powers looked cheap and half ass made.

The bad

1) The story was confused and completely pointless. This started with a Kamen Rider Ryuki potential and end up trying to be original every 2 weeks with the "mini anime arc" sections that the only thing that was cool were the opening changes. The new introduced characters on every of these arc were completely pointless to the overall story in the long run.

2) The deaths were meaningless. The owl rider died like 10 times and always returned just to be a jerk again. This guy was such a shitty villain that I can't even remember the name of the character.

3) The suits... other than Geats IX all the other suits look bad and cheap. Buffa may be and exception in his complete form but all the rest were just bad.

Overall I think that this was a "mix" of flavors that didn't went well. They tried to combine the "technology" rider with the "magic/myth" rider and end up in a mess... I'm glad that they finally had a "Nine tails" riders and Geats IX was amazing but the bad cgi, bad story, and cheap suits/weapons are may too much for me to give this more than 2 stars.

[takenoko]

LOL that's tough but fair

>We got 4 beautiful girls in this show at the same time <3.

Counts them up on his fingers. Oh yeah!

>I liked how the relationship between Ace and Tsumuri ended up as brother and sister.

The Rider tradition lives on

2) The deaths were meaningless. The owl rider died like 10 times and always returned just to be a jerk again. This guy was such a shitty villain that I can't even remember the name of the character.

Dapaan? Sparrow?

[Gokider]

LOL that's tough but fair

>We got 4 beautiful girls in this show at the same time <3.

Counts them up on his fingers. Oh yeah!

>I liked how the relationship between Ace and Tsumuri ended up as brother and sister.

The Rider tradition lives on

2) The deaths were meaningless. The owl rider died like 10 times and always returned just to be a jerk again. This guy was such a shitty villain that I can't even remember the name of the character.

Dapaan? Sparrow?

Keilow was the owl, but I think they mean Sparrow based on the description.

[Ashki]

I'm kind of with Take on the "This show had problems, but I'll rate high anyway".

Tsumuri was the reason I stuck with the show at first, but she remained the highlight for me the whole way through. I nearly had a heart attack when there were two of her! But Kokoro fanservice aside, I really grew to like a lot of the characters over time. Ace was a slightly more charismatic Tendō with Keiwa playing the obligatory second half.

Of the four sponsors, Beroba was obnoxious and I just couldn't stand her. The other three I enjoyed and it's rather funny that of the four, Kekera and Beroba chose their riders for the sake of torturing them, while the other two fell in love with theirs.

I feel like Neon had the best arc of the Riders, with the discovery that she was a granted wish to replace a real girl exposing why she wasn't loved and wishing for true love. It also explained why she was always running away despite her not knowing exactly why her family was so aloof. Then, to find true love not once, not twice, but THREE times at the end... I'm really glad that per Prince Charming was also her sponsor. From the moment the two met I was rooting for them.

Michi was probably my favourite main Rider, and he reminded me a lot of another bull-headed Rider mixed with another zombie. Considering the Ace was in the wrong place at the wrong time, prompting Michi to target him specifically, it was a really good choice to turn the tables and have him be in the wrong place at the wrong time, leaving Keiwa to become Michi 2.0. He really did end up pulling off one of the best tragic secondary Riders in the franchise, tying with Gills in my personal rankings.


Aside from Beroba (and wanting more on the origins and evolution/culture of the Jamato), my biggest complaint was the constant resets. It's pretty bad when the final boss dies in the first two episodes! And it seemed like every new DGP became less inspired than the last, with the later episodes trying to keep the DGP going after the Goddess of Creation was destroyed by pulling ideas out of a hat. This should have dragged everything down a lot more than it did, but the character interactions helped keep my interest. Seeing Ace and Tsumuri pulling off a Gaim-style "white means gods" towards the end also got a laugh out of me.

Final score (pending any remaining specials and movies) is 4.8/5, rounded up because of survey limitations.

[Mxylv]

I really liked this one. The story itself was interesting to compare with some of Takahashi's earlier work; one could even suggest it feels like like what would happen if Kamen Rider Ex-Aid had a couple years' more writing experience and didn't have the dual medical/video game theme + associated gimmicks. (As far as I can tell, this Rider season's gimmick was gimmicks, which somehow worked by merit of feeling too all over the place to be stuffed into one box.) There are still plenty of Takahashi-isms, being filled with numerous Riders, ethical questions, and notably--indicated as early the second episode--deaths of questionable longevity.

Some spoilers will follow:
In hindsight, a lot of the first half of the show (pre-DJP) feels like the writer needed to pad out the basis before getting on with what he wanted to write about. Still, if that were the case, he was able to hide it really well; the first arcs did a good job at introducing the world, characters, and themes, and the formula (while it may have overstayed its welcome by a bit) nonetheless made the eventual change in status quo that much more satisfying. The DJP arc itself did an impressive job portraying the disarray and uncertainty of an actual coup d'état, particularly as it became progressively clearer that the DGP staff hadn't faced a real catastrophe in their lives and had no idea how to deal with the problem. All this builds up to the final arc, which was utter chaos. It felt like someone was switching sides every two episodes, status-quo as a concept was obliterated, and I was here for it. Granted, it's possible that I just summed up a number of Rider shows in this paragraph, but this had a sense of freshness that came from probably two places: a relative lack of any one specific gimmick (save gimmicks themselves, as I'd mentioned earlier--alongside some animal helmets), and the meta aspects.

Realistically, the show's continuous meta commentary is one of the only things that distinguishes this from a Gaim clone, but they really got some mileage out of it. Better than solely using it for an identity, the show not-infrequently employed it toward larger themes and moral questions. After the first few arcs, which critiqued an acts-only philosophy through a cast of technically-good guys with any number of motivations, the show used the nature of the DGP to critique certain kinds of relativism, particularly legal (what if you're no longer good guys in the eyes of new leadership?) and social (what if the audience/general public themselves are against you?). At the same time, these meta aspects go even further to seemingly comment on Geats as a season and Takahashi as a writer: by the point of That Guy trying to push Keiwa toward his concept of a "real" Kamen Rider (Ultraman R/B, is that you?), one starts to wonder if the writer's questioning the entire premise of most KR entries or dark stories in general. Maybe, much like the DGP itself, how and critically why you're writing something is just as important as what you're writing in the first place. (See also: the Riders pushing for hope despite a world in which happiness is a zero sum game and the future is so dull and pointless that people created a new species and possibly invented time travel for a reality TV show.)

And then we get to the characters. This is an interesting bunch, with two of them following some very cookie-cutter Rider profiles (the plucky, idealistic main rider with no idea what he's getting into; the edgy secondary with a redeeming feature or two who could go anywhere from angsty hero to series antagonist) and the actual main Rider established as a trickster figure that shuffles everyone else's roles. I'd thought Neon was a similar cookie-cutter heroine at first, but I don't think she actually fits into a mainline Rider archetype outside some similarities with the main-rider one. Ace is pretty fun, although as the story progressed, I felt like he lost some of his ambiguous persona and clever tricks--this may remind some of Sherlock's controversial finale (or even final season in general), which seemed to prioritize getting into its protagonists' heads over the mystery/problem solving it was known for. Of course, Ace couldn't have stayed ambiguous through a full season of character development; much like poorly done redemption arcs, though, it's a problem if a character at the end of their arc isn't at least roughly as fun to watch as they were at the start of it. This is a pretty minor gripe in a fun, compelling, and thought-provoking entry, though, so I don't want to say that minimizes the show's positive aspects.

Pretty much every main Rider here has a character arc, which makes Buffa a fascinating figure in that he arguably didn't have one. Instead, he's staunchly anti-DGP, no matter whose side that puts him on or whether it makes him seem like a general jerk, a major villain, an unlikely ally, or a committed hero, which fits in with the show's late-game critique of social relativism--it isn't that Buffa's views suddenly became right or wrong (questionable choice of company aside), but that the rest of society changed around him as the others slowly began to realize that the system was inherently broken. Of course, Buffa's ends-justified morality also made his perceived villain/hero status vary depending on what he thinks he needs to do to end the DGP.

Overall, I'm giving this one a 5--not because it's perfect per se (Neon's extended relegation to morale support was a particular pain point), but I gave Ex-Aid and Build 4's, and I think this one's a stronger entry than either of them.

https://wiki.tvnihon.com/wiki/List_of_U ... ogi_Shinya
It's because he's been doing faustian bargains for 20 years now and he's damn good at it. He was also the captain in Amazons

Shoot, that was Mizorogi? Wow, guy gets around.

[takenoko]

"It felt like someone was switching sides every two episodes, status-quo as a concept was obliterated, and I was here for it. Granted, it's possible that I just summed up a number of Rider shows in this paragraph"

it's funny because it's true

>by the point of That Guy trying to push Keiwa toward his concept of a "real" Kamen Rider (Ultraman R/B, is that you?), one starts to wonder if the writer's questioning the entire premise of most KR entries or dark stories in general.

I mean Kekera could just be a Narutaki figure, someone stuck in the past with a rigid sense of what a Kamen Rider series is about

>Maybe, much like the DGP itself, how and critically why you're writing something is just as important as what you're writing in the first place.

The how is important because when it's not good, it leaves the audience confused about what the point was or whether there was one to begin with

>Pretty much every main Rider here has a character arc, which makes Buffa a fascinating figure in that he arguably didn't have one.

I disagree here. Buffa is one of my favorite stories because his villain or appearance of villainy is entirely a creation of the audience's perception of him, which changes over time as his true motivations are made clear. His real story arc is not shutting people out and letting Ace be friends and allies with him (frankly they were all working toward the same goal to begin with, his poorly written hatred of Ace doesn't really stand a lot of scrutiny)

>Shoot, that was Mizorogi? Wow, guy gets around.

Don't let that guy give you power for power's sake, it always comes with a catch

[HowlingSnail]

Finally got around to watching through the 40s yesterday, which was strange given the amount of black and white Doctor Who I've been watching lately. The plot kind of got incomprehensible near the end, as it seemed like new rules were just being pulled out of thin air in an attempt to keep the plot going. Plus the whole God thing kind of copies from Gaim, complete with wig and coloured contacts like in that show.

I enjoyed Geats overall. Certainly it was a nice break every week from *shudder* King-Ohger. Gonna watch Gotchard 1-3 this morning, so we'll see if that lives up to it. Geats has one of my favourite Reiwa Rider designs, and Geats-IX is a great final form too.