The Mid 2000's were definitely a bit of a dork age for kamen rider (Note: this is taken in consideration of the time the shows were released, not taking into account the reevaluation these shows have gotten in the years since. I also have not yet watched any of these so this is just from what I have gathered about each one.) Kamen Rider Blade saw a noticeable drop in ratings an merchandise sales and despite a major shift in the writing room midway through the shows production to improve quality, wasn't enough to change the fortunes of the show. Hibiki became one of the most infamous tokusatsu productions in recent memories
. The head writers and producer were replaced for reasons that we don't know but have possible answers, too dark, wasted too much money. But the talk around the season became less about its good qualities and the controversy in what happened. Kabuto, which was a celebration of 35 years for the franchise and it did... fine. it did worse in ratings compared to Hibiki (Average wise.) but did sell more, but not as much as Blade which was already considered underperforming.
To say that the franchise was as far away from the heights its reached today is an understatement. But the series after Kabuto was looking to be a major paradigm shift. Previews for the new show called den-o showed a series that was bright, colorful, leaned more into comedy than any season prior to it. It was like night and day comparing it to what it had come before it. In a way it felt like a hailmary play, to reinvigorate the franchise. To say it worked would be an understatement. Den-o may be one of the most important entries the franchise has ever had, next to the original and kuuga. Heisei phase two would follow Den-o's formula in most of its entries and it remains one of the most popular entries in the franchise with both Rider and show itself. Which doesn't get into the life the characters from this season had post show. That being said, being a defining entry can bring an expectation, one that can be hard to match with the expectations and of course their is the whole drastic shift in tone this entry brought. So was this the right way to take the franchise.
SYNOPSIS
Ryotaro Nogami's luck may just be the worst in the world. If ending up on top of a tree with his bike teling of poor luck then I don't know what is. One day he happens upon a very weird pass that brings him to a wasteland and train. The day only gets stranger wen he is posessed by a spirit that beats up some thugs who harassed him earlier. The being turns out to be an imagin, Creatures from the future who grants the wish of humanity, but in that genie way of being the worst or not granting them in really, really evil ways, they intend to use the people they grant wishes to in order to run wild in the past and destroy it. Also coming from the past is a girl by the name of Hana who tells Ryotaro he is Den-o. A warrior that protects the timeline. Unfortunately Ryotaro kind of sucks at the whole fighting thing as he gets his ass kicked by the first monster he is meant to fight. But the imagin who had possessed him earlier and posesses him to fight the imagin much more competently. Now alongside the imagin he names momotaros, Ryotaro fights the imagin to protect the present. And are subsequently joined by other imagin and a younger version of his older sister's fiancee and his partner imagin.
Den-o feels like a precursor to the formula that would be perfected in phase 2 Heisei. But it still does it well here. Balancing the plot to allow both episodes to not have much padding. But here it really is not about the overarching story, rather seeing the entire cast of big personalities, spefically the taros bouncing off one another. As the show goes on a overarching plot begins to surface in the form of the Imagin's leader... but will talk about it when we get to the villains. Den-o is at its best when it just allows characters to act and bounce off one another.
CHARACTERS
If their is one thing to take away from Den-O, it's Takeru Satoh as Ryotaro Nogami. Takeru nails the role of a young man having to jump between multiple personalities that very so heavily. His initial quiet and unconfident personailty, the brash hot-bloodedness of Momo, Suave cool for Urataros to Kintaro's straightfoward personality and the childlike glee of Ryutaros. He so easily slides between them all and makes you believe it. Especially considering how he has to lip synch to the other actors which could've easily ruined it all but he sells each version he has to play between the energy of characters who vary so much. That also ties into Ryotaro's biggest strength, his ability to bounce off his fellow co-stars so easily and play off the quirks they have. He is able to bring the best out of others but it also kind of makes him hard to judge on his own since many of his best moments being in bouncing off the taros and being capable making this wide range of misfits come together. He's a good if rather unlucky person willing to help others through the series, very standard as far as protag's go, but he really is helped by his interactions with others.
Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the benchmark for how successful a toku actor can be.
Which brings us to his initial Co-stars in the Taros. Now the hard part about being a comedy is that of course you have to be funny. If your not funny then you just look like an idiot embarassing yourself with a bunch of people sitting uncomfortably at tables.. As seen with Sazer X that more often than not was not making me laugh. And in the case of the Taros (And by extension the rest of the cast.) Does well to bring some laughs. I wouldn't say I was rolling on the floor. But I was often smiling seeing them. Momotaros is defined by being a rather hot-blooded, boisterous deliquent with a heart of gold, in the same way that Gentaro was sold on the actor, it is both the actor and the suit actor doing to work to sell it. But despite his annoynce with the others, we see deep down he cares about both Ryotaro and the other taro's as sort of a big brother. In that when Ryotaro is being concerned about losing the other's he comes in to talk to him like a big sibling helping a younger one. He also gets a bit of butt monkeyness between being abused by Hana and probably inheriting the bad luck of Nogami.
Both Urataros and Kintaros don't really change much between their introduction and the end. Ura is the confident smart playboy who would never hurt the girls, serving an information gathering form. He probably was my least favorite, though it was from the fact that the others had much bigger personality. Though I did like his sneakiness which proved to be useful near the end. Meanwhile Kintaros was the big dumb one who was a force of nature that is probably the token good imagin of them all. Since unlike them all he wanted to actually answer the wish asked for him. I really liked a lot of the stuff done with him between his rather straight forward approach done with him, and it just made him stand out, he just wants to be a good boy.
Ryutaros is the one with the most development in terms of how he starts. A psychotic child who is stuck between an order to kill Ryotaro and his affection for Ryotaro's sister. I do like how they do some things from time to time, when Yuuto shows up, he attempts to kill him to ensure that he keeps her to himself, and it pays off in a rather tear jerker way, that comes to a conclusion that... you probably would see coming, kind of hard for a future monster to have the affection of a woman that only knows him as Ryotaro, but it still hurts at the end. And each one just plays off one another quite well and you feel the familial bond that grows over the season, like you can feel them as a family rather than a bunch of people getting together.
With friends like this
Assisting them is the crew of the Den-liner plus one of its customers being Hana. She plays up the tough, no nonsense girl acting as a straight man to the taro's often beating them up when they misbehave and her character basically keeps Ryotaro alive. Though worth noting is the change in actress. Yuriko Shiratori stepped away from the role because of stresses from the production, subsequently she was had to be replaced... by a child actress. Besides the fact she is younger, nothing about her character changes, just now instead of an adult women doing feats of monster strength, its now a elementary school child doing them and that makes me wonder if it was just done for rule of funny, since as a charcter its not like she is more childish again nothing changed. Some could say it be weird but time travel, people could look different for a variety of reasons and be the same age. Besides that she was good regardless of the actress.
The aside from this main cast, we have some more comedic characters. From the real world their is Ryotaro's sister and two of the people who want to date her Seigi and Isse. Airi acts is so unflappable, seen when Ryotaro gets caught up in a hostage situation she just acts like nothing is happening. The only time is when people say her herbal remedies suck, then she gets angry. Both Seigi and Isse mostly are additional comic relief though Seigi does offer some information on each of the victims when it is needed. Isse... has the moment he reveals ryutaros. And they don't feel overuse or not used enough, it strikes a decent balance
On the den-liner we have Naomi and the owner. Both are more of the surreal and unusual comedy. Like the bizzare coffees and the owner just being... freaky and wanting to eat his rice without knocking his flag over. Though the owner does have moments of stealth mentorship throughout the show, almost to a cosmic level of ridiculousness, so if you like those kinds of uber powerful characters, then you'll probably like him.
But that leads us to Yuto Sakurai the secondary rider and this was a gambit. Yuto was played by Yuichi Nakamura. Why was this such a big risk, well because he had previously portrayed Kiriya Kyosuke, which if you wanted an image for what Hibiki's second half became, you could use him as a representation of how no one liked the changes. He was hated so much when it was revealed that he was coming back again people already had a negative reception going into it. I can't really say anything about his role in that show but I can say here he is good. Up until his arrival it had mostly been episodic adventures, with his introduction brings about something of a plot, and even if he is a bit prickly, he makes a good foil to Ryotaro in his more standard hero compared to him being a strong, stoic individual. But he is really bumped up with his interactions with Deneb, the best imagin in my opinion.
Deneb is just the best, a goofball of a caretaker who is joy every time we see him, and just the way he takes care of him and tries to make him a good boy is just, the best part, 2nd to Sato but you know what I mean. Its legitimately heartwarming seeing how they interact and even if Yuto is kind of like that angsty teen. He still cares about him to ensure he doesn't become forgotten because of the zeronos system. He may not be a teacher like the taros but he does have his moments through out.
Well people won't be thinking about Hibiki after this.
And these great characters, strong personalities that all feel like they just bounce off each other. Just make the elephant in the room all the more noticeable. The imagin as a week-to-week, monster attacking a victim thing, is okay, and they work fine like that and give some actually touching stories and genially threatening like the Wolf Imagin. I also like how the first couple correspond to Ryuki Riders.But Den-o fumbles, when it tries to be more plot driven than on character focus stories and in the case of the imagin, the introduction of their leader Kai, who currently holds the title for Kobayashi's worst toku villain for me (Haven't seen all of her work so that may change.) Their is just nothing memorable about him what-so-ever, just a giggly psychotic manchild which while making a decent first impression, they really do nothing with him beyond his slow walk down insanity lane. He doesn't have the charisma to carry him and their is no real weight to the endgame.
And then their is how the whole time travel stuff works, early on its simple stuff and never delves into changes outside of making a different change to help a person. As Zerono's and the whole erasing of the memories of Yuto Sakurai come into play it gets all kinds of confusing, not paying much attention could lead you to go like wait what, at the worst possible times. It still has set rules that unlike so many other shows that use it, so it doesn't fall into the genre's worst pitfalls. But the attempts at story don't play to den-o's strengths.
AESTHETICS
Nogami Sentai Denlinger
With a change of overall tone and feeling, also came with a change in its overall look and style, instead of darker colors, the Den-o suit opts for brighter reds, blues and other colors. And it really works, the only one of the suits I am a bit mixed on is Rod form, it is the pauldrons that I have issues with, for what is meant to be more precise and the like but it looks like the defensive power type. But the other forms, especially both Axe and Gun form are really, really good ( I really like the mix of silver, black and purple, realizing I am fond of purple.) One thing that helps in making the fight scenes stand out more is in these forms, since each of the taros are the ones in control with their respective form, we get to see their personalities shown in the way they move their body and their actions makes each fight their own kind of personalities. We have had multi formed riders prior to this, Kuuga and Agito being the example, but at the same time it was merely a different fighting style rather than a complete change. That being said, Den-o has his issues, I am not fond of the climax form, it is way too much, just throws elements from all 4 suits into one, I much prefer the liner form, not only as a cap to Ryotaro's coming of age plot and just looks a lot better.
Zerono's looks decent, The green looks really well but it is mostly fine, much preferring vega form, the cape really helps with it to look a lot more cooler. Zero form just recolors it to a bronze, so if you liked bronze more than green, you will probably like this.
And the show really puts a lot into the soundtrack, their may be one vocal but it is used quite effectively, giving each of the tarou's their own version of it to help seperate their characters. Even the opening both the inital and later taro variants are really good, setting a different tone from previous heisei main themes.
EPISODES
Favorite: 11-12, of the taro's follow up arc, I really like Kintaros the most, I like the setting up of his honorable warrior trait to prove a point here and the family drama is actual not that bad.
Favorite:29-30, I like the way it shows them initally not able to fully get together and it has funny moments, but also sets up the issue regarding Zerono's.
Arguably, the latter half gets a bit weaker because of the focus on story, and it is when Kai shows up and besides an okay intro, really is not interesting enough to carry on the story.
CONCLUSION
If you were coming from the first half of Heisei phase 2, then Den-o may not seem like that much of a change, and while in my opinion, the format was perfected with both W and OOO's. Den-o is still a good season, the main villain and attempts at stronger plot elements do fall flat. But it looks great, the cast just oozes charisma and charm and their is a heart to it all. Its not going to be for everyone, some may find the taro's more annoying than anything else in their worst moments. But as a breath of fresh air to a franchise in need of it. Their are worse change-up. I mean look at metal heroes. Well that's the main show, now if you'll excuse me, I have like 7 movies to talk about now.
FINAL GRADE: B
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