Personal Post: Worst to best Another Riders: Part 1 #23-17

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Your favorite heroes made into hellish freaks by some of the least interesting villains in the franchise, woooo.

 The time of monsters and madness is here once again everyone and this time I’m about to do something truly terrifying, complement a Shinichiro Shirakura production! Of course given the time of year and year in question I’ll be talking about Kamen Rider Zi-O. Though I’ll only complement the one part of this production that he wasn’t involved with, thus being the only salvageable part, the Another Riders. It’s seemingly universally agreed upon that the designs of the main monsters of Zi-O were the only thing that everyone can agree was competently executed for the most part. With an anniversary and capstone of the Heiden era of Kamen Rider the previous 20 had to get represented in someway. 

 Now while the idea of taking the heroes' designs and making them into monsters isn't not original as seen in the monsters of Boukenger it is still a good one. (Before you @ me I know that the Boukenger monsters were based off of the previous Sentai teams mechs and not the teams themselves.) So from the bottom of the barrel to the top of the heap here is my personal countdown of the best Another Riders. Now this list will only include the base forms so Another Ulitnate Kuuga and Another Zi-O II are not going to be on the list, also Another Ryuki and Ryuga are sharing the same spot due to them basically being a re-skin of the suit. Plus Ryuga was originally the Dark Rider counterpart of Ryuki so there, also no, Another Zero One isn’t on the list since it was only announced recently and hasn’t debuted in the Zi-O Zero One crossover movie.

Let’s get the laziest one out of the way for #23 Another Agito.

 From the moment we learned what the Another Riders were we were all thinking of how they were going to handle this one the most. For those who don’t know, there’s already a Kamen Rider Another Agito in Agito. So out of laziness Shirakura just had the Another Agito suit for this Another Rider but just added Agito and 2019 to the suit and changed the helmet. Though his power is an interesting inversion of the main concept of Agito. Just like how the Overlord of Light spread the Seeds of Agito to people who had the potential to evolve into an Agito; Another Agito behaves more like a vampire by turning its victims into more Another Agitos.

 But aside from that the design of this Another Rider is the worst of the bunch and has the least character as well. We never even see the person that made the contract to become Another Agito in the first place. Though if I had to guess it was most likely the biggest asshole character from Agito given how his main targets were members of the G3 team. 

HOOOOOOOJOOOOOOO!!!

 So unsurprisingly the laziest Another Rider gets placed dead last on the list.

Though speaking of lazy designs we have #22 Another Ryuki/Ryuga.

 Yes, like I said they both get the same spot on the list due to them just basically being a color swap of the same suit. Now the suit itself isn’t why this is so low on the list as it is really well designed. But it’s for one very simple thing, Ryuki should not exist anymore due to the events of its series. Now when Another Ryuga showed up and it being the original Ryuga; Dark Shinji most people believed that the events of Ryuki’s movie Episode Final was the cannon ending of that series. Which made sense considering Ryuga and Dark Shinji were the movie exclusive villain Rider of that movie. 

 But then Rider time Kamen Rider Ryuki popped up and threw that idea under the bus. Since apparently the events of the show was the cannon ending even though those events caused Ryuki to never exist. For that matter where did Another Ryuki even come from? We know that none of the main three Time Jackers made him and it’s heavily implied that Shiro Kanzaki, the main villain of Ryuki (who was erased from existence I might add) was the one who created Another Ryuki. But how did Shiro even create the AnotherRideWatch in the first place?! 

 So yes while the suit isn’t bad the story behind these Another Riders just make my brain and balls hurt and I can’t let that slide. Also its Rider deck was stacked with too many copies Mirror Force to be tournament legal!

Speaking of Riders that came out of literally nowhere #21 goes to Another Kikai.

 The last of the three Future Riders and quite frankly the worst explained. Hell the Kamen Rider he’s based off of; Kamen Rider Kikai might not even exist anymore since both Kikai and this Another Rider were apparently figments of Sougo’s imagination about the future that somehow came to life. The Time Jackers never even knew Another Kikai existed until everyone else encountered it, yes just like Another Ryuki Another Kikai was apparently made by fairy farts and Chaos contrivances! There wasn’t even a AnotherRide watch of it before Schwartz made it and forced Heure into becoming Another Kikai. Though the suit itself works as an inversion of Kikai. 

 Since the Rider is a robot with a mechanical design his Another Rider is a tree monster. Basically he’s Bender from Futurama when he downgraded himself into a wooden robot. Speaking of as he once said this Another Rider can bite my splintery, wooden ass!

Moving on to #20 we have the very first Another Rider; Another Build.

 Now as the defining example of how the Another Riders worked I can forgive how forgettable the random basketball player that became Another Build was since he was just an example of how the Time Jackers worked. He also perfectly demonstrated what these false riders are, twisted perversions of past heroes in both design and powers while superseding their history. His design also demonstrated this with the mutated flesh like design of him, with the driver looking like some kind of ulcer. But I’m knocking down major points because of the other precedents that he established and how misused he was. Like I said in the Heisei Generations forever reviews I think Another Build should have swapped debuts with Another W, but I’m not going over that again so here’s the link to true part of that review that explains my stance. 

https://ondavidsbrain.blogspot.com/2019/07/tokusatsu-review-kamen-rider-heisei.html

 Not to mention the absolute disaster Another Build’s utilization caused to the timeline regarding Build’s place in it. So in short what should have been the debut of an interesting monster faction was mishandled due to Shirakura’s carelessness, as usual.

Speaking of carelessness we have #19 Another Faiz.

 Putting aside the fact that this Another Rider was literally overlapped by Another Fourze; Another Faiz demonstrated another discarded concept. With this instance we learn that the Another Rider powers can expire after a certain amount of time has past. So for the contractor to retain his power his had to have Another Rider’s powers overlap and supplement it. But apparently the Time Jackers can just make Another Riders from Kuuga to Decade no problem by just making them in the present day. So why did they even bother creating Another Faiz in 2003 in the first place if they knew that was an option?! 

 Oh yeah because Shirakura stopped giving a crap. Also the design of Another Faiz isn’t all that attention grabbing but then again Faiz himself wasn’t all that much of a “extra thrills” type of Rider design, very streamlined, technological with the Tron esq Lazer patterns on the suits. So it’s not surprising that Another Faiz can only go for the “fleshy mockery” design of him. All in all this was a Faizing waste of a suit. Now that I’m done with the ones I have the most grievances about we can move on to the actual good ones, though some will still draw my ire so heads up.

Starting with the second paranormal parody Rider we have #18, Another Ghost.

 One point in this Another Rider’s favor is the design, looking less like a slick, specter and more like a sentient Halloween costume, in a good way. The wraith like face, the torn leather jacket and him pulling a Shang Tsung and stealing souls made this beast pretty damn terrifying. That’s on top of the original contractor being a hairs breath from death with the powers of Another Ghost keeping him alive while enslaved to the Time Jackers making more than a bit of a problem for Zi-O. At least until they remembered the fact that they’re time travelers and fixed the past to destroy Another Ghost while saving the contract holder. But no matter your views of Ghost or his Another Rider Dan Ackroyd said it best about busting this ghost.

Taking the stage is #17 Another Gaim

 Setting aside the fact that Another Gaim can summon Inves and open cracks to Helheim even though he was created in the way that removes Gaim's history I do like this Another Rider. The contract holder was a decent pick with him being a Team Baron member that was kicked out using his new powers to trap Kaito and anyone else he didn't like in Helheim. He was also the second of a new type of Another Rider candidate, one who actually wants to conquer and rule as the new King of Time, though in his own way, by dancing, sure ok.  Once again the design helps sell this guy. The armor looks like it's rotting with tree branches sticking out, the bone like designs on the boots and gauntlets make you think that the armor is being worn by a rotting corpse while the armor itself looks like it was covered in dried gore.

 Ignoring the logistics of how both Kouta and Fruit Jesus Kouta both existed when Another Gaim should have erased Fruit Jesus because he's a God LOL this is at least a mid tier Another Rider in my books. With that we'll cut off here for now. I mean lets face it we still have 16 more Another Riders to cover and most of this article was me throwing shade at the show (not undeserved mind you but still.) Come on back next time as we discuss #16 and onwards. And be sure to have a Happy Halloween.


Kamen Rider is owned by Ishinomori Productions, Toei Productions, and Bandai.
Dragon Ball, Dragonball Z, Dragonball GT and Dragonball Super is owned by Funnimation, Toei animation, Fuji TV and Akira Toriyama.
Dragon ball Z Abridged is owned by Team Four Star. 
Casper (1995) is owned by Amblin Entertainment, the Harvey Entertainment Company and Universal Studios.
Final Fantasy 7 Machinabridged is owned by Team Four Star.