I'm David, welcome to my brain. Here I write to not only show that I can but to share my opinions on various topics. Mostly Video Games, Anime, Movies and Tokusatsu. Though I am open to suggestions and never afraid to admit when I'm wrong. Have a good time in here and be sure not to mess with my memory, it's bad enough as it is.
Tuesday, December 3, 2019
Personal Post: Worst to best Another Riders: Part 3 #9-1
Yes there is an Another Grand Zi-o Another Watch, no it didn't appear in the show proper; just in a stage show. Wasted potential is indeed wasted.
Time to wrap this list up and get ready for the winter fun. Here's where the other Another Riders ranked up for those who haven't been following the countdown.
Kicking off the last part of this list is the first of the three Future Another Riders to debut, Another Shinobi.
You know, it's sometimes the simplest things that are the most remembered. I mean how can the words evil, skeleton and Ninja not be cool when put together? From the Tekkō-kagito the skeleton face it may be a simpledesign off of a kit bash Kamen Rider but when it works it works. And the contract holder being the man who eventually does become Shinobi does make for a nice bit of irony. Though whether the original Kamen Rider Shinobi will actually be a rider in 2022 is still up in the air but if Another Time: Kamen Rider Shinobi is anything to go by; I hope not.
Sound the drums for #8 Another Hibiki.
Honestly I shouldn’t be giving this Another Rider such a high spot on this list considering that this lead to that narcissistic, lying, arrogant, undeserving wank toad Kirya Kyosuke to become the new Hibiki. Because on top of how he behaved in the original Hibiki series; Kyosuke was responsible for Another Hibiki’s contract holder to make the deal with his blatant lying to a naive child just to stroke his own ego when we all know that Asumu is the true, rightful successor to the title of Hibiki. But putting that aside I have to give credit that the design of this Another Rider is just plain awesome. The Hibiki Riders were referred to as Oni and Another Hibiki's design truly brings to mind statues of Shinto gods to where I could defenitly see Another Hibiki riding on a thunder cloud. Sometimes you just have to give credit where it's due and Another Hibiki is a top tier designed Another Rider, despite the show it came from and the guy that beat him.
Next is one of the two most reoccurring Another Riders, one that honestly should have been the big bad given his powers but was knocked down because he was just a complete wenis, #7 Another Zi-O.
Now if Oma Zi-O wasn't going to be the final boss (and spoilers he wasn't but we'll get to that later) than that honor should have gone to the Another Rider of the protagonist. Hell; of the Another Riders Another Zi-O is the second most reoccurring in the show. Though his powers were a little weird, now his precognitive powers are understandable considering that that was the main power of Zi-O II which debuted only a few episodes prior to his introduction but him switching between previous Another Riders sounds like something that should be Another Decade's wheelhouse. Though the design works pretty well as just a more armored Zi-O with a monstrous face. Also giving him an actual Rider belt with his Another RideWatch on there was a decent way to make him stand out among his contemporaries.
Though sadly the Contract holder Hiryu should have been more of a threat, but with how he was portrayed (and not actually seeing how his life was screwed over with his parents being indirectly killed; just that nobody was there to get him at the hospital) he just comes off as a whiny, stupid, spiteful, narrow-minded, insane, tool. Now say what you will about Superboy Prime turning evil in Infinite Crisis but we can at least understand why and how he got to that point, Hiryu on the other hand has nothing. Also it took until Schwartz was telling him to his face that he was a pawn in his poorly constructed game and creating an alternate timeline where he rules the world as king Dickhead the 1st with his army of Another Riders to get the idea that Sougo might not be responsible for his life getting screwed over? Though according to the stage show even that wasn't enough to convince this asshole if the Another Oma Zi-O watch at the top of this review wasn't enough of a tipoff. So yes while the Another Zi-O powers themselves and the design works, Hiryu himself is just not compelling enough to get him any higher on the list.
#6 goes to the last regular Another Rider, Another Drive.
Hopefully after the double barrels I wasted on the last guy we can keep this short and sweet. This brings us to Another Drive; the last of the non General Another Riders. Now I just love the asymmetry of its design, it looks like the regular Drive after a Blues Brothers esq Car crash. From the twisted metal, the driver that looks like it has a brain in it (since that's where Krim's consciousness was stored) and the Two Face like helmet it's like the Jackson Pollok of monster designs. Also it reminds me of the Monsters from Carranger/ Power Rangers Turbo; specifically when Rv Robo/ The Turbo Megazord got highjacked by the villains; just that Stallone sneer sells it for me.
Also the Contractor being Roidmude 108 aka Kamen Rider Dark Drive/Paradox Roidmude disguised as Ora admittedly had me fooled. And since Another Drive is a Roidmude it can use the Heaviness to freeze opponents so Another Drive can just wail on them as well as shapeshifter into anyone they want to avoid detection. Speaking of wailing the way Sougo just beat Another Drive into the dirt after it killed Heure was chilling. So while the last of the rank and file Another Riders it certainly was one of the better ones. Now for the top 5, here we go.
#5 heralds the return of the meme God Dan Kuroto as Another OOO.
Now as an Another Rider Another OOO is pretty standard, not really much in terms of twisting OOO's powers we don't see him switch to any forms or anything like that, but he can make Waste Yummies, so there's that. The basic design is still good highlighting the animal aspects of OOO'S Tatoba default form with the spikes on the grasshopper legs and the tiger claws, though the Hawk wings are a little silly looking, they look like big, floppy bunny ears. No, the real reason this is so high is cause the contractor is the God Dan Kuroto!!! Now while that is blatant fanboyism this series gives us very little actual entertainment so we have to take what we can get. So while the God Dan Kuroto might not make it to the very top we can at least remember the time he created Japanese Kickassia.
#4 is claimed by the twisted parody of the first (technically 4th) Heisei Rider; Another Kuuga.
As the Another Rider of Kuuga a certain degree of importance comes with this one. Now while I would give it more credit for this being the only Another Rider that's a natural giant and that this thing is legitimately terrifying I have to keep that honor off due to Tiddlywinks being a bit of a mess as a character. I mean we know nothing about him, Schwartz doesn't mention him; what was even the point of this guy? Again I'm not counting Another Rider upgraded forms so Another Ultimate Kuuga is not being mentioned but if I was I'd actually rate him lower since he just gets the traditional Shirakura one-sided villain curb stomp. So I'll just give this CGI nightmare a rather respectable place on the list.
#3 goes to the poorly motivated final boss of Kamen Rider Zi-O; Another Decade.
Let me get this out of the way, this thing looks like a badass. You know how all throughout Decade everyone was saying how he was the destroyer of worlds, the Devil and the unholy god of destruction? This is what I would have expected from that kind of hype instead of the smug, pink putz that we got instead. But his powers are a little weird, now opening up Tears to summon Evil Kamen Riders from universes where they won is a nice subversion of Tsukasa's World traveling powers and Diend's Rider summoning (though this begs the question of what Another Diend is going to to do since Diend's gimmick was stollen by this guy) but like I said when talking about Another Zi-O shouldn't Another Decade's powers include being able to switch between the other Another Riders' powers as well as the summon A.R Riders thing? Now since he's the final villain of Zi-O I tried not to put him at the #1 Spot by default because that would be lazy, thankfully there's other reasons why he only gets the bronze medal.
Namely that Schwartz' plan makes no sense. So he wants to save his timeline from being destroyed, easy so far, so how he goes about this is creating Oma Zi-O. So Schwartz does this was well as recruiting the Timejackers to create Another Riders as part of a big misdirection to just let Sougo get stronger, and even then he needed the power of Kamen Rider Decade to make his plan work. He becomes Another Decade, summons Dark Riders, lets the multiverse get recked more than a D.C Comics Crisis event and when Sougo does finally become Oma Zi-O he thinks that now that he's only just shown up without the decades of experience the future monster has he could claim those powers and rule as the king of time. But in the end since all of this was actually just to spite his little sister who was chosen to inherit the Timejacker lineage and not him, he just gets curb stomped and Sougo decides to use Made in Heaven to rewrite the timeline so that he and the rest get to live out a normal life without Kamen Rider Zi-O except Woz who survives the world alteration because reasons.
Jesus Christ and people think that Master Xehanort from Kingdom Hearts and Revolver Ocelot from Metal Gear Solid had overly long, complicated and convoluted plans. I mean yeah in terms of dumb villain plans this goes way beyond making Twin Clones of Hitler, making Nightcrawler the Pope or Dr Doom's plan from Ultimatum this is just, ugh. Back to the positives his design once again highlights the only good thing about Zi-O, with the Devil horns, the batwing where the Decade name is and the belt looking like a demonic mouth; this thing looks damn cool. So while Schwartz' plan is absolutely moronic at least Another Decade is as powerful and intimidating as a final Boss should be. But you can have the nicest looking car with a super up engine, but without a solid frame you'll have something that'll fall apart the moment you try to step on the gas. Now I know my analogy is off since I'm not a car person but you know what I'm getting at right?
The #2 slot goes to the tragic Another Blade.
Once again the design of Another Blade is top tier. Since Kamen Rider Blade was based off a Rhinoceros battle the designers decided to highlight the Rhinoceros part of that name with the much bulkier armor and the horn that looks more like a drill. The perverted Blay Rouzer is a wondrous little treat with the buzzsaw in place of where the Rouze Cards would be on the original, though speaking of sadly we don't see Another Blade using the powers of the Spade suit Undead mostly relying on brute strength since she's being forced into becoming Another Blade. Oh and the cherry on top, the contract holder is Amane from the original series, being forced to cause havoc in the blind pursuit of her father figure Hajime just to lure out Kenzaki. Though her absorbing the powers of both the Jokers, becoming the winner of the Battle Fight and unleashing an army of Joker Undead was kind of dumb in my opinion so that slight bump had Amane settle with the silver medal.
Finally this leads us to my #1 favorite Another Rider, Another Kabuto.
If you couldn't tell from my list I tend to list Another Riders in terms of design, contractor, powers and story execution, by that criteria Another Kabuto is what I consider to be the best Another Rider. In terms of Design the organic Worm design of Another Kabuto makes for a perfect perversion of the technological, man made original. The Contractor is another great choice, Sou Yaguruma AKA the first Kamen Rider TheBee and Kamen Rider KickHopper being one of Souji's original rivals getting the powers of Kabuto and working with a Worm Copy of his dead partner Kageyama (Worms don't work like that) to destroy all of humanity with another Asteroid full of Worms that was summoned as a side effect of Ginga knowing full well that the Worm was using him. This makes for a rather substantial threat if you ask me. As for the powers, get this in addition to Another Kabuto he still has the powers of Kickhopper so if one rider set get beat he can just switch to the other to continue the fight and since both can still clock up only another ZECT designed Rider or Worm could stand a chance against him.
Story-wise when we're not focusing on Woz playing around with Ginga Finally we have Kagami trying to stop him while slowly but surely getting what he wanted back in the first episode of Kabuto and become worthy of the Kabuto Zecter which he uses to put the nihilistic fake in his place once and for all. Honestly the Kabuto Arc of Zi-O was the best of the bunch and is all the more frustrating since it shows that the creators of the show could have done instead of what we got instead. But with that I'm done with reviews for 2019, it's been a long year, a long decade actually and with the holidays coming up I need a bit of a break. So with that, check back in at 2020 were I kick off the new decade with a few top lists. The top Movies, Anime, Video Games, Kamen Rider series; whatever of each year from 2010 to 2019.
And with the break for the month that should give me plenty of time to mull those choices over. Though I will be getting back to the V-Logs and posting Lets Plays of course I'm not ready to close up shop all together here. Though I will still be doing the streams on Saturday of God of War on PS4. Though I do have a new Switch Lite and Pokemon Sword to work on so there's that. But in any case I would like to thank everyone for sticking with me for all this time and have a happy holiday.
Kamen Rider is owned by Ishinomori Productions, Toei Productions, and Bandai. Spaceballs is owned by Mel Brooks, Brooksfilms and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc.
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