Yasuko Kobayashi And Her Kamen Rider Finales

Yasuko Kobayashi, well she's probably still well-loved and hasn't reached the status of "public enemy numero uno". I decided to revisit this post from a few years ago and UPDATE IT. Now, it's time to talk about her finales. Before that, you may want to read this post about Toshiki Inoue and his finales. I guess she's getting too much mention (aside from Judd Lynn who I believe is just overhyped by the fans) that some older writers may have been overshadowed. Yeah, I feel like Hirohisa Soda was unintentionally overshadowed as fans seem to prefer to mention her name a lot. Again, I don't blame them if their exposure to Super Sentai was based on anything after Mirai Sentai Timeranger.

Kamen Rider Ryuki

We have to hand it over to her that this is her first head writer job for the Kamen Rider franchise. Ryuki was most likely intended to be the most serious series yet but was killed by executive meddling. Maybe, it's unfair to blame her for the finale of how it went. The series also had Toshiki Inoue as a secondary writer. Just a bit of a trivia - there was NO WRITER WAR. If there was then think it over that Inoue and Kobayashi were still in Kamen Rider Decade as secondary writers. They made the show a bit more watchable than Saban's Mashed Rider.

The series had a lot of Kamen Riders fighting for that grand prize. I even felt that Takeshi/Ouja was pretty much Bilgenia with the Kingstone. The character development was there. Renn and Shinji were pretty much rivals. Shouchi an ace lawyer anti-hero was an interesting mix. The show did have its fair share of villains. Jun/Gai was a condescending, dangerous character but Takeshi Ouja was truly the Breakout Villain. I felt like that Takeshi/Ouja will probably remain one of the most popular villains. I guess Toei Ltd. learned from the incident with how Bilgenia was written off too soon from Kamen Rider BLACK huh?

What truly became a bummer was the ending. A lot of stuff happened. I felt like Kobayashi wanted to kill everyone. If it did, I think it's a pretty poor copout. I think it's pretty daring to kill Shinji and let Renn be the last survivor. We see Renn holding on to life and dying. It seemed Kobayashi's ending was meant to be of shock value. So, if ever that ending happened - I still feel it's the kind of ending that Inoue would've also wanted IF he was assigned to write the finale.

Kamen Rider Den-O

For Den-O, you should consider the ending itself was a pretty strong finale arc. The final villain Kai and the Death Imagin show up which could spell the end of our era. Pretty much, was Kobayashi trying to improve Kamen Rider Agito's finale? I just had a thought that this could have spelled the end of humanity within itself.

After that, Kai fades away and the heroes from the future leave. This was probably a messy final battle but still pretty passable. Nobody gets pointlessly killed, no character development is thrown out of the window and you get a better ending.

However, I still felt the ending was pretty much like how Changerion was. Granted, Inoue wrote it so expect a bad finale. I feel like the hero Ryotaro was back to what he was - a LOSER. I wonder what actor Takashi Hagino (the main lead in Changerion and also Ouja's actor) would've to say?

Kamen Rider OOO

OOO itself had another finale which might be "trying to improve" Agito's ending. Kobayashi as we know it likes to recycle certain ideas and add her own twists. In the finale arc, Dr. Maki is planning to bring the end of the world as we know it. After the other Greeed are destroyed, Dr. Maki starts a process that could shatter humanity as we know it.

Dr. Maki seeks to do it all together in his plan to end everything. It's very unlike Agito's scene where the Overlord of Darkness did it systematically. After a rather HUGE JUMP done by OOO using the Red Core Medals - he and Ankh both defeat the final villain with one desperate hit. That desperate hit also sacrifices Ankh in the process. Shogo B'Stard called Agito's finale - a backyard fight. I felt the final battle pretty much took place in a backyard. The finale battle wasn't all that thought of well.

Now, no huge time jump is done, Eiji is reunited with everyone after the battle. We're not left with the suspense that Inoue had in Agito. After that, we see something quite similar to Agito's ending - an epilogue. We learn OOO travels the world to help people (does that remind you of Yuusuke Godai?) and well later Ankh travels with him.

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What are your thoughts?

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