Smart Brain High And The Abomination That's Takumi Ogami

I remembered all the biases I had towards the overly depresing Kamen Rider Faiz -- something that was where you love it or you hate it with Toshiki Inoue. But after a second rewatch and I do have changing opinions on said show. Now, I guess this is where teenage Kamen Riders gone wrong. Instead of the now a man Takumi Inui -- why do we have Takumi Ogami who is a teenager defending Smart Brain high? Now it's time to play the opening intro of Saban's Mashed Rider!


Yup, it reminds me of almost everything wrong with Saban's Mashed Rider. I guess you know why I purposely mispell Mashed Rider. If any Kamen Rider did teenagers right then the honor goes to Kamen Rider Fourze! Heck, there was even that April Fool's joke that Saban was localizing Kamen Rider Fourze into Power Rider Apollo. Fortunatetly, it was just a joke considering how much of an Adaptation Decay that Saban's Mashed Rider was.


Now for a bit of criticism yet again. Do you remember Masato Kusaka in Kamen Rider Faiz. I called him to be a more fleshed out version of Timeranger's Captain Ryuya. Captain Ryuya's later reveal just feels like he was more of a lazy captain who could have prevented Don Dolnero's escape but didn't. Kusaka seems to be more menacing than Captain Ryuya was in Timeranger -- considering the episode count and how often the guy was pretty much power hungry. TBH I thought the producers could've worked in getting actor Kohei Murakami back for this reason -- make him a more active threat who'd be more plot relevant than Daiki EVER WILL BE. Ever remembered all the dastardly deeds Masato did in Faiz? He's got more plot material than Daiki ever will get. Daiki seems to be like what if Herbie from Saban's Mashed Rider were a bad guy. Fortunately, Daiki doesn't have a Patsy to deal with or at least Natsuki Hikari doesn't have to deal with a Patsy in her show.


Fortunately, the Fourze-Faiz team-up (and Sota Fukushi didn't appear and we only saw his body double) was done better. At least, it's freaking Takumi INUI who showed up and that that dope Takumi Ogami. The Faiz/Fourze focus in Zi-O IMHO had done a lot of stuff better. Fourze does the whole high schol setting better than the Faiz arc and Saban's Mashed Rider. It almost also looks like the real deal that's Takumi Inui just got too pissed off at Takumi Ogami that he decided to return.

It's almost like I want to say, "Decade is what an anniversary shouldn't be. Zi-O in spite of its shortcomings does the anniversary better."