The Toshiki Inoue Arc Of Kamen Rider Decade

Is it me or does Toei have a bad habit of burning out its writers? One of these writers I like to raise up is Toshiki Inoue who Shogo B'Stard terms as the "Frank Miller of Tokusatsu". He got so good and got so bad and undid himself. Though I seem to want to blame Toei more than Inoue. 2008 was the bad burnout of Inoue with Kamen Rider Kiva -- he's probably not so proud of it! Do you remember when he showed up in Kamen Rider Faiz's ending in a cameo! Kiva was where Inoue had really no idea on what to do. Later, he would later write the Kiva arc in Kamen Rider Zi-O. 

Inoue went into four episodes straight. These two arcs involve the trope "Too Good To Be True" trope. The first two episodes involve Natsumi thinking she's arrived at her own world and finds out something else about it. Then we have Daiki where Inoue does something favorable by adding layers to that character who seems to be just an evil version of Herbie from Saban's Mashed Rider. Inoue may be burnt out but like Hirohisa Soda -- he still was going to do some interesting episodes.

The Negative World Arc

There's plenty of negative feelings about Inoue especially with Kamen Rider Faiz and maybe Kamen Rider Kiva. I admit that I'd watch Kiva over ToQGer (though I've warmed up to it cause Kobayashi) and Black RX (which I still like but never as much as Black) any day though! What's more interesting is that Decade's lead actor is Masahiro INOUE. So where do I begin? There's some nostalgic value here and maybe some WTF value as well. So what's the whole deal with the Negative World arc? Natsumi arrives in what seems to be her world. The journey across the nine Alternate Reality words is over. But there's the statement, "If it's too good to be true then beware!" This is what happens especially when audiences know the show is far from over -- that's until Toei decided to unplug Decade after the 31st episode!

I don't blame Tsukasa for actually suspecting that it's too good to be true. Natsumi herself still feels she's at home until she realizes something's off. Heck, A.R. Yuusuke discovers that the three women are NOT HUMAN. There's also Evil Otoya Kurenai who's not the same Otoya from the mainstream Kamen Rider Kiva continuity. Tsukasa is offered to rule the Negative World. It's also revealed by Negative World Natsumi that this world is but a shadow of Natsumi's world. Where have I heard that before? That was from Kamen Rider Black RX!

I remembered the final ending of Black RX which has SEVERAL inconsistencies. So we have Dasmader (who's actually Grand Lord Crisis now in his secondary body) explaining that Crisis World is actually a twin of the Planet Earth. So WTF did Shinichiro Shirakura rip off that concept into Decade? So is Natsumi's world basically like that? It doesn't help that trailers of the Kamen Rider Decade movie vs. Shocker shows up with glimpses of A.R. General Jark. It doesn't also help that I love calling Decade as the pseudo-sequel of Saban's Mashed Rider in spirit -- even if said show has a budget and still has done some stuff better.

World of Di-End

At least we don't have Patsy from Saban's Mashed Rider here, right? Well, it's a good thing to give Daiki some real character development than just that incredibly annoying thief. We go into another "Too Good To Be True" world where it seems peaceful but it's a real dictatorship. Daiki is a wanted man but all because as Narutaki explains, "It's a world where Kamen Riders are forbidden!"

Daiki has a brother named Junichi. Junichi (and he looks like a sex pervert) is the right-hand man of an evil person known as Fourteen. Fourteen is a villain with noble intentions of world peace but does it wrong? Just thinking of the Decade-exclusive villains are named Roaches is really something worth thinking about. Roaches? Shouldn't that name be a red alarm that you can't trust those guys? Yet, it turns out that Junichi didn't pass through surgery -- HE WILLINGLY JOINED THE ROACHES! Hmmm I would have probably made the serious mistake of them too if they were real and serving Fourteen. Fourteen? What kind of a name is that?

It turns out that Di-End now has more development than Herbie can ever have in Saban's Mashed Rider. He turned out to be a former enforcer of the Roaches and Junichi was a rebel. Yet that role is reversed. Fourteen who turns out to be a monster gets destroyed. I kinda like the idea of Daiki still believing it's possible to restore his brother back. What becomes of the shadow realm is unknown. Hopefully, it didn't become like Crisis World like in Black RX's ending where Grand Lord Crisis foolishly dragged all his citizens down with him.