Kamen Rider Gaim (2013)

I enjoyed watching Kamen Rider Gaim for the most part; I liked a lot of the suit designs in the show and I really enjoyed the soundtrack. I also found it refreshing that Gaim dropped the 2 episode story formats in favor of a more plot driven formula that older Heisei series had. However, I was not at all impressed by anything else the show had to offer. The show didn't really do anything poorly, it just didn't do much well.

Kamen Rider Gaim suffers from one of the most nonsensical plots in a Rider series with extremely arbitrary reasoning behind anything that occured behind the show. Expect "Because i felt like it" to be the main explanation for why anything important happens in Gaim. The main character himself seems to rely on plot devices to achieve his goals rather than actually developing into a competent human being that functions on any sliver of logic. Oh yeah, the acting from the main character himself and a few others isn't the best. Despite all of this, the story is strangely addictive to watch; Nothing really makes sense and everything is a mess but you'll find yourself wanting to see what happens next anyway.

Gaim is a multi-rider show so you can expect a lot of rider vs rider fights in place of typical rider vs monster fights. If you're into multi-rider shows, you may get some enjoyment from the fighting in this show. However, the fighting choreography for Gaim was a letdown compared to the previous show, Kamen Rider Wizard, which had very stylish fighting choreography with lots of great stunts. The titular rider, Gaim, has a very bland approach to his fight scenes and this also applies to many of the other characters in the series. I can only really think of two characters who I felt had good fight scenes but they don't get nearly enough screentime to make much of a positive impact on the show.

Kamen Rider Gaim is an enjoyable watch under its many flaws. The comedy gags can be entertaining and the henshin scenes are still very fun. I would argue that Kamen Rider Gaim is a good show in itself but not a good Kamen Rider show. It's definitely worth the watch if you want some mindless fun but it wouldn't be anywhere near a classic. Honestly, Kamen Rider Gaim would have been a better show if you removed Gaim himself from the show. There are lots of characters so you'll definitely find at least one you like. Give Gaim a shot if you haven't but don't expect anything amazing.

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Don't Say No, Just Watch More!

Getting past the silly concept of "Fruit Samurai", and despite the awkward, way-too-long dance scenes that happen early in the show, Gaim is a stellar entry into the Kamen Rider franchise. The characters here are written with great depth and are very interesting. The fight choreography is good and the suit designs are great. Oren Pierre Alphonso is one of my favorite characters in any Kamen Rider series. I do have to say it has its issues though. It frequently has to find time to insert crossovers to other things such as upcoming movies - between important plot points they will arbitrarily add in weird moments for the sake of making these things episodes. On top of that, watching the group dance is strange. It's like they wanted to do something like Sega's Jet Set Radio franchise, but they couldn't show their protagonists doing something illegal like spray painting, but they still wanted that "street" feeling, so they put in these silly dance scenes. However, you're gonna want to stick around to see the great way the characters develop through the series, the cool suit designs, and the interesting twists and turns of the plot. Amazing stuff!

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