Sentai Rambling: Kamen Rider Decade and Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger As Anniversary Seasons That Were HUGE Massive Crossovers!

ONERE DIKEDO!  Well that's the phrase from Kamen Rider Decade.  What must be established is that there is NO Sentai timeline and that Kamen Rider and Super Sentai as series are independent from each other's continuity and that the crossovers themselves are NOT part the continuity to either which show.

Kamen Rider Decade... ONORE DIKEDO!!!!!!


Kamen Rider Decade (the 10th Heisei Rider hence the name) appears with the story of Nine Alternate Reality versions of Kuuga, Agito, Ryuki, Faiz, Blade, Hibiki, Kabuto, Den-O and Kiva which presented different versions of their original versions.  The show would later feature more than the nine worlds when it also added the World of Shinkenger (which is Shinkenger's continuity), the World of Black/Black RX (two alternate versions of Kotaro Minami even show up) and the World of Amazon.  There was no finale except for the Kamen Rider Decade movie which came later.  Boy, did this series suck or what?!

Since most of the Kamen Rider alumni cast weren't around, you got different versions of the mentioned riders like Kiva in Decade is just a child compared to the actual Kiva (who appeared at the beginning of the show) was a full-grown adult.  For some reason, all the Kamen Rider continuities are going haywire and... it's Decade's fault?  While on the surface it may look better than Saban's Masked Rider but writing-wise and acting-wise, I felt both shows are just as horrid as each other.  Now some people like Decade, I respect that but I am not one of them.

I had my thought on Decade itself was a great concept, only to be messed up with bad writing and not to mention, Shinichiro Shirakura after he served as Agito's producer ended up producing much horrible work.  The writer crew had Sho Aikawa, Shoji Yonemura (ugh), Yasuko Kobayashi, Toshiki Inoue and Kenji Konuta.  At this point, Toshiki Inoue had given up writing better stories, Sho Aikawa while he was responsible for Boukenger and Blade (two shows that I like but not that much, he was also responsible for Mikoto's last minute redemption which for me was a flaw in Abaranger, sigh what a waste for my favorite villain) really tends to be hit or miss, Yasuko Kobayashi was behind the Shinkenger/Decade episodes and well Shoji Yonemura just sucks.

On paper, Kamen Rider Decade would have sounded cool in itself.  While Agito was supposedly the sequel of Kuuga but Toei (from what I heard, source is Orends Range) decided that it was time not to do so, otherwise it would waste all of Kuuga's efforts to protect everyone's smiles, only for another plague to destroy them.  So a lot of Kamen Rider series are standalone, heck from what I heard, Kamen Rider Black was supposedly a standalone series but lost that stand when the less successful sequel Kamen Rider Black RX (which I also enjoyed but not as much) came out though I thought Black RX has way better writing than Decade but it's just my biases.


We also saw the first official Super Sentai/Kamen Rider crossover (as Orends Range would call it) during the 10th anniversary of the Heisei era of Kamen Rider.  At first, I wasn't so welcome to the idea because of the horrid crossover "A Friend In Need" but the two-partner succeeded where the former failed.  I simply thought that the two episodes were well-done though I thought that they should have been rolled into a movie instead!

Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger


On the other hand, Gokaiger tried a different approach of cramming all 34 Super Sentai into the 35th show.  In short, it succeeded where Decade failed.  In what way?  You might consider how it had a better cast, better writer with Naruhisa Arakawa as the head writer, you might as well consider Takaaki Utsunomiya was still passionate about what he did and you can looki at the show in itself.  While I think the Zangyack were pretty generic but the whole show managed to do a lot of what I thought was really impossible.

Like Kamen Rider Decade, the Gokaigers could use the powers of the other Super Sentai teams before them and it was even integrated into their mecha.  But the huge difference was that, in Gokaiger, the 34 Super Sentai teams supposedly lost their powers in a huge what-if scenario called the Legend War.  I mean, if you think about reality... most of the teams have either disbanded, the Flashmen are in space, some of them are retired due to age, etc.  But the whole series tries to imagine out an entirely impossible scene.  I mean, common sense can tell us that Super Sentai really has no timeline unless you use your IMAGINATION or two, pretend that Ryuya was tampering with time when all the crossovers happened.  Then again, I have accepted that there is no Super Sentai timeline... but there is a VS Continuity that events happen a little differently than the shows that they are in.


Aka Red first appeared in Boukenger vs. Super Sentai (an anniversary season) and later, he reappeared in Gokaiger as an ally of the Boukengers.  So one can view that Gokaiger takes place in the VS Continuity... and maybe Gobusters also takes place in the VS Continuity.


For instance, you can think of getting as much guest stars as possible, even Toshihide Wakamatsu guest starred as Gai Yuki.  I always thought that the whole show was loaded with guest stars.  It takes a LOT of effort to get them.  You've had cameos of previous stars or those focus episodes had lots of them.  I always thought how in the world are you going to ask them to reprise their roles?  I always thought of that question but it happened.  I was amazed at how Toei was still able to convince a lot of them to make a cameo or an entire episode guest role.  Either way, cheers!  At least, Toei made an effort to get as many guest stars as they could rather than, "Hey let's create Alternate Reality Sentai Worlds and get new actors to play the old characters!"  Most of the characters were there to teach how to unleash that "Greater Power" that would lead to the Greatest Treasure in the Universe.


Maybe, just maybe Gai Ikari is the embodiment of nostalgia and the Sentai fanbase prior to the Akibarangers.  While Gokaiger didn't have a place where you'd have all the Super Sentai merchandise in it), you still had Gai Ikari.  He practically knew EVERYTHING about Super Sentai.  Just a question, how in the world did he ever watch Super Sentai when in Gokaiger's continuity, all 34 Sentai series are existent in it so how did they become TV shows coming to life?  Still, I thought suspension of disbelief helped that whole funny thought out.

With Gai Ikari, I felt like he's the prophesied one or the "chosen one" of Tokusatsu.  I mean, Gokaiger's final crossover was not with Gobusters.  He also appeared in Super Hero Taisen and Super Hero Taisen Z, both massive crossover movies that I felt never gave me any sense of fulfillment.  It's as if this guy is chosen to save Tokusatsu or he's some kind of special boy, destined to fulfill a prophecy of sorts.  Super Hero Taisen can be viewed as, "Gokaiger vs. Decade" since they were the main focus of the whole show even if it had Gobusters mixed into it.


Also, Gokaiger had a crossover with Gavan and Gobusters.  What was amazing was that the VS Universe managed to accommodate more standalone shows (although Gavan, Sharivan and Shaider are in continuity to each other but apparently doesn't connect with other Metal Hero shows).  Gobusters also had a two parter special with Gavan (though I think we can ignore that if we wanted to) with the new Gavan.  The older Gavan, Retsu Ichijouji reappeared in Gobusters (along with a newer Gavan) and Super Hero Taisen Z.  Surprised?  Tokusatsu legend Kenji Ohba even guest starred in Gekiranger and Hurricanger!

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