The Ups and Downs of Toshiki Inoue as a Writer

I was reading from Shougo B'Stard's blog on Toshiki Inoue and what he thought.  So here's what I personally thought.  The guy had his ups and downs.  So far, he has gone with darker and edgier then going to lighter and softer.  Let's try to think about how he really was in the Tokusatsu genre.


During the Hirohisa Soda days, he was a sub-writer for Flashman, Maskman (don't forget he wrote the X-1 Mask episode), Liveman, Turboranger and Fiveman.  In some of these series, Kunio Fuji was also a secondary writer but never got the headwriting job.  I would say that he was known for writing tragic stuff, going to the darker and edgier which he later overdid when he was in Kamen Rider Faiz.  Then after that, he wrote Chojin Sentai Jetman.  Shortly after Fiveman, he became the head writer of Jetman with some help from Naruhisa Arakawa who also wrote that rather silly Dryer Jigen episode.  So Jetman was basically his only headwriting job in Super Sentai- he was later focused on being a sub-writer and also became the head writer for Kamen Rider Agito, Kamen Rider Faiz, Kamen Rider Hibiki (second half) and the lighter and softer Kamen Rider Kiva which had a few moments of seriousness to avoid it from being too ridiculous.  You have to admit that when he wrote Jetman, it was considered by many to be the best Super Sentai (including myself) to the point a non-canon Manga was made aside from the TV epilogue he wrote himself.  So far, just ignore the Manga and refer to the TV epilogue.  He also wrote one the most memorable Heisi Riders, Kamen Rider Agito but sadly got cocky after that, that is according to Shougo B'Stard.


Prior to his burnout, he was a good sub-writer especially for Gosei Sentai Dairanger when he wrote the Ryou vs. Jin rivalry episodes.  At that point, he was still a good sub-writer and he proved that with Kuuga, the very season that molded Agito.  However his later secondary writing days were soon to came to some mess.  For example, Kamen Rider Ryuki was where he introduced that overly useless character Megumi or in Kamen Rider Blade, he wrote that really stupid cooking battle episode.  In Gokaiger, he wrote Gokaiger 28 which really showed he really has some weird sense of humor.  He was mostly involved in tandem writing with Yasuko Kobayashi for some time either as a main writer (Agito) or as a sub-writer (Ryuki, Timeranger).


He just loves putting jerks into his writing doesn't he?  You could actually see that first in Jetman with Gai Yuki.  In Kamen Rider Agito, you have Tojo who is somewhat your Gai Yuki 2.0.  Then maybe we could actually mention that later, it just becomes SO PAINFUL to watch with Masato Kusaka, he's literally the embodiment of a douchebag with how he was in Kamen Rider Faiz.  In Kamen Rider Kiva, you have Nago Keisuke who is most likely a parody of Masato.  Sad to say that he also wrote two Kamen Rider movies that should be treated as garbage namely The First and the Next.  He did write Kiva after that which he think he's so funny.


I could probably mention Toshiki Inoue's weird sense of humor post Kamen Rider Faiz and most of them aren't really that funny for other people.  In Jetman remember the episode with Ryu's grandmother?  Well I was able to swallow that.  In Kamen Rider Blade, that cooking battle was so out of place IMO and he was writing it for a darker and edgier series.  If you want to have more weird Inoue humor, do check Kamen Rider Kiva and check out just how he somehow parodied a lot of previous successes especially Rook having amnesia was a parody of Radiguet's amnesia, Nago tends to get comical despite him supposedly being a Masato 2.0 or Hikawa 2.0 or you could also look at Gokaiger 28- he made a fool out of Gai Ikari who can't see Gai Yuki.  Good thing he didn't write any episode of Akibaranger.  As of late, Shogeki Gouraigan doesn't interest me at all either. -_-


Now when it comes to finales, he's pretty known for passable to just plain bad.  If you want his worst finales you should really think of how Gai Yuki died.  I haven't seen Changerion so I can't comment.  Now for Jetman, why on Earth did he kill Gai Yuki by that thug rather than in battle and worse on Ryu's and Kaori's wedding day?  In fact, the others looked stupid not noticing Gai Yuki had died and you people know I didn't immediately believe he died because that scene looked so stupid.  So far his best finale was Kamen Rider Agito.  Worst finale?  I'd probably say Kamen Rider Faiz with its very hanging ending where the Orphnoch King was still alive but in a comatose.  For Kamen Rider Kiva it's on the silly side as if it were a finale written by Butch Hartman of Nickelodeon.  For Kamen Rider Hibiki, another hanging ending which I think is his second worst ending.  Either he has trouble writing them or it's just bad writing.