#14shyx

An elegant woman who's also a rabbit-themed Rider - how I've longed for this day 🥹🥰

(Going by her character description, I'm a little wary (the one Rider who happens to be a woman being devoted to the (male) leader of an organization...), but the first episode hasn't even aired yet so I'm going into this with an open mind :] )

Toei were on such a roll from Zero One (Yua as the first "main cast" lady Rider) to Gotchard (Rinne being the first secondary lady Rider) that I thought having at least one woman be part of the main Rider ensemble was the new Reiwa Rider series staple. Then it stopped for a while - two years at that* T-T I do appreciate Gavv and Zeztz having lower Rider numbers, but I would've loved it more had they let a woman henshin because, well, there's already enough random men being given a belt only to get killed ten episodes later 😅

At least with the boys it was a steady progression of birth years, with Fumiya Takahashi (2001)/Aruto Syuichiro Naito (1996)/Touma Kentaro Maeda (1999)/Ikki Hideyoshi Kan (2002)/Ace Junsei Motojima (2005)/Hotarou Hidekazu Chinen (2005)/Shouma Ryotaro Imai (2005)/Baku Ikuho Akiya (2004)/Sora

Though interestingly, they've only "jumped back"* twice *my way of saying rather than casting the next lead actor to be younger than the previous actor, they cast someone older - in which case is Syuichiro Naito and Ikuho Akiya

But with the girls, the progression is way faster: Noa Tsurushima (2001)/Izu Asuka Kawazu (2000)/Mei Ayaka Imoto (2003)/Sakura Kokoro Aoshima (1999)/Tsumuri | Yuna Hoshino (2004)/Neon Reiyo Matsumoto (2008)/Rinne Nozomi Miyabe (2003)/Sachika Maho Horiguchi (2008)/Nemu Riko Horikawa (2009)/Yuna

If you consider Yuna Hoshino as the main Geats female lead (on the basis of Neon having more presence in the story than Tsumuri at times, especially when compared to how Izu and Yua were handled), then the progression isn't too bad (going from 2004 to 2008 is still a lot though). This means Toei "jumped back" two times. However, if you consider Kokoro Aoshima as the main female lead (which she technically is), they skipped a whole nine years to cast Reiyo Matsumoto. Sure, they "jumped back" three times, but with the next series' male lead actor being born before 2005, and the next series' lead actress being closer to the year 2010...I don't know about that :|

She's even younger than the last Sentai girl (Maya Imamori, born 2006), sheesh - (From what I recall, Sentai had (starting from Kiramager) 1998/2000 -> 2001 -> 2004 -> 1999/2001 -> 2000 -> 2006 Putting it like this, they skipped a whole six years, wow....)

The only times where the lead actress was older than the lead actor was with Kokoro Aoshima (three years older than Hideyoshi Kan) and Nozomi Miyabe (two years older than Hidekazu Chinen). Noa Tsurushima's the only one who was the same age as her fellow actor Fumiya Takahashi. Everyone else has been anywhere between 3-5 years younger than the lead actor

Also, it's about time they used the Chinese zodiacs as a motif! If memory serves correctly, it was supposed to be Fourze Meteor's motif (considering the Bruce Lee noises and all lol) + it would've been a nice contrast to the villains' Western zodiac motif back then. But I'm glad they saved it for later, especially as Fourze already had plenty of other lovely, cool things to explore for me to ruminate on ^^ I'm interested in seeing how My-th will tackle the main Rider who's more sly and calculating than he lets on - considering the mouse tricked the cat* out of its place on the zodiac - and yet the former is the hero, and the latter is the villain

Now who are you 😳