CONFIRMED: 4KIDS VENTS KAMEN RIDER DRAGON KNIGHT
This was recently posted from "Kamen Rider Dragon Knight" Co-Executive Producer Steve Wang not too long ago, which pretty much tells us flat out that the show has been canceled, just a few weeks before the series finale.
To say that I'm disappointed would be an understatement. I don't think KRDK was the best show ever, but I still cared about the show, wanted it to succeed, and to make way for future projects of similar interest. Whatever we think about the show, it must be understood that its cancellation just makes it that much harder for something in the same vein to be produced later on. And that's just sad.
Especially now that new Power Rangers has essentially been canceled itself, replaced by "remastered" reruns from the early 1990's. And as much as some fans are excited by this, what it means for the fandom is that there's pretty much nothing completely new in the near future for us. Nothing at all. Not for the same market, at least. It's the first time we've been able to say that in... I can't even remember how long it's been.
Whether we've loved the last few years of Power Rangers and Dragon Knight, they were the two main American tokusatsu titles that you could look to for this type of entertainment. They were there for fans to love, or hate, and express their opinion about either way. And I realize that Dragon Knight was about to end anyway, but the fact that it was (potentially) removed from its time slot before we could get to that point just reduces the likelyhood of a follow-up project, and that's bad for pretty much any fan, whether you enjoyed Dragon Knight or not.
Now, when I watch the last few episodes of Dragon Knight available to me (however I end up seeing them) I'm watching it from an entirely different perspective than I would have about an hour before posting this. I'm watching the potential last few episodes there could ever be of an American Kamen Rider franchise that never was.
It's just depressing.
To say that I'm disappointed would be an understatement. I don't think KRDK was the best show ever, but I still cared about the show, wanted it to succeed, and to make way for future projects of similar interest. Whatever we think about the show, it must be understood that its cancellation just makes it that much harder for something in the same vein to be produced later on. And that's just sad.
Especially now that new Power Rangers has essentially been canceled itself, replaced by "remastered" reruns from the early 1990's. And as much as some fans are excited by this, what it means for the fandom is that there's pretty much nothing completely new in the near future for us. Nothing at all. Not for the same market, at least. It's the first time we've been able to say that in... I can't even remember how long it's been.
Whether we've loved the last few years of Power Rangers and Dragon Knight, they were the two main American tokusatsu titles that you could look to for this type of entertainment. They were there for fans to love, or hate, and express their opinion about either way. And I realize that Dragon Knight was about to end anyway, but the fact that it was (potentially) removed from its time slot before we could get to that point just reduces the likelyhood of a follow-up project, and that's bad for pretty much any fan, whether you enjoyed Dragon Knight or not.
Now, when I watch the last few episodes of Dragon Knight available to me (however I end up seeing them) I'm watching it from an entirely different perspective than I would have about an hour before posting this. I'm watching the potential last few episodes there could ever be of an American Kamen Rider franchise that never was.
It's just depressing.
There will be no new PR series in 2010, or for the forseeable future. This hasn't been the case since, well, 1992.
God forbid, too, that MMPR doesn't do well, and is yanked, like it was during OTO on Fox. It's not a guaranteed thing that it will stay on and do well. It's not a guaranteed thing that ABC affiliates won't do like they did with RPM and put it on at 4am or pre-empt it constantly. (I personally have NO confidence in my local affiliate. They have RPM on about as often as the Pope gets married to Lady Gaga.)
So, yeah. While I never watched KRDK, I understand that this is a big slap in the face and it doesn't bode well for the future of our shows. D:
We still have remastered MMPR, but... that's it. :(
There still hasn't been any word of the last two episodes being put up on the website. Yes, I know it doesn't look that way, but its the only hope we got.
I wish that we could get a KR adaptation series that really didn't hold anything back, was fairly true to the series it adapted, and was on tv. While I'm wishing, I'd like it to be set in Hawaii, just because that's toku fan central. Derp.
KR's got some amazing elements to it, and I'm not just talking about the fighting or the explosions or the cool suits. Too bad some of those deeper elements are too much for American audiences to handle--or wait, that might be an unfair statement.
Over here, tokusatsu and animation has to fight really hard to be taken seriously as a medium. Why the hell hasn't that changed? We're going to be missing out on a lot of cool stuff now.
Eh well, at least I can continue watching the new Japanese shows. Seems like that's all that's left these days anyway.
I understand where your coming from, but I can't fully agree.
Sure, I think there's a place for darker and more mature shows like this (Garo). But the danger of that is making every series of the genre just like it. Just look at American comic books, its not exactly easy to just pick up a book and have fun with it.
One of the joys I have with Kamen Rider is that while it has its serious moments, and I do appreciate those, the series I've seen knew that at its core, that its a series to see superheroes fight the monster of the week. And if shows like Rider loose that, I think they'll lose a part of themselves.
Dragon Knight was great because it didn't try talking down to its audience, and it respected the tone of the original. That's what I'm getting at. It can't be something like the Americanized versions of Super Sentai (although I do have a soft spot in my heart for MMPR), or god forbid, Saban's Masked Rider. Shit, I would have loved to see an American take on Kabuto, Agito, or hell, even Den-O, which was the goofiest out of all the riders--but it would be an adaptation that still captures the spirit of the original.
That's what I meant.
Dammmnnn c'mon Low Ratings.!! WTH
even that-is there a good subtitled version?
Sites like keyhole will allow you to stream japanese TV, but it's live so there's no subs for that.