YMMV / Kamen Rider Build

• Awesome Ego: Sento and Evolt. They can talk a big game, and can more than back up their claims.
• Awesome Music: Can be found here.
• Alternate Character Interpretation: In the V Cinema, Evolt suddenly decides that destroying Earth isn't worth the effort anymore, despite the people of the planet directly insulting him and defeating him, and after helping to butcher the only family he has in the universe, he just says Ciao and goes into the wild blue yonder. And all through the movie he's unusually determined to assist Banjo. This raises the possibility that he's developed empathy as a result of gaining human emotions, and he's just too proud to admit any sort of weakness on his own part, nor any emotional attachment to his spawn.
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • Sento. Is he one of the better written main riders with an interesting arc that fits well to the show's central themes or is he a Jerkass with a poorly executed character arc? A lot of it has to do with Alternate Character Interpretation regarding the character, as there are different ways in reading in his actions throughout the show.
    • Also Sento making his new power-ups and later making all of his allies' power-ups as well. A good indication to remind the viewer of his intellect? Or makes him more of a plot device, ready to produce new gear whenever the plot decides it? There's even a third camp that is okay with him making the gear but feels that the story doesn't do much to show how he makes it, making it feel a bit empty when the story cuts away and shows the later powerups with less fanfare or trial-and-error.
  • Evolt. While he is one of the franchise's most popular villains due to his charismatic personality and devious plans, others see him as too cunning and overpowered, and that his constant outsmarting of the cast makes the show feel predictable and padded out at times. There is also discourse of the way he is written in the second half: Was he better when we knew him as Blood Stalk and did knowing his true identity make his character worse? Did his reveal of being a cosmic horror ruin the second half of the show? The world may never know.
• Broken Base:
  • The show's second half. Was the show shifting from a (surprisingly complex) war story to "stop the Eldritch Abomination" plot a natural continuation of the story or was it so disconnected from the first half (both in terms of tone and scale) that it almost feels like a different series entirely ?
  • For the most part Gentoku is a well liked character. What causes discourse however, is his behavior post Heel–Face Turn. Did the show turning him from an interesting Anti-Villain into a comic relief character ruin him, or was it just a way to show a different perspective. To be fair, the shift in his behavior has both an explanation both in universe and out of it.
  • The ending. A well-deserved Earn Your Happy Ending or an ending whose build-up was lackluster and ruined what the show was standing for ?
    • Even more so with the follow-up V-Cinemas restoring the cast’s memories. Was it a well-deserved Earn Your Happy Ending for the cast after everything they went through, or too much of a Reset Button that invalidated their sacrifices and made the original ending completely irrelevant.
  • The V-Cinema also brings forth the fact that all of the main characters final forms are exclusively with the Build Driver. A good way to bring it all together with Sento? Or does it invalidate the existence of the Sclash Driver?
• Cargo Ship: Nanba seems almost disturbingly attached to Pandora's Box. When he gets his hands on it in #35 he even starts caressing it. Some marbles definitely went missing in the meantime...
• Catharsis Factor: Any time things don't go Evolt's way and he gets royally ticked off is this, given how incredibly smug he is.
• Complete Monster: In this tale of creation versus destruction that stands as possibly the darkest series of the Heisei era, this duo are the most vile:
  • Evolt/Kamen Rider Evol, the true mastermind behind the problems faced by the heroes, is an entity seeking to create a "new world" by devouring everything in the universe, leaving only himself. Destroying planets alongside his people, the Blood Tribe, Evolt wiped out many civilizations before being stopped on Mars by the surviving Martian Queen Vernage. Possessing an astronaut and rendering him aware but unable to do anything, Evolt goes to the Earth and causes the Skywall Disaster that killed countless innocents and split Japan into three states. Under the alias "Blood Stalk", Evolt corrupts Gentoku Himuro by preying on his mind and killing his best friend and founds Faust with him and scientist Takumi Katsuragi to carry out painful experiments on kidnapped people to turn them into Smash. When Katsuragi discovers his alien origins and turns against him, Evolt mind wipes him, kills an innocent man to swap his face with him, and renames him "Sento Kiryu" so he can keep using him. Desiring Ryuga Banjo, whom he corrupted with his DNA when he was only an infant, as his new host, Evolt had Ryuga's fiancée fatally transformed into a Smash to raise Ryuga's Hazard Level by increasing his rage. Inciting a war between the three states of Japan, Evolt painfully experiments on Gentoku to turn him into a weapon and takes over Sento's body, keeping his personality around so he can make him watch as he slaughters his friends. He later challenges the Kamen Riders to a final battle where they will have to reach the top of the Pandora Tower, destroying a section of Japan for every ten minutes they don't make it. Achieving his ultimate form, Evolt summons a Black Hole to consume the Earth but destroys it slowly so he can gaze at the despair on the heroes' faces for longer.
  • Juzaburo Namba is the greedy CEO of Namba Heavy Industries and Evolt's collaborator. Profiting off the Skywall Incident, Namba was responsible for converting children into his brainwashed, suicidal Child Soldiers and turning Seito into his Puppet State. Taking part in the creation of Faust, Namba sponsored the criminal organization with the intention of sparking a conflict between the nations to fill his pockets. Planning on making a weapon stronger than a nuke with the Pandora Box's energy to sell to the highest bidder, Namba tortures the mentally-broken Gentoku Himuro until he is ready to become his own Kamen Rider, implanting a chip in his body that would kill him if he disobeyed his orders. Deciding to reunify Japan into a world superpower under his law to give birth to an "immortal Namba empire", Namba engineers a massive and destructive Military Coup to conquer the country and the world, starting by taking Prime Minister Tajimi into custody, assassinating Prime Minister Mido and then sending his troops to invade Touto to be assimilated by force. Side material expands even more on his atrocities, as he had imprisoned Gentoku in an annexed concentration camp for failed Faust experiments, a place where he was regularly beaten, and in one occasion, suffered an attempted rape at the hands of another prisoner. At some point, Namba had employed Kaisei Mogami and allowed him to work on the Enigma, indirectly killing even more people and almost causing the destruction of two worlds.
  • Kamen Rider Build NEW WORLD: Kamen Rider Cross-Z has Killbus. See that page for details.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Taro Satou was just meant to be some poor idiot introduced as a Red Herring who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, only brought up as a joke later on. Fans latched onto him for his endearing mannerisms and idiocy, to the point of getting his own merchandise.
• Esoteric Happy Ending: The end of Kamen Rider Cross-Z NEW WORLD: Killbus is dead! Universe destruction averted! And Evolt decides to leave Earth while promising to return when he has full power with his form that let him destroy entire planets in an instant… Yay? Of course, that all depends on if you think his time with Ryuga taught him empathy or not.
• Even Better Sequel: Build is considered this to its predecessor, which is considered to be a Surprisingly Improved Sequel to Kamen Rider Ghost and an incredibly good show on its own already. Many fans praise the show for its nuanced plot, well-done characterization, strong acting, and impactful themes, especially when the story evolved from a simple Kamen Rider series to a complex war story between creation and destruction.
• Evil Is Cool:
  • Night Rogue is egotistical, uncaring, and has an evil aura that could probably picked up from space, but damn does he look, sound, and feel so cool. Even more so when he later becomes Kamen Rider Rogue.
  • Blood Stalk has the same cool factor as Night Rogue, but with a fun personality and more color. Taken even further by his upgrade into Kamen Rider Evol, one of the most spectacularly-designed evil Riders in the franchise with a frightening look that perfectly suits Evolt's jovial yet sinister aura.
• Fan Nickname:
  • Pepsiman for Build himself due of his main colouration being red and blue, and his trinkets being bottles. Doesn't help that his first power up will be based off a can and adds some white to the colors.
  • Ryuga has been nicknamed "Dumb Blade" because Eiji Akaso resembles Takayuki Tsubaki and… well…
  • Hokuto's Prime Minister Yoshiko Tajimi has been nicknamed "Crazy Hokuto Lady" by some fans due to how little her actual name is brought up in-series. Similarly, there's "Slimy Seito Bugger" for Masakuni Mido, due to his generally low-key demeanor despite being hit with the same Hate Plague as Gentoku and Yoshiko (particularly after the payoff halfway into the series).
  • Vernage is often nicknamed "Useless Queen of Mars" due to her VA more famous role as a certain Useless Goddess. It is rather ironic, given Vernage is the only reason the heroes have ever had any chance at all to stop Evol.
  • Prior to joining Team Build, Kazumi was dubbed "Greasy Boy" or "Grease Man" in reference to his Kamen Rider name. Kazumi is also tricky because it sounds similar to Kasumi, who died in the second episode. Now that his name comes up more, it’s died down.
  • Some fans refer to Shinobu Katsuragi's Rider form as Another Build, partly because that's the title of the episode featuring him and partly in reference to Another Agito. Ironically, Kamen Rider Zi-O introduced an actual Another Build a mere week after Build ended.
  • Kaisei Mogami/Bikaiser's desire to be the emperor of the new world resulted in the nickname "Emperor Neo-Heisei", after the Fan Nickname for the post-Decade Riders and the posthumous name tradition of Japanese emperors.
• Genius Bonus:
  • Build doesn't take its science theme for granted. It's chock-full of references that would make a science major head's spin! For example:
    • Build's hand gesture when posing resembles Fleming's right hand rule.
    • RabbitTank's finisher is a literal linear equation. Here's the thing about how the graph works - for every increment in the value in the original equation, the answer will grow lower and lower by decimals without ever actually reaching zero, which is why the line tapers off and runs off horizontally. The theory being that the line will go on forever without touching the value of zero. After two past Kamen Riders have had a final form associated with infinity, it's fun to see a Kamen Rider who's weaponized the concept of infinity.
    • S=kB ln ⁡W, the most foremost equation seen bursting through the Sky Wall in the very ending segment of the opening, is Boltzmann's entropy formula.
    • GorillaMond's Vortex Finish in episode 3 forms diamond molecules before turning them into a giant diamond.
    • RabbitTank Sparkling's finisher in #14 features a wormhole. More specifically, the Morris-Thorne model, with the formula appearing along with it.
    • Parodied in Zi-O: when Sougo first uses the Build Ridewatch, the flying equations become his impression of advanced physics equations (e.g. "numbers", "more numbers", "stuff I don't really understand") since he is Book Dumb. The actual finisher also only follows a simple straight line plot. Sento is displeased.
  • The classical music piece played at the start of #29 is "An die Freude", from the final movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, and one of his most famous works. Evolt's Standby music for his regular forms is a twisted techno version of that piece.
  • The standby music for Evolt's Black Hole Form is a twisted version of "O Fortuna" by Carl Orff.
  • In Episode 38, Namba is sitting in his office listening to a woman play Frédéric Chopin's "Revolutionary Etude" on the piano. Not only does Evolt's newly-achieved Black Hole Form get announced with the phrase "Revolution!", but that very same episode he finally drops the subservient act and "revolts" against Namba by killing him.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Remember Ryuga happily recounting the events of his birth in #2? He does so again in #30 and then #31 reveals some things everyone was better off not knowing. Namely that he was born after an alien entity possessed his mother, and that Nanba Heavy Industries researched and experimented on him for a good part of his childhood.
  • Happens In-Universe in episode 47 with the Robotic Reveal of Nariaki Utsumi, after Sento accused him of being a "cyborg" repeatedly... just before he's Killed Off for Real.
  • Short range one in that everything nice/heartwarming/funny etc. Soichi did prior to #13 is soured by the reveal of Blood Stalk's identity in #13.
  • The death of the Engine Bros in #38 is made even worse with their suit actor, Daichi Nobe, dying only a few days after in a failed stunt.
  • The "Fragile" warning on the back of Kamen Rider Rogue's helmet initially seemed like a cute Freeze-Frame Bonus… then came Episode 48, where Evolt breaks the helmet shortly before killing Gentoku It can be argued this happens even sooner, if you consider the reveal that the suit contains a thoroughly broken man who endured grueling physical torture to try and keep up in the Kamen Rider arms race.
• Heartwarming in Hindsight: Ryuga complains about the Cross-Z suit lacking a flight ability (for comparison, Build can fly as RocketPanda and HawkGatling), even though the Transformation Sequence shows a pair of wings wrapping around him for protection instead. Then you realise that the Dragon Fullbottle used to be his girlfriend, and it makes perfect sense.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • A minor example. Narutaki (yes, him) complained that Super Sentai shows are the ones shown first than Kamen Rider shows in Super Hero Taihen. Cue 6 years later, Build is switching times with Kyuranger. Happy now, Narutaki?
  • As mentioned above, Build's design has gotten comparisons to that of W. The Full Bottles, however, bring to mind an entirely different Transformation Trinket from an entirely different franchise^note Don't see it? Both Ultra Capsules and Full Bottles require 2 to transform, and both involve combining their respective powers. Bonus point that both the music of Build and Geed are composed by Kenji Kawai.
  • Before Build's Fullbottle gimmick was revealed, some people suspected Build would be based around model kits, but once his powers were revealed, that theory was jossed. Then along came his henshin, which involved Gunpla runner-like structures forming around Build.
    • Even better? With the release of the Figure-rise Standard kits for Kamen Rider, you can buy and build them yourself! And yes, Build is among them. It all comes full circle.
  • Ryuga's actor played Hiroki in Kamen Rider Amazons Season 2. There, he often tells Chihiro (the main character of that show) to run from his pursuers. In this show, Ryuga is the one on the run from the authorities and is hiding with the main character Sento.
    • Then there's #31's reveal. Jokes of Ryuga being an Amazon are abound.
  • Soichi apparently went into the coffee shop business despite having no prior experience in making coffee as an astronaut, which really shows in the way the coffee turns out. Which is funny when you consider the number of times in Western media that astronauts or people in that sort of space-age scifi environment can make their own coffee as a required skill, such as Event Horizon or even Overwatch if you've seen "Rise and Shine".
    • This becomes even more brilliant on the reveal as to why he makes crappy coffee. Soichi may have known how to make coffee, but Evolt certainly doesn't.
  • A short-range one where the whole scene with Ryuga holding the same Death Glare consistently at Sento, now that he might be the real murderer, has been cited as resembling all the Devil in Plain Sight shots of one Masato Kusaka. Just two weeks later it's revealed that they already have a character like that. It's Sawa.
  • Kamen Rider Cross-Z's looks and finisher are similar to Kamen Rider Ryuki and his Palette Swap / Evil Twin, Ryuga. Guess who is Cross-Z? Yup, it's Ryuga.
    • Speaking of which, Cross-Z's debuts comes in the same week that Uchu Sentai Kyuranger put more focus on Shou Ronpo while cranking up the references to Gosei Sentai Dairanger. That's two series referencing the last time Chinese dragons were in their respective franchises in the same week.
    • And not long after that, an even more blatant reference when Blood Stalk gains the ability to summon Venosnaker.
  • Misora fell into a coma as a child and missed out on growing up altogether, which actually matches the backstory of Aidy Bryant's character Melanie on Saturday Night Live (amusingly, Melanie Likes Older Men as a result).
  • Turns out Kamen Rider Grease is a huge fanboy of Mii-tan, which comes across as hypocritical considering that Kurenai Otoya once trolled Jiro and the cafe owner from his time for being fanboys of an early but functionally similar idol group of their time.
  • Back in 2012, there were rumors of a ninja-themed Rider wearing a purple armor with yellow trimmings. Come 2017 and a ninja-themed form for the main Rider appears with those colors in equal parts.
  • Kasumi's health problem goes back a bit further than you'd think.
  • On June 5th 2018, NASA announced that they found something on Mars and will make an announcement about it. Cue the internet saying that the Pandora Box is found.
  • In first part of ROGUE, Gentoku compares Soichi to Mephistopheles (the faustian devil) and says he can't be as powerful. Then it turns out that Soichi really is not, but he is possesed by an Eldritch Abomination that is the closent equivalent of the faustian devil Build has.
  • When the series began fans noted a lot of similarities to Kamen Rider Double, in particular the design of the Build suit and the show's use of diametrically opposed Deuteragonists. The Movie takes this a step further with the film-exclusive Build Cross-ZBuild Form, which merges Sento and Ryuga together into a single body just like Double's CycloneJoker Xtreme form (albeit accidentally).
  • The show set into a country being divided into three sections, each having tension with each other. The initial section of it is dedicated into fighting different minor threats/monsters, while trying to solve the mystery of the main characters enigmatic past and the world around them. Eventually the story escalates into all out war between the three divided sections as one of the villains, a masked figure with ties of a villanuous organization doing human experimentations turns out to be one of the allies the entire time. It's eventually revealed that everything in the story was more or less caused by a Greater-Scope Villain who were weakened as a result of a war with an otherworldly species which happened centuries before the story's beginning and resulted in near extinction of said species. And the protagonist is revealed to essentially share the body/conscience with a major character who tried to stop the villains but was murdered by them. The character in question ultimately fuses with the protagonist, giving them their ultimate form. Doesn't this sound rather familiar?
  • Tetsuo Kanao (Evolt's voice actor) actually performed the voice of another Planet Eater in a film a few months before Build premiered, being the voice of Ego, the Living Planet in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2.
  • A Youtube Poop by Walrusguy named "Dr. Rabbit is a racist" starts with Dr. Rabbit claiming that he's "the world's only rabbit rabbit". Almost ten years later we have the Rabbit-Rabbit build.
• Ho Yay:
  • Fanfiction of Sento and Ryuga was up before the show even aired. The show itself calls them a "Best Match" in the title of the first episode, and their relationship is central to the story. Sento outright says that he and Ryuga are a best match in the series finale, before defeating Evolt.
    • During their first appearance in Kamen Rider Zi-O, Sento grumbles that he's a bit jealous after Another Build hugged Ryuga.
  • In the final arc, Kazumi and Gentoku have some moments, too.
• I Knew It!:
  • Practically everyone was guessing from the very beginning that Ryuga would be the one (no pun intended) to become Kamen Rider Cross-Z.
  • Soichi Isurugi is Blood Stalk, as revealed by Toei.
  • A lot of fans caught on to the hints that Sento was Katsuragi long before #15 confirmed it.
  • Other fans had a hunch that Gentoku would become Kamen Rider Rogue as a potential Mid-Season Upgrade.
  • On a side note Evolt was later revealed to be the true villain pulling everyone's strings. They, however, never knew how he was pulling the strings until later on.
  • Although it wasn’t unanimous, Utsumi becoming Mad Rogue was something a lot of people guessed.
• It's the Same, So It Sucks: Not the series itself, but rather, Build's Legend Rider Forms, which are basically the rider's suit with the Build Driver slapped on. While this was also how Kamen Rider Decade used the forms, in that series, it was his explicit gimmick since he directly transformed into the rider as opposed to a form based on the rider^note not to mention that he used the forms in his series proper; none of the Legend Rider forms from other series were used outside of their crossover movies or specials; from Kamen Rider Gaim onwards, in crossovers the current rider would usually gain a form based on (but not identical to) the previous rider's powers (and vice-versa) - i.e., Drive Type Fruits, Ex-Aid Ghost Gamer. To many fans, in light of how previous legend rider forms looked, this is seen as rather lazy.
  • Thanks to image leaks of Ganbarizing images, it turns out the Legend Rider Fullbottles do have unique Half Bodies, making the in series Legend Rider forms a means of staying within budget.
• Jerkass Woobie: As brash, selfish, and hypocritical as Ryuga may be, it's pretty hard to deny that life decided to deal him as many losing cards as it could.
• Love to Hate
  • Night Rogue/Gentoku Himuro is at least intially a cold, calculating egotist yet he's able to back it up and is so cool while doing it.
  • Blood Stalk is a Smug Snake who wants to wipe out all life on earth but has such a fun and laid back personality that it means he veers here.
• Magnificent Bastard: Shinobu Katsuragi/Kamen Rider Build (Prototype) is the father of Sento Kiryu aka Takumi Katsuragi and the progenitor of Project Build. Following the Sky Wall Disaster, Shinobu successfully fakes his death after being blackmailed by Evolt, working with the sinister alien while secretly taking steps to stand against him and his universe destroying plans for a whole decade. Soon after Sento obtains his Super Mode, Shinobu reveals himself alive and having aligned with Evolt to Sento and his allies, using this as the opportunity to play Stealth Mentor in order to raise the Hazard Levels of his son and Banjo Ryuga for his own ends. When found out and fatally wounded by Evolt, Shinobu uses his last moments to pass on important information to his son, giving Sento the tools he needs to execute his true plan in his place: merging parallel worlds by using Evolt himself as a Living Battery, effectively deleting the evil alien from time and reality. Fully determined to atone for his role in all of the tragedy that occurred in the series, Shinobu's actions led to the world of love and peace he and his son became scientists to create.
• Memetic Mutation: See this page for examples.
• Moral Event Horizon: See this page for examples.
• Most Wonderful Sound:
  • Several, including BEST MATCH! and the background music that accompanies Sento shaking his Full Bottles.
  • The Build Driver's mechanical jingle both during pre-transformation and when the crank is rotated is a pounding musical masterpiece of genius and industrialism.
  • The standby sound of Sclash Driver, making use of the industrial noise as a music.
  • The Evol Driver is glorious Evil Is Hammy incarnate. Especially the Evil Laugh at the end of the transformation.
    • The music it plays while cranking the handle seems to be a remix of Beethoven's Ode to Joy with a techno-beat backing.
  • What happens when you combine He's Back!, Awesome Music, and the debut of the hero's Super Mode? You get one hell of a formula for most wonderful sound.
  • ONE SIDE! GYAKU SIDE! ALL SIDES!
    • By the same token: CROSS-Z SIDE! EVOL SIDE! DOUBLE SIDE!
• Narm:
  • Playing something like "Be The One" as an insert song over the ominous scene of Utsumi's insanity and his first transformation into MadRogue really doesn't work at all.
  • The reason why certain Full Bottles are Best Matches is revealed to be what things (non-living) can destroy the things the Isurugis like (living). It's nonsensical in different ways, such as how overkill some of the choices are when just shooting them with a gun is more logical or that the later choices were deliberately nonsense choices made by Soichi and needless to say, people had a field day with joking about The Reveal.
  • While each of the Sclash Driver suits has some sort of manufacturing motif, many find Rogue's Fragile sticker a bit too outlandish and doesn't mesh well with the design.
  • A keen eye can notice that the TankTank suit's arms are being held together by scotch tape in #44, not unlike Ankh's arm.
  • Kamen Rider Evol’s theme is a great industrial rock theme and a look into the destructive desires of his character. It also reveals that he chose the name Evol because it was “love” backwards. Knowing that makes his Rider form hard to take seriously, given this naming idea is something an actual child would do.
  • In the New World: Cross-Z V Cinema, Killbus darts between this and Nightmare Fuel at light speed. His flamenco dancer motions and habit of kissing his Transformation Trinkets, combined with his habit of trashing the heroes makes for a weird Mood Whiplash.
• Narm Charm: Sento's Say My Name moment in #47 would seem campy in any other context, but because of the intense and sorrowful leadup to it, the tragedy surrounding the scene as a whole, and how excellently Atsuhiro Inukai delivers the line, it instead comes across as completely serious and heartwrenching. In just one word it perfectly summarizes the emotions Sento is feeling at that moment.
• Retroactive Recognition: You can see Atsuhiro Inukai in various TV/movie roles such as Grand Blue and 24 (Japan).
• Shocking Moments:
  • Build manages to hit this as soon as #17 with the war between Touto and Hokuto starting and the Kamen Riders being degraded from those two guys to weapons that should be at Gentoku's beck and call ^note  At least that's what he expects. They disagree. .
  • #30 tops it by turning the story into a fullblown Cosmic Horror Story.
  • The penultimate episode does something that very few Rider series have done. A beatdown on a Rider so savage that their helmet is busted open.
  • The finale has one that manages to completely outdo EVERYTHING that came before it and then some, courtesy of the title character himself. How does he achieve such a feat? By delivering a Rider Kick so utterly powerful and devastating that it not only erases Evolt's very existence, but the attack itself can be seen all the way into space and between the two worlds.
• Special Effects Failure:
  • For reasons unclear, Night Rogue's stunt undersuit is an unsightly maroon color which clashes heavily with the black armor and looks decidedly different from the black undersuit during his debut episode. This might not be a problem if not for the stunt suit often being used in place of the original costume entirely from around #8 onwards. The same undersuit gets reused for Engine Bros, Remocon Bros, and Kamen Rider Mad Rogue, with the same glaring difference in color.
  • After having been the primary suit actor for lead Riders for nearly twenty years, Seiji Takaiwa's getting noticeably thicker around the middle than the other suit actors.
  • An unfortunate example from the last episode: RabbitDragon is an extremely blatant, low-quality CG model that sticks out like a sore thumb compared to both the physical suits used for practically every other form in the episode and Build's normally good CGI.
  • In the V Cinema, Killbus' Rider form has a spider theme, which means he can create webbing. This is all well and good until the cameras close in on the Riders, and the webbing goes from CGI to mediocre stringy ropes.
• Tear Jerker: Compiled in its own page here.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Soichi Isurugi. Starting as a loveable mentor figure to our main rider, Soichi being revealed as Blood Stalk added a rather interesting nuance and layers to his character. While he was a villain, Soichi still had some rather sympathetic aspects in him, such as him showing regrets of his actions and helping the heroes from time to time, even having a pep talk to Sento at the latters lowest point. Then come The Reveal where it turns out that Soichi was used as a meatpuppet by an Eldritch Abomination, pretty much turning a lot of aftermentioned nuance obsolite. Their dynamic isn't even explored, as Evolt ditches Soichi shortly after the reveal. The fact that Soichi spends rest of the series in a coma and doesn't even get to help the heroes in defeating Evolt doesn't help the matters either.
  • There are also some fans who feel that Juzaburo Namba, as an influential businessman and Non-Action Big Bad who utilizes careful manipulation and political maneuvering to further his goals, also made for an excellent main antagonist and would have preferred if he had stayed in the show for longer rather than be usurped by Evolt.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • Wow, Sento can use the Hazard Trigger to make a more powerful version of any of his other forms? Too bad we never see RabbitTank Sparkling Hazard, although it's possible that Sento might consider said form Too Awesome to Use due to how out of control most of his other forms are when using the Hazard Trigger. This was slightly fixed by how he used the Hazard Trigger on Build Genius, but it didn't give him a new form.
  • RabbitDragon in the final episode is this, especially since it was a CGI model. Many pointed out they could have simply reused Cross-ZBuild from The Movie.
• Tough Act to Follow: While there were some worries when Build start airing that it would suffer from this, given how successful the installment before it was, ironically Build now seems to be this for the installments that have come after it, none of which have yet to attain anything near its level of acclaim. Much like Gaim before it, Build has clearly made its indelible imprint on the Kamen Rider franchise.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Yui Mabuchi from New World: Cross-Z can come off as this. While Ryuga's past aversion to aiding civilians in favor of finishing fights is something to call out, some have noticed that the Guardians that captured her and her students allowing Faust to turn her into the first Scissors Lost Smash and her subsequent death only turned towards them when she popped her head out of cover to shout at Cross-Z to come back and save her and her students. Her initial grudge against Ryuga long after his Character Development also doesn't help.
• Viewer Name Confusion: Sento's form from using the Hazard Trigger is simply called "Build Hazard Form". Despite this, you'll find many people referring to it as "Black Hazard", after what the driver enthusiastically calls out upon transformation.
• What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: Build does not shy away from the horrors of war with on-screen torture, death, and a subplot in the early half of the series revolving around Sento's PTSD over his Accidental Murder of an enemy combatant under the influence of the Hazard Trigger.
• Win Back the Crowd: Word of God says that one of the goals of the series is to bring back the demographic that had been turned off by how different Kamen Rider has been for the past few years, with Build containing elements similar to the classic Showa Kamen Rider series. Considering the fact that it's considered the last good Heisei era series by many, it's safe to say the crew have certainly done just that.

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