Thread:Echoson/@comment-30048375-20170620043411/@comment-1824169-20170621043257

A lot of the time, yes, but Kamen Rider is one of the few series that manages to pull off a Deus Ex Machina without it being bad writing (for the most part). If you wanted to go meta, you could say that Rider powerups don't fit the "unexpected" qualification since they're usually put out in a specific pattern (at least in Neo-Heisei), but that's kind of a weak argument from a narrative standpoint.