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04-08-2019, 06:10 AM | #15351 |
Warrior of Delusions!
Join Date: Jun 2012
Location: Wait, you dont know either?
Posts: 5,826
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How are Excite's subs of it? I tried to get through Blade a few years back with TvNihon's, but I managed to get to episode 6 before giving up. Part of the problem was a lot of video glitches, for some reason (I think VLC was set up wrong, so it's partially on young me), but the subs weren't TVN's best.
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04-08-2019, 10:46 AM | #15352 |
Showa Girl
Join Date: Jun 2018
Posts: 9,064
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My feelings on Wizard is that it's very comparable to modern sentai. It goes full hog on the monster of the week format rather than Rider's usually more serialised nature; and as a result the plot and characters don't get a lot of development -- the only times I recall things advancing in any way before the last stretch were Beast's introduction and any new powerups.
This isn't necessarily a bad thing, it really just means it appeals to particular tastes and those tastes aren't the ones typical watchers of Rider might have due to, again, Rider usually being much more serialised and having much more advancement in its stories. That doesn't mean it's without its problems, but I certainly wouldn't even begin to compare it to something like Kiva or Ghost. It's just a different type of show, and one that just happens to not appeal to me. ... plus, I like the way Toqger and Zyuohger done that type of show more |
04-08-2019, 03:43 PM | #15353 |
The Immortal King Tasty
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: Every diner you've ever been to.
Posts: 3,833
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Very competent. It you've seen their subs for Ex-Aid you pretty much know the deal. I officially decided they weren't messing around when a scene where Kenzaki tells Kotarou to smile, followed by Hirose saying the same thing in English, had Kenzaki saying "turn that frown upside down" to avoid the redundancy. TV-N naturally solved the problem back in the day by simply leaving the line as "egao, egao" which is... certainly one way of going about it. The biggest "problem" I've noticed is that their translation for one line changed slightly when it showed up in a flashback.
There's no obvious mistranslations, and it's actually in English, so I'd say there's never been a better time to start watching Blade. I myself remember liking the very beginning of his arc and his interactions with Garren, and also the very end, but thinking a lot in the middle dragged a bit and was hard to take seriously ("ORE WA SAIKYOU DA!" being a meme for a reason and all), but we'll see how I feel this time around.
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04-08-2019, 04:33 PM | #15354 |
Warrior of Delusions!
Join Date: Jun 2012
Location: Wait, you dont know either?
Posts: 5,826
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Quote:
Very competent. It you've seen their subs for Ex-Aid you pretty much know the deal. I officially decided they weren't messing around when a scene where Kenzaki tells Kotarou to smile, followed by Hirose saying the same thing in English, had Kenzaki saying "turn that frown upside down" to avoid the redundancy. TV-N naturally solved the problem back in the day by simply leaving the line as "egao, egao" which is... certainly one way of going about it. The biggest "problem" I've noticed is that their translation for one line changed slightly when it showed up in a flashback.
There's no obvious mistranslations, and it's actually in English, so I'd say there's never been a better time to start watching Blade. (I'm ignoring the fact I also have R/B and X Rider on the go, but oh well~) EDIT: So I watched the pair, and now I want to see more. Being able to actually understand and follow what's going on is so nice, and while this opening definitely isn't the most forgiving to newcomers, it's caught me. Also
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Check out my occasional ramblings! https://akibamusings.blogspot.com/
Last edited by AkibaSilver; 04-08-2019 at 06:44 PM.. |
04-08-2019, 08:32 PM | #15355 |
The Immortal King Tasty
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: Every diner you've ever been to.
Posts: 3,833
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04-16-2019, 09:39 PM | #15356 |
The Immortal King Tasty
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: Every diner you've ever been to.
Posts: 3,833
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... ... Oh- Sorry, It's just... I put that picture at the top of the post there and now I'm distracted by the sheer awesomeness of Blade King Form... and also Blade in general. This show is seriously something else. Now that I've gotten to the part of the show with a spiffy new opening and a spiffy new head writer, I also remember why I partially bought the idea that early Blade isn't that great. It's because Blade just keeps getting better and better as it goes along. But I don't think it's even fair to throw the beginning of the show under the bus considering how it very specifically laid the groundwork for all the plot points and character dynamics that make the later parts of the show so engaging. One of the things I pay a lot of attention to now that I didn't back in 2011-ish when I first watched Blade was writer credits, and while Shou Aikawa immediately shows a lot of vision for the show in the few episodes he wrote before properly taking over from Shouji Imai (literally his first episode has Kenzaki talking about fighting fate for the first time), I don't quite think you can say he's solely responsible for the show's increase in quality. It's actually pretty impressive how cohesive Blade feels between all the different people who wrote for it. All the episodes reference each other directly, and even blatant "filler" style plots like episodes 29 and 30 (written by a particularly manic Toshiki Inoue) have some degree of purpose to them. You'd basically never notice when someone else is writing if nobody told you. I'd also like to take a second to give a bit of a mid-show report on my feelings towards Leangle, which I'm going to take the liberty of putting behind spoiler tags in case anyone cares. I know that's a bit much, and I'm pretty sure this is all stuff people know (and nothing too major), but on the off chance you don't know anything about Leangle, you're in the perfect position to enjoy his character and should probably go watch Blade immediately. Actually, you should do that anyway. But at any rate, Mukki, man. I love ya' and I hate ya'. You're one of the most unique extra Riders out there, with a cool and creative character concept of a hapless teenager who's essentially being worn by his own Rider belt instead of the other way around. How sweet is that? It's just so unlike anything else, and those aspects of Leangle, I genuinely find fascinating. The problem is, I don't find Mutsuki himself fascinating, and I think I've finally nailed down why that is. He serves his role in the story way TOO well. His struggles become a huge focus of the show after he makes his debut, and the simple truth is they're less about him and more about making the overall drama level of the show higher while making the existing main cast look even better than they already do. Which means poor Mr. Strongest Rider is a total no-hoper when it comes to endearing himself to the audience. Sure, you can vaguely sympathize with his plight and all, but by design he's no real hero, and so he looks bad just for being normal, because the other Riders are all thoroughly reaping the benefits of early Blade's frantic pacing by this point. You care about Kenzaki because he's been jerked around by so many people and still manages to show unflinching faith in the goodness of people. Even when they aren't people. So when he starts showing that kind of faith in Mutsuki too, you're liable to care all the more about him instead of Mutsuki. Same deal for Tachibana. We see him in such an emotionally vurnerable position in the first dozen episodes that by the time he finally overcomes his issues to reemerge as Blade's reliable partner, we're extremely endeared to him. So when he goes out of his way to take Mutsuki under his wing, guess who we're more concerned with? Even Hajime is more likable despite being way more of a jerk because as a literal monster whose whole purpose in life is to fight, any sympathetic qualities at all from him are worth way more. It's just not a fair fight. Maybe it's because I'm now aware of that, then, that I find myself enjoying Leangle a lot more this time around. Although I'm also at the part of Blade where he gets into his wannabe gang boss phase, so my newfound patience is liable to be stretched pretty thin. Oh, and before I forget to mention it again, the sound it makes whenever the Riders throw their cards to seal Undead is like, the best thing ever. Also, in light of the last few episodes I watched, I might have to take back some of my initial praise for Excite!'s subs, but I'm not sure. There were a few lines I might have been the one misinterpreting, but one thing I do know is that they kept messing up characters talking about Chalice's cards in the plural. So consistently it almost made me think I'm the one making a mistake, but I'm absolutely positive I'm in the right here. Outside of those few specific instances, it's all been good though. It took until episode 20 for something to jump out as being wrong, and that was just the episode title card reading "Episode 2-", which, I mean, look at your keyboard. It's an easy mistake to make.
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04-18-2019, 01:26 AM | #15357 |
take me to space
Join Date: Sep 2017
Posts: 1,406
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Everyone should stare in awe at King Form, yes. It's debut is one of my favourite episodes in all of Kamen Rider, but actually not even because of the form itself, but rather Kenzaki taking on the King Undead and winning through sheer grit in his base form.
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04-18-2019, 06:10 PM | #15358 |
The Immortal King Tasty
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: Every diner you've ever been to.
Posts: 3,833
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Definitely. What's crazy though is that I remember Kenzaki's part in that episode and the ones leading up to it so fondly I forgot how many other things also happen around the same time. The show introduces the final form for its main hero while in the process of radically redefining the status quo of all the other Riders AND setting up a major new antagonist. I was watching the whole thing just kind of in awe of how much was happening.
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04-20-2019, 01:12 AM | #15359 |
The True Wolf Ranger
Join Date: Feb 2014
Location: Tulsa, Ok...Not Corinth City sadly
Posts: 319
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Currently watching Ryuki and I am kinda confused why they are always listening to a Japanese news report done in English with a western accent. Like it seems so random.
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05-02-2019, 08:11 PM | #15360 |
The Immortal King Tasty
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: Every diner you've ever been to.
Posts: 3,833
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Welp, I just finished Blade for the second time. Hoo boy, how I love this show. My mind is a little blown by how well it holds up. I don't know what I was expecting, but it's just such a tight, engaging story. Basically everything established at the start comes back into play towards the end in a way that's insanely satisfying, which is extra impressive considering they're the work of two different writers. But no, even seemingly throwaway details like the media not reporting on the Riders' battles get explained way down the line. Speaking of the Riders, that solid writing results in each of them having a very clearly defined arc, which is one of those things I pay a lot more conscious attention to nowadays and thus struck me on the rewatch. Kenzaki is obviously just amazing. He's arguably the single most genuinely selfless Rider ever, but the way he's written keeps him grounded enough to still feel believable. Namely because he's kind of dumb. Like a lot of real people, he's not great with words and thus is incapable of giving self-righteous lectures to people. He doesn't even fully grasp his own motivation for fighting until halfway through the show. Instead, his heroism is conveyed mostly through his actions, and all throughout the show he keeps pushing himself further and further to help others against increasingly bad odds. Between that and the show establishing almost right away his unusually high compatibility with the Rider System, the conclusion to the series is essentially spelled out for the viewer before they could possibly grasp the significance. I don't even know if it counts as foreshadowing or not. The narrative just builds on itself, and it does it well. Garren is also awesome. I've never actively considered Tachibana one of my favorites but every time I see an episode (or 49) of Blade, I can't help but question why that is. All of his plotlines hit the mark well, and his character might have the most depth out of anyone in the show. His character is so complex he's actually the in-universe first Rider despite being Blade's sidekick out of it. And also he's just one of BOARD's eggheads who was thrust into the role purely through circumstance in place of the original, intended guy. Needless to say, Tachibana has a lot going on, and while he isn't any sort of super scientist, being an intelligent guy does inform his personality in how much he overthinks stuff compared to the other Riders. He can't take the simple approach to life like Kenzaki, and is way thus way more prone to questioning things, which causes him a ton of anxiety throughout the show. But when he does make up his mind, he's undoubtedly a force to be reckoned with. His last stand of sorts in episode 47 is one of my favorite moments of the whole show. As is pretty much all of 15. Or any other number of awesome Garren moments. There's a lot of them. Chalice is also great, but I struggle to go into depth about him when what makes him so likable is so self-evident. He takes a fairly stock character archetype and makes it work extremely well. The mysteries surrounding him drive a lot of the plot and like with Kenzaki, the show spends a lot of time early on giving you all the pieces to a puzzle you probably won't know you're supposed to be solving for a while. Ideally, anyway. I think the cat's pretty thoroughly out of the bag by this point, but even if you know what's coming, the process of getting there is a whole lot of fun. Leangle was a surprise favorite of mine this time around. There's two major keys to this. First is that his tryhard bad guy dialogue is one of the areas where Excite! Subs shines. You just can't appreciate how adorably hilarious his dialogue is with decade-plus old TV-Nihon subs. I'd go around quoting stuff like "I'll show that damn clone a thing or two...!" if I could come up with enough excuses to. The other, way less ironic thing is that his arc was paced out way better than I remember it being. His character is pretty much constantly evolving right up until the very penultimate episode and none of his phases quite overstay their welcome in my opinion. And I mean, guys, come on, he's the Strongest Rider. How can you hate him? So what if they never added his Category Ace to the shots of the cards that open and close each episode? It not like that means he's weak or anything! Right?! No but seriously, this whole revisit to Blade has been amazing. I could keep going on and talk about stuff like how much I love the varied personalities of all the high-ranking Undead, or how awesome the overlapping way plot threads are introduced and resolved is, but to keep things a lot shorter I'll sum it up by saying I can't wait to watch Blade again in another 8 years. You know, or sooner. Probably sooner.
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Last edited by Fish Sandwich; 05-02-2019 at 08:17 PM.. |
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