I agree on that point about Decade. I'll try to be more constructive about stuff that I do bring up though.

I'm scared to touch Decade. It sounds like everything wrong with a Rider show compiled into one nice little shit package. You know the reason why Decade is 30 episodes? It's because TOEI and Bandai did not want the new Rider and Sentai toy lines to debut at the same time and devour each other's sales. Its one of the things that got in the way from Decade potentially saving itself from the train wreck it became.

It makes me pretty sad, because minus Faiz's world which was easily the shows low point the first nine episodes of Decade all had lots of really interesting ideas. The problem is pretty much every entrance to a Rider world raises a bunch of interesting dynamics which are all dropped or fizzle out by the second episode that already had to wrap everything up. For a franchise that is so used to drawing everything out for all it's worth, it's so odd to watch a show which always has beginnings, always has ends but never has any real middle.

If they inverted Decade's length, where it was half a year longer then a normal Rider series then shorter, would it have made it better?

From what I've watched so far, I'd have said yes.

If Kiva's world had more time to establish the "utopia" and the uneasy tension that feels set to burst, the utter carnage that ensues could have actually had impact. That first episode of Kiva's world chucked around enough ideas for a whole series in itself. A world where monsters live side by side with humans, and the one thing standing between them blowing up into an all out war of races is a king who is one whole, made up of the two halves. What we got was interesting, but nonetheless still a rushed mess of barely coherent stuff.

If Blade's world had more time to establish BOARD as a legitimate company, and the ethics behind their survival battle card system that ruled their offices, and just in general spent more time realising a world where being a Rider is just a way to put meals on the table, the eventual collapse of the system and the subsequent betrayals would have actually held some kind of narrative importance and resonance.

The only reason I don't think this arc could really sustain itself for any prolonged periods is simply because it's build around the idea of 'what if being a Rider was just a mundane, everyday thing you can just put on your CV' and taking out the air of the fantastical and fun will only ultimately lead to boredom.

And I'd love more time in Ryuki's world just because it was great.

Decade 12. God this show loves Kiva.

I liked that Decade didn't care about Kuuga's sacred integrity or whatever and just went ahead and made Agito the sequel it was intended to be. It created an interesting and cleverly simple dynamic for the Agito world, with a world with no proper Rider, smack bang in the middle of a war with the Grongi, not relying on Kuuga but their own power - even G3-X is man made - and right smack bang in the middle of all of that a new threat appears who is even more deadly than the Grongi.

It's funny that Faiz is the only real arc in the whole show, that actually downplayed the story and made it all seem small and silly. I guess the producers hated Faiz as much as the fandom.

It was also nice for the show to remember Yusuke was a Rider once, even if he still doesn't actually transform and apparently despite being Kuuga he can't handle the G3-X body armour(?)

Wasnt G3-X always man made or did I suddenly miss something?

He might have been, I watched like one episode of Agito, I was speaking entirely within the context of the story in Decade.

Now I understand what you meant.

In the original show the G3 System was purely man made so I got kinda confused with your statement there for a second.

I remember the G3 armour being the best part of what I saw in Agito until in the closing few seconds he got his ass kicked after a whole episode of build up, to be immediately out shined by Agito who comes out of nowhere.

Thats pretty much the whole G3 stick until G3-X comes along. G3 was designed to fight the Grongi and not the Unknown/Agito so he pretty much gets his ass kicked most of the time.