I only got three episodes in on Black Sun, so maybe it gets fantastic, but what I watched was another show like Amazons that was distrustful of heroism and obsessed with violence. It's another show that mistakes miserablism for insight, and I just find that so dull. But maybe I'll love it when I've seen the whole thing! I definitely thought it was less compelling as a piece of adult-focused entertainment than Trio Of Deep Sin, though.

Amazons... I thought the first season was solid, the second season was almost incomprehensible, and the movie was one of the worst Kamen Rider things I've ever watched. Literally ruined a Christmas for me.

Ouch, that sounds troubling. I love a show like Build, where the setting gets progressively darker but the hero never succumbs to cynicism and always finds a way to bounce back and protect love and peace, or how in Amazons, Haruka wants to live as a human without eating anyone. I don't like the idea of a show that gets darker without having anything worthwhile to say about it. Violence is cool and all, but I'd rather that be secondary to the story and morals.

It's actually the second movie I've seen that does this kind of thing. And at first I was also upset that there would be no sequel, but I definitely did not remain disappointed.
Regarding the Black Sun, no spoilers, but only with context. "Amazons" is a story where the protagonist tries to do the right thing in a very cruel world. "Black Sun" is a story where the main characters have good intentions, but realize these goals in a wrong and cruel way. Also, it's two shows in one.
In general, I would call "Black Sun", "Amazons", and "First" with "Next" (even though Inoue's films are much less bloodthirsty), more teenage than adults. Intoxication with violence, cynicism, hopelessness - all this is very typical of puberty. And as a result, stories are more primitive than most of their children's counterparts. I wouldn't call them bad though.

Black Sun is I think a series that's interesting to release internationally because it's one that's dealing with very specific things that happened in Japan's history regarding crimes of the government towards minorities. I'd compare it to Shin Godzilla in how it's a very profoundly angry piece of media that comes from a very genuine place of criticism towards the Japanese government for failing to protect the citizens it exists to protect (whether through incompetence or direct malice). It's one of my favourite pieces of Kamen Rider media easily and one that goes above and beyond what I ever expected of the genre and in fact this franchise given where else it's gone in recent years.

It is also very offputting to begin with and I myself didn't come around to it until about episode 7, where I really started to understand what it was saying and the value in how it was saying it


edit: oh, right, thread topic! Trio of Sin is also pretty good! As someone who didn't come away enjoying Saber I did thoroughly enjoy this movie specifically. Just a solid little outing and continues the previous 2 years' trend of v-cins actually being good now! I like how different it is from pretty much any other Toku show I've seen

Yeah, I mean... I liked what Black Sun was trying to say about how governments use racism and nativism to get a blank check from a citizenry that is looking for a scapegoat, but a) I could not find a way in character-wise to what was happening, and b) it kinda has that problem Kamen Rider always has when it wants to talk about racism via kaijin where the kaijin are legitimately a threat to humanity. I can sorta forgive the second (it makes the metaphor messier, but not unworkable), but the first is why it's in my Watch List on Amazon for the last however many months without making any progress. Someday, though! I will finish it someday.

Little late for this, but on the topic of memory, Saber is one of those shows that my memory of the bad just seems less comparable to the good every time I reflect on it. I was looking at my old posts for it, and while I found my past self was picking on points of the series I'd come around on since, or at the least decided weren't so big a deal. Do I remember how weird the Lords of Wise being brought back for the finale were? I mean, yeah, but none of that really matters when you have Primitive Dragon reuniting to save Touma's ending like he saved him, or Mei basically saving the world by making a forum post (Seriously, I know "Mei should be a Kamen Rider" is a common take, but I think that's a far stronger use of her both thematically and for the narrative. There's more to being a hero than blowing stuff up!)

And Trio of Deep Sin, I think, follows up on that year or so of thinking back to Saber and thinking "You know what? Actually not bad." It's a very deliberate movie, one that manages to avoid the Build/01 pitfall of making the series ending feel pointless while still contributing something meaningful to the growth of the characters and how they interact with the world. Do I understand what happened at the end, with new Falchion? God no. But that doesn't really matter, because I get what it's saying.

Also Arabiana Knight looks sick, made Kento a character worth paying attention to 10/10 storytelling merchandise division.

There is a reason for this. Usually it's pretty bad and at first Black Sun looked like more of the same, but I promise it's not the same thoughtlessness that most superhero stories doing this kind of thing fall into

Kento like What Is The Apotheosis Of My Character Arc That Could Finally Generate A Power-Up, and here's a woman he loves who is screaming her aggrieved history at Kento's guilty conscience, but he has to find some way to internalize that guilt and shame enough to save both his friends and the woman who hates him, and he's like Nailed It.

I'm glad to hear it! It definitely felt like it was falling into that trap in the first few episodes.

So basically my takeaway from this is that I should probably get around to finally watching this movie at some point.

Okay, my verdict for Saber.

I liked it overall and probably it helped that I never watched Ghost from start to finish only watching clips of Onari being a goof so the skepticism toward the staff wasn't as strong for me. One thing I think Saber did better compared to Zero-one was that while Zero-one goofed off with the whole Zaia ceo arc Saber just pitted everything against Touma after Kento is taken out putting him in a position where he must rebuild everything as the hero. So there was growth where he powered up and one by one united the fencers of SOL along the way. Also loved how Saint Seiya it felt when Master Logos started going maniacal antagonist. The one subplot with Ren and Desast being the unlikely pupil and master was fun too.

In short the sudden fall of Kento at the end of what I view as the first arc and the second arc starting with Touma being the underdog was a great way for him to grow and rebuild making the story progression fun. And the ending theme is GOAT.