To fully grasp what they did in the early episodes, you might wanna watch the show multiple times. The show does a lot of stuff then and when you watch the first time, as you don't really know what's going on, you miss a lot of stuff. While, for example, there is a little more focus on Tachibana at the beginning, Hajime and Kenzaki do have quite a lot of moments to shine too, it's just that you might not notice them at first, because the show practically tells you to focus on Tachibana more.
I think for Blade it's best if you watch the show multiple times and focus on a different character for each run. The first time watching, I cared most for Tachibana (which also comes from the bonus of having seen the actor in Fourze and Sailor Moon before), the second time I focused more on Kenzaki and the third time, I learned a lot more about Hajime and Mutsuki.
And even now, I still notice new stuff when re-watching the show.

I think the focus on Tachibana in the beginning was the best.
I know the show is called Blade and it would make more sense to focus on the titular character, but by giving us a great story for Tachibana at the start, it makes him feel all the more human. Not just a gun to aid in fight scenes and nothing more.

Tachibana was also the best character to start the plot and character development from. As much as I love Kenzaki, starting the plot with him would have been pretty boring, because we would have had no real conflict here. As for Hajime, it would have made the show way too short if we learned about him that early, so he stays a mystery.
Tachibana was a Kamen Rider for the longest time and a friend to Kenzaki, so he would let Kenzaki take action with whatever he did. He had no direct connection to the Undead which makes it easier to keep their plot form unfolding for quite a while, but he did have some suspicions about Board so he was the most logical choice to set the plot in motion with- Kenzaki would've been way too naive at this point to suspect anyone of anything anyway (not to mention it wouldn't fit the characters to switch roles. Being semi-villain-ish is not something that Kenzaki could pull off).

I liked Tachibana and all, don't get me wrong (and I do think the beginning did well by focusing on him, they pulled some pretty bold stuff there that I liked). My issue was more with the first handful of episodes of the show, which I felt were too fast and overstuffed to handle themselves properly. Too much happened in too little time. That didn't last long, though, so it's fine.

What bothered me about Tachibana is his apparent death in episode 47, in which it was this cool memorable moment for him and everything, it's treated like this important sacrifice and all. He's still gone in episode 48, because, well, he died? Then in the last episode he just pops up like "hey so i'm still alive" and when asked how all we get is some non-answer about Karasuma saving him, despite him not being in any position to help him at the time. And other than Kenzaki asking how, nobody else has any reaction to his return. It's just. Such a weird thing. Did people complain about his death so they just chucked him into the last episode in the last minute? Or what? It just blindsided me and I still really do not get it.

Oh no, don't get me wrong, I thought it was fine, and doing such makes him one of the most memorable characters in that show. I was just trying to say that if there was a criticism I could pull out, it'd be that, as I could see someone saying "It's called Blade, why are we focusing on Garren so much?"

The entire month of July has seen my blog cover the Kamen Rider franchise. But with the end near I kick off a trio of reviews of the movie trilogy. Starting of course with the most controversial Rider ever: Shin.

Shin Kamen Rider: Prologue Review

I think I'm finally gonna watch Shin Kamen Rider just because of your review. :lol

Shin is worth experiencing once. Lord knows, it's not very good, but it does have some interesting ideas.

No, I disagree. Shin really doesn't need to be watched. What does it do that's interesting enough to warrant a viewing? It seems very "By the books" when it comes to gritty reboots/remakes.

Five eps to go in Den-O, but I don't think I can finish cuz it's so damn good. I almost hate myself for marathoning hard with toku, the stories are so incredibly good. It's gonna end too soon... =(