Fourze's plot does come to an almost dead halt for much of the later two-thirds. The "Ryusei is secretly Meteor" plot gets dragged out way longer than it should have been and the villains' lack of obvious motivation keeps the weekly threats pretty much at the "random kid is given a Switch, wackiness ensues" level. By the time the show realizes this there's less than ten episodes to go and shit starts getting really rushed.

So it is all down hill from here then?

To be fair Fourze isn't really that plot heavy anyway, it just has great characters portrayed by great actors who have great chemistry and their interactions make the quiet moments between the fighting feel worthwhile. Although I personally would have had less people in the club, as a lot of them felt like spare parts when Meteor showed up.

My only real problem now is, as the villains come more and more into the limelight, other aspects of the series are pushed out of it. And so where once this show was centred around the Switches and the motivations behind those who press them, they have less time to explore this now leaving the MOW to feel more tacked on and forced.

I can't tell whether the Meteor stuff is supposed to be a Clark Kent glasses parody or what but I'm struggling to believe a little more each episode that everyone in the club are that dense that they can't draw the connection. Half of their life in the club is solving mysteries for Christ's sake.

I guess I'd be annoyed that I have no idea what the villains are actually doing in this show but that seems to be a common thing in Kamen Rider I am discovering. The ULs spoke in an untranslated language and the Greed largely sit around while the show tries to explain such garbled and confusing mythology, the whole thing crumbles down as soon as you think on it.

The Greed have a clear motivation, though: get all their medals and become whole again. There's not much more to it, but there doesn't really need to be because they're creatures of pure greed. And in Kuuga you could still piece together that the Grongi had some kind of system and rules behind what they were doing - and if you watch the show with the Grongi subbed (assuming MCS ever gets around to finishing their v2s) then they very clearly explain what's going on.

All you get in Fourze until the last four episodes is "We need to get all twelve Horoscopes together! Because we do!" No other Rider series has such poorly motivated villains.

But the Greed need to get their medals together...because they do. There isn't much more to that either, sure there may not need to be, but that still doesn't mean they are interesting.

And without the Grongi translated what I got from the villains in Kuuga is killing people is a game to them. That is it. So they were just fucking around the whole series for shits and gigs.

And in Wizard it is just, we gotta make more Phantoms...because of the Sabbat...we wont explain what that is but...Philosophers Stone! Also new Phantoms turn up every week so we seem to be making them just fine but don't think on that too much...

I'm not defending Fourze but I've yet to meet any truly great villains in Kamen Rider yet.

That works for me in the Greed's case. They're supposed to be personified greediness so I don't need more motivation than wanting stuff.

I think the best villains in the Heisei era are the Lords from Agito and the Undead from Blade. The Lords' motivation isn't spelled out until late in the game, but they make that mystery a central part of the show and we get a clear sense of what they're specifically after. The Undead's mission statement is explained pretty early on and it works well with the fact that some are intelligent but savage and others are just mindless beasts.

I guess that is another reason, to add to the long list of them, to watch Blade! At this rate I probably wont be able to hold off until better video quality I'll be too desperate to watch the show.

So OOO 17. Dirty becomes Kamen Rider Bath mhmm?

Either way it was another episode that did more world building and you know I am a sucker for that. That said I thought it was kinda dumb that the Yummy conveniently splits into two when we have a second Rider, woulda been a real kicker if this happened earlier...

Then again Date is really fucking badarse. So who cares?

Toldja. :p

I am shutting up about OOO now, you have redeemed yourself! Haha.

Fourze on the other hand delivers another fairly meh episode. Pegasus' evolution into Cancer was terribly plotted, as for episodes upon episodes now we've had much better realised villains and much better written plots to have them evolve into a Horoscope.

That said it's hard to hate the show that has Meteor, who between his disco henshin and one inch power punches may well be my favourite Rider.

OOO 18 - You can deffo see Date's impact in the show, not only is he a great character but the way the characters play off of him is great as well. Birth's powers are cool as well. Great fun.

Meteor really is one of Fourze's saving graces. The dude is just awesome.

Date was actually so awesome his presence rewrote the show. He was originally planned to be around for only a few episodes, then die and pass off Birth to Gotou (and possibly come back as a zombie or something). The character and actor were both just so likable, though, that they kept him around. :lol

Honestly, I actually liked Cancer (Helps that my personal horoscope is Cancer :lol), but a nice design and a semi-interesting character attached to him, and that he shakes up the status quo among villains. Rather fun.

Date is awesome. I guess Birth is to you with OOO as Beast was to me with Wizard.

I like Cancer's design but care nothing for him as a character.

But yeah, I guess Birth is my Beast, which I guess is pretty funny with the five letter names starting with B and the fact that OOO and Wizard are two very similar shows.

I really have loved Fourze so far but it really seemed to start going through the motions around the 18th episode, it's like they knew they made a fantastic second Rider and assumed they didn't have to do anything else.

I'm glad Date is staying around, I want Gotou to become a Rider though!

So… OOO Birth-ed Beast for Locke?

Oh God that was a terrifying image.

Please, stop now. No-one needs to think about that?

...

I'll be right back.

Haha oh God.

What monstrosity hath I unleashed upon this Internet?

http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c5...ps046b237f.png

Now before you say anything, it could have been worse.

Well, that answers my question. Now for a new one: Where's Locke in this picture?

He's in the waiting room.

Dude OOO just went through labor just give him a sec.

Okay. I think you made the image worse with that last sentence.

Wait wait...so I made love to Os...to birth Beast and Birth was our midwife?

That is beautiful :')

This thread suddenly got a lot more awesome :lol

I know, right?

Split Lip's artwork is always great.

I was terrified of what could have been drawn :lol

Yeah, it could be the delivery of Kamen Rider Shin's baby. You know, Kamen Rider Fetus. Instead of OOO, it'd be the long dead mother.


...oh how I wish I was making that up...

So Fourze was 23 was basically a filler episode but we did get some more insight into Meteor, some more insight into the shows themes and Cygnus is pretty awesome so it was still a fun watch even if it was mostly pointless.

.... :eyebrow

Not as bad as I thought it would be

The Cygnus arc was pretty cool. I was filler, yeah, but it was just an interesting change from "Monster of the week terrorizes character of the week."

The coolest aspect for me was the theme of justice. It's such a subtext that it is almost a subsubsubsubsubsubtext but when Meteor questioned Gen's justice and now we're exploring the concept of a heroic Zodiart, who isn't truly a hero (by the shows standards). I just dig it.

So I'm on episode 19 of OOO and I'm finding that OOO and Fourze have a lot more in common now, namely that they're entirely carried by the secondary Rider. I liked Eiji well enough but he wasn't really enough to keep watching with how slow and generic OOO was in general but whenever Date shows up and henshins into Birth I'm hooked, it's just a shame he isn't really in it much yet.

About the only thing OOO has on Fourze is the CGI in OOO actually looks like money was spent on it. It's funny as well because in the same episode that impressed me with the CGI, was a suit from the monster of the week which looked absolutely terrible.

Let's just hope Cazali's complete form is awesome.

Episdoe 20 was a great episode, everything about it was just badass. Date, the assistant and TaJaDor is a gorgeous looking form.

You really take it for granted in Power Rangers/Super Sentai but I appreciate every Kamen Rider scene, no matter how brief, which showcases their skills out of suit. That said, that recoil scene drew a lot of attention to the prop and really made you notice how much it looks like a kids toy, especially with the way the actors don't even seem to try and pretend it weighs anything.

TaJaDor is one of my favourite Rider suits. The SIC is incredible. (or the first version at least)

I think on a purely aesthetic level RaToraTah is my favourite Combo suit so far.

Really? Not disagreeing, just surprised since usually people say it's their least favourite due to the different shades of yellow and the colour layout.

I dig it, looks like Eiji has gathered all the Chaos Emeralds.

Also, watchingwise.

So Fourze 24 really was a return to form.

I guess I should be more annoyed/confused that it has never happened before but I'll gladly take an episode which explores what effect the Switch actually has on the body, and with Cygnus it had a very interesting effect indeed. They really did mix up a lot in this episode, which made it worthwhile even if it didn't really progress the story on any level. But then, I guess Fourze never really was about any wider narrative in the first place.

Also Cancer, although not a great character, has an awesome suit and is fun to watch fight, even if his escape this episode was extremely forced. I think I need to get me some Horoscope Figuarts to go with my Meteor.

Although I have to ask, why can no one seemingly see the giant beam of energy coming down from space or hear the music when Ryusei henshins?

Fourze 25 was great, I've often wondered how the Kamen Rider club hopes to continue long term, I guess Kengo would need to somehow build some new doorway switch, and this episode explores that - not the Switch, the future.

That said, considering Miu had basically no purpose in the show and Shun was quickly replaced by Meteor I find it hard to care about either of them leaving. I guess at least the Dizer makes an appearance again, even if it isn't Shun driving and even if the CGI is drastically shitter in this show than it is in OOO.

It also gives some more consequence to Switchers from earlier in the series, it may not feel as living and breathing as Kuuga's world but episodes like this are appreciated. Plus it really shows how much Gen has grown as a fighter, he's a real badass.

I know that pretty much no one agrees with me, but my favorite OOO suit is TaToBa, the base form. I just love the overall design and how all three main colors work with each other and the underlying black. It's actually one of my all-time favorite Rider costumes.

Then you probably won't care that they totally don't leave.

Yeah as far as base forms go, it's probably one of the best I've seen, as it both looks great and has lots of functionality even after he's gotten much more powerful Medals.

Oh so what are Shun and Miu just gonna refuse to graduate? I guess I'll find out...

TaToBa is my second favourite OOO suit. It really is nice, but unlike TaJaDor I kind of had to get used to the seperate stacked colours look.

The worst combo form so far for me is SaGoZou. The bulky arms thing looks really stupid, the colouring is really bland and it isn't even like it's badass in the same way Gatakiriba is to make up for that stupid helmet.