SaGoZou was my second favorite combo. My absolute favorite is ShaUTa.

So episode 21 of OOO was OOOs turn at doing a 'is it possible that the monsters of this season can be good?' episode. Which I guess it already answered since Ankh, albeit PAINFULLY SLOWLY, is showing signs of heroism as he goes.

To be fair I kinda like OOOs take better, as it was kinda awesome and badass to have your own hideous grasshopper Yummy to take down assholes for you. I'd love to unleash one of those amongst a bunch of haters on the internet :lol

The scenes with Happy Birthday are always amazing, they are just so bizarre, with the guys overacting I can never tell what place he is in so I never know what the hell is coming next. It's amazing that in a show about monsters made of medals, an old man, his scientist and his secretary are the weirdest things in the show.

Gotou has really grown on me as well, it took a while to get there but between him, Eiji and Date OOO has got some great characters.

Fourze 26, maybe it's just residual bitterness but this episode is just ew. My time in secondary school were some of the worst years of my life, at that awkward age between child and adult, unable to do the things I wanna do and able to only do the stuff I didn't. Plus I was the short fat goth kid who liked dying his hair and wasn't actually scared of the teachers, so the thugs hated me. So the last thing I wanted from Fourze was a soppy prom episode complete with an extremely tacky and artificial JPop song.

About the only thing I liked in this episode was Shun, who was just such a fucking bro in this episode. They really constructed his emotions well and although the whole conflict with Miu falling in love with Gen, and Shun having to learn to accept that may feel innocuous, even romance isn't really allowed in American adaptations so it was pretty refreshing.

Really my only real complaints with all this is how easily it was all resolved, this would have been the perfect note to have them leave the show and maybe come back towards the end, but literally next scene, 'oh yeah our colleges are nearby so we'll continue as we were just not in uniform'. Well, this arc was completely pointless then. Do I even wanna ask how they get on the school campus?

His return to the Dizer was pretty great, I just wish Ryusei hadn't basically pushed him out of the show. I adore Meteor, I really do, but I'm realising now how little time we've actually spent with the Rider club outside of fights despite giving them each a proper introduction arc. Just as Shun was introduced and earned his place, Meteor turned up and Shun and the Dizer were no longer needed. Meteor basically removes the purpose for all other characters as well, as the Dizer was able to be used by everyone it gave each of the characters a chance to shine and do something awesome but Meteor has taken that from everyone.

That's actually one of the more prominent issues with Fourze. Outside of Gen, Ryuusei, and Kengo, the rest of the KRC are really just...There.
We still get good bits with them all, and some get a few character arcs post introduction (Like JK), but for the most part, outside of the brief occasions of Shun in the Power Dizer, none of them really do much (Miu feels especially useless).

I maintain Shun doesn't need arcs to be awesome. His brief comic moments are enough for me :lol

Miu is just there to accentuate Shun's greatness and be hot :D

It just makes me wonder why they bothered making the main cast so huge if they weren't going to do anything with them. Gen, Kengo, JK and Shun had a purpose but really Ryusei could replace and does replace Kengo to some extent and Shun basically completely.

Other characters like Miu and Yuuki were always useless and Tomoko isn't much better but maybe leave her in since she has a sorta purpose and would keep the team from being a sausagefest.

I'm glad we have Meteor in the show but I can't help but wish he came in the final third of the show, rather than in the first third, so the huge cast gets something to do.

Anyway, what am I watching? Episode 22 of OOO. And it was kinda meh. For a show that has so far managed to avoid painting things down the middle and being completely back and white, this was a really by the numbers resolution to this kind of story. Plus everything I hated about Ankh was magnified in this episode.

Still though, OOO has become really badass lately and all the action was awesome because of it. I guess it helps that all of Ankh's medals are awesome, except maybe the helmet one which if I remember correctly has no special powers at all. TaJaDor ftw!

If you don't mind can you explain this joke to me? I'm not offended but the meaning's lost on me.

You said it Split Lip. Gates suck and when this is all over I will be so glad.

You want me to explain an entire critique of the genre and the joke it has become?

I don't mean to be pedantic, but toku isn't a genre. It's a medium.

I know the whole Toku business is a big debate about what it actually means blahblah but I use it specifically to mean Japanese superhero shows. I may as well make a specific use, since it has no defined one.

The Taka helmet has a special power. It enhances Eiji's vision, like lets him see invisible stuff and whatnot. It only gets used a handful of times, but it's there.

It's actually not a big debate or any vagueness to it. There's a very clear definition.
http://img23.imageshack.us/img23/2930/yn6.png

The problem is that people (Including many here) confuse Toku with "Henshin/Transforming Hero"

As long as it's a live action work that makes heavy use of special effects in some way (Not just CG, mind you), it's Toku.

No one has to scream "HENSHIN!" for it to qualify as Toku, which is why it peeved me when Den-O (The admin, not the show) suddenly declared the Iron Man movies as "Non-Toku" just because they're not Japanese men in spandex.

Toku is a medium that encompasses many genres (Man of Steel is a Superhero flick, while Pacific Rim is a giant robot/kaiju movie, but they're both Tokusatsu).

(And no, I'm not railing or ranting against you, Locke. I'm just trying to make it clear for everyone that Toku is more than just Ultraman, Sentai/PR, Kamen Rider, and Godzilla)

Fair enough, stand me corrected on both counts then!

Minus the awkward Power Rangers like 'they aren't dead they are just sleeping' business episode 27 of Fourze was a lot of fun. Cancer is probably the most competent villain yet, even if I haven't a fucking clue what any of his puns actually mean. And yeah those Supernova forms don't look any better....

Finding out about Gen's parents, and at such a young age for him, really added to the huge pool of respect I already have for him. This stuff was great.

Well if it makes you feel better, IIRC Cancer is the last horoscope to have a 'giant CGI monster' supernova form.

Oh wow, none of the other Horoscopes get it? Seems kinda pointless to be introduced then, but I won't complain.

Just seen OOO 23, I got nothing, it wasn't a bad episode but it was just another filler episode really.

There are more, but his was the last giant CG form.

Anyway, I think O-T altered Cancer's puns to better make sense for an English audience. Not as accurate as TVN's subs as a result, but eh.

Oh thank God, I can't wait to see the other forms then!

I'm still grateful that OT tries to translate everything, I assume TVN just left these puns in Japanese 'swag yolo' and I get the vague jist of the puns most of the time, but most of them are terrible and not funny in the slightest and it all starts to blur together when he fires like six at once with no sense of comedic timing.

His jokes are the equivalent of the Christmas Party where everyone gets a little drunk and starts reading the facts - not the jokes - out of a Christmas cracker and find it hilarious.

By the end of the series the Horoscopes are just regular Monsters of the Fortnight. They become a lot less cool once the writers realized they had about half of them left to introduce and the show was 75% over.

Probably. I know that the TVN Kyoryuger subs just translate Nossan's dialogue straight and put a translator's note at the top of the page. It pretty effectively kills all of the puns. I can't even imagine what their Akibaranger subs look like.

Yeah it seems kinda insane that I'm half way through the series and only five have been introduced so far, with one not even being seen yet, just mentioned. As cool as Libra and Virgo are as well, Cancer has achieved more than them so far and was only just introduced...

I'm just glad OT tries to localise Cancer's puns, I dread to think how much I'd struggle if they did straight translations like TVN.

Wow episode 28 of Fourze was a great episode for both Ryusei and Cancer, it was rushed and largely ruined by being played for gags but Cancer actually killed almost the entire Rider Club, including Fourze himself. Insane! I love the way Libra tricked Virgo into sending Cancer into the Dark Nebula as well. Libra and Virgo may not do a lot but whenever they do do something it is awesome.

Also sadly Meteor's upgrade form was kinda...meh, it was basically a pallet swap with a much less interesting helmet, and a beyblade. It was flashy and everything, sure, but I actually think the base form is much more interesting, along with how it is used. I hope he still uses the base form and his sweet Bruce Lee skills.

Plus it was badly filmed, so awkwardly framed and so many shots were out of focus or tracked weird.

I seriously think Trial was the last good upgrade form a secondary rider ever got. It resembled his original form, but was clearly different and not just minor alterations and new colours. It also clearly achieved something regular Accel could not. (being less bulky and more streamlined) All the other upgrades to secondary riders since have largely been pallette swaps with minor alterations.

Really, I thought Trial was one of the weaker upgrades for a secondary Rider. I always thought that Trial had a bit of a fish-face, which is what killed the design for me. It has grown on me, but I think Accel Booster is far superior.

I know I'm in the minority, but I thought that Meteor Storm was one of the stronger secondary Rider upgrades. There's just something about a staff and the addition of gold to a color scheme that I like. Naturally, Beast Hyper is my favorite secondary Rider upgrade.

But that is all it was, they change the colours and added some more spikes and gave him a beyblade. That isn't an upgrade, that is just a variant. And considering Meteor himself is already so unique it's even worse.

I will never get how "motorcycle helmet" translates to "fishfaced" for people.

Trial was excellent. The tread design up his arms, the sleak armour panels. It felt like a "cast-off" kind of thing. Plus he had the coolest finisher ever. Literally he starts a timer then spends ten seconds kicking the ever loving shit out of an enemy at super-speed.

Booster was just generic to me. It was a yellow Accel with a weird visor and new chest. It is basically the same as what was done with Meteor Storm and Beast Hyper. Colour swap and minor changes. Like Locke said, that's more like a variant, not a new form upgrade.

Baest was another one, although I didn't care much for Beast the shoulder cloaks and dice sword were really unique and then when he upgraded he just got Ultimate Warrior tassels and a gun. That isn't an upgrade.

RARARARRARA YOU CAN FEEL IT DUDE!

That Ultimate Warrior?

Cosmetically speaking, yes, they both do look more like variants. But sometimes, that's just all that you need. Really, I think they did the best they could with Meteor Storm.

Not if they just end up looking like the same form in different colours.

I mean, if you grey-scaled Beast and Meteor next to their upgrades, they become a lot less different and impressive. That's like if Flame Dragon was Wizard's final form. Just a slightly spikier colour swap.

I don't look at Storm or Hyper and think "final form." I think "variant."

That one.

Especially when the base forms are so interesting as well. You should give them more justice than that.

I think that they did a good job with what they had.

They should have swapped them round.

... Did you just suggest that they should have made Beast Hyper Meteor Storm and Meteor Storm Beast Hyper?

... Maybe, so long as they kept the helmets. Beast would get the short end of the stick, though.

No I mean the base forms should have been the upgraded forms as the base forms are both the more interesting costumes and powers.

The ongoing problem with Secondary Riders' upgraded forms is that it's treating "New weapon" as an upgrade.
Honestly, Meteor's Planet fists (I can't remember the name of that weapon to save my life :lol) is more of an upgrade than Meteor Storm. It gives him a unique set of powers and attacks. Meteor Storm gets a stick.

It ain't even a stick, it's just the controller for a beyblade. How can you go from punching people with planets and doing cosmic energy Bruce Lee moves...to a beyblade?

Since Figuarts Ryuki won't come in the mail until tomorrow, I'm going to put off watching teh show unil it does.

In the meantime, I'm gonna watch The Next out of morbid curiosity. Wish me luck.

Bring a lunch bag. It's not going to be pretty (literally).

The horrors of merchandising.

I never watched the Next after being bored with the First, so...Yeah. Good luck.

Ruined a perfectly cool Rider :(

Well... parts of it are okay.

The Rider action scenes are all good. It's just the rest of the movie that sucks.

Not really. He uses both forms throughout the rest of the series.

As long as he keeps using that sweet ass base form.

Episode 24 of OOO was actually pretty great for a filler episode, it was absolutely hilarious and the new form was badass. Plus in comparison to Fourze, the CGI is actually passable in OOO, Fourze's CGI looks like what you got in cutscenes on PS2 launch titles, OOO looks more like the cutscenes you got through the middle of PS2s life cycle. Also Grim Rider Kuuga seems like a distant memory now after watching Fourze and the otherwise fairly light hearted OOO, so it really took me by surprise that Sakura got so badly hurt.

And, just sayin', I'm by no means gay, but I have such a man crush on Date. This is gonna come across as so racist but it isn't intentional, I just find so many men in Rider shows so feminine. Even aside from the pretty boy Riders, take like Gotou for example with his baby face and wiry frame, just all the males seem to have such soft faces and are so skinny no matter the show and there is the rugged muscle bound Date just DAMN SON.

"Isn't love the same as being retarded?"