Accel and Akio improve when they start building a relationship.

That's good to hear. I'm looking forward to it!

He's basically like Zeronos where it takes a while to warm up to him.

Just checked out the first episode of Hibiki - wow, that is surprisingly arty for a tokusatsu! Great editing, really risky sound design, beautiful, atmospheric, cinematography - you wanna talk about thinking outside the box, Hibiki just about throws the box away! Will definitely take some getting used to as it is SO unlike all other Rider shows but it's definitely going to be watched sooner than later. That fight in the trees was amazing.

Be warned. Hibiki loses that later because Toei didn't like how Hibiki went over budget

Hibiki is so great. I got sucked into it so much that I couldn't bring myself to finish it after the change.

Yeah, I read elsewhere that it changes pretty radically mid-20's. I'm honestly not surprised, the show doesn't look cheap OR all that kid friendly (not in terms of violence but the tone is just... unique), certainly Toei were like "this isn't art - it's Kamen Rider, dammit - let's sell some toys!".

I was actually surprised by how much it was still the same but it really does lose a lot of the flavor. The upside is that the last episode before the switch in writers (among other things), 29, is a great done-in-one episode all about Asumu. It really felt like the show's way of saying farewell before everything goes to crap.

I actually held out for about 6 or 7 episodes afterwards before in the middle of the one I was watching the thought just sort of hit me that "wow, this show is kind of terrible now". Considering how positive I am about Kamen Rider, that's kind of a big deal. I think there are redeeming qualities to the retool but it has the fatal flaw of not being Hibiki.

Armed Hibiki is a really great final form because of how symbolic it is on a meta level. They took the drummer and gave him a sword simply because the other guys had swords. Nevermind how little sense it makes.

Honestly I'm mostly angry giving him that sword meant he stopped using his drumsticks as Lightsabers. That was Hibiki's coolest trick. :lol

Yep, and toy sales were really bad with Hibiki. It sucks that it didn't end the way it was meant to, but at least we got the good 29 episodes.

Yeah, it's definitely the "smart kids" Kamen Rider. To paraphrase an old Mr. Show quip: "We had some fun, we had some laughs and, sometimes, we even made people think... and that's when the ratings tanked".