Black is kind of in a class of it's own. It's predicts the Heisei style while still being resolutely Showa; it's serious business but occasionally goofy with the MotW plots. It came well later than the rest of the 80's Rider shows and shows a bit of Metal Hero in the designs and, IMO at least, has a bit of a Blade Runner / Terminator feel to the art direction - I'm talking Tokyo's neon night scenes. And the music is great - that end theme is soooo good!

Best soundtrack of any Rider series, hands down.

That's some pretty high praise, given how excellent Rider's music is to begin with.

Man I wish I could get into the mood to watch Black. I feel like it's iconic in a way no other series outside of the original is. Always loved that name too. Black. Black. So straightforward. It's literally just a color, and yet it sounds so punchy and cool.

Although I get the feeling I'll be the weirdo who likes RX better. I like the suit way more and the theme song is THE best of the Showa openings (and maybe even in general), in my opinion, two seemingly minor things that do a lot to improve my opinion of any Rider show.

Oh, I dunno; I'm pretty partial to Ichigou's "Suspense Fuzz"
and Ryuki's weird, industrial pop. But Black is definitely up there!

Black is definitely a strong show, it's just that it gets too caught up in being a fillerish series for its first half and it takes forever for Shadow Moon to appaear. Not to mention it features two of the most uselss villains in Kamen Rider history.

Nevertheless, it is my second favorite Rider series and yes, the camera work is absolutely stunning, as is the soundtrack. There is one song that is played a few times during the second half that is spectacular and then of course I love the Gorgom theme music.

Black's soundtrack is the GOAT.


The show itself is great for what it is, but I prefer more serialized plots as opposed to VotW.

Spotted in episode 2 of Black: prototype Ex-Aid suit.

Anyway, I'm glad they sort of explained where Battle Hopper came from. I forgot to mention it, but the way it was just randomly there was perhaps the one issue I had with episode 1. So...that's better.

Another strong ep, anyway.

Geez, it's been a minute since I posted in this thread! But here I am, back with my thoughts on Kamen Rider Ghost!

I've been cramming Ghost so I have a clean slate for Ex-Aid (I can't handle two Rider series at once these days). I'm still about 8 episodes from the end, but I think I have a pretty solid handle on my feelings by now.

I was really enjoying the show for about 35 episodes. I loved its soft, almost feminine, fairy tale vibe. I appreciated how Ghost's powers were emotion-based, which reminds me of a lot of my favorite magical girl anime. I loved Alain's journey from villain to hero -- it was poignantly executed and quite lovely to watch. I also dug Akari's growth as a character. I thought she was gonna be a one-note skeptic for the whole series, but she quickly accepted all the supernatural stuff and is perhaps the most competent and reliable character in the whole cast. She's definitely unusual as far as Rider's "girl sidekick" characters go -- they're almost always passive love interests, and Akari is anything but that. (In a lot of ways, she reminds me of Hermione from Harry Potter (actually, I think the show takes a lot of cues from Harry Potter, but that's a digression for another time).)

For the longest time, I was impressed that the Kamen Rider producers had finally discovered how to balance Gaim-style serialization and Neo Heisei-style two-parters. I think that allowed the show to parcel out its plot and character development in fresh and interesting ways. But over the last five-to-six episodes I've watched, that balance has been lost, and my interest has almost completely evaporated. I went from singing the show's praises to being bored out of my gourd, largely due to a string of sub-Wizard-quality two-parters that have moved the story and characters forward at a snail's pace.

Not helping matters, those filler episodes came at a point where the writers completely betrayed their portrayal of the show's villains. Once Alain did his face-turn, my interest in the Ganma waned. But with the introduction of the Ganmaisers, it's possible the show has lost me for good. The Ganma went from being morally ambiguous bad guys with arguably altruistic intentions to being one-dimensional world dominators in the span of like, 3 episodes. A criticism I've often heard is that Takeru is very one-dimensional. I agree, but I was fine with that kind of hero as long as the villains were multifaceted and morally complex. Now that they've become your run-of-the-mill, "I must control the greatest power in the universe"-style baddies, having such a milquetoast hero is unacceptable.

I know there are still a handful of episodes left, and the final eight tend to be the best of any Rider series. I have hope, but if things don't get more interesting immediately, Ghost will become the Ninninger of Kamen Rider (i.e., a show that I loved for the bulk of its run but turned on when the last 10-15 episodes failed to pay anything off in emotionally resonant or interesting ways).

All that said, I still don't get the vitriol with which much of fandom has responded to Ghost. Even with all the above flaws taken into account, I don't think it's a bad show. I'd love to hear why you guys dislike it so much (without spoiling the last handful of episodes, obviously).

Onari being annoying with no consequences, Takeru being bland, Makoto not really having a personality since Kanon got resurrected, Kanon almost exclusively being 'oniichan' the character, the 'victim of the week' formula being done instead of more focus on plot in the middle, the lack of explanation on certain things like Newton's Eyecon and wasted potential are what I saw get criticized the most

I kind of agree with all of that! :lol

Maybe it's because I've watched the episodes at my own pace, and not week-to-week, but those problems weren't that big of a deal for me. Certainly not enough to justify the "WERST RYDER EVAH!!1!" claims.