Kuuga was very mediocre to me after I watched it. I appreciate what it did for Heisei Rider and the Rider overall, but the show is just uninteresting in a lot of spots.

Haven't seen Agito yet. Someone from Tv-nihon is going over the blu-rays right now, so I'm gonna wait until the entire series comes out in HD.

Kuuga for me was a show that I found more interesting in retrospect than when I was actually watching it. Gotta admire the art house director they had though! I love the concept of a killing game though, but then again I'm a sucker for mystery stuff.

If you like mystery, you'll like Agito. It definitely drags at points but, overall, it's pretty good. There's a big production upgrade near the latter part of the show which was pretty surprising; like, all of a sudden they got an infusion of cash to do everything better. It's the opposite of what you usually get - kind of (it still goes cheap in the final stretch). I also love the cooking sub-sub-plot, you'd think they'd go light with the kitchen culture stuff but - hell no - it's the most realistic portrayal I've seen in a TV, all that was missing was a drunk guy coming in late.

I didn't like the mystery element as much in Agito since it was basically all one drawn out case. Instead of trying to figure out the pattern of each individual case it's more focused on the ongoing debate about if people getting killed are espers and whatnot, which just wasn't as interesting to me. The cooking sub-plot was pretty cool though, I forgot about that. It would have been cool to see more of it.

Wait - Kuuga has a Mystery of the Week structure?

Pretty much, since the general concept with the Gurongi is there is a pattern to each killing game. It's a really cool concept, although its not always approached in a mystery way, I loved it when it was.

That's crazy cool.

And this is why you watch the show without Grongi subtitles - it leaves you trying to figure out what's going on at the same time as the characters.

It does one better and has a Mystery of the Fortnight structure. Despite being such a unique show, it's sort of the predecessor to the Neo-Heisei formula in a way. Although instead of a mandatory mid-episode fight scene you get more *people talking*.

Also that's how they want you to watch it. It's not an error that there are long scenes of monsters talking gibberish to each other that you can only get the gist of through body language and helpful props, it's like, a critical part of the experience. Very deliberate stuff. Please tell me people don't actually watch Kuuga the first time through that way? That just sounds horrible.

X episode 9.

This is literally the most amazing thing I've ever seen. Holy shit. No words.