So I've began to Final Directors Cut episode of OOO. And w-wait...was that...a satisfying conclusion to a Kamen Rider series?!

The show fucking did it, the show made me care about Ankh. Not only did Ankh have character development, but it finally made sense of why Ankh meant so much to Eiji, it was never about some kind of bromance, it was about what Ankh gave Eiji the power to do.

Plus his complete form is cool and seeing him fight side by side with Eiji was pretty satisfying after he had to grapple with his own fragility throughout the series. And although the homosexual overtones are slightly distracting, them becoming one was extremely satisfying as well.

Uva had a great episode as well, his complete form was subtle, but not as bland as Mezul's or just down right shit like Cazali's, plus at least he did some damage unlike Mezul or Gamel. And although the fight was brief, his clash with the Super Cell Eiji was fucking awesome. I also liked that although he knew he would go out of control on Core medals, he was never satisfied, constantly shouting he could take more even when he knew he couldn't. Gluttony would have been a better name for these things.

I was also really impressed by the climactic action sequence, Fourze and Kuuga felt like they ended more on an anti-climax than any kind of climax, so the fact that not only was this a climax in the first place, it was as big and epic as any movie climax and that is awesome.

Overall OOO wasn't bad but my main criticism with OOO is that none of it really seemed to have been...thought out.

The mythology in the first fifteen or so episodes is so garbled and eventually contradicted to such an extent that you may as well skip those episodes entirely, and if you think 'wait, what about the Combos introduced there?' well don't worry about that, the combos are crucial to the show for the first half granted but as soon as MMPR Eiji happens they're basically reduced to useless cameos, some forms are barely used and the ones that are used the most still only get about three proper fights. Hell some of the individual medals are barely used let alone the combos. And people complain about all of Kuuga's forms!

Then of course are the Greed themselves, you would assume that a larger number of enemies will mean you can bring them into the fray earlier and still have something left for the finale but NOPE, they all do nothing for about forty five episodes and then spend five episodes dying. I think they may well be some of the worst Toku villains ever.

However, it's also...kinda hard to hate this series. Whereas Ichijou kept me going through Kuuga and made it bearable, having so many awesome characters in this - pretty much everyone was enjoyable in this minus the Greed - with some brilliant character focus and pacing, being a huge fan of great characters and the fact that they were so near flawlessly realised was a huge plus for me, especially as most Kamen Rider I have experienced so far has had much bigger casts than they can handle, reducing a majority of the characters as so flat and uninteresting there isn't even enough to them to even dislike them, so the fact this show handles characters so fucking well is especially impressive. I just wish they hadn't bothered with the Full Medal Alchemist bollocks and just made it a character drama, it would have suited the writers so much better.

Plus, Kuuga really taught me to not take Toku action for granted, and so it was pleasant just how good our main Riders were and how well made the action sequences were.

So overall, yeah if you're a big character fan, who actually wants a Rider series with a satisfying ending then this is pretty much the perfect show for you.

Is that Shogun movie any good?

Wow. The last thing I'd ever expect to hear from you was that you cared about Ankh :lol
That's one hell of a surprise.

Anyway, I certainly enjoyed OOO's climax, but I was really quite curious, since, after Uva turned into the spaceship thing, it became primarily CG.

And OOO Wonderful (The movie you're talking about) is alright. Fairly decent. Introduces a new combo for OOO and has a pretty cool climax (There's one scene that makes no sense, but other than that, it's a decent movie for KR standards).

It's been my understanding that OOO was pretty heavily modified from the original storyline that it was going to have. For a long time there were persistent rumors that Date was going to die and be resurrected as a "homonculus" and that an evil black Greed named... something, I don't really remember - would be appearing to become the main villain. A lot of these ideas are referenced in the OOO portion of Movie War Core but never make it onto the series itself. I've always assumed that Date's popularity both on the show and behind the scenes led to some of these changes - it certainly kept the hand over of Birth to Gotou from happening when it was originally supposed to.

It's okay. It's not particularly terrible, but it isn't fairly memorable either.

I'm as surprised as you are, I'd complain that it took the last two episodes for his character to do anything but it clicked into place so beautifully I wasn't complaining at all. In the end I was glad he died, not because I wanted the nuisance gone, but it truly felt like his character had become complete. That doesn't happen a lot.

I thought the CGI for Uva's spaceship form and the general destruction and chaos honestly wasn't that bad, where the CGI fell down in OOO was when it tried to integrate it into none CGI footage like when MMPR flew around or right before Ankh stretched out his wings or whatever that shit looked fucking terrible.

I'll check that film out then!

That would explain a lot, as there is a huge disconnect between the first and second halves of the series. In tone, in focus, in mythology, that is why I feel that the first fifteen or so episodes could be completely thrown out near enough with no issues. I guess I preferred their new plan to their original one.

Also now you can watch Megamax, which mixes post-series OOO and just-before Meteor Fourze into action packed don't stand in front of OOO unless you want to be obliterated.

OOO Wonderful may not be super wonderful, but there's cool bits like a pretty nifty new combo and a sweet final battle that I don't want to spoil.

I've got that and the Shogun film downloaded! I plan to give them a review properly on my blog like I did the Fourze film, then I'll do a summary of the review in this thread.

So Black 03.

The only real criticism I have right now is there isn't enough character focus, the plot is a lot more coherent than anything in OOO or Blade but apparently Black is battling with his loss of humanity or whatever the narrator says but we barely see him out of the suit.

Luckily the in suit stuff is great, the action scenes are fantastic, Black actually saves people, he doesn't just kill the monster - although I am still of the age that can develop photosensitive epilepsy so every time he morphs or uses his kick or punch I shit my pants and I love the little horror touches.

Don't worry, Black gets a lot of out of suit badassery.

Dude's a commando.

So Blade 07, wow so this show is really built around the Rider and the Body? This is like the Rider show I've been searching for. It's also pretty cool to have a main rider fuelled by Rage and Hatred, I know they are 'evil' traits but it makes a nice change. I mean Eiji had the most depth so far really but even he had a tendency to smile his way goofily through things, rather than truly losing his shit, until right at the end.

You know it's weird but I think I appreciate these shows slightly more now I'm an adult, weird enough. Tachibana's limitations brought on simply by fear and worries would seem pathetic as a child - at least his form of fear and worry but as I am now a graduate with an unclear future, old enough to start having actual fears around the body and all the rest I really appreciated this aspect of his character.

The Undead this week had a really cool design as well

Also is that a young Doctor Maki? http://i.imgur.com/R7ZwVAk.jpg

Blade 36

Haha, Mutsuki gets his ass kicked. And because of losing the Chalice card to Joker...it appears to have returned Hajime back to his normal self. Yeesh...all that talk previously about Leangle being the Ultimate Rider? AAaaaaaahahahahaha! He seems to barely be able to fight without resorting to summoning an Undead to do his work for him. And the Tiger Undead's Undead form looks pretty cool.

Kenzaki reaffirming what it means to him to be a hero is nice and all, but I wasn't all that invested in early his plot this episode. King form is still awesome though. They ended that plot surprisingly early, though. So King form...is the cause of Hajime's Joker form emerging. Huh.

Must watch Megamax... Need more OOO

It also introduces that new movie-exclusive rider that is really dumb and did not help my opinion of Fourze at all.

Speaking of (OOO not Fourze) if you liked OOO characters Locke, you should give Den-O another chance one day. It has some of the most fun characters in kamen rider. Hell, the characters still show up practically to this day. (Den-O had a crossover with OOO AND they cameo'd in Super Hero Taisen that came out during Fourze)

let's not forget that this happened in Super Hero Taisen:
http://images.wikia.com/kamenrider/i...eki_Yellow.jpg

I guess I will as after Blade and Black are done I'm pretty sure I've then tested the water with every Rider series worth trying, so I may as well go back to that one.

Urataros: Stone Cold Pimp. :)

You've tried Hibiki and Agito?

I was advised against Agito and considering people advise to skip Hibiki's second half and that the video quality is apparently really bad, I don't see the point in starting Hibiki.

So I've finished the OOO and Fourze sections, and am just about to start the crossover part of Mega Max. And here are my thoughts so far.

OOO was enjoyable from a character point, as ever, but rather than answering the open questions at the end of the series, it just seemed to replace them with new ones. The action felt oddly restrained, especially for a movie and it is some kind of achievement for a single, interesting Rider to be split into two completely uninteresting ones.

The Fourze portion on the other hand was complete garbage, I hated this shit from start to finish. It portrayed the entire Rider club as shallow, flat out retarded and completely fucking useless, did the people who wrote this bit even see Fourze? Gen especially is so opposite from his character in the first half of the show it's actually disgusting and downright insulting at times.

People complain about Twilight but Gen fell in love with a girl, ENTIRELY for her appearance, and as we find out that appearance wasn't even hers...it wasn't even a her or a he, just an it, a piece of goo. And then it had the gall to try and tell us 'it doesn't matter whether you're a man...a woman...or a piece of goo'...of course it fucking does! My budgie repeats everything I say but I don't imagine it in a school uniform and want to marry it.

Plus the amount all of this contradicts for the second half of the season really shows how poorly thought out Fourze was. Given what Gen has gone through here, which is allegedly canon, you would have thought it would have come up in a pretty big way considering the revelation for what Kengo really was but...nope. And learning the identity of Virgo and his true motivations in the second half as well, what the fuck was his reasoning behind his actions in this film, it really doesn't make sense.

The Fourze portion really has left me furious.

*Nods*
Yep. Someone else who noticed that. I remember when the movie was first subbed, people tried to justify it against me as "It's something Gen would do" but I never agreed.

And if that isn't enough, it was just a pile of goo using an existing girls face, so it's both fucked up and makes Gen look like a horrible person.

It's not helped that she spends the first half of the Fourze portion mute, too. Makes Gen seem extremely shallow as a result.

And that all his friends go 'Gen you're being shallow and stupid' then almost literally five minutes of screen time later 'I will die for you so you can cry over your "girlfriend"'.

I actually like the Twilight franchise, and I recognise all its flaws, so I never expected to see a romance both paced and realised in a way worse than Twilight but fuck me this film did it.

What an absolute pile of trash.

I always took it to be a true love/love at first sight type of thing. Maybe he could see through what the outside looked like? I didn't really think it was terribly detrimental to the story either. I don't really care how he fell in love, it was just the means to an end for that film. Love can take any form or at least that's what I've always believed. Man, woman, goo, or sasquatch even.

Trash is a pretty strong word for arguably the best Rider team-up film ever.

I really don't understand how you can defend the story of a man falling in love with a pile of goo with a stolen face entirely on that stolen appearance.

And I mean the Fourze section was trash, not finished the cross over bit yet, but the Fourze section was such garbage and so insulting to the series that I needed to vent my frustration with it.

The problem is that it was (Until the end) a pile of non-sentient goo that looked pretty.
I know love at first sight is a thing. But she could literally do nothing but stand and look around until the last 10 minutes of the Fourze portion. It makes the attraction extremely shallow, since it's made clear that, until the end, the SOLU was never sentient, so everything Gentaro felt for her was on a strictly physical basis.

Even when she gained 'self awareness' or whatever the proper grammar is, sentiency? Lol. Any way yeah, when she gained that, she was still completely bland and uninteresting anyway. It isn't like she suddenly developed a kick ass personality or whatever, she just said Gen's name, hugged him and then died.

I agree. Gen is a character that has unbelievable ideals like befriending everyone, so I don't see how believing in love at first sight is a far stretch for his character.

It's a stretch for a hero, Gen was a role model, built entirely out of idealistic qualities. Then he sees a girl fall out of the sky, gets a boner and calls it love. It isn't out of character for Gen in how usual unbelievable nature but I do believe it contradicts his morals and idealism.

Gen wants to save the world through friendship, not just befriend every person he ever meets... well until the second half of the show but this is supposed to take place in the first half.

But maybe it was love to him? He still loved Nadeshiko even though she was space goo. How is that harder to swallow then him crying for 10 minutes about not being able to befriend a spaceship?

Because he wasn't trying to get into the spaceship's pants in the process.

I never said the stuff involving the spaceship wasn't dumb (because it was), Gen's perpetual blubbering in that film grated quickly, but befriending a sentient spaceship to me feels more 'morally right' for a hero than assuming you can base love entirely on appearance, and no less not even the goos appearance but an appearance the goo stole.

I don't care either way about the Nadeshiko love thing. All I care about is that even though she was flat as a character in the short time she was on screen she kicked a ton of ass.

Gen does do stupider things later like beat up his childhood friend even though she wasn't fighting back and tossing his Driver into magma because Gates fucking suck for the most part. A true friend he may be, but there are pillows sharper than this boy.

First of all, whoever you're listening to on Agito is dead wrong. It's one of the best Rider shows ever. Second, you're watching Blade. Hibiki's video quality isn't great, but it's better than Blade's. And if you're still big on seeing real people react to the crazy monster shit, Hibiki is right up your alley.

Everything this man's saying is dead on.

Yah but everyone bums Kuuga and that has been the worst Rider show I've finished yet. And from what Split Lip says Agito suffers from all of Kuuga's problems which I don't want to experience again.

I'll get the first episode of Hibiki downloading though!

Split Lip is the only person I've ever heard hate on Agito.

And good on you for trying out Hibiki. Just be prepared for a really weird opening scene. It's not all like that, I promise.

:lol okay then, I'll brace myself!

Yeah I don't know that I've ever heard of anyone not liking Kuuga or Agito. They're easily 2 of the best pieces of the rider franchise.

I went into huge length during my watch through of Kuuga a few weeks back about what I felt wrong with Kuuga, it's in this thread if you'd care to search.

Here are my final thoughts to make it easier.

Kuuga is an excellent series, so is Agito :eyebrow Split, wtf.