Kiva and Faiz suffer from the same long drag out misunderstanding just because both sides are unaware of each other identities. There are times you kinda expecting them to go a certain route like teaming up, but instead it went off another route such as betrayals just to add more shocking twists to the story like M.Night movies. The TBC really makes you want to keep going though. This was before Den-o and W beginning to use the guest of the week storyline. I prefer Blade more. I can't believe they didn't make Kiba a full time Kamen Rider. It's also the series where the belts are pass around every few episodes.

Up to the 8th episode of W. Tons of fun - the use of ridermobile and the detective cases give it a fun Batman-ish vibe, the action is fantastic, and the Sonozakis are wonderfully batshit villains (after this and Ex-Aid, batshit bad guys are becoming a thing I'm starting to associate with this franchise :lol). You have your usual annoying young girl secondary protagonist (is it the only way female protagonists are written in Kamen Rider???), but she is surprisingly useful and fits the character dynamic nicely. I also hope that this is the last time I see street dancing in Kamen Rider...

Also I'm sorry Shoutarou, but you're not pulling off that hard-boiled look. You look more like a Justin Timberlake wannabe than Philip Marlowe, but I love you anyway :lol.

I wonder how many people are going to realize this now that you mentioned it

It was so weird watching the Genm special since Ex-Aid is so much further along now. I refuse to believe that Hiiro would have known what Family Stadium is though.

Hopefully not many; it's directly stated in the show that Philip was named after Philip Marlowe (as a quick sidenote, I actually started reading Raymond Chandler novels because of Kamen Rider W and he's now one of my all-time favorite authors).

I haven't seen W yet, but I do love the book The Big Sleep, read that a couple years ago. And also love that movie Murder My Sweet, and The Long Goodbye movie is great but different.

Are they fair-play Whodunits or what?

As in, can you actually figure out the plot before the climax or do they use the old tricks that G.K. Chesterson liked to complain about?

It depends on the book, but they generally feel fair. The Big Sleep is the one that probably makes the biggest leaps in logic, but it was his first book so it's worth cutting him some slack.

I'm quite sure that they considered naming Shoutarou Philip, but then they thought "No, that would too on-the-nose" :lol.

Chandler's novels hook you with their mysteries, but you stay for the deliciously witty writing style.

You know what I enjoyed? The case with the council member and her daughter tied nicely with Shoutarou being unable to tell Akiko what happened with her father, but the show never commented upon this parallel, which was... remarkably subtle for this type of show!

Watched Kamen Rider Genm. Overall it was about what I'd expect from a side thingy like this. Entertaining enough but nothing special. Goofy fun. As for the specifics:

- I have no idea why this was called Kamen Rider Genm. Because it's about a plan he has? The actual show should be called Kamen Rider Genm by that logic.

- Speaking of Genm, seeing this kind of made me miss the guy a bit. Specifically his early series self. I forgot how convincingly his actor could switch between "friendly CEO everybody loves" and "mad genius/whiny child", and him keeping his identity a secret meant he had that awesome distorted voice that sounds like several people talking at once. And, cool as Dangerous Zombie may be, I always liked the palette swap look a bit more. Black and purple never don't go well together.

- I like how even though this takes place early in the series, the Energy Items are still just sitting around like they have been since Para-Dx showed up. Apparently the prop guys were so tired of lugging all those blocks and crap around that they've now inadvertently retconned things to have always been that way.

- Um, Toei? I think your game's slipping. I watched this whole Ex-Aid spinoff, and at no point was anybody covered in blood, nor horribly beaten and bruised. Not even Emu! I thought you guys had a bet going?!

- On that subject, it speaks volumes about how much Emu's life profoundly sucks that he doesn't even really accomplish anything by the end (or what counts for an ending), and this is STILL one of his better days.