Just a heads up, Shining Form was actually introduced in the "A New Transformation" special that aired between episodes 35 and 36, and it does more or less explain the solar power thing.

Although despite clearly being meant to be canon with the show proper, there are a couple weird glitches in the continuity that don't line up, which is kind of weird. I recommend not thinking about it too hard if you watch it. :lol

Oh come on, try to feel the angst for Ryou... Life is already harsh to him and you should give this man a hug. He didn't want to become a Rider in the first place and his life went so bad since then. Don't you remember during the time where Gills had a very dangerous side effect for decaying Ryou's body? Thankfully, the OoD minimized the effect to him short after until his apparent death. Well, that side effect went away after Mana revived back Ryou, though

On the other side, Agito is particularly a good series. I agree that it has much better pacing than Kuuga but can't be nowhere as good as Kuuga. Both Shoichi and Hikawa tried to become Godai and Ichijo 2.0 but it went miserably. Still, because of this, they became an apparent comic relief and it actually works for a rather dark series, like Agito. Just look at the craziness of them by playing tennis with a frying pan!

It's surprising that you talked about Agito without even mentioning Hojo. He is basically a pretty jerkass character that should be spoken at least on one Agito's post, haha. While I'm sure not many people like him, I don't recall him as a bad guy. I still thought he is a good guy but with a rather cunning and stern personalities.

I don't really mind about those Kino since he also kicked the heroes to go serious, particularly after the Akatsuki's arc there. It would have been better if they gave more focus and development for him or introduce him earlier to give him more exposition. That being said, the most let down and the disappointing part of Agito is they didn't explain the villains properly. The real nature of Lords, the Overlords and even that Tetsuya man was explained rather subtly. I recommend you to check the external information and links about Agito for better understanding this series. I'm serious, Agito is actually a pretty confusing series if you don't have enough information beforehand.

Good to know, thanks for the info! That does make more sense now, though that's kind of a weird way to do a final form introduction.

My problem is that the show tried way too hard to make you feel sorry for him, it just absolutely beats the viewer over the head with "look how bad this guy's life sucks." I did feel for him, but it just got to the point where I couldn't take it seriously anymore because they just run so far with it.

I really enjoyed Shouichi's and Hikawa's friendship, their scenes together were usually my favorite. I thought their comic relief worked really well. One of my major issues with many of the Neo-Heisei shows is the loud and obnoxious slapstick humor, which I can't stand, so the more subdued humor in the earlier Heisei shows is vastly preferable to me. I like it a lot more when the humor comes naturally just from the way the characters' differing personalities interact.

Yeah this was a big omission on my part, meant to talk about him and forgot. I actually thought he was one of the most well-done characters in the show. He was a colossal jackass, but despite that, really did have genuine intentions. Another Kuuga comparison here, but compared to Kuuga, the police force in Agito was incredibly incompetent. One of my favorite things in Kuuga was how active the police are in trying to stop the Gurongi, by developing ways to fight back and working with Godai. In Agito, it's like they don't do anything except wait around for more Lord attacks so they can just show up to say "Yep, this murder was from an Unknown." Hojo was the most prominent exception to this, throughout the show he's actively trying to find ways to fight back against the Lords and even though he constantly antagonizes the G3 team, he really does want to do the right thing. He just needs to work on his teamwork skills! The only development with him I really didn't like was close to the end when he decides to have the police protect the Lords and let them kill the people with the seed of Agito to prevent more Agitos from arising and taking power over normal humans. It just felt really out of character to take him that far, and really ruined his complexity by making him just a straight up villain. I think that was a really poor decision, and either should have been discarded entirely or a better conclusion to it written where he ultimately can't bring himself to go that far. It just absolutely ruined all of his characterization up to that point.

Yeah I researched a lot of this stuff as I watched because the show never really goes into any of this stuff much at all, despite how significant it is. It's all there to some degree, but really needed more focus. All of the major explanation and detail comes from sources outside of the main show, and it should never be necessary to need something like that to fully explain content from the main series. I think it's the show's biggest failing.

I have watched the first 10 episodes of Blade so far and I can only continue to praise this show. Since I watch them without any schedule and forget things quite easily I even made notes about some things I want to talk about.

First of all, the character arc of Tachibana is great. I love that the belt isn't destroying his body for no reason, it's his own fears that slowly kill him. That's some heavy shit right here. His arc is far from over though, the big bad undead guy (the Neo from Matrix wannabee) just operated on him and now he seems fine but is of course obliged to help the bad guys. But I like everything about this so far, especially the involvement of the female doctor who's name I have forgotten.

Next thing I want to mention is Mr. Milky Way, Kotaro Shirai. What a fantastic support character. He's our human sidekick who goes for the laughs, but man is he well done. That speech he gave to Tachibana about how worrying is what makes us truly alive and lovable to others is just amazing. I think we all have these situations where we worry over nothing and fall down a hole, and in these situations, you really need someone like Kotaro who just pulls you back up. Also, his comedy is rather subtle and thus enjoyable, I cracked up when Shiori told him he drinks too much milk and will turn into a cow, and his immediate response was "Sweet, then I could drink my own milk" :lol

Next up is Hajime, who has now left the residence because of the bomb and the Undead threaten to harm his foster family. I think he has lots of cool stuff going for him too, especially now that Kenzaki knows he's Chalice and they fought. He's now traveling with some homeless person and gets some life lessons that way.

Kenzaki currently hasn't much going on solo but is involved in both Tachibana's and Hajime's development and that works for me.

I also quite like that the chief of BOARD is involved again and that they get some answers early which helps to focus the story.

The action is really good so far, that fight with all three Riders and one Undead in the research facility was awesome. I also quite like how the Rouze cards are combined as finishers, Thunder and Kick for Blade and Flame and Uppercut for Garren.

One random thing I noticed, when Tachibana is still suffering and they have him resting in the residence with the chief being there, there's a scene where Kenzaki's actor jumps up to aid Tachibana and rams a hanging lamp with his head full force, that shit had to hurt real bad, but he kept rolling, that's what I call a professional ;)

Well, good thing that you enjoy Blade's first quarter. Most of people hates the first quarter of the series but then it becomes so much good later on. Don't worry, if you like the first arc, there's no way that you won't love the coming arcs. I also really loves Blade in so many aspects and I could say that this series is like Drive; slow at first but the kicking the top gear when needed. Not going to spoil so much here. Just have a fun ride with Blade :D.

Finished Wizard and Gaim again and started back in on Den-O and Decade. Man, I'd forgotten how much the last few episodes of Gaim (and especially the last two) annoyed the crap out me. I still love the series, though.

So I'm going to make a bigger post in the actual thread for it but I just watched the Specter V-Cinema and wanted to say:

It's shockingly good.

If you even slightly liked Ghost you owe it to yourself to go watch it.

And I thought I could praise Blade the most... I just thought I make a few notes on what you said.

-I agree with you that Tachibana's arc in the beginning was pretty good, especially compared to the overall quality of Blade's first quarter, but I still wish they explained how seaweed water makes him different, like is it Undead alien seaweed or something? Also, why didn't Tachibana's seaweed siding-with-the-bad-guy tendecies ever come up again? He does side with bad guys again, but why not because of weird seaweed, or at least make that part of the reason. I just feel like the seaweed was a pointless addition. Make Tachibana's so afraid of his fears that he sides with the bad guy because of it, not needing to add that to make his fears seem less powerful.

-I found Keitaro from Faiz much more interesting and lovable than Kotaro. He's just there. I love Blade but even I don't remember much things he said. At least Keitaro did some memborable things with his penpal and saving those kids from the fire.

-I feel like Kenzaki's character moves very slowly in these episodes since they're setting up Hajime and Tachibana's arcs for later on, their arcs are important but Kenzaki is the main character and needs more than him just passively mentioning his parents died in a fire so he wants to save people.


I wanna watch it now that you said that it's good, but then again, you said Wizard and Ghost were great...

Seriously, I'm a pretty positive person, and it even took me around 13 episodes to really get into Blade. It kind of warms my heart to see Kiwami enjoying it so much. :p

This is different from that!

I mean, come on, I was even sort of almost crapping on Ghost a page or two ago! Just like a normal person! :lol

But really, it honestly is quite good.

I once again agree with Fish on this topic again. I only watched it raw but it's still so damn good movie here. Although the inclusion of sub might make the movie is a bit better or worse, it's not going to hurt so much to overall plot. If you don't like Ghost but you want to watch this movie, just think that this movie just a separate act or story from Ghost.

Changing the topic, out of all Heisei Era Riders, I only haven't watched Hibiki, Kiva and Decade. Can you guys please give some first reactions and recommendations about which I should watch first?