It's not a bad series, just slooooooow, I'm ten episodes in and only just now do the characters seem to be warming to one another with character arcs playing out so slowly and in such a drawn out fashion that if you just took the important character moments out of these opening ten episodes, you'd probably have less than a single episode worth of material.

My other problem is I'm really not a big fan of the action sequences, it just feels...clunky...stilted, this is the problem I had with W. Due to the fact that everyone is in a suit, the sense of impact is dulled when someone throws a punch which is why you need the sparks, and dramatic rolls on the floor or whatever but a large chunk of Blade's action involves the Rider's standing on the same spot, punching each other in a way that denotes no sense of any damage, while the camera is flung around the fight with the editing chopped up to such an extreme that no camera angle is on screen for more than a second.

Why not actually...move the fight? And keep the camera still? Thrashing the camera around doesn't change that the Rider and Undead are basically stationary.

I can understand your problems. While I never had a problem with the filming of their fights, I do know where you're coming from in that it's moving slowly.

And because it's so drawn out, even when stuff comes together I don't actually care because basically no time has been spent on any of the characters yet, the show is slowly plodding forwards but it didn't start far back enough so I know absolutely nothing about anyone.

You expect me to care about that Board chicks Dad being possibly involved with the unleashing of the Undead? well I'm not even sure what her name is yet. You expect me to care about Tachibana's err...fear disease but I think his backstory so far can be summed up as 'he worked at BOARD once' and you expect me to feel invested in the relationship between Amane and Hajime but I actually know NOTHING about either of them, minus Hajime isn't human and has a connection to Amane's dad. I'm not even sure I spelt either of their names right....

And don't get me started on basically...everyone else. What is the point of the journalist character? What is the point of basically any character who isn't a Rider? Who the hell are the actual villains? What is their plan or their purpose?

And I'm sure someone will tell me it all comes together, which it may do, but I don't see the point of these fifty episode series if you can basically skip the first twenty five episodes of it like you could basically do with OOO, I just feel like I've had my time wasted.

That is Blade's major problem, yeah. The first 12 episodes or so are really slow. Once we get through the Isaka storyline, though, the show really picks up speed and just keeps getting more and more engaging.

Den-O 5 and 6-

Ok, now that Urataros is here, I really want the SHF Rod Form :lol But I am really loving the Imagin more than I am Ryutarou, he is seriously just there to change into plat form for the Imagin to take over and be badass.

Hence why they ended up replacing him as Den-O in future appearances of the character.

Actually, his entire plot arc as a character revolves around him growing into his own character and man, in the manifestation of one of his 3 Final forms.

<- Has not seen Den-O

Oh... My bad. :lol

Then why did you pretend to know the reason for why he was replaced?

Which, BTW, was only long after the series concluded. The actor only ceased playing him in the few movies after the first two.

Which was solely because he had moved on to different, more prestigious projects.

Most of the greatest Japanese series start sloooooooooooooooooow. Have you ever tried to watch Golion, Zeta Gundam, Macross, Escaflowne, Gankutsuou, Fullmetal Alchemist, Dragonball, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Gundam Wing, and One Piece? All of those start out very slowly.

That doesn't really change the fact that it's slow and maybe they'd be even better if they weren't slow to start?

Hey, a guy can guess right?

Den-O 9 and 10-

this is probably my favorite episodes so far :lol

Outside of Ghost in the Shell SAC, you can't get much better than those series I listed.

My problem is less with the slowness and more with the time wasting, when you tell me a show gets 'good' x episode in, it usually means it STARTS there. Like as said, most of the stuff introduced before Date in OOO is completely throwaway and although we do get some good character moments the character arcs don't really kick in til Date appears, nor does the plot. That basically means almost half of the show can be skipped. And that isn't mentioning all the shows that people have said kick into gear thirty episodes in or beyond, it's nuts. It's nuts and it's even crazier that the community just seems to accept it.

With the way American TV works, I can kinda understand why it has filler even if I don't like it but when working on these series they know from the get go they are going to have fifty episodes (unless something major happens) so you think there'd be no filler, no wasted episodes, it'll all be completely focused....but it isn't and it's so frustrating.

Dude, you are talking about series that would work best being like 30 episodes but have to be 50 episodes to fill out an entire year. We have no choice but to accept it. This happens to ever series that is that long whether it be Sentai, Kamen Rider, or Gundam. However, I'd rather have 10 filler episodes than 10 clip shows.

I'd rather that the creative team knew they had fifty episodes to work with and worked out a creativity map for their series so no episode is wasted. The attitude of 'well we have fifty episodes but we've made enough for twenty and we'll just pad out the rest' is unacceptable and the way that Toku fans just accept it is really shocking to me.

It's odd that the internet bitches and moans about the smallest of things and yet other injustices they simply accept.

I wouldn't call it an injustice....but then again, I don't mind filler as long as it entertains me.

I suppose I'm more lenient with certain types of filler, particularly the overly comedic kind.

Sure I'm not so much of a fan of it now, but when I rewatched MMPR it was clear those kind were the kind of episode I remembered and enjoyed the most as a child. I just assume a similar situation applies for the Japanese audience.

I guess injustice is a pretty strong word.

And I'm not really talking about Filler as much, at least Filler involves adventures for the heroes or whatever, like I loved the first half of Go-Busters, haters be damned. I'm on more about the shows that just...draw everything out, where one episode has a plot about a sentence long, so it takes about fifteen episodes for a story to come together that could have been told in one.

Using Go-Busters for example at least the first twenty or so episodes explored the organisation, world and had them go on adventures, it had purpose even if it doesn't have a wider purpose but OOO for example anything we learn in those first fifteen episodes is either contradicted later or just revisited later and the stuff that isn't like say the combos are largely superfluous as they are barely used for the rest of the series.

And I LOVED OOO by the end, so please don't take away 'u hte ooo' from this, it's just a recent example fresh from my memory that I can use.

Filler? In Kamen Rider? Please. Until you suffer through twenty episode arcs of filler like us Bleach fans have? Yea, keep it to yourself :lol

Though Wizard is certainly reaching Bleach Filler proportions.

Hey, Bleach has some fucking good filler! :lol

I admit I enjoyed the purely fanservice beach episode. But that's just because I have this crush on Isane Kotetsu and Byakuya Kuchiki. Purely.

But come on. Bleach goes into a really deep story arch, then midway through with no rhyme or reason, goes into some random filler arch for five episodes!

But... Eh, fair enough.

When I started Bleach when I was like 14 I watched through the Bontou arc no problems, it was only when I got older that I really noticed how bad the filler was in terms of story telling and animation.

Then again the Bleach animes pacing was awful even in the regular episodes by the end, with single chapters sometimes being stretched over two or three episodes in ways I wouldn't have thought possible if you had asked five or so years ago.

In a way, as I said, I find this worse than filler. At least with filler you are getting a story, regardless of quality, regular Bleach episodes ended up not having that and instead had maybe two minutes of animation and 18 minutes of a Power Point slideshow of reaction faces.

Same goes for Kamen Rider, at least a MOTW episode for example gives us another adventure for our heroes, an episode where...just nothing happens, like most of the Blade episodes so far or the first fifteen or so episodes of OOO are painful to watch.

TFW Bleach Filler caused me to drop the series entirely.
It was on thin ice with all the BS Aizen was getting away with. The constant filler arcs was the breaking point.

Anyway, filler isn't entirely a bad thing. It can get annoying when used constantly, but it's not the complete antithesis to a story.
But just because you find an episode boring doesn't make it filler.

If that were the case, most of Witch Hunter Robin could be considered filler. :lol

When did my interest come into this?

My category for filler is any episode that doesn't explore the plot or characters in any meaningful way or expand on the world or concepts in any meaningful way. TL;DR if you can skip it, it's filler. So the first fifteen episodes of OOO basically, I guess Blade isn't official filler at the beginning, even by my categories but I kinda wish someone would do a fan edit and take the 30 seconds of important material out of those first twelve episodes and make it its own episode so I didn't have to sit through all the plodding pacing.

Aizen gets away with to much. Every week he 'evolves' and becomes a stronger OP. It's tyhe comparison I've made before. Aizen is that internet roleplayer who's midievil character has space cannons, access to the mystical sword of adamantium,and can turn into a six headed dragon that has hdie so thick nothing can break it.

What gets me about Bleach is how the first half of every episode.. is what happened in the last episode. I know what happened in the last episode, I just watched it!

But... Back to Kamen Rider. I think Wizard has way more Filler than anything OOO or even Fourze has ever done. Wizard once went four whole episodes where no story got progressed, it was just one stupid ring after another. Dress Up, anyone?

I totally forgot about that shit, uuurgh!

Anyway, Wizard. As bad as Wizard's filler is (and it is really REALLY bad) the plot of the show is about Haruto saving Gate's from turning into phantoms, so at least they showcase more of his adventures even though they are shitty adventures.

The same goes for Fourze, Gen was about saving the school from the Horoscopes turning people into Zodiarts, so even the bad filler was another adventure of his.

As OOO didn't really have quite the same of the week structure (the whole Yummy of the week thing kinda weaved in and out of focus throughout and was never a consistent thing) there would be episodes that neither provided a focused monster of the week beat down or a focused expansion of the world or characters. So filler. The bad kind.

Watched episodes 14-15 of Decade and the Den-O tribute was funny as hell. I love Momotaros so much, I have to watch Den-O soon. Loved All the Imagins taking over Tsukasa.

Also watched the ZX special as well. I enjoyed that a lot and it was great to see the Showa Riders. I really hope Super-1 gets subbed soon I really like him. Also I liked Riderman too. I love the ZX Kick with his glowing effect. I think it is great to learn more about the Showa Riders

True enough. But OOO can't be blamed, there were only so many Medals and 40 some odd episodes to fill.

What I blame OOO for is a lack of focus, he had too many forms and they were wasted as MMPR came along and was basically the only form used for about twenty episodes. I'd rather he had only two or three forms but each one got lots of great moments but of course they need to include as many forms as possible for profit.

And that isn't even mentioning that absolute mess of a story, the Full Medal Alchemist crap barely made any sense as it was, without the show making it up as it went along, actively contradicting bits and pieces with each new revelation.

If it wasn't for the great characters, I would have hated OOO.

That's the thing. Eiji, Ankh, Date, Gotou, and everyone else, they could make anything watchible.

Because no matter what, every series is going to have episodes we don't like for one reason or another. Even my favorite Toku of all time, DaiRanger, has episodes I'm not the craziest about. No series will ever be perfect. And given the schedules these people work on, I doubt they have anything mapped out. A lot of producers let the reactions of the first 10 episodes dictate the direction the series is going to move in. Even highly popular manga titles are like this. I think the only exception is One Piece as Oda seems to know where he wants the story to go, but he is going to let the characters dictate how long an arc and such is.

Sorry, but the 12 episodes of Garlic Jr in DBZ have any of the Bleach filler beat. Same goes for the 48 episodes of Doma/Kaiba Grand Prix in Yu-Gi-Oh!.

I will agree with the Wizard comment. I enjoy Wizard a lot, but a lot of it is filler. However, I'm holding back on almost everything for the series as a whole until it is over.

Blade 42

Tennouji reveals his plans to Tiger Undead and reiterates that the Undead really have no stake in the battle fight. But just what is that card he has...?

Mutsuki got beat up even worse than usual, it seems. I guess the Titan's poison is somehow making the Spider Undead's hold on him worse. Tiger Undead seems to care though, maybe realizing Mutsuki's probably her only friend. And of course, Nozomi's never given up on him, which was always cool.

Ah, wow. Mutsuki finally beat the Tiger Undead. Had to happen eventually, but still kind of sad. Conversely, Mutsuki thinking he's finally got a King form only for it to backfire on himself is kind of hilarious. But hey! Shima's back! Along with the Tiger Undead. Well...I guess they ARE always there with Mutsuki. But yeah. I guess Shima couldn't enact his master plan without the help of another powerful allied Undead.

So....it's gone? The Spider Undead is gone! Mutsuki's no longer a tool?! I can scarcely believe it. But yeah, Tiger Undead was pretty awesome. She had a good arc.

So...yeah. Not much else I have to say on this one.


Blade 43

Hmm. A beach party. I suppose they all forgot about the crazy artificial Undead wandering about. Then again, asshole Mutsuki is gone so that would be cause for massive celebration. They did go and try to research Tennouji afterward, though it seems like Tennouji planned for them to do that so he could revers-spy them and gauge how much they know.

It seems Mutsuki's now too afraid to use the Spider Card to transform. And I thought we were out of problems with this guy. Stag Beetle Undead doesn't seem to particularly villainous, though I suppose he's just resigned to the fact that the Battle Fight is pointless. Whatever power Tennouji is gaining from that card, it's making him evil as fuck. I mean those red eyes....

Now, either an Undead poisoned Kenzaki or some kind of doppelganger is running amok. In either case it sounds really bizarre when some just explains, "A Kamen Rider just attacked me!" And now Tachibana's got the Undead bug too...I like how Hajime's response is just to punch Kenzaki in the face until he's no longer controlled by an Undead.

I do kinda like how Hajime and Mutsuki take it upon themselves to help Kenzaki and Tachibana because those two had helped them overcome being evil in the past. Even if it is their stupid misunderstanding.

Hey, I liked Garlic Jr.

Really?
The Garlic Jr saga almost killed DBZ for me like what happened with Bleach a decade later. It was a massive step backwards from the Freeza saga (Which even my 10 year old self felt like it was going on like 30 episodes more than it should have :p)

i'm glad DBZ Abridged took care of the Garlic Jr. saga. :p