Best Contract Beast.

That, too. The only monster made entirely of big guns. Even his guard vent is just a rack of missles with the doors closed.

Den-O Four was fantastic, maybe I should have watched this show after all...

Ryou finally grew some stones, the relationship between him and Momo is way better than when they tried to recreate it through Eiji and Ankh, Momo is like what Ankh would have been if he was a good character. They do a fantastic job of convincing you of the characters in the suit as well.

Not sure how hot I am on the Imagin designs, to give credit where credit is due Blade had some awesome looking monsters. The scariest monster in this show though is Hana's lips.

Also to be fair to this show, it does the whole Underworld thing way better than Wizard does since it's both clever and thought out but visually awesome as all the Imagin is allowed to go on some wild rampage.

I adore anything extreme overkill :lol

Just wait until the other characters start showing up. Den-O's cast has some of the best chemistry I've seen in Kamen Rider.

Den-O 5.

I cringed in terror as I thought it was the obligatory toku football filler episode but instead we get a new Imagin who made Ryou all sexy for hilarious results. This guy is a pretty great actor and it was fun watching him embody (literally) the fight between the Imagin.

I like the Imagin designs in this show but something about the quality of the suits ruins it for me. They somehow look cheaper than even Black's monsters from like thirty years ago, just idk something looks so tacky in the Imagin suits and although I like Momo he really looks like a costume rather than a monster.

The action scenes are fantastic though.

Uh no, I was saying he is a lawyer because it automatically makes him the lowest scum character of the series. At least Gai was honest in being a scumbag.

As for Den-O, just wait until they commit characterization suicide with Hana.

Most Imagin are supposed to look like costumes, though. Ryoutaro based Momotaros on his childhood hero, Momotaro, who wore an Oni costume. So his form is a guy in a suit, even though it's not. Same goes for I think all of them. There's certanly real monsters, but all the friendly Imagin at least are suppsoed to be outfits. This is especially true of guys like Deneb.

Zolda paid for a girl's mother's hospital bills.

Saying Lawyers are automatically the lowest scum says a lot about you.

Also, great character =/= good person. He's great because he's such an enjoyable scumbag who has a heart beneath it all, however weird and twisted. And you say Ouja is so great because he's pure evil. Even if Zolda was just a scumbag lawyer, have you never heard of Saul Goodman?

It's pretty funny the circles you run around in. Ouja is great because he's a terrible person, but Zolda is not? And Zolda is far from lowest scum, he cares for Gorou on some level and isn't aggressively fighting the other riders.

Oh yeah my bad I completely forgot about that!

Think back to what Kitaoka was like in the beginning, though. Extremely narcissistic, corrupt, and totally lacking in empathy. He changes a lot over the course of the show, but the guy from his first few episodes is exactly the kind of self-centered asshole that Kanzaki was looking for.

Your only options for Ryuki are TVN or the old HK subs.

Meanwhile Ouja has been around for nearly as long (figuring how much time Zolda spent absent from the show) and has not developed at all.

And he won't much. Ouja's personality is pretty much a constant.

Ryuki 1-6. Shinji is treated like a dumbass by everyone but only acts like a dumbass in the Rider war because no one tells him anything. The show starts as a Rider vs Monster show but thn sicssors shows up.

I like to think the first 3 series of the Heisei era as training the auduience for what to expect from Kamen Rider in the coming years after it came back. Kuuga could be seen as a pseudo remake of the original series so people would get back into the swing of things, and establish a base. Agito took that base and made an amazing series that added to the Rider formula with a great story. Ryuki is changing the rules of Rider so, the writers have to slowly lean people into the changes rather then throw them in right at the beginning.

Ryuki has been slow these first few episodes but I can't wait to see Zolda in the next episode.

I don't know if its inappropriate to post here but Ryuki episodes 7 and 8 along with Dragon Knight 1 and 2

Ah, Shinji, my favorite dumbass, getting innocent lawyers in trouble without asking what the hell is going on. And the subplots in these episodes weren't meaningless like in Kuuga. They are used as a way to tie together character meetings, monster attacks and necessary exposition. BTW Zolda is a badass, they should just call him Kamen Rider AMerica cause we love our guns.

Dragon Knight seems to rip beginning plot from Ryuki, not line for line but in sequence. First scene monster attacks random, main character visits an apartment to get thier deck, first fight in mirror world with Wing Knight being a dick to dragon knight, contracting Draggreder e.t.c. However it has its own variations and fight scenes and gets to Incisor a hell of a lot quicker then Ryuki does.

Although there's this reporter Maya who bugs the living shit outta me because she's butting into the main plot and annoying me. And there is a huge plot hole with here character, ALREADY in the first 2 episodes. Dragon Knight establishes that deck wearers can see the mirror monsters and normal people can't just like Ryuki, but the hell is up with Maya? Is she an exception because she was attacked and in the mirror world or her knowing of its existence make her see.

Watched Den-O, 06.

So how do the Imagin...work? It's said they have no form until they bonded with their host, okay so far so good. But when you see the Imagin before they've bonded they are in the same shape but they are just broken in half and made of sand?

Not sure I like the idea that Momo has now become pure comic relief and Hana is now the most badass member of the cast. I really like Hana (what a babe, scary lips and all!) but I preferred Momo when he was less of a moron.

Ryou is really growing me since they started him at the bottom he appears to be growing quickly but I am still kinda annoyed that the protagonist is basically useless, he feels more like a Pokémon Trainer than a Kamen Rider. Also the Den-Liner owner or whoever he is, is the creepiest mo'fucker I ever met.

So wait, Ryou gets Rod Form...because Momo can't swim? Man this is a really stupid reason for an upgrade. I guess it is almost fitting though as Rod Form is really shit and it actually annoyed me that he got a random Den-Liner from his ass to have an awful CGI battle. If the Den-Liner is just a train full of giant machinery where is everyone sitting?

Bleh, hopefully Rod Form will be barely used.

Den-O, 07. This episode was really dumb but not really in any kind of fun way, I love how we're seven episodes in and we are not only in the filler already but Den-O has three Forms.

Is it supposed to be implying that Rod got Ryou laid? I just realised what the Rod is standing in for... *shudder* I bet he caught some fish. Eurgh... Either way the squabbling between the Imagin is really annoying.

There's a few incongruities with the Imagin that really need to be chocked-up as "audience-vision." The Imagin are not supposed to have the same form before contract, but there's nothing they can really represent them as unless it's the ball of light and, well, SPD was a pretty good example of balls of light not working as cast members. So just chalk it up to "it's for our sake that they have forms before contracts." Just like how the Den-O belt has the coloured buttons before the Imagin posess him. (Gee, I wonder if he'll encounter a yellow and purple one in the future?)

Also, admit it, Ura and Momo putting on a best friends front for the owner was pretty funny. You won't really get the full experience since there's only two right now and watching two guys bicker isn't that hilarious, but once the train gets more passengers, things start getting pretty funny.

Yeah I did wonder that with the Driver as well. They were shocked he had two Imagin possessing him and yet it already had four buttons on it... I don't get why the buttons couldn't have appeared on the Driver as he was possessed but whatever, it's a pretty ugly Driver in general.

I'm really not feeling it between Ura and Momo, not in the same way I do with Momo and Hana or Ryou. I feel like I'm overreading it, but I like the almost sexual chemistry between Hana and Momo and the way she puts on that huge front and yet whenever Momo appears in sword form a smile momentarily slips across her HUGE lips and her eyes light up, like in that moment that he shouts 'Ore Sanjou!' she is the happiest person in the world.

Also, Den-O 08. Dick jokes, dick jokes everywhere!

Either way, meh, the fact that even Ryou's sister added more to this episode than he did is really problematic plus the Imagin's actual plan really didn't make a whole lot of sense. Still, the mystery of the telescope and the horned Imagin keep me wanting more and I still think Sword Form is an awesome Rider.

Also, if the Imagin always go into their hosts pasts, then why do the hosts never remember meeting them? Their actual plan makes no sense because, with any lick of common sense, the person would remember meeting them and never do a contract with them because they've already seen that all the Imagin does is go and trash the place without truly satisfying their wish.

I'm not really sure how this whole thing works so I'm guessing there is a reason they aren't going into the future or whatever but considering the opening of the show is something like 'past, present, future, where next?' I'm assuming it is a possibility. So, what gives?

Kamen Rider hasn't given a flying fladoodle about the laws of the space-time continuum since Kamen Rider Kabuto. They just began making their own in Kamen Rider Den-O.

Den-O plays fast and loose with the theoretical laws of time, but this is not unintentional. They do not, and I stress this fact, do NOT approach time from a scientific angle, instead metaphysical one. Time, as the show will explain (in fact this is a bit of a spoiler since there's entire archs devoted to explaining this in detail) time is always the now, and the past is our memories. You will never see them travel into the future because time is not a predestined path, it is what people observe. The Imagin alter the present by changing people's memories of the past. That's why when Den-O defeats them the damage is undone because, technically, all the past we see is not ''real.'' But it is, because our memories make it real. The Imagin aren't just monsters, they have the ability to change the present by literally destroying all memories of it.

Bear in mind that's the hyper-abridged detailess version. This is all explained way better when the secondary rider shows up, but that'd REALLY be spoiling.

Picked up Ryuki again, randomly picked episode 19 to start with, because I wasn't sure exactly where I left off. Watched 19 and 20 last night.

I liked Gai, he was a douche, but I liked how he affected the others. big Rider fight at the end of 19 was great, especially since Zolda just missile spams the area and then walks away, so Ouja can finish Gai off.

I'm interested in where this is going, from reading that, but right now I hate about as much as I like about this show.

The second Imagin has largely been pretty rubbish, Rod form sucks and the dynamic between Rod and Momo just isn't really a particularly interesting one. The way Rod would take over Ryou was kinda fun at first, because much like with Momo, they are polar opposites from how Ryou actually is but that gag is a one note gag so the fact it takes up so much of the episodes, and is only really balanced with childish squabbling between him and Momo, it is just really boring.

Plus Whenever it feels like Ryou is starting to move towards being an interesting protagonist, the very nature of his powers mean he is once again benched and even the non violence stuff is usually solved more by Hana than it is Ryou, Ryou just seems a bit useless.

On the plus side, I do really like Momo and Hana as characters, and I may as well treat Momo as his own Rider for what it is worth and he really is a great one. I think the effects around the floating sword stuff is kinda lacking, the fights feel strangely small despite all the flash, but his look and personality as Sword Form is just great, great fun. Plus, I do also like the Imagin and seeing them go on wild rampages, even if the mech battles look fucking awful.

You'll be glad to know that Rod form isn't used as much and Urataros is probably the least utilised Imagin. I'm not sure when Kintaros shows up, but he's much more entertaining. Urataros is, in the grand scheme, the least used and least favourite (by most) Imagin.

I'm glad to hear that! And Kintaros makes his debut in episode nine apparently.

I'm not sure that was the original plan, but it's pretty obvious that from early on the Taros really started stealing the show, leaving Ryotaro to act primarily as their physical form. You'll notice that in the first few episodes, Ryotaro actually did all of Momo's lines when he was possessed, but that was quickly replaced with the voice actor dubbing over him. If I had to guess, I'd say that the voice actors weren't meant to be as prominent, but that changed fairly early on in production. Probably didn't help that they had some really high profile voice actors.

Urataros was actually my favorite Imagin, and Rod Form was my second favorite form.

I think they're all cool in their own bizarre way, though Ryutaros occasionally gets on my nerves in any capacity not involving annoying Momotaros. :)

Though Deneb ends up being everyone's favourite sooner or later.

Deneb has a heart of gold.

You are souless to not like Deneb.

Deneb and Beet J Stag would make for a great sitcom. :p

Quit looking into my dreams, Blade Raider. :)

An UnBeetable combination!

Needs more JUICY!

Watched episodes 17 and 18 of Blade, I love the bits of comedy from Kenzaki imagining being caught by the police. Kiryuu seems interesting and I am loving the Leangle storyline so far. Tachibana needs to become Garren again already. Still finding Kenzaki and Hajime awesome too.

It is quite pathetic that the further the show progresses the more Ryou seems to be phased out of his own show. At least in Jungle Fury when Casey started as a true rookie and a bit rubbish, they used that as a device for him to grow over the course of the season, this show actively blocks Ryou's progression.

Yes. Yes. A thousand times yes.

You couldn't be more wrong.

He actually becomes MORE prominent later, and more his own character. It's just as the Taros get introduced, he takes a backseat while they strut their stuff. You just need to remember he's supposed to only be the physical body at first, but once all four Taros shows up you see him start to really step up beyond the stereotype of his character. Not to spoil too much, but he's actually fights on his own later. And I mean actually fight, not just get kicked around.

Yeah but how much later? I'm assuming the final Imagin will be introduced around episode fifteen (assuming that he has just four forms and there isn't like a load of Dinosaur Medals lying around) so he only starts to become his own like half way through?

And I just don't think an empty vessel makes for much of an interesting protagonist. Bella Swan did the same thing and Twilight is one of the most hated pieces of fiction ever. He doesn't have to be all heroic and awesome like Eiji and Kotaro but he could...do something as right now he literally has no impact on his own show at all.

You'll see for yourself. Ryoutaro is hardly the breakout charatcer, but "empty vessel" is nowhere near an accurate assesment, as many will be quick to point out.

So I just finished the Kamen Rider ZO film and wow...that was terrible.

I loved the Neo Life Form, he was a fantastic villain but also a fantastically built suit, it's a shame he was condemned to this film because I think he could have become quite iconic if he was utilised elsewhere. I'd love to see him fight with the stuff that seemed to inspire him, like The Terminator, a Xenomorph and The Predator.

But everything else about this film was just terrible, ZO would probably be my new least favourite Rider but there is so little to him in the human form, and so little to him in his Rider form, that almost feels wrong to award him anything, even if it is Worst Rider. Once again, it's a shame, because the actual ZO suit is fantastic.

Then again 'nothing to it' kind of sums up the whole movie, even the central plot of father and son is told in a stupidly overly melodramatic fashion, while taking itself so deadly seriously, any attempts to bridge emotional connections to the audience are laughable.

Finally the special effects were atrocious, minus ZO and Neo's suits, I would have assumed this film was made in the late seventies with those effects, not the early 90s

Decade episode 11. It was ok.