Feel free too!

That's mostly because it was more like the Movie Wars format - a third of the film was all about OOO, a third was all about New Den-O, and the last third was the big crossover.

I watched episode 14 of Kabuto and it was nice to see things go wrong for Tendou I felt it humanized him a bit. Love Daisuke I find him silly. Kageyama is dark and interesting. Felt bad for Kagami.

Also watched the Blade vs Blade special that was silly and awesome

Good to know I think I want to watch that one for my Birthday.

I haven't posted for a couple of months and in that time I've managed to finish Blade and Hibiki so I'll just post my thoughts about both of them now.

Blade. I loved the series. I liked the characters very much (except Amane. If I was her uncle I might have smacked her a long time ago.). It had great suit designs and Blade King Form looks so badass. I just rank it a bit lower than Ryuki because that ending was just bittersweet. It makes sense but I would have preferred the movie ending it was a bit more cheerful. Now about the characters.

Kenzaki was a good main rider. His desire to help people was genuine. And he acted like a real hero and his decision in the end kept with his character.

Tachibana was a solid second rider. I liked the ups and downs that his character experienced. Sucks that his gf had to die but he has principles and he stuck to it.

Hajime as an anti-hero worked too. I really liked that he was designed as an archer it looked really cool. And the revelation about what he is made the story more interesting.

Mutsuki got quite annoying in the middle part. The only saving grace was that the Tiger Undead kept hanging around him.

The suppoert characters were pretty good too. Hirose just replaced Sakurako as my favorite KR girl. She kept intel for Kenzaki and Tachibana and had a good story with her father. Kotarou as the comic relief was like a better version of Keitaro of Faiz. I just loved his obsession with milk. I loved that exchange between him and Hirose when she said he drinks so much milk he'll turn into a cow and his reply was that would be good so he can drink his own. I just found it funny.

Overall I really enjoyed Blade. Now Hibiki. I read up on Hibiki before I started watching it and I was intrigued when they said it was pretty different from the usual KR fare. And its notoriety because of what happened to the shows second half.

The first episode really disoriented me with all the noise and the weird camera angles. It took me a couple of days before I watched episode 2 and still I wasn't impressed. After a couple more episodes I thought this might not be for me. And I couldn't stand Asumu in those early eps. I was about to give it up when I thought I'll give it a couple more episode. Then Ibuki and Akira were introduced and I thought ok now its beginning to be good and when Todoroki and Zanki were introduced I was like now were talking. I just loved Todoroki's enthusiasm and Zanki was just badass. When I first saw him I thought this is a guy you don't wanna fuck with or he'll smash that guitar in your face. And I started to warm up to Asumu at that point.

Hibiki is the first KR series that I actually liked the secondary riders more than the main rider. Hibiki's fine and all but I just enjoyed Todoroki's wildness and craziness and Ibuki being the cool guy who while being cool wasn't cocky. And that he's just as bad as Todoroki is when he's around Kasumi.

And I might get my head bit of for saying this but I wasn't bothered by the second half of Hibiki. Sure the ending could have been better but I actually liked some of the episodes from the second half. Shuki's two parter, the Orochi forest and Zanki's death were pretty good. That scene where Zanki and Todoroki after beating a makamou and they just wailed on their guitars was just an epic and bittersweet scene. What I think it failed at was Kiriya. He was the jerkass character who was annoyin at best but never reached the level of douchy-ness level of Hojo from Agito or Kusaka of Faiz. In Agito I just wanted one of the Lords to just decapitate Hojo and in Faiz I enjoyed it when Yuji finally finished Kusaka off, but with Kiriya he was just an annoying brat you want to just smack around a bit.

And I tend to google what the cast are up to nowadays and I was saddened to find out that Hinaka's actress Miyuki Kanbe died 2 years after Hibiki due to sudden heart failure at such a young age. When I found that out I felt a pang of regret every time I saw her on the show since she portrayed such a happy person.

So this is how I rank the shows I've finished.
1. Ryuki
2. Blade
3. Hibiki
4. Kuuga
5. Agito
6. Faiz

It's good to see someone else enjoyed Blade too. However I enjoyed Mutsuki, atleast when he was in control of himself which wasn't very often.

Chalice, Garren and Blade are so badass and awesome though.

Man, Blade sounds like a show worth checking out. And I wasn't really planning to do another series.

I personally wasn't a big fan of it, the action scenes were largely pretty terrible and the pacing was so slow it made all the character focus fall flat. I dropped it in the end after getting about half way and having enough.

I keep trying to go back to Blade (only a couple episodes in), but the poor quality available of the videos keeps turning me off. :/ And yeah, all of the actors seriously do look the same (it's the hair) so I can't tell who I should care about yet haha.

It doesn't get any better on the investment front. I remember when one of the heroes girlfriend died, minus a huge dramatic scene and the occasional flashback it's basically dropped after that point.

Blade is always worth watching.

Yeah, the one big problem with Blade is that it's very much a slow build kind of series. Eventually it does get really, really awesome and epic, but it takes a lot of time to establish the world and characters before it gets to that point. Once you hit episode 30, though, and the new opening song kicks in, the show is just pure awesomeness from there on out. But yeah, the first 15 especially are kind of a slog.

I think I got to episode 18 when I finally gave up, finally a character I like was introduced, he became this badass Rider who could control the undead...then he died and got replaced by some wimp. Yeah I was done there.

21 - 22 of Black. Maybe these were just a bad pair of episodes or maybe my love for the series is wearing off...

Episode twenty one should have come way, way earlier in the series. They really needed this episode before the one where Battle Hopper risked its life for Kotaro and almost died. Still, they relationship is largely poorly realised. As Battle Hopper can only bleep, we can never truly understand their bond. Kotaro admires Battle Hopper because he saved him from Golgom I suppose (although this is never brought up) but why did Battle Hopper do that? I guess we'll never find out.

Episode 22 was a weird episode, I didn't even remember the Wasp Mutant, so suddenly building a whole story around another kind of wasp Mutant taking vengeance really took me off guard in its randomness. The other story of the episode wasn't any better as it depicted a kid trying to murder Kotaro, this kid is clearly very damaged. Then again he did have psychic powers so what the fuck do I know.

I love how active the three Generals are in this show, It really makes me wish Black had a plot, because they constantly get their hands dirty but it's never clear what they are actually getting their hands dirty with. I know they want the Kingstone and I know all of the Century King stuff, but if you look at each episode individually I have no fucking idea what Golgom are doing or what their motivations are. They always have these ludicrously elaborate plans yet none of them ever seem to have an actual goal, it's just a plan for the sake of a plan. It really is baffling to watch at times. And I've long since stopped lying to myself that this will ever come together, it wont will it?

Now I'm trying to slow down my Toku consumption, the special effects were really jarring at first. Did Black always look this bad? I mean the fights are still fun and Kotaro is by this point probably my favourite Rider ever but man them special effects, the show doesn't even try and hide the strings of the polystyrene. The Sword Wasp looked better than that Jewel fella and the Sword Saints upgrade makeup form tho.

The thing stpping me from watching Blade is, honestly, the card thing. Not the motif, the motif is awesome. But I hate series where the power is a piece of paper. Ryuki, aside from making NO SENSE baout how the advent cards work, demostrated how weak they were as these objects of power. Hell, apparently they're not even fire proof.

I think the card motif in Blade works better because the monsters of the week are the cards. So each enemy has the potential of providing a new power.

Not that the card thing is ever explained, 'we need to lock these things away and chuck away the key!' 'okay, let's use playing cards!' 'wut'

Easier to run around with a deck of cards to seal them than to wait for the monolith to show up and do it for you.

What happens if the card is torn in half?

Also Locke, sorry Black's slowing down for you. I'm not that far in. You still watching Den-O?

Well eventually a Rider appears who can just free everyone from their cards, so it becomes pointless regardless.

And not at the minute, took a break from toku for a while after I plowed through like twenty series in sixth months :lol I've not dropped the show, but I'm watching like four episodes a week, rather than like 45 episodes a week.

The monster is free, as the Undead are immortal. Sealing them is the only option.

Remote is used, what, 4 times over the course of 25 episodes?

Fuck knows mate, I gave up when the only character I liked died as soon as he got Rider powers.

You slice off the head and wait for the quickening.

Here we are Blade born to be the son of Kings! He has no Rival, no Man can be his Equaaaal! Soon he'll be the rulah of you aaawll! *headbangs around his apartment*

Sounds like someone has been watching some Highlander :lol

"We're the princes of the Universe!"

Does explain Garran! Think about it. You're a Highlander, someone 'kills' you, you have to move on to a new life or out yourself. Blade was over, he 'died', so came back as Libra.

.. They're both Highlanders!

All this talk of Highlander is reminding me of Master Shake chucking a one-armed criminal doll off a cliff.

"HE THE HIGHLANDER."

Ah, ATHF. I used to love shows like that, but after Snyder came into power and we got a influx of widget and live action shows I lost all interest in ATHF.

So far I've been watching nothing Rider related as of yet. I think Wizard may have turned me off of Toku in the foreseeable future.

Den-O 14 - 15.

Episode 14. Gun Form stole the show! It has a wicked look, a wicked fighting style and seeing Kamen Rider's saving puppies fills the area of my heart with Kotaro in with warmth. And like I said, this stories Imagin had a wicked design and so it was fun to see him let loose and get his final battle. Even the CGI train fight was done so epically I didn't really mind the shit special effects.

Episode 15 sadly, was nowhere as impressive, as it was both filler and really stupid filler at that. Plus it makes me wonder how Den-O is supposed to work. It's already been proven that despite being a staple of the show, large numbers of forms don't usually work because not all of them are as effective as others and juggling lots of forms on what seems to be a pretty small budget compared to Sentai is even harder.

Here though not only does Ryuo have five forms (if you include Plat) so far, four of those each have their own unique personality and although I think I was supposed to be wowed by Ryou getting taken over by all the different Imagin and using all their different forms across the episode, it felt more like a mandated thing.

Just meh, it's another show where I wish they split the forms up between separate Riders, rather than giving them all to a single person. I'm also guessing there is still a secondary Rider to come, so this show is gonna get damn crowded.

Kamen Rider Filler... meh. I'd rather they make the season a few episodes shorter instead of assaulting us with Filler.

I'm looking at you Ichigo Kurosaki.

Although people have made very reasonable arguments as to why the filler exists, I still think it's poor form that despite having a set number of episodes from the get go, they never seem to have enough story or character moments to fill it all.

Where did this whole concept of "filler" come from? At one point did every episode of every show have to contribute to some kind of overarching plot? When did episodic television become a bad thing?

When I was a kid I was a huge fan of Star Trek the Next Generation. The show had no grand plot that was developed over the course of each season - every week they'd arrive at a new planet, run into a new ship in space, or be hit by some kind of new threat. Sometimes a character would develop a little bit from his or her experiences, but for the most part nothing really changed. They went on an adventure and then the next episode took them somewhere else and the previous episode was largely forgotten. And it was great; I loved the hell out of that show and so did a bunch of other people - probably including some of you guys.

So why can't Kamen Rider pull off something like that? Why does every episode need to be part of the evil leader's endgame or contribute some dramatic new development in an existing character? As someone who's watched and enjoyed a bunch of Showa era Rider, it never bothers me that each episode is a done-in-one (sometimes two) Monster of the Week story. A lot of the episodes are entertaining and fun, even if there's no revelation about the villain or the hero. If the show is fun to watch, isn't that enough?

Now, to be fair, I'm not standing here accusing people of anything. I do this, too. I kinda hated the middle two-quarters of Fourze precisely because it felt like nothing was happening and all we were getting were episodic adventures. So yes, I'm equally guilty of wanting plot advancement all the damn time now and I wish I knew where that attitude came from. I love Garo, after all, and Garo series tend to have a large amount of episodic adventures with plot advancement sprinkled in here and there. What is it about Garo that lets me accept that more there, but get annoyed with ten episodes of the Rider Club wondering who Meteor is while Ryusei secretly hates them?

I really wish I could shake this attitude, because clearly tight pacing is not a priority for modern Kamen Rider anymore. Fourze had a lot of episodic two-parters and Wizard had even more. At this point it's also likely - although by no means guaranteed - that Gaim will end up at least somewhat similarly. I don't know. I'm not sure where this need for serialization in my modern Rider came from - maybe it's because I started with Agito, which was heavily serialized, maybe it's because I was a huge Lost fan - but I sometimes wish I could just block out that part of my brain and enjoy episodes without wondering how everything all ties together again. :(

Sorry that was long, but I was thinking about this a week or two ago and was reminded of it by what Sentai just said.

My main issue is that if the show clearly sets out to be episodic at the start, and builds its format to fit that, then it is fine. But using Black for example, it keeps telling us more is going on than we realise, but I'm twenty episodes in now and the show has barely even started yet. If you want to be an episodic adventure, fine, but don't tease us with stuff that you never plan to realise.

Just finished Hibiki and the 7 Oni. Well its was ok, wasn't that bad but didn't blow me away either. I was interested to see it because I read that it was supposed to be KR version of 7 Samurai and yeah I can see the similarities between the two. A village was being threatened by a Makamou/Bandits, the village hire Oni/Samurai to protect them. The Oni/Samurai gather more Onis/Samurais to help, the village doesn't trust them. So yeah pretty much the whole thing was quite like 7 Samurai.

I wondered in the beginning why there were 8 Onis doing the Taiko drums when there's supposed to be just 7 of them. Didn't see the betrayal coming but it made sense why for the first half of the movie Kabuki was the main Oni.

I also thought that Ibuki and Todoroki's suit look out of place. I wasn't a big fan of the movie exclusive suits too except the flying one. And poor Akira was just there to be a sacrificial lamb.

Another thing, in the end of the movie they showed an In Memory of Kanbe Miyuki, but the film was shown 2005 and she died 2008 so I'm not sure how that happened. Maybe what I saw was from a DVD released after her death I guess.

I'm glad you're still mostly enjoying Den-O. Your experiences seem to mirror mine from earlier in this thread.

I absolutely agree on filler, even if I can't recall what the episode following Gun form was about, I wish rider shows were maybe five or ten episodes shorter. Not every episode has to serve the overall plot, but I've yet to see a single series that couldn't do without some fat trimming. Even W, my favourite show, had a LOT of forgettable filler before the first movie. (and it follows that episodic format you describe)

EDIT: I think the next episode, or the one after that, (depending if you've finished the hostage situation) I think is the MOW voice by GaoGaiGar, which was awesome. He's was pretty cool for a monster of the week.

Another rare case of us agreeing :D

Pre-movie, I can only really recall the little girl who thought W was her dad (which was actually quite good) and the first arc with the terrible T-rex. (not so good)

W has one of the most unimpressive starts for one of the best shows.

I don't really know what this episode is about. Ryou's sister is acting completely out of character, the character who instigated the hostage situation turned out to be totally worthless and by the end the plot of the story of the week had shifted so far away from the hostage situation I couldn't quite work out why we were still in it. At least after the next episode that wraps this up, a good arc is coming.

Ah yesm it wa steh hostage situation. That is probably one of the sillier arcs. The end, though, is a bit funny. Again, it would've worked better as one doofy bottle episode instead of a typical two-ep arc. (and I'd still probably skip it if I rewatched)

BTW, Ryoutaro's sister acting how she does is... actually pretty tragic. Just keep that in mind.

There were some fun moments, like battles with Axe Form are always welcome, and I still believe in my headcanon that Momo and Hana have the hots for one another and whenever I see the way those two fight compared to how Momo fights with the other Imagin always gives my headcanon evidence.

But yeah everything else was largely worthless, especially as it put a lot of spotlight on Rod Form who may as well not be here and the whole Renegade Imagin aspect of Gun Form is poorly realised, and undermines how fucking cool Gun Form actually is.

I'm really intrigued by Ryou's sister as well, I find her really annoying at the minute since all she is there to be is dribbled over (which I don't really understand because although she is pretty, she is no stunner) but all the mystery around her and the telescope suggests she might actually become an interesting character.

You've seen mysterious watch guy in detective coat, right?

Because that's also gonna be important REAL soon. Like, I can't quite remember but it may even be part of ImagaoGaiGar's arc.