Wizard ep 1:

Second time I watch this one, I prefered it over the first time, but I still think it was rather bland.

Also Haruto doesn't show any emotion at all, it doesn't bother me that much, and from what I understand there's an in-story reason for that, but damn, that either takes a lot of acting skill or a total lack of them.

He's a good actor, it's just a very subdued and subtle performance.

You can keep saying that, but it's not.

Either he's a bad actor, or he has been given VERY bad direction. It's not subdued, it's boring and emotionless.

Maybe for the first portion of the series but Haruto is a fairly emotive guy as things progress. I'd rather have his more subdued attitude that Fourze's goofball in your face overacting.

You can keep saying that, but it's not.

:p

So. I just watched the episode where we learn about Sora/Gremlin. Turns out you can be a bastard before becoming a phantom. Who knew?

there's like 6-7 secondary riders of Kabuto. And yes that is Go-On Gold.

Decade episode 17.

It was ok. One part that bothered me was that the guy was just sitting on the bench, and then randomly attacked Mayu and Natsumi. Why them? Anyway, I knew that Kabuto was her older brother the whole time.

I watched Kabuto episodes 41-43 and enjoyed learning a lot more about Zect, the Natives, Tadakoro, and the new bad guy. Intrigued with Dark Kabuto, love Kagami learning about his father, and Tadakoro and how it affected him and how he saves Tendou and inspires him not to sacrifice himself. Loved Tsurugi with Yaguruma and Kageyama. Also love how Yaguruma loves the Darkness but Kageyama is still not sure. Tsurugi is still so much fun.

You say that like it's a fact. You don't like his performance, and that is fine, but you can't say 'his performance is bad FACT' like you've basically done here.

The fact that so many people do love the performance, and perceive the performance (in my opinion) correctly shows that it his performance isn't just a black and white thing you can stick 'bad' on and be done with.

Watched 44-46 of Kabuto and I horribly sad...Can deaths like this and Kiva stop happening, along with Playing Mass Effect I can barely take the deaths of so many amazing characters it makes me horribly sad.

Anyways I can't really focus after 46 so Sasword, Kabuto, Gatack, Punch Hopper, Kick Hopper and (even for a mini scene) Drake are all awesome. Loved seeing theBee one last time.

I supposed it was intentional, and as I said before Haruto seems like a more serious and level-headed protagonist that the other Neo-Heisei riders which is a good thing.

Hopefully I'll like Wizard a lot, Haruto at the very least seems like a breath of fresh air. But that Driver will drive me nuts, I love the spells but the "Shabadoobie touch to henshin" annoys me a lot.

I just watched the Hyper Battle Video of Kabuto and Hyper Gatack looks awesome. Also really funny and loved the Zectors talking and learning about each Zector too.

The logic used to grab a second Hyper Zecter so Kagami could use it was hilarious :lol But I wish Hyper Gattack got more love. I don't even know if there's a vinyl for it but I'd kill for a figuart.

Why there are two Hyper Zecters? Because of time travel, f#ck logic. :lol
Hyper is nice but I definitely prefer regular Gattack.

It's kind of unfortunate that the only acknowledgement Hyper Gattack received beyond the HBV was in the Kabuto fighting game.

Black 06. Despite another one of Gorgom's overly convoluted plans, this was a pretty good episode. I especially liked the bird mutant.

Oh and I'll ask this while I remember - is there any particular point I should watch the movies or shall I just leave them to the end? I'm guessing they don't really fit in anywhere but I thought I'd ask.

Wizard 2:
-So he can only use magic through rings?
-Sleep is the best ring ever.
-So I'll have to deal with Shunpei for 52 episodes, I can do that... I think.
-Yes Haruto you are quite awesome.
-Nice backstory.
-The White Wizard has a cool design, shame they never made a WAP version of him.
-I like how he just tosses him the driver, the White Wizard has better things to do than to deal with rookie Riders.
-Shunpei seriously clashes with the rest of the cast. From what I understand Beast is also a comedic character (kinda) so is Shunpei really necessary?
-And he's a mage now... neat
-I like Wizard's fighting style, I know the suit actors avoid punches to prevent damages to the prop rings, but it's a nice fight style, very unique and with a nice flow.

Definitely better than the first one.

Not really, no. He has one moment a couple weeks ago that does justify his presence, but that's about it. Overall, Shunpei and his goofy slapstick is part of Wizard's big identity problem: it tries to be both a serious action drama and a wacky screwball comedy at the same time and, as a result, neither really works that well.

If it helps, Shunpei does tone things down some after Beast is introduced.

That doesn't sound nice.
It's basically one of the main problems I had with Kiva

That's better than nothing.

Alright I finished Kabuto just now, and loved the series so much. Gatack vs Kabuto at the end was great, Dark Kabuto was amazing, Felt sad for Kick Hopper and Punch Hopper and their ending, loved Tadakoro's and Misaki's endings especially for Misaki honoring Tsurugi. Drake was nice to see at the end. Kagami is totally badass and one of my all time favorite Kamen Riders, I also think part of his personality was the predecessor for Eiji/OOO. Tendou was amazing at the end. Love this series so much. I think I'm going to finish GaoRanger next and then go back to Kamen Rider, I need to give Super Sentai some love.

My brotha! Same reaction I had to Kabuto and Gaoranger is one of my top favorite sentais ever!

It's a major issue with the show, yeah. As a series, though, I think it comes together much more solidly at the end than Kiva (at least it appears to be).

So I'm 10 episodes into Black and I think now is a good time to fire off some early impressions of it.

The good:
* Kotaro is a great Rider. While he isn't particularly developed, he has the straight-up hero qualities I enjoy in the Showa era riders.
* Battle Hopper is an absolute bro. I sorely regret not preordering him along with Black 2.0 and Shadow Moon now.
* The monster costumes for this show are absolutely brilliant, like, some of my favourite I've seen in Kamen Rider brilliant. They aren't overcomplicated, but are still pretty detailed and even grotesque at times.

The bad:
* Gorgom are pretty rubbish at the moment. I mentioned this earlier, but their plans are insanely elaborate for what they get out as an end result.
* The Showa style storytelling with little continuity is really affecting this show. Usually I can get along with it just fine, but Black feels like its a show with ongoing plot that it simply isn't making use of. Nobuhiko's trapped up somewhere and essentially being turned into the Gorgom god, but Kotaro would rather just bum around a coffee shop than actively look for him? I mean episode 10 was even called "Where's Nobuhiko?" and in reality didn't pay all that much attention to him.

It definitely still has my attention, but I hope this is just early pacing problems and not something that's going to plague the entire series.

No, that's pretty much how Black is. It tries to be both episodic and serialized at the same time and never really finds a good balance.

Well that's a shame :(

I had pretty much exactly the same feelings as you Zeo and that is why I got a bit fed up with Black in the end. The villains sucked, the show refused to move anywhere and although I'm glad it isn't Os level of overkill, Black's lack of weapons or forms makes even the action scenes drag after a while as basically every fight is the same with a different mutant photoshopped in.

The inclusion of heroism beside all the monster slaying and stuff was really enjoyable and made for a great novelty for a while, but Kamen Rider clearly has minuscule budgets compared to sentai so I don't come to my Rider shows for the same popcorn fix, I come for more character and drama focus only to find Black has none.

Are you gonna watch Black Rx then Locke?

Isn't it meant to be terrible?

Everyone said that Kamen Rider Black was better, but you're not exactly everyone.

I'll take that as a compliment.

That was actually meant to be encouragement to give it a try. I haven't watched it, but I'm all for people forming their own opinions.

Is it even subbed?

Yes, it is subbed.

Got a link? It ain't on KRDL.

It has HK subs. They're relatively decent from what I've seen, but they're still HK subs.

Awesome =) I've been loving GaoRanger so far so can't wait for more. I'm going to start Black, Hibiki or Faiz when I get back to Rider.

Decent is good enough for me. I've watched Battle Fever J lol