By the way, about Madoka. This show has been praised and reviled for infusing magical girl anime with cruelty and misery. But I started rewatching Sailor Moon at a more mature age and I will say that there are also enough very heavy episodes. And yes, Princess Tutu was full of agnst before Madoka, not to mention such things as Utena and Pretty Honey. So the "Madoka effect" is most likely caused not by the fact that she shows cruelty, because this was done before her, but by the fact that this show deliberately sticks out and relishes such moments.

Watched Decade's musical live show. In fact, this is the story of Kuuga / Yusuke and Tsukasa is not even really needed there, and Natsumi is not needed at all. But I liked how absurd and cool it is at the same time. And here is an excerpt that I am completely ready to re-evaluate endlessly: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQo-UYuE4G0

Watching all Rider shows on You Tube not on the main
Toku Feed as only 2 episodes are subbed each series.

Kuuga, Ryuki, Zero-One as well as the original series are available to watch on Shout Factory TV's streaming app and website as well as Tubi with Zero-One and Kuuga are already released by Shout Factory on Blu-Ray with Ryuki making its US release via Blu-Ray next month through that same company as well as Kamen Rider Black also being released next month on Blu-Ray albeit through Discotek Media. Also, you should consider watching some seasons through various streaming sites if necessary like Tokuzilla as a minor example.

Anyway, I'm now up to Den-O's own endgame arc via its final three episodes.

I read through the original Kamen Rider manga, and I must say I definitely consider it a must read for any Rider fan. At the same time though, it was... different than I expected?


It definitely has a lot that sets it apart from its tokusatsu version and it is an overall darker story, but at the same time it had way more goofy 70s toku energy than I thought it would, so I actually think the show was surprisingly faithful! For a manga that predates so much of the henshin hero genre this was a bit mind blowing to me. I also didn't know about the thing with Hongo and Hayato's stint with a shared body, which I guess W was a callback to?


Good stuff overall, the art was often quite stunning and I liked both its early parts which were dark with some goofy elements and the later parts that were goofy with some dark elements.

The second part of the Shin Kamen Rider Prequel Manga has been scanlated

https://trafalgarlog.wordpress.com/2...art-2-shocker/

I have now finished the core show of Ex-Aid, including the Lazer HBV and True Ending.

The Lazer HBV was just some goofy fun, and True Ending, while not great, I did enjoy for what it was. Especially its atmosphere.

As for the core show itself, well... it's fine. That's it. Just overall, fine. Not horrible, but not particularly great either. The biggest issue I had though was in its final act, which really wasn't a good time for me.

Because see, during the middle part of the show, where it basically became the Poppy and Parado Show, I actually got rather invested in a show that up until that point I was just kinda neutral on. But then, as the show has a good thing going, it gets completely overtaken by the arrival of Masamune Dan.

And I'll be honest, I find Masamune to be the worst written antagonist I've experienced in the franchise so far. Not only does he come in almost out of nowhere, but he gets a ton of freebies to keep him relevant to the plot and beat the cast repeatedly to the point that it got really frustrating. Masamune can't even program anything, yet he somehow makes Taddle Legacy?

He can delete anyone he wants with the press of a button(which is never followed up on), he can hoarde power-ups for himself(but doesn't do it for the longest time), he can teleport even when not transformed, he can reset the game, he can reprogram Gamedeus(even though he's not a programmer), the list just went on and on and made the entire arc really drag. And it's especially not helped in just how boring his character and personality are.

But it wasn't all bad though. While Parado ended up being my favorite character overall, the most surprising takeaway for me was actually Kuroto Dan. As someone watching Ex-Aid after having seen a bunch of Kuroto's' later series cameos, ontop of what little I knew of him from the fanbase, I was so surprised to see a character that was apparently just hammy acting and memes was actually a rather three dimensional character all throughout the show's' runtime. And I really dug that! It's a such a shame that there's so much of his character that just isn't followed up on.

In the end, unless the rest of the post show content ends up being really good for me, my final rating for Ex-Aid is a 2/6. That final act really does do alot to hurt it, but outside of that the show just never got past being thoroughly "okay" for me, with no real big emotional response from me to speak of.

What about Kai from Den-O? For me, he is by far the worst antagonist. As for Masamune, everything is quite simple: he is not a programmer, he is a businessman. We can assume that he bought himself an awesome cheating character and therefore, even without knowing how to play, he still poses a serious threat to the rest.
As for Ex-Aid, I liked the show while I watched it, but afterward it turned out to be surprisingly...unmemorable. That is, now I can?t even remember what Gamedeus looked like, and for the final boss of the game, this is unforgivable.

And ironically Ex-Aid had quite short amount of total episodes for KR, only ending at 45. Masamune being bad, boring, or overstaying his welcome would be your personal opinion, but I'd think iirc none suggests that Masamune can't program, he can albeit not as talented as his son, though what's important is that he doesn't care about creativity in his programs, viewing the games only as a tool to achieve his goals, like how real life sociopaths who don't have a particular interest in an creative pursuit to struggle with it, quickly become bored with things that don't interest them and lose focus, like only giving his version of Gamedeus generic final boss lines, in comparison of Kuroto giving Bugsters more colorful personality.

He's three dimensional yeah, though he's straight-up evil throughout the show (the one with little sympathetic traits), including when he joined CR honestly too; as it's only an evil fighting other evil that has mutual goal with the heroes (like Kusaka in Faiz).

Die is a Kai fan, and perhaps he got something to say regarding it. :p Otherwise, Masamune not knowing how to play is clearly shown in how he's a shitty fighter when he can't overwhelm his opponent like Hyper Muteki, or perhaps even Taddle Fantasy holding his own outside of pause. This trend continues in Takahashi's show later in Gai using Thouser. Perhaps... Taira/Ginpen in Geats is an example of what'd happen if a businessman isn't given super powerful tools as central antagonist role.

I think Ginpen is definitely a more positive character. But I would venture to guess that we will see someone like Masamune in Geats. Most likely from among the sponsors or the top management of the DGP.