Yeah, it... I think it's a show that has plenty of space to bring your own ideas into it. Like, for better or worse. It's a show where the conversations tend (at least in my experience) to be very blunt, very informational. There's not a lot of emotional outbursts, rending garments and two-person acting clinics. It's a stoic character talking to a taciturn character, and they are setting up the beats of the current monster plot. That's a deficit, maybe, to a fan like me, who wants to watch a storyteller tell a story I can get lost in, but it's an advantage if you want to reinterpret or expand on what's on screen.

I don't know, it's weird. I feel real weird about it. For a lot of the thematic stuff for Kuuga, I'm kind-of at the stage of Okay But. Like, yes, I think those themes are there. They are completely what the finale of the show is about. Several characters explicitly state it before and after the Daguva fight. But, I don't know if I thought those themes were utilized thoroughly enough, or consistently applied to the series. I can't argue they weren't there, but I can argue they weren't prominent enough to be considered a success.

As always, though, that's just my reaction. If it hardcore clicked with someone else, I think that's awesome. There's nothing, like bad to me about Kuuga, just stuff that didn't work for me. (Okay, well, Jean. Jean is bad. If you think Jean is good, you are bad and should feel bad.)

Ha ha, yeah, that dude. I don't know how Agito's gonna go. I liked at least one of his stories (27 and 28, I think) but holy shit did I not like some of his other ones. It's going to be an interesting winter for me and Kamen Rider Agito!

I like that house analogy. It's weird, looking at Kuuga. I thought I'd find more of the Heisei stuff I know, but it was weirdly crammed with the Showa stuff that I don't care for. As it moved to the end, though, I definitely felt like I was seeing more Heisei Rider than how it started.

Also, hey, welcome aboard TokuNation!

I think watching Kuuga first may have helped me a lot. I didn't have any pre-conceptions of what a rider show even was, so I got the experience the show closer to the way people at the time may have, as a fresh innovative think with it's own unique ideas that hadn't yet become any sort ot standard formula, especially as it intentially departed from the Showa stuff in a number of ways.

Would I have reacted the same way as you if I had watched modern stuff first? I don't know. But I'm glad I watched it the way I did.

Wild guess? I'd assume the less Heisei shows you've watched, the better Kuuga feels. (Cue probably the very next person saying "It was the 18th Rider show I watched and it's my favorite.") It's interesting to me as, like, a historical document, but I'd have to assume the more you can watch it cold, the more the style feels fresh and exciting.

For me, I would've never started with Kuuga if that's what was presented to me. It was the garish designs and ludicrous plotting of Ex-Aid that, like, colonized me for Kamen Rider shows. Something this dark and serious and slow.. I mean, it's pretty clearly not that much my thing.

Really cool to read your thoughts on the finale. Kuuga's ending has always been so odd that it provokes a lot of strong reactions - from the show skipping Yusuke's first fight with Daguva to the very non-flashy final fight, these last few episodes usually get a pretty poor reception. I'm always curious to see what people think of the ending, especially when it's not just complaining about the lack of a big dynamic boss battle.

Well, it WAS my 18th rider show, and it's my 3rd favourite! Does that count? lol

Thanks! I admit to being a little thrown by the start of episode 47, with how the fight against Daguva was already lost. At first, I was like, "Are they flashing forward to the end of the episode? That's an unusual storytelling move for the Very Present Tense type of thing Kuuga is normally all about." But, no! Fight happened, Daguva won big, we're moving on, this story is really about Godai and the people in his life. The final fight was doing a lot of the same stuff, keeping The People Godai Fights To Protect as the important part of the story.

I feel like my favorite conclusions to Rider shows, the ones I feel most concluded their stories, it's not the final fights I focus on. It's getting Philip back at the end of W. It's the fight before the final fight on Ghost. It's the New World on Build. That emotional stuff... it's so much more difficult to do than the fights. Fights are pretty easy! Making the fights matter, having them be in service of story, it's substantially harder.

As long as OOO and Build come out ahead, sure. When anyone else calls a Rider show their favorite and it's not OOO or Build, I assume they're just avoiding saying "my favorite non-Build, non-OOO Rider show" out of brevity.

This exchange is getting scarily accurate because, yes; my Top 5 in order is OOO > Build > Kuuga > Den-O > Fourze! Quit spying on me! :p

OOO is a great show, no doubt about it. For me it's only real fault is following W. Kiva-W was the "Golden Age" of Kamen Rider for me, and was truly the time in my life when I enjoyed Kamen Rider the most. My Xtreme love of W just kept me from being able to really get into OOO when it originally aired (I rewatched it a few years later with my roommates and enjoyed it a ton on my 2nd go-round).

It wasn't until Gaim that I even started watching Kamen Rider regularly again, then Ghost almost derailed that train. Thankfully, Build came along and has truly renewed my love for this show.

I don't know if "reading someone's signature line" counts as spying! I'm just being observant!

In order to not be scared as much in 2020, I'd recommend thinking about changing your signature to "just someone who loves NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS LET ME SPEAK TO YOUR SUPERVISOR so much her heart might explode".

OOO is the best Kamen Rider show. It does everything right! (Maybe maybe maybe not the theme song, but that's being pretty nit-picky. I eventually liked it okay by the end, but, yeah, huge drop song-wise from W.)

And that is why it will never be among my favorites. It’s a great show, the first I've rewatched in its entirety, and it was still as good as the first time. Yes, it does everything right. From start to finish.

But that's exactly what robs it of the potential to truly shine for me. It stands with lots and lots of other completely solid entries in the franchise, is absolutely enjoyable to watch with everything one could want from a Rider show.

Yet after finishing it nothing stays with me except "It was fun". As far as Phase II goes, only Gaim and Build really left an impression on me.

Although, Gaim - I have to rewatch it at some point. I'm a little bit afraid of it actually. Will I still like it now that I watched so many other Rider shows? I mean, I openly stated many times that I have watched superior shows since. I wonder what it's like rewatching the show everything started with for me.

In fact, I played with the thought of opening a "Kiwami rewatches Gaim"-topic in a similar manner as your threads, but I must admit that I don’t feel like I can live up to it. Knowing me I will just not bother after a few posts. It really takes a whole lot of passion to write down your entire journey with a show like that. Your threads are the most dedicated and impressive I can think of around here really. I feel bad for not even having the time to read them along as much as I want to.

Maybe I’ll make an actually fun new year’s resolution and try to follow the next one you’re coming up with. Maybe it’s actually a show I haven’t seen yet and I can watch it alongside you.