Henshin was awesome. That's all I have to say.

AFAIK the manga introduced no new Riders, so I wouldn't expect any.

I've been playing Memory of Heroez again because of the W hype.

It's a great game they could easily make a Fuuto PI game in the same style.

As cool as that would be, I think a theoretical Fuuto PI game would benefit alot more from being a Yakuza clone.

Continuing to love how this show captures the feeling of the original W.

Tokime's demeanor drastically changed at the end of the episode, now she talked more and showed open concern at least for Shotaro. Was her distant, aloof, and inconsiderate personality a facade before or that she now had gained her (literal) memories, coincidental with her (Gaia) memory now being damaged?

While the Rider scenes like the henshin and fighting seems to be done better in anime form (and I'm less critical of the henshin scenes in live action than fighting scenes), Philip searching for the answer in G̶o̶o̶g̶l̶e̶ Gaia Library isn't much different in anime form to the live action one, so kudos for the live action's effects for Gaia Library.

There's a return of Akira Aoyama, which likely due to anime format received quite an upgrade in his looks. Not only that too but he's accompanied by a girl. Shotaro was mostly in a bad mood when he dealt with him at W's final episode, then he had some light banter with him at the end, and it seems that Shotaro still kept that when talking with him, not limited to him getting a "girlfriend" (but normally is courteous). Unlike how he talked to Chuuta (putting his pride as a detective and Fuuto outside of being paid for the job).

I think it's more in answer to Shotaro's sincerity and probably having the first real conversation she's had in forever.

Truly thanks to the power of animation were we able to have an epic bike chase sequence! Take that road laws! You don't exist in anime!

Overall a really nice episode that closed off the Road Dopant Case. I had a feeling something was going on with Chuuta, especially the further we got in, so him being a Memory user made a lot of sense. Speaking of Memory users, looks like we've got what I'm assuming is our big mastermind, the Aurora Dopant, which is a sick design.

Also it was nice to see W in action, and oh boy, is that a revamped/reduxed WBX I'm hearing as the insert song? Now that's pretty great!

Not much to say though other than I am digging this anime and can't wait to keep watching it.

Straight into the Kamen Rider action as W kicks the ever-livining #$%^ out of Road! You got to love it.

LunaJoker! I loved all the animation on Luna's stretchy arms! We even got to see LunaTrigger!

Holy #$%^! I'd recognize those guitar riffs anywhere! It's W-B-X Crime in the City! The original theme of W! Playing during a create bike chase scene in Shadow Fuuto and W finishing off Road with a Rider Kick Maximum Drive! So, so amazing!

(Also, I think in these three episodes we've gotten more bike action than most modern live-action Rider shows).

All's well that ends well...Shotaro and Philip have reconciled and all the criminals have been arrested...including Chuuta, who turns out to have been after a Gaia Memory he bought and stashed in his bag the whole time because he craved the power of it. I kind of figured as much with the clues, but it was nice to see Philip put everything together and even explained Tokime's powers.

Toadstool Dopant! He actually looked kind of cool, shame we didn't get to see him fight W...but I guess that goes to show how pathetic Chuuta really is. His corrupted love for Fuuto brought Shotaro to tears.

I guess Tokime still stole stuff (even if it was only to survive), so she has to count up her sins as well and turn herself in...but not before basically falling for Shotaro and planting a kiss right on his lips. She likes how half-boiled he is! What a way to leave off before she gets into the police car. Shotaro you lucky dog.

HeatMetal cameo! I hope we see it in a full fight soon.

The Opening basically gives it away, but unlike Shotaro's other femme fatale love interests, Tokime is sticking around! Thanks to Terui (who still hasn't shown up yet) she's got a work release and probation so she can work with the Narumi Detective agency, keep herself out of trouble, and find out what's up with her.

And it also offers plenty of time for Shotaro and Tokime to bond...and she wastes no time getting into his apartment and plopping herself onto his bed so they can sleep together! Girl's pretty aggressive! It's just too bad Shotaro is too wholesome and too worried she'll end up like his other femme fatale love interests to pursue her as hard as she is him. But I hope things turn out well between Shotaro and Tokime.

Looks like the new villains have their own drivers/belts, and they know about Tokime...could she be a former member of the villains before she became an amnesiac?

Is too much Tokime a bad thing if she's an amoeba that keeps multiplying? It sure seems like Shotaro has no problem feeding her though.

https://i.imgur.com/sdgWVLg.png

Hahaha, he still hen pecks.

Anyway, this was the action packed climax to this opening arc, and I thought it did things pretty well!

Again, it's great to see them take advantage of how this is an anime via more dynamic power useage(especially in terms of the Cyclone Memory) as well as the bike chase.

Also, Shotaro having a apartment was actually a big surprise for me. I was convinced all throughout W proper that him and Philip just lived at the Detective Agency. Especially considering that Akiko is their landlord and all. Still, it was a very fitting looking living space for him.

Aurora Dopant's' Henshin was really cool looking too, and I am very interested in where the story is headed going forward.

By the way, that insert song we heard is called "W-G-X 〜W Goes Next〜"

My memories of the manga are gradually returning. I forgot Chuuta was a Dopant and forgot the circumstances of Tokime’s release.

She still acts aloof at the end, too, which makes her personality shift a bit more digestible. Chalk it up to the severity of the circumstances that briefly snapped her out of flirtatious cryptic mode. I’m still not sold on the character and IIRC it took me a while to accept her in the manga.

The fight with Roads was awesome. I think it was a bit longer than in the manga as well. I don’t recall W having as much of a spar with him at the beginning. Can’t wait to see more of W’s old and new forms. (Even if the new ones do break the mechanics of W’s memory combos, but that’s a conversation for later)

I love how many small touches the show is putting in that call back to the original. Loved the action scenes, loved the updated version of W-B-X, and I love the little delusion bits at the end (which I just realized today are a reference to the bonus mini episodes from W's DVD releases). That's not to say that I'm not enjoying the new characters and stories, but a huge part of the show's charm for me is how much it feels like a natural extension of W.

I'd be really curious to see if we get a live action Tokime if Shotaro ever shows up again in a movie or web series.

I'm sure Renn Kiriyama wouldn't mind.

You would not believe how stupid I looked freaking out when W-G-X started playing. From the moment I heard those notes, I was won over all over again.

Now, it's kind of standard Rider procedure to set up something and make it look like it points to one thing, only to have it be something else, but something about W just makes it more interesting given the detective/mystery nature, and the fact that Fuuto Tantei adds extra layers to the case, is something I enjoy. Not that it's a bad trend for Rider, but sometimes, it can get predictable without some extra seasonings.

And boy oh boy! If W's transformation and the Begins Night redux weren't amazing, the fight here was beautifully animated. Not only does the animation give more room for crazy stunts like the Road chase or Luna's elasticity, but I can almost see these play out in live action, especially the suits. And speaking of which, the fact that some of the Tokusatsu shooting locations like the fountain and the warehouse in Chuuta's flashback look (or are) straight out of those sites, which I love.

Now it's time for Daikaijuman's Memory Review Corner (not going to be an official segment)! Road uses heat and can create roads, which is pretty much exactly how roads are made, but what about the projectiles? They could refer to road planning, in which it sets a target to where to make one, or how sunlight bounces of the pavement, another use for the heat. (This was a dumb segment, but I thought I'd give it a shot. Ha ha.)

So now Tokime has joined the party! And stole Shoutarou's (hard-boiled decor) room. Like a lot of people, I too thought he lived with Phillip at the Agency, but maybe I'm also misremembering, but didn't we see his apartment somewhere before? Also, here's hoping Tokime doesn't go evil like all of his love interests, but since I've not read that far in the manga, and given her amnesia and Aurora's statement, that seems to be somewhat likely.

Also, that little segment at the end almost had Evangelion energy.

My one hope for this anime when it was announced was that we'd get either WBX as is or a re-recording playing during a big climax just to really hit things home.

Not only did they do it in episode 3, they recorded what is basically a follow-up even moreso than Over Again was.

Fuuto P.I. passes the 3 episode test with flying colors.

I feel like the fact that she isn't a violent killer or hardened criminal and ends up joining the agency as, basically, Shotaro's legit love interest is setting things up to not end the way they usually do for the women in Shotaro's life.

It definitely seems like she's connected to the bad guys somehow...maybe she was working for them up until she got cold feet and they attacked her and gave her amnesia.

By the way, a question for those who have read the manga. Given that Shotaro has found himself a long-term love interest, is Phillip in for something on the romantic side, or is the cat enough for him?

The cat and whatever mysteries they have going on this season...I think what happened with Wakana kind of wrecked him.

I think in the manga he's confirmed as gay?

Me when W-G-X started up: 😲🤩:rock:. Once again this show really captures the mood of the original show.

I love how people are reviewing the legitimacy of the "Roads" Memory's name when one of the main memories is "Joker" and it's ability is increased hand-to-hand prowess and not jokes of any kind. :lol

I don't remember that. Philip just isn't a person with romantic interests as far as I recall.

I thought he was the Joker in the card sense, that is, he can be replaced by anything. True, nothing prevents Shotaro from replacing Metall with Triger, but Fang did not seem to be used with other forms.

Thematically Shotaro is the wild card, in that he was not part of Shroud's plan and is the only unrelated/rogue element in the whole scheme of her and Museum. The Joker memory represents how he's the one element that consistently foils the machinations of others due to his unpredictability.

But as far as the Memory's names and powers it's really completely unrelated. Even your explanation doesn't make sense when you realize Philip can freely switch his Memories out as well.

Also, spoilers for the anime regarding Fang:

Fang can be mixed with Trigger and Metal in the manga, and thus the anime, with the explanation being that Shotaro has been W for so long now his compatibility with Trigger and Metal is on the same level as Joker was in the series, so he can maintain the transformation.

It's a cool idea and looks awesome, but they sadly do the thing all post-series W content has done and not understand how W's Memory combos work. The reason FangJoker produces blades from the body is because it's combined with Joker, which auqments W's body with the corresponding Philip Memories. This is why Luna can stretch limbs, and why Heat gets flame punches/kicks. Trigger and Metal don't augment the body, instead augmenting their weapons, since that's what those memories provide. (Shotaro's Memories are all physical, Philip's are elemental/esoteric) FangTrigger and FangMetal don't get this and instead augment W's body just like Joker rather than the weapons, despite that not following the mechanic of W. It's like that one Wizard special where LunaTrigger was using whip punches even though LunaTrigger can't actually do that.

I haven't read much of the manga, but he's always struck me as ace, yeah.

Continuing from the end of ep. 2, Tokime isn't malicious, like showing concern for Akiko, and later joining her agency (though now Philip also implies a dark side in her), but it seems that she still didn't understand proper manner (amnesia-induced?). Although her moments with Shotaro here might be pleasing to watch, it's technically still her invading him like kissing without (outward) consent, and treating his house (so he lives on his own house instead of Agency...) as if it's her own as soon as she knew the address, namely... sleeping on Shotaro's bed, and worse, she did with her boots on. Someone else's bed! I̶ ̶k̶i̶n̶d̶a̶ ̶w̶i̶s̶h̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶i̶n̶t̶e̶n̶t̶i̶o̶n̶a̶l̶l̶y̶ ̶d̶o̶n̶e̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶s̶h̶o̶w̶ ̶T̶o̶k̶i̶m̶e̶ ̶c̶a̶u̶s̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶i̶n̶c̶o̶n̶v̶e̶n̶i̶e̶n̶c̶e̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶ ̶S̶h̶o̶t̶a̶r̶o̶ ̶i̶n̶s̶t̶e̶a̶d̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶m̶e̶d̶i̶a̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶g̶e̶t̶t̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶p̶u̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶m̶ ̶o̶f̶f̶. As Kamen Rider usually had the characters taking off their footwear on bed or other related places, like, Philip on ep. 1. Revice also had Ikki going apeshit over Kudo for this at ep. 14. I kinda knew it when I brought up her boots being bloody at Tachikawa men murder flashback...

https://media.discordapp.net/attachm...6098/blood.png

Other than that, it's not the first time Shotaro got himself praised for being "half-boiled" instead, and Tokime's just another one, like Akiko defending him that Shotaro isn't merely a tool to fight as W, or Philip acknowledging it right before they get W Xtreme, that his half-boiled persona also makes things work. Here Shotaro displays seeing the good in others, as he acknowledged that Tokime had did some help like scaring away the students from Road Dopant's attack. In this case it seems an objective view he had on her as he do remind her that stealing is a crime. Shotaro in general does put his complete faith and trust in his clients, which leads to..

Chuuta is quite an unremarkable and average man, and it's fortunate that no one at Narumi Detective Agency picked up on that (right treatment), before knowing his true nature. But turns out that, yeah Chuuta does get ridiculed for being mediocre in-universe which was one of his motives of becoming a Toadstool Dopant, to become superhuman and get back at the public humiliation. And the reason he's after the bag was because there's his Gaia Memory inside, trying to avoid the police by contacting the Agency to deal with apparently supernatural Tokime. Humiliation aside, so he's a case where it's not that he's good person without power, but is just harmless. Far from the extent of Isaka, but still he'd try to dispose the Agency via Tachikawa, and likely he can act as a regular MOTW with Toadstool Memory if he were to succeed. Nevertheless his case reveals the alternate city connected to Fuuto.

As for here, Shotaro's romance too, is a part of him playing hard-boiled detective, femme fatales are usually their preference and it's usually doomed romance. Same goes for Shotaro in his woman preferences being femme fatale, Unfortunately, for Shotaro, the right part about acting hard-boiled is.... him always getting doomed romances. So now it makes sense why Shotaro avoids Tokime so much despite a clear interest in her. After all, femme fatales typically aren't morally sound, as that type also tend to make use of their sex appeal to trap others for their own selfish needs. Chasing after those type is inherently risky, like girls chasing after bad boys, of which obviously, there are no guarantees they aren't immune to their bad treatment.

The fighting against Road Dopant, it seems that the kick attacks of W here is not much better than the live-action form, as those are quite janky. But the strategy of saving the girls is neat here, taking advantage of the environment and an existing power in LunaJoker's stretching arms.

I only did that as a joke, I'm not doing it again.

Besides, what the heck does Luna have to do with being stretchy? It's not worth trying to guess how these things work. Leave that to the Toei Executives.:lolol

I'm just going to continue to enjoy this series.

How well did CR & Funimation do with the name translations? Funimation is still iffy when it comes to adapting names with locationization (For example in the DBS dub, Toppo was changed to Top and Grand Preist is changed to Grand Minster).

The phases of the moon can be perceived as changes in its shape, that is, elasticity. Attractive, but they obviously chose short and easy-to-pronounce words for the W forms around the world, so this is the best that was found. But in general, I agree with the idea.

Wonder when we'll see Double master FangMetal & FangTrigger? Love to see what their hissatsu finishers are!

I don't think there's been any major inconsistencies. They even did color subs for the form changes like classic KR subs.

Except Luna's power's are not strictly elasticity, but that it creates "real illusions." Like how Joker Strange creates three duplicates of the Luna half that all whip the opponent at once.

Is there any chance if there will be a eng dub of Fuuto PI, it would be both cool and weird to hear Shoturo and Phillip speaking English.

I don't think I want to hear someone dub over Fumihiko Tachiki for the Gaia Memories.

Why would they?

Because it's still a Japanese voice acting credit and they'd have to pay extra for it. It's why dubs rerecord animal noises like dog barks, for instance.

Ah I didn?t know that?yeah that would suck if they did dub the Gaia Memories.

Tokime is back at the office and she and Philip...don't quite hit it off. It's like Shotaro's partner and (potential) girlfriend going at it! Although to Philip's credit he realized that it's better to not come off like a person who only sees people as lab rats and points of interest, but a little too late before Tokime gets that impression.

Mobile games and sexy idol cosplayers who are also game characters!? Definitely a different kind of case for the Narumi Detective agency.

I had a feeling that the mousy and dorky programmer was actually Megu, but her gorgeous makeover team did an amazing job dressing her up! I love how her clothes, including underwear, just flew out from inside the curtain.

Monako definitely has the figure (and the boobs) to pull off Megu's outfit and look, and no wonder she's such a fan-favorite, but the poor girl would rather just focus on developing her game than wearing a tight, skimpy outfit and having to be paraded around as an idol. She's only doing it for the sake of the game. Not to mention her producer is riding her and she only gets emotional support from her makeup team.

Ah, I see! Tokime and Philip don't get along because they're surprisingly similar! Especially in their affinity for one half-boiled detective.

Lucky Shotaro now gets to ride with Tokime on his bike.

So where was Maji-P? Is this meant to be a misdirect as to who the Dopant is? Because I don't think the Meganuera Dopant is him, but maybe he's connected somehow?

Megu really does love her fans! The moment she hears them waiting for her, she pulls a complete 180 and gets into character and delivers a surprisingly well-animated and choreographed idol performance! The studio is pulling out all the stops for this adaption.

So Tokime can detect Dopants...but it seems like if the "sound" is more present, like with the Aurora Dopant, she basically becomes possessed and drawn to that sound? Or maybe it's because the Aurora Dopant is connected to her judging by their shared hair color? But Shotaro's voice was able to bring her out of it, which was nice.

The Meganuera Dopant, which is basically just a Dragonfly, was a pretty dangerous foe, requiring both CycloneTrigger and CycloneMetal to fend off, and he managed to survive two Maximum Breaks. Not to mention he seems to be an evolution of normal Dopants with an extra ability to basically increase the weight around him to hold back his foes. And he's still out there!

Aurora Dopant watching the battle and talking about all of W's forms! We even get to see FangJoker and Extreme in silhouette! Also it's kind of funny that Daisuke Ono was the better half of New Den-O and now he's a major villain in the W anime.

No wonder Shotaro called on Terui for help and made sure to let Tokime know she's got to step up...because taking the hit for Megu in CycloneMetal wounded him and it looks like he might be out of commission for a bit.

The Half-Boiled Delusion Theater...okay, Uchiyama and Hosoya playing each others' characters was fun, but KAMEN RIDER X CAMEO! SET UP!!!

Watched the first three episodes this eve, and yeah, this is a solid little mystery plot which obviously sets up the status quo and mysteries to solve as the show goes on. And it's a good opener, capturing the "victim of the week" plots the early-2010's shows made their standard of doing well. Even having not seen much of Double, the characters have a nice dynamic, and the shift to anime means the fight scenes are given a lot wider scope and energy - really taking advatage of the medium. So yeah, good stuff, hopefully it continues to keep up the hype.

All right. This is about how far the Maga Translations went for me, so it's all new territory for me from now on.

Now I'd like to mention, when I first got here, I was expecting the Idol to basically be a unit of them becoming the idol but switching between them for some reason but was not surprised when it turned out to be the nerd (I mean, I had an inkling when she reacted to Shoutarou's comment).

I love how there's the little scene with Shoutarou returning to the detective agency and seeing the dangerous aura as he arrived. But this too feels like something you'd expect from Kamen Rider, in how Phillip and Tokime don't quite hit it off and are likely going to spend this arc getting better acquainted. Gosh, I enjoyed Shoutarou and Akiko's expressions this episode.

I'm going to be honest, I don't care much for Idol-ish stye songs, but this one actually slapped. Here I was thinking it was going to be your usual idol J-Pop song, but no, I actually strangely liked this one, and the animation was quite good too (Lots of physics this season...). And then we got W's fight against the Meganuera Dopant, who's actually a Super Dopant, and eve that fight was really fun to watch, even giving us a sneak peek at Fang and X-Treme Forms. As a side note, I adore how they added Shoutarou's hand gestures and wrist flicks, and how they even use costumes they wore from the series proper. Good stuff.

And that ending segment with Shoutarou and Phillip switching bodies, getting confronted by the Road Dopant, then that brilliant "Transformation" where they found that reversing their pre-transformation poses, they form an X, which promptly leads to a Kamen Rider X cameo and Phillip (Shoutarou) starts shouting "Set-up! Set-up! Set-up!" It had me laughing for a good minute. I love this show.

I have to say, as cringe as I find idol stuff in Japan to be, the fact that the mobile game actually looked like something a popular mobile game would look like was pretty impressive. Too many times in non-game media do fake games look really phony, but I actually wondered if they were actually shilling a real game until I remembered that the manga came out years ago and there's no way it could be. :lol

Otherwise the episode is real good. Reminds me why I loved W. Character banter and interesting plot setups that lead to disastrous hi-jinks. I still appreciate how the manga/anime format allows for the typical W story beats to be given a harder edge, like Shotaro's wounds being more obviously serious than if it was live-action with fake blood. I also like how they haven't abandoned things like the Memory Gadgets and assisted Maximum Drives just because they're no longer pushing a toyline. Those are still elements of the world and story so it's nice to see them be treated with the same... I dunno, respect sounds lofty, but you know what I mean. They're there and I'm glad. :D

Also I didn't realize how much the manga kind of subtly hyped Terui up. To newcomers who are only experiencing the anime I can only imagine how it seems like they keep teasing/alluding to him. Of course when Accel does show up he's a badass so it makes perfect sense. One of my favourite parts of any post-series W story is Terui, due to how it really shows his maturity and mellowed, supportive personality now that he's no longer driven by revenge and is in fact a loving and supporting husband.