Man, I don't even remember them using Accel's bike mode more than twice. Guess I need to rewatch W.

The bike mode is something that appears... maybe four times total? I only remember because there's the first instance, and two instances of gimmickry showing off, (Tank drone guys! He was in the show, remember? He was, uh, he was a tank that was there once!) and one honestly pretty humourous use of it. Maybe it appears more, but not in any severe capacity.

Mostly however I want to say it's just for his maximum drive finisher, where he turns into bike mode and is immediately engulfed in flames as he shoots through and enemy type thing. Needless to say, it appears more in the intro than the TV show. :lol

I actually REALLY like Accel's design, and I don't find the execution that bad. He's very knightly, and his bulky, detailed design is, again, contrast to the clean and streamlined W. Accel's base form is clearly a warrior straight-up, and the bulk of the backpack when he runs really makes him feel geared-up. The only hang up are the shoulder pads, but flappy shoulderpads are just something you kind of get used to in Kamen Rider. I actually just got the Figurerise model of his base design, because the deisgn itself is sweet. (it can, uh, also turn into a bike. Looks more convincing than the show's :lol) It's also probably the only time a "gunblade" design for a sword hasn't seemed utterly stupid since it actually serves a purpose. But yeah, Trial deffinitely surpasses it in execution.

As for the character, Accel seemed like a solid and successful attempt do do the "typical" secondary rider right before later series tried mixing it up to varying degrees. One who is initially antagonistic but unlike, say, in Kiva where Ixa is literally insane and laughably bad at his attempts at any sort of character, Accel actually pulls off the "don't get in my way" aspect without seeming needlessly villainistic. Mostly because he has no pointlessly shoe-horned-in beef with W aside from the fact he doesn't find Shotaro too competant.

Been rewatching Blade with the new encodes/subs and it really makes a difference. The early episodes still have issues but are much more tolerable now.

While Accel is fine, I think my problem is that he still carried the cliched secondary rider necessities, so to speak. He may not have been needlessly dickish as some others, but he was still eye rollingly typical in what to expect.

Yeah, I can't agree with that. Accel was pretty cool, and like I said, he was typical done right.

That's my problem with a lot of Heishi-Neo Heishi series: dickish Riders.

Fair enough.

I need to finish Amazon and start on Black...

Didn't showa also have dickish riders?

Or was that just another opportunity to crap on Heisei?

Well I've only seen some of V3,Black and RX,the whole of Kiva,some of Decade and some of Ryuki so perhaps my opinion is skewed.

Probably.

Kiva, as I said, has just a ludicrously dumb secondary rider. The entire point of Ryuki is that everyone besides Ryuki is evil or morally ambigious, and Decaed is just... Decade.

Didn't V3 feature the first dickish Rider, Riderman?

I still think Megumi was the smartest and most likable character in Kiva*curse Toei's hatred of female Riders she should have been Ixa...QQ*Is Kabuto as much a dick as I've heard?Cause I've been tempted to watch it because of Gatack and Drake.

Yes but he wasn't the main Rider and Shiro I believe does call him out for it.*could be wrong though*

Fixed.

IXA and Nago are both awesome, as is Megumi and WolfBoy. Kiva wasn't perfect but it was still very good.

Tendou Souji isn't really a dick. He's a troll. But he trolls, in his own way, to make people better. Especially Kagami. I think you'll like it, Yellow.

Really? Because she was a complete idiot who couldn't find, didn't understand people, got drunk for stupid reasons and wanted things for stupid reasons. "I should be IXA even though I am literally the worst person who could ever possibly be given that kind of power." She was so dumb she'd probably try to eat the belt instead of wear it.

Holy shit, I loved Raia and totally forgot him. He was awesome.

IXA/Nago is horrible, as is Megumi.

The wolf guy who's name I forget is VERY awesome, though. It REALLY depressed me when I learned he and the other weapons would never be properly explained, as he is easily the coolest part of the show.

There's no difference.

I utterly hate when people say he's a troll as if that's in any way endearing. He's a piece or garbage. A "troll" is someone who is pointlessly and needlessly mean to people for their own selfish enjoyment.

Sometimes I wonder about what is acceptable in Toku. The idea that a "troll" or an utterly useless moron like Megumi are in any way likable. I don't see what's likable about a stuck-up, self-absorbed loser who fucks with people for no good reason, or a supposed trained operative who's an insult to women everywhere by not only failing at every single thing she tries, but her day job is a model. Akiko was more useful than Megumi, and less annoying, even though she was basically a cartoon character in the body of a human being. At least Akiko helped W with victories by essentially being a raving insane person. Megumi literally only existed to get beat up and rescued.

Yuri was better. She could at least stand a slim chance against Fangire, and she wasn't an idiot.

My problem with Nago aside from the fact that he's a huge asshole for half the series*which only Megumi calls him out for it seems* is that his hatred of fangires is never really explained to my memory and comes off as Fantastic Racism.

Cool I'll check it out then.

Hatred of Fangires? What about his hatred of Kiva? I couldn't stand to make it any farther into Kiva, but all his stupid, reckless hatred towards Kiva seemed to only exist because some old idiot who makes ridiculous names for his company existing of four damn people told him Kiva was a threat to humanity, despite Kiva only ever killing Fangires and not people. Nago would eta a spoonfull of dirt if you told him it was chocolate, but not before staring intently at it with really bad acting before saying this dirt was what will prove him as the ultimate human being or some garbage.

Kiva was just a REALLY dumb show with a few sprinkles of good and excellent flare. It was honestly painful how many self-entitled swaggering idiots populated Kiva, from the "I'll just let this monster kill this innocent woman so I can really weakly insult him without an audience and take the moral high ground" or "I'm so injured and in serious pain so when a random passer-by comes to help me I'll punch his God-damn lights out", and the more I think of it the more I totally cannot blame you for thinking Heisei is full of dicks if this is 1/3rd of your Heisei exposure.

Honestly, the people in Kiva seem wors ethan the Fangire, since at least Wolf guy and the Fangire usually kill people for sustinance. Not a single character in Kiva gives a shit about human life, and it's revolting.

Compared to Nago who for half the series was either an asshole with a superiority complex to everyone around him or stupidly homicidal when ever he saw Kiva,Wateru who tries to commit paradox-suicide when the girl he liked stupidly got herself killed,Taiga an ungrateful brat who tried to force a girl he knows likes his best friend to marry him then has the gall to ask said best friend to join him,Kengo who because of an accident becomes a huge asshole to people trying to help him.

I said Megumi was the smartest in Kiva because she was the only member of the BSO willing to consider that Kiva wasn't evil and the most likable because she doesn't spend half the series being a bitch to people or go emo and try to off herself because someone she liked got themselves killed.

Note: I would have said Shizuka but she wasn't in the series as much.

Well, let's say he's not the most loveable guy on earth as he as an ego that reaches from here to the moon (or rather the sun *cough, cough*, but he has some nice sides as well (unlike some other Rider after him. I'm looking at YOU, Kadoya Tsukasa!), such as his relationship with his younger sister.
As for Gatack, he's adorable, my favorite character on the show. He has some point of stagnation, but generally, he's also one of the few characters that can be considered well-written.
Drake doesn't have that many episodes, but he was kinda funny and likeable.


As for the Kiva discussion: The wolf-guy's name is Jirou.

Riderman wasn't really a dick, he was just kind of misguided. He'd been a loyal member of Destron only to get tortured nearly to death because his commander needed a scapegoat. Much of his arc is dedicated to him learning that Destron truly is evil and he needs to fight against them. And indeed, he ultimately sacrifices his life to stop one of their plans.

And then he un-dies for the X Rider movie.

But no, some of the old shcool guys could be a little gruff or cocky at times (I'm especially thinking of Hayato and Shigeru here), but they were all generally good guys who always wanted to help people first and foremost.

SPLIT LIP, did you finish Kiva?

They do eventually explain the reason why Nago was so anti-Kiva at first (and he did get over it as he got to know Wataru), and I seem to recall Megumi did improve a bit as well, after all, she did use Ixa for a while (but then again, can you even name one character who didn't? Ixa got around more than TheBee.)

And the entire reason for the existence of the BSO is to fight Fangires to keep them from murdering humans all the time.

The weapons monsters ARE kinda explained, though I don't know if it's an explanation you would appreciate, I thought it was kinda cool.

Okay, now I won't argue that Wataru's reason for trying to kill himself was lame, because it totally was, but I will say, that was one of my favorite story arcs, because of the time travel.

Shizuka was awesome, and she should have been in the show more. Though I never did figure out if she knew that Wataru was Kiva or not.

I like how my critique of Accel's design exploded into a Kiva bashing session :lol

After I finish W I kinda wanna give Kiva another chance just to join in on the bashing.

Well Kiva is a fangire too.:p


My problem with Kiva isn't just the dickishness of the cast but that the show treats it as being okay for them to act like this.(Otoya,Nago,Wateru and Taiga being the worst imo)

Similiarly, I want to watch Kiva again, so I can defend it better. It's been a couple years since I saw it, and I loved it, even knowing that everyone else hated it.

Kiva is awesome, and I hate you all (except the ones that like Kiva).

Kiva is frustrating because it's not just bad, but it has a shitload of good things about it. But they're mostly superficial. The suit, song and bike? All incredible. Feel like they belong in a different show.

It's just frustrating. Kiva himself isn't even that bad, but the writers feel like confused 14 year olds writing for confused 14 year old, but there's one guy there trying to make the show work and appeal to others. Kiva is a terrible show I really, really want to like, but can't.

Also, Accel's design didn't lead to this. Yellow Ranger mentioning Kiva led to Kiva bashing.

Well guess there really is no point to continue now that THAT little bomb's been dropped.

Shit.

Now I'm SUPER glad I didn't continue Kiva. If Megumi legitimately is the smartest... God damn.

To be fair, Wataru isn't a fangire, exactly.

he's a half fangire, it's not like he can feed on humans.

...Shit didn't know you didn't finish it sorry man.

Spoilers, spoilers everywhere.

I kinda feel like we should make individual threads for each series as this IS the Kamen Rider sub forum. It seems weird to have all the chat in a single thread where everyone is tripping over one another's spoilers, I dunno why this has never bothered me before.

Well I figured since the show is 6 years old spoilers were unnecessary...oops.

Granted.

But if you know someone else in the thread is watching it, it's still not fair on them to ruin it.

I thought he finished it though.^>~<

W 21. Is W on a mission to feature every location ever used by Heisei Riders and modern sentai?

A lot of good stuff this episode. Loved the way this was framed, as we watch Ryu go out on his cases - Ryu is awesome, I actually think I like him a bit more than our main two heroes (sorry).

This weeks Dopant was pretty cool as well. Everyone loves dinosaurs, and a dinosaur Dopant that fights with her head? Even better. I always forget that the Sonozaki Cat is also a Dopant, he looks pretty awesome when transformed.

Only real disappointment is that Aya is a villain, I think she could have been a pretty great addition to the cast if she was a hero. A sort of detective Rinko, if Rinko wasn't rubbish.

Pretty much. Kiva's not irredeemably bad like, say, Gosieger. There are some good elements and good ideas, but the show's execution is really half-assed and lazy.

I will disagree about Wataru being a good character, though.

I don't think they use that cool round fountain that was in Agito and Ryuki.

W 22.

This was a weird episode. W's (as in the shows) opinions and morals, are really difficult to place. Sho may say things like 'Hate the crime, not the criminal' but I haven't forgotten the events of the Virus arc. As such, I think they are attempting to play Ryu off of him, as Ryu is much more 'hard-boiled' and in turn much more morally grey but it doesn't really work because Sho isn't nearly as much of a clear cut hero as he actually thinks he is.

And I don't mean that in a good way, either, Sho's heroics are very inconsistent and near contradictory. But then maybe THAT is the point, as it's pretty clear that Phillip is both the better moral compass, detective and the much more grounded one. I'd wonder why Sho was here, if he wasn't so loveable.

Because without him it'd be Kamen Rider C not W?:p

Urrrgh, I'm going to spoil the show just a teensy bit, but everything you're describing is kind of the point of Shotaro.

Shotaro's "wisdom" is not really words you'd stick in a fortune cookie. He's not the wise man he aspires to be, like his boss. His pathos is much more circumstancial. He's easily led, and sympathises too much. This is his strength, but also his weakness. And the show makes this clear later on. He is very much a person that fights his emotions, and tries to put on a cold exterior like his boss, or Ryu. He thinks the only way to be a hero, the only way to be a man, is stoic and impersonal, but he's about as far from that as possible.

Wouldn't it be Kamen Rider V? (Like cut him in half and suddenly the W on his chest and crest is a V)

Kamen Rider Cyclone.:D

I already knew the person he presents, isn't necessarily the person he is. Well we know it isn't. But even when the show is presenting what is meant to be truth's about Sho, you can't actually be that sure. I find that kinda problematic, where our hero, is only really a hero in the heroes head.

But he's not called Kamen Rider CycloneJoker is my point.

What specifically did he do that was unheroic? I don't really remember him being unheroic, well, at any time.

*goes to watch 22*

EDIT: Two minutes into the episode Shotaro block Ryu from striking an untransformed person with what would have been a fatal strike.

!?!?!

The only really unheroic time was during the Virus arc, where despite every episode since playing the horn 'hate the crime, not the criminal' he let about three people die before he kinda went 'oh shit maybe we should actually help now'. So everything he's done since seems to taste of irony and hypocrisy.