Makes sense. Though in this series we're brainstorming there is one thing I want to know, why did Shroud give him the Skull Memory, like why specifically that one.

Ok...I'm only 11 episodes into Double...take it easy...

In that case, then yeah, make it happen Toei, or at least make a movie.

That could be a great thread in the show, we know people have to have high genetic synchronisation to draw the greatest power out of a Memory - so when Soukichi finds this out, he'd want to know.

Thematically, Skull represents the fact that, well, he died at the very beginning of the first episode. (that's not a spoiler, it's literally the first thing you see) In-universe, Skull is the only purified memory that kills a dopant memory user with it's Maximum Drive, so it's inherantly tied with death. It could be Shroud just wanted him to have an exceptionally powerful memory, to make up for the fact that the Lost Driver is a prototype of the W driver. Half the memories, half the strength, so she tried to make up the difference? It's totally not beyond her to force something unwanted onto a friend if it meant eventually saving Raito. Even if it took ten years of work.

Especially since Skull is so powerful, it's the only Gaia memory to KILL with a Maximum drive, instead of just doing a memory break. It's bad enough Soukichi finds Gaia Memories unethical, but he has a particularly "awful" one. Plus, Skull is the first "purified" memory to exist, and Shroud obviously didn't have the kinks out when he first used it. There could be ramifications from that.

He's less like Batman and more like the Punisher. It makes the Skull image all the more fitting.

Black Episode 3
You know every time the Golgom priests are on the screen, I can't help but think of this music.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipzR9bhei_o

Oh hey look, it's the ToQgers!

So if everybody disappeared, then how did the train exit the tunnel? Or was it just the passenger who vanished?

INTERCEPTION!

Those two seem really happy to help Golgom, even if they have to risk the lives of other human beings. I know they want eternal life but I think prepping a rocket to fail and take away machines that help heal cancer is taking it way too far. That's just down right diabolical.

That was a pretty good looking transformation sequence. It sounded odd as all hell and I won't lie, the hair shooting/sliding out of his skin was a little creepy. But those aren't negatives as it helped enhance the scene. Kinda sad we didn't get to see his whole body morph though, that would have been great to see.

Shit that is one strong bat. I guess Man-Bat decided to take a vacation to Japan and do a little evil work on the side.

So if you're in the silk for too long you become a clay statue? How does that work exactly?

You know every time I see this woman I can't tell if she's face face paint or a mask. Really hard to tell.

Well that was another good episode. It had some really nice camera work, especially when Kotaro first arrived at the cave which was great looking in itself. The music kicked ass as always, the episode's story moved along well, and the acting was pretty good as per usual. The fight scene was alright, but the end of the fight seemed kinda rushed and tacky since Black suddenly was able to burst through the web. Outside of that little nitpick though, the action in the episode was great.

Another episode of Black has gone by and all I can say is that the series is hitting on all cylinders with me so far. Only 3 episodes in and it's already posed to break into my top 5 Rider shows.

Just finished the crossover bit. It was ridiculous, as these portions usually are, but mostly fun. Although the most ridiculous thing was ironically the way the film wrapped up

I actually much preferred the back up fight, being that Brotou and Ryu are probably my two favourite secondary Riders. I mean don't get me wrong, I love the way Eiji and Sho/Philip all play off of one another, like Sho's reaction to Ankh and Eiji's reaction to their signature line but it isn't quite as much of a dream team for me.

Overall though, Skull's part of the film is one hundred percent worth watching but everything else is pretty throwaway.

What episode did Ryugen debut at the end of again?

4.

So I need to watch 7 JUICY hours to catch up?

Okay. *ties bandana around forehead* Let's go.

Faiz 17.

I'm seventeen episodes in and I'm getting real fed up of this shows shit. Masato almost kills Takumi in one of the worst fights in this show yet, and even after that, Takumi refuses to fucking speak up and defend himself. For the love of Christ!

Yet, it's also a show so slow, even though I'm seventeen episodes in I barely feel I have even a slight grasp on what this show actually has to offer. Maybe I should drop this before suddenly I'm thirty episodes in and I've wasted half a day of my life on this show.

It's infuriating because it isn't like the plot DOESN'T move, but for some reason every character moment, every plot advancement, every twist or moment of realisation never seems to move anywhere from the episode it's introduced in. I mean what is this, the seventh time now where Takumi has said some variation of 'I will not hesitate'?

http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lzqxqz2d7i1qdytxb.jpg

And that isn't to say there isn't some interesting stuff going on, like how Chie's brother forced himself to turn into an Orphenoch I mean I can't even begin to comprehend this and it's extremely short lived, but it's cool and I hope we find out how he did it.

Plus, the action started MUCH earlier this week and I enjoyed the use of interior locations and extras so it wasn't just another disconnected fight in some warehouse.

and a third belt?!

Ah, you're making me regret not watching Faiz at all in the last week, instead focusing on rewatching W.

I mean, it's great, cuz I LOVE W, but I'm really curious about Faiz, especially to see if my reaction is at all similar to yours (though honestly, except for when you're enjoying W my reactions are very dissimilar to yours).

But while I've seen the first half or 2/3rds of W at least twice, maybe thrice even, I've only finished the show or seen Message from Skull once, so I'm dying to get to those less familiar episodes.

Faiz 18. - ARGH CLOWN ORPHENOCH! I guess I'll take my hat off to Faiz...sort of...for its ability to progress the plot while still ultimately doing a filler episode.

Smart Brain are a terrible set of villains who have so far achieved nothing, and spent the entire series sat in the background twiddling their thumbs. I'm really hoping after this episode they may finally start to actually move.

Everything else though, was utterly throwaway. We don't need another episode focusing on how much Laundry is a naive moron who shouldn't be here. I keep waiting for every episode focused on him, to leave him dead, but it never comes. That kid was a fucking shit as well, grieving or not she was still a total bastard. I fucking hate children.

I'm having trouble mentally ranking Kamen Rider Faiz if it should be above W or below. While W was a consistently good show and was enjoyable enough, Faiz had a lot of great elements in it that I love hogged down by lots of minor and a few major things that bring it down.

Accel Returns.

Having something entirely focussed on Accel is what I always wanted, it was so nice he never once fell into the background - hell they even made a point to introduce W into the story, only to then shut him down. But it's a shame that now I've finally got it, that it actually isn't very good. Like Message from Skull, this feels more like a TV pilot for a show that never happened and honestly this time around, that is probably for the best.

I dunno, I just felt the movie did Ryu not justice at all. It was like he was functioning in slasher movie world, where every action is so devoid of logic it becomes baffling in its stupidity. Kamen Rider sure loves forced drama. Then again when it wasn't being painfully stupid, it was delivering painfully obvious plot twists.

I wish Akiko wasn't in the movie. Like she was always annoying but this is the first time I downright loathed her, she's a selfish, ignorant, jealous and insecure asshole. Aoi is clearly suffering and in danger, but that isn't more important than Akiko's pathetic problems. Go and get fucked you utter cow.

Although the action was high energy, and full of impressive stunt and choreography work, I can't believe how long Ryu spends out of suit in a movie named after his Rider form. At least he got a pretty cool upgrade form to make up for that, even if it makes no sense that it's the same colour as his transisting form but whatever.

The movies villain, however, picks up a certain amount of the slack being that he is sorta the anti-Accel, and I love the way they draw contrast between the two characters. His Upgrade form leaves a lot to be desired though.

Booster is kind of neat, but it's not quite as WOW-ing as Trial, as it is a clearly modified Accel suit, but not nearly as extensive as Trial.

Plus, it toally ditches the bike motif, which I don't get because that's kind of the Accel memory's, like, power. That's like if Skull got an upgrade that totally ditched the skull motif.

And I think the only reason it's yellow is so it looks different from his other forms, while maintaining a colourscheme that evokes power and energy.

The best stunt in the movie was when he wrapped his leg around the one goon, and revved the driver so the wheel on his heel spun and ground his face. That's some Transformers-level design creativity.

I dunno, my major concern with Booster is it's kinda pointless. I wrote a more streamlined review of the film over here. But to paraphrase, the movie didn't really START until the last twenty minutes. And although both Booster and Commander are fantastic, if they are just bookended onto the end of the movie I can't appreciate them at all. I honestly don't know why they even bothered.

The problem is, Booster give Accel the power of flight, but he doesn't need to ever fly. He should've been paired with an airborne enemy. All it did was take him off his sore leg, but otherwise what could it do that Trial couldn't?

Well the whole thing kinda sucked, as much as I liked Commander as a character his upgrade was....a rocket launcher? It is also implied his footsoldiers got stronger, but that was to just give W something to do.

Hell, even when W showed up at the end he was like "Oh, sorry, didn't realise you were still doing a movie, I'll just, uh..."

WHY couldn't Skull have gotten his own full movie? :(

I also tried to be mad at Lily's pointless cameo, but Nao is so hot. And feminism marches on...

Because Japanese children wouldn't be able to handle the copious amounts of manliness oozing out the screen?

Sokichi is way too hard boiled for the kiddies.

Bullshit. They'll grow hair on their balls and like it!

You're presuming that all of the kids in the audience are boys...

Hey if a woman wants to grow hair on her balls, she should be allowed!

I'm presuming be quiet.

I still love how she just happened to have divorce papers for Terui and Akiko on standby. :lol

And the absolutely terrible editing of the illusion, I was in pieces.

Faiz 19.

Mr J - worst Kamen Rider villain ever? Presented as one of the most powerful, and dangerous Orphenoch's, he was blessed with three lives and he grew more powerful each time.

Or so the exposition said, in reality Mr J never put up a fight during any of his three lives and Faiz has had more intense and difficult battles against monsters of the week.

Not to mention that everything outside of the battles was awful for Mr J as well. He was just really weird, but with absolutely no context for being so. I feel pretty much ready to write off Lucky Clover all together, but let's see what the barmaid does first.

Also why is this story of some bratty kid still going? Was it to see her get blown up? Because that was great, but I still think this story is rubbish and the girl insufferable. I guess at least now we know where that girl got her shitty attitude.

At least for the first time in 19 episodes Laundry did something of value.

I obviously don't go into deep reviews like some of the others, so here are my impressions of the first four episodes of Faiz. (I stopped to watch a bunch of Hurricaneger episodes.)

Well, the suit design isn't bad and it makes me want the glow stage figure and AutoVajin is neat, but nothing has happened that made me care about the characters or the story yet. In fact, I'm not even sure there is a story yet. Hitomi Kurihara has been one of the few interesting spots so far, but that may just be some nostalgia for the more coherent tale of Ryuki. I can understand the criticisms other folks have leveled against the show, but I intend to slog through.

I'm 19 episodes in and the story hasn't started yet and the characters haven't developed either.

Hey look, it's Shinken Pink!

I find Eternal Returns difficult to put into words, because on one level I enjoyed this a lot. NEVER are a cool bunch of characters with actors that have great chemistry with one another, and having them get a chance to fight without those shitty Dopant suits is about as much as I could ask from a prequel to A to Z.

But on the other hand...why does this exist? Eternal was a cool suit but it's hardly in this film, so I can only assume Katsumi was extremely popular in Japan...but why? I was done with NEVER by the end of A to Z, I honestly had no interest in finding out more about them. I mean sure it turns out to be actually pretty interesting, but I just don't get how we got here in the first place.

The other problematic aspect is how much this doesn't feel like a W film. Accel's film dramatically changed the tone and style of W but it still felt firmly grounded in W's universe. Since this film centres around NEVER, a movie creation which was only ever bookended into the show, before the film shifts to focus on another super soldier programme funded by Foundation X named 'Quarks' who were never in the show - although it's sorta implied it's the explanation for Utopia's floaty business - we only move further away from the feel of the core material. The fact that the main villain is a Dopant feels more like a toke gesture than anything else. You could easily just be watching some Japanese action flick and not a W film. And there is a problem there.

That isn't even discussing the way Eternal is used in this film. In A to Z the Memory had a singular purpose, so the fact it was able to create such an elaborate Rider that didn't relate to the powers of the Memory was bad enough. But this film brings up notions of destiny, with a suggestion that Gaia Memories have a conciousness and ultimately decide who they want to work with. Not only is this stupid, and doesn't gel with anything in the actual show but it directly contradicts pretty much everything A to Z set up about Memories.

Eternal Returns stunk. You hit the nail on the head when you said it feels totally disconnected from W.

And yes, the way it "elaborated" on Gaia Memories felt totally against A to Z, in that it took a subtle esoteric concept, and just overdid it.

They made the process of using Memories some kind of existential thing, when in A to Z it was almost entirely scientific, within the rules of Ws universe. It was dumb.

Yeah. The "genetic match" thing was kind of a big point, but acted more like it was "guided" by it's draw to a person's genetics, verses seeking the people out like lost pets looking for whoever they liked. Like you said, it made sense within W's universe of sticks filled with knowledge turning people into monsters and armoured heroes.

Y'know, I almost wish we actually knew what Shotaro's compatibility with Joker was, considering it "found" him immediately.

Anyway, with that movie out of the way, is that me officially done with W now?

Shotaro and Phillip are in Movie Wars Megamax, but it's more of an extended cameo. Still, they get more screentime than Eiji got in Ultimatum.

Personally, I liked the Eternal movie a lot. It was fun, it had good action, and oh dear lord, Minase Yashiro. :o But yeah, it does feel pretty divorced from the rest of W and kind of superfluous.

But Minase Yashiro. :o

Shotaro and hilip also cameo in "Let's go Kamen Riders."

But yeah, until the Showa vs. Heisei movie comes out, that's all of W.

Minase Yashiro! When she's chained up and sweaty in her tank top, she can kill me with her thighs any day~

Kinda sad it's all over for W but also sort of relieved? Although the opening half or so of W is where W is trying to find itself, I actually liked it a lot more.

At that point the Sonozaki's were still credible villains, and most importantly - and ironically I suppose - W is one show almost the most suited out of any other to have a case of the week structure so I felt it really hurt the pacing when they dropped that angle (yet with so many other shows, I wish they had!), and only further hurt the pacing when they tried to bring the cases back as bookends for more important arcs.

When W "found itself" it turned out I didn't actually really like that person.