Yeah, this is less, AR Element and more "We're going to be milking Den-O for a while and we need a new mainstay Den-Liner Set".

Also on something I only thought of now to touch on. But I thought it was rather clever for them to not bring in Kotaro or Ryotaro's kid actor until the very end. Even if it's the same one who played kid Ryotaro in the first Den-O movie, if he had shown up and been a major part of these episodes that would have made what they were attempting to do a bit more confusing.

Which was basically making sure you know that this is the real Den-O, this isn't an AR World, this is the real deal, for sure.

Part of it's to make sure this plays as Real Den-O, in the run-up to the movie, but I think a bigger part is to reorient the Den-O franchise onto Momo and the Imagin gang.

Like, the last Den-O movie was this big baton pass between Ryotaro and Kotaro, for better or worse. What these episodes are doing is sort of recalibrating that transition, making it more that Kotaro is a new piece of the puzzle, rather than the star of show, and literally saying that Momo is the star of the show. Having a human Rider in these episodes would dilute what they're trying to do with Momo, how his story is that he doesn't really need a human to give his life meaning.

True, Den-O's the revisit that actually keeps the original cast, except for Ryotaro. I guess as the Den-O's actors are all very available (except Yuriko Shiratori) due to Toei milking out Den-O so they have to standby (not yes sir) for more of that. But still that'd mean it's unknown how would the Imagins got parted away from Ryotaro at the first place, as Kohana is a.. family member of him, and she's there. The Imagins here freely possess random amount of people like you said below. If actually Ryotaro wasn't there, I wonder how the Taros formed a team or such (it's due to Ryotaro). I guess because Den-O's mostly character stuff rather than plot, so they tell what's primarily about Den-O which is about the Taros hijinks and how Imagins and DenLiner work?

I guess the part of Tsukasa, Natsumi, and Onodera getting possessed, is instead to show off their actor's skills to portray the different personalities of the Taros, as Takeru Satoh got his fame due to that. You said "only" about the one getting possessed by Ura becoming stupid hot... but while Tsukasa's nickname for Natsumi is Natsumandarin, the fanbase's is Natsumelon. For the episodes being skippable without meaningful story, that'd be what I think (probably misguided) about formulaic tokus, but I guess they'd still have appeal from the fanbases in those medias, like these revisit not being without merit. I don't know about how Momo falling off a building being cliffhanger.... as it's a Kamen Rider and thus falling from heights isn't a fatal danger, all the way since Kuuga.

I̶t̶'̶s̶ ̶n̶o̶t̶ ̶e̶a̶s̶y̶,̶ ̶b̶u̶t̶ ̶I̶'̶d̶ ̶w̶a̶n̶t̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶ ̶s̶o̶m̶e̶o̶n̶e̶ ̶s̶o̶m̶e̶w̶h̶e̶r̶e̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶e̶x̶p̶l̶a̶i̶n̶ ̶a̶b̶o̶u̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶t̶i̶m̶e̶ ̶s̶t̶u̶f̶f̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶D̶e̶n̶-̶O̶.̶ Though personally I think the explanations in this 2 parter are rather easy to understand, just basic stuff that Imagins (a boss and his henchmen) time travel to the past and their activities in the past affect the present.

True, that gag is golden. Onodera mistaking Momo as an enemy due to him being technically an Imagin and thus kicked him. I'd think this is one of my favorite gag in the entire franchise. I wonder if Tsukasa was a part that dragged the 2 parter as well as Momo's main complaint is about him losing his physical body, and the solution is only to become Decade and perform a Final Form Ride on him, but it's probably neglected due to Tsukasa's airheadness or such. For Onodera, him forgetting to henshin for me is especially prevalent on the last Agito 2-parter, like he's already Kuuga, why focus on controlling G3-X, when you already have a better weapon? For Natsumi, one of her first episode scenes was running away from Imagins, and I think they wasted a chance to bring up that, albeit throwaway moment, and she should hear them wanting to grant wish on her. But for Den-O series, I don't think many of the contract holders got possessed? Only Singularity Point like Ryotaro got directly possessed, typically Imagins when possessing a contract holder manifest a physical form based on their imagination. I think even among the Taros Imagins, there are parts of them sharing a body and fighting over control as Climax Form.

Other than Tsukasa telling Momo that, it highlights another one of Kaitou's unpleasant nature, his racism/prejudice for non-humans (who he're already jerk too) like Imagins, treating them as only valuable collections instead of living beings. This one's not the only portrayal of that in KR, like how the franchise can have a human Big Bad turn themselves into a monster by the final story arc, kinda sending a signal to the audience that "They're not human any more, it's okay to kill them now" (other than their power up ofc), and it happens in several series as well, like Parado in Ex-Aid voicing up for this with humans being hypocritical by creating living beings with villain roles in video game that they could beat up to feel better, as from his point of view Bugsters matter as much as humans do.

Still, I think being true to yourself isn't necessarily something moral. As 'be yourself' and 'brushing aside outside views' can be abused by rotten people who'd reject any suggestion to better themselves, embracing their nature and insists others to mind their own business, which is being true to yourself in horrific way.

Of all the arcs from the first part of Decade, this is the one that always stuck out the least to me. That's mainly because it's just more Den-O and it doesn't take the opportunity to do anything wildly divergent from the original series. That makes it both the most familiar tribute, but also the least dynamic for me. The only thing that really stuck with me is that not everyone can do the Imagin acting as well as Takeru Satoh or Yuichi Nakamura.

Thank you for this.

She looks great (that leather outfit!), but that comment did not specify characters! "Everyone Ura possesses looks stupid hot" means that Tsukasa here is also ridiculously sexy, and I want that on the record. He may be a creepy turtle, but he manages to glam up everything he touches.

I don't know that I'd blame Tsukasa this time? For one, a lot of the plot is trying to track down Momo, and that's nothing Decade's powers are going to help with. For another thing, it's only when the cards get filled in that Tsukasa realizes he can give Momo his own body back. That was not an obvious outcome of working through Momo's emotional problems!

Yeah, I'm gonna have a tough time in a year not just thinking this was all part of the crossover movie.

Man, that was faster than usual! Okay, I have a few more points about Agito I want to discuss first and then I'll move on to Den-O.

I guess Shouichi being an Agito would go against Hikawa's traits. The whole point of Hikawa is how he thinks he's useless as just a regular human in a show full of Agitos. So having a version of him who is a dormant Agito and apparently excelled at being G3-X rather than doing merely an average job would mean he wouldn't have any reason to feel like such a constant failure, right?. I mean, I agree with you that he doesn't really have that personality, but maybe it's just hard to integrate that personality to an Agito, instead of a regular human who lacks self-confidence? It sucks though, since I could relate a lot to Hikawa and this composite Shouichi character is missing a lot of that.

But Yuusuke scolded Kaito for using Diend instead of G3-X, considering him to be mocking Yashiro's invention. This shows development for Yuusuke as he doesn't just think about looking cool anymore. He actually wants to help and support Yashiro with test driving her Rider System. Due to the magical stone in his body, he can probably use it easier than most humans. However, I thought it was weird how G3-X was deemed obsolete to Agito in the end, which it kind of is but still, that's not really a good way to get people to think the Secondary Rider is cool.

Wow, En-chan's doing Chou Den-O & Decade with you as well? That's dedication!

He was a villain throwing a tantrum in SHW though. Or is that what you liked about it?

Now for my thoughts on the World of Den-O, which as others have said isn't very different from regular Den-O. I was expecting Momotaros to acknowledge Decade Kamen Riding in to Kiva though, since he should remember him from Climax Deka. Or was that a side effect of his memory loss?

Den-O is 10/19 in my Heisei Rider Ranking. Terrible plot (Time Nonsense, future Sakurai, etc), saved by amazing characters and Ryutaros' subplot with Airi. Den-O is kind of like Decade in that way, these characters can Ore Sanjou in to any story since they don't really have one of their own and as it turns out, that's not entirely a bad thing.

Momotaros is the same Momotaros. Why fix what ain't broken? Or rather, he is broken and that's what Tsukasa's job is in this world, to help Momotaros remember who he is. Imagins rely so much on their contracts to give them their appearance, so it's a nice moral to have Tsukasa encourage Momotaros to just imagine himself back to normal and it's fitting for his Final Form Ride to change from Denliner to literally himself. Memories are time after all, so as long as Momotaros remembers he has an identity, he can't truly lose himself.

I have a lot of free time admittedly so you know. It helps pass the boredom, among other things. Ha ha.

As for my take of Diend in that, you see, I'm a very petty man. So I in turn love it when I see people do very petty things. In this case Daiki acting like a spurned lover and deciding to just have everything go to hell because he couldn't handle a ruse cruise and making everything harder for the heroes as a result.

Fair enough. He's very caricatured in that movie with his pettiness being worse than usual. Yonemura does that a lot, including other weird behavior like Retsu deciding to blow up the Earth and the Showa Riders basically saying "Get off my lawn, you Heisei kids!" Yeah, those movies are crazy.

Alright, looks like it's two of my favorite Decade arcs, which is a win for me!

Agito: I knew that Agito was like a "spiritual successor" to Kuuga, so it was cool to see Decade present it as an alternate sequel to Kuuga. AR Kuuga got to play a great role here, that really gave him some spotlight over just being along for the ride, and being the "good cop" to Tsukasa's "jerk cop."

Agito was definitely played really well here, especially how AR Agito is all three Riders introduced in his show. I may not know much about Kuuga and Agito's shows, but here, it culminates rather well, and it was one of the more interesting arcs in the season.

Den-O: Needless to say, this is why I want to watch Den-O. It's not an AR world, as people have mentioned, but straight up Den-O, and that's certainly enough to interest me in the show. I loved the Imagins shenanigans, controlling both Tsukasa and Natsume, and the aesthetic of Den-O just works for me. Time Travelling Train, colorful cast, amazing opening, and cool suits to boot.

The arc is definitely more of a comedic one, also setting up the new Den-O movie (Which I liked), but it was definitely a ton of fun. This was probably my favorite Final Form Ride, since it's just straight up Momotaros, and the presentation was hilarious (though the finisher with Kuuga is still just "what?"). And that scene with Kuuga attacking Momotaros killed me, just a great introduction to Den-O, and Tsukasa actually somehow made this even more fun.