Torque is nothing that complex, he's just a conman who is so pathetic he basically ends up being pitied before he dies. He's cartoonishly pathetic in a deliberately heavy handed way, and his fighting style is a fun inversion on his actual power set. I feel like I should get the Zolda Figuart and call him Torque.

Or watch Ryuki and enjoy the epicness of Zolda ^_^

I'm a Femme/Knight/Raia kind of guy. But Zolda is still cool, especially his weapons.

...Gai?

I see what you did there. Is it weird I always call him Kamen Rider Man?

Dragon Knight 17
More Strike and Sting stuff... and teamwork..... yay.....

18
Daddy issues over pizza? Really? Anyways, the Cho brothers were 0 dimensional characters that got awesome suits so they could help stupid Strike out. It feels like most of the villains in this show so far are getting beaten by the openings thier own incompetence gives rather then actual heroism and planning

Absolutely no interest in Ryuki, pretty much everything ever said about Ryuki sounds horrible, not to mention that Dragon Knight was like my adult way in to Kamen Rider so the characters are Len and Kit and so on to me, I couldn't imagine them as anyone else.

That's rather vapid.

Why?

You're passing judgment on a show you haven't seen and have no intention on watching.
I don't care what you think of the show, just that you flat out stated that you won't watch it, but still choose to call it horrible?

Honestly? Locke would fucking HATE Ryuki. It's everything he finds frustrating about Kamen Rider rolled up in a bundle.

I can see him liking Zolda, maybe a few side characters, and it's final episode was fuckign FLAWLESS until the halfway mark, but there's a lot of Ryuki that's just bad. It was demented, and not always in a good way. So many main characters were a waste, the fighting was hit or miss, the effects dog-awful, and the story meandered A LOT.

I liked it, but it's one of those times where "I like this, but I know it stinks." It had plenty of good. I can't think of anything with Zolda I didn't like, but it had so much bad as well. Ren was so. Utterly. BORING. He was every bad anime male protagonist trope in one.

Actually he didn't say that at all.

He said everything he heards SOUNDS horrible. He's heard nothing to make him want to watch it.

That's totally justifiable. He's not judging the show, he's judging what people have said about it.

Fair enough.

I'm not passing judgement, I think you misread my post, I said everything I've ever heard about Ryuki SOUNDS horrible. Nothing I've ever read about it makes me want to watch it, and as I have an emotional attachment to the suits as they were used in Dragon Knight it gives me even less motivation to try it.

Ooop shit Ninja'd, cheers Split.

I have to say though, Kitaoka >>>> Drew. A million times.


I liked Drew in DK but then I saw Ryuki and realized how underutilized Zolda/Torque is used.

Zolda's Ryuki's 3rd main Rider, but in DK he's just another henchman.


Which sucked because Torque/Zolda has the coolest powerset, a top 3 suit design, and in Ryuki, I loved his character because he's the only Rider that played the war smart.


And honestly, Locke I think I was several episodes into KRDK and then I started watching Ryuki and now, I link the suits to their japanese counterparts more than their American counterparts. I just like the characters better. I will applaud KRDK for actually using all of the Riders in their series though.

You know what makes Ryuki better than Dragon Knight? The fact that death really means death in Ryuki and venting in Dragon Knight just means going to the Shadow Realm. I mean an alternate dimensional hospital to be healed. It takes out all of the credible threat to losing.

I'll pretty much always link those suits to Ryuki. It's the better show (IMO). Then again I am biased since Ryuki is my favorite series.

Comparing a kids TV show in the US to a kids TV show in Japan purely on the use of death as a narrative device is one of the stupidest things I've ever heard. The kind of stuff Japanese kids TV shows get away with barely makes it into adult films in the US, so what do you expect?

No, the retconning at the end doesn't get an excuse, that is all Dragon Knight's fault. But minus Go-Busters I can't think of one other toku show where a major character death isn't retconned at the end anyway.

I don't care if you don't like Dragon Knight, power to you, by why is the reasoning for disliking the show always so shitty? It seems like people just want to hate on this show for the sake of hating on it, I don't think I've ever read a genuinely solid criticism of the show in my entire time on this forum expect maybe bad editing, but is that really a reason to hate a WHOLE show?

I'm only on the first half but the main reasons why I dislike Dragon Knight are that it's a poor man's Rider war so far. The reason why is because none of the villain characters outside if Xaviax have any distinct personality. If they swapped Torque and Strikes characters, I probably wouldn't even notice since they act so similarly. and the fact that the only reason why the heroes win so far is villain incompetence. Every time I hear, "I got this" or "I'll get him next time"from the Rider (s) of the week in front of Xaviax, I want to flip my shit harder then the miscommunication shit in Faiz.

I thought they had quite clearly defined personalities personally, at least at the start. I remember the second half laid things on a little think and I really can't remember much about Axe or Spear or anyone like that as they just started to come in clumps, it seemed. But the first eight or so were pretty memorable in my books but then I have nothing in Ryuki to compare it to, so I'm just watching it with its own merits as a show in mind.

Well the show is pretty fucking boring. There, is that a legitimate answer? The reasons I listed above of boring villains and the story relying on one plot contrivance is nothing in comparison to the show being boring.

Fair enough if you feel that way, I personally found the plot pretty focused as far as toku goes.

DK 07.

Although this was probably one of the weakest episodes for story, between Kit's otherworldly stupidity and Len's way of always dragging out conflict by never saying the words that need to be said, actionwise this was a GREAT episode.

I dunno, I kinda wanna like Kit more than I actually do. He has a much more complex dilemma than most American Toku heroes as he is just thrust right into the middle of a very real, very dangerous conflict and has to pretty much make every decision on the fly to stay on top. The actual set up is great but it just seems odd to create such a passive, naive hero to throw right into the middle of it all. I mean maybe that is the point, that he's the worse person to be caught up in this kind of mess but it still doesn't make the drama feel any less contrived, at some points I'm not sure Kit is even human with the kind of decision making skills he has. It's just not very fun following such a moron around.

Although the actual context was kinda... missing that unmorphed fight was AWESOME. No weapons, no powers, just a pure take out your frustrations beatdown. Mullins may not be the best actor in the world, but that boy got presence. Plus, although the editing is admittedly horrible to the point where some fights are so smashed together and heavily spliced it's almost impossible to follow what is happening, the Ryuki fights seem decent enough to me.

Some of the choreography is a little clunky, and the CGI is often both bad and used unnecessarily but it's the great characters that bring the action to life. I really really like Torque, he's not a villain that will redefine a generation, but there is something weirdly awesome about also giving the snake the biggest gun in the room. I mean his Final Vent man, it's so stupid and overpowered, it's just glorious.

Currently marathoning all series one after the other, while watching Gaim on the said. Currently at Blade... *groan* While I'm glad the actors got out of the 'Screaming all the time=EMOTION' phase, the series has so many problems (mostly tied to writing)... And yet so many good ideas too, which makes the end result even more infuriating to me.

I loved Blade a lot, during it's final episode it has one of the best endings of Kamen Rider IMO.

I absolutely love the characters and the growth they go through.

I like Tachibana, and the actors get slightly better during the course of the series. The Rider designs are really well done too, and the trading card system is actually well put together.

But the editing is terrible most of the times (the first three episodes were something abominable) and the writing is subpar most of the times except when it shines. It's like, either it's very good or it's very, very bad. But it's getting better at the point I'm in because, as I found out, the series changed main writer in its middle. But some of the characters are just... HNNNGH! SOMEONE HANG THAT LITTLE GIRL!

Uhhhh... what?

Jet Condor, AbareKiller, Dragon Ranger, TimeFire, Rio, Mele, the first Bio Yellow, Zanki, Kaixa


There are many reasons I don't like Dragon Knight, that is just one of them as it was a cop out. I also find the sound effects and music to be hardly noticeable, and that is a factor in these types of shows, to have music and sound effects. When those barely exist in your show of this caliber, there is a problem. The acting makes the acting in MMPR look like The Shawshank Redemption. The characters just are not interesting at all. And everything is so child friendly. Yes, I know this is a show aimed at kids, but they go more child friendly than even Sentai. And then there is the fact that half of the final episode is a freaking clip show. A CLIP SHOW!!! Oh, and also, the show is so boring.

The only praise I can give DK is for actually using all 13 riders in the show.

Blade changed writers? LOL I didn't notice because the show was still amazing.

Blade is the best Rider series I've seen. Amane is annoying but at least she's not the focus in every episode.

Am I the only one who didn't hate Amane? :lol

The only time I hated Amane was Missing Ace which really doesn't even count. I really don't get the hate for her.

I didn't hate Amane either, I didn't hate anyone in Blade. I even love Mutsuki, even though he was annoying when Possessed but still anyone can get annoying when possessed.

I'd like to mention that Blade had some of the most humorous scenes I've seen in Kamen Rider just because of the randomness of it.

I didn't hate Amane. She just creeped the hell out of me with her crush on Hajime :lol

And I definitely noticed the writing shifts in Blade. In all honesty I don't like that show. I doubt I could have ever finished it without being spurred to do so by LWW.

*that I'd seen, I should have said for the first part. Pretty much all the toku I've seen ruins the ending with a massive retcon.

But power to you on the other stuff, I don't agree with any of your points but different stroke.

Yeah, I can't deny that those parts were kind of creepy :lol

Aww, what? I loved Blade from minute 1!
...
Okay, that's a lie :lol
It took Blade until the start of Garren's arc with Sayoko to really draw me in, but at that point, I couldn't stop watching~

Yeah, I ended up falling in love from the first episode and outside of that two Hajimes crapisodes, I loved everything Blade did. I have yet to enjoy a Kamen Rider series as much as Blade.

Nice to know I'm not alone in this feeling about the series.

Why would you think you'd ever be alone?

Because people almost never seem to criticize Blade. In fact, I'm not sure I've seen anyone who was really dissatisfied with the series (outside my own posts) until today. To be sure, I haven't read this entire thread, either, so I've likely missed something somewhere.

I had figured that Den-O's disdain on Blade was well documented (I was being facetious with my reaction to his post :p), but since you haven't gone through the full thread (Who can blame you? :lol), I can understand.

I think the lack of criticism stems mainly from the commonly criticized points (Amane, Mutsuki's plot taking up too much time, side characters that just kind of stand around, Kenzaki being kind of dim at times, etc etc) have been pointed out and talked at length to death.

Thanks! I should probably go back and play catch up on the entirety of this thread at some point.

If you have that much time to burn, go for it :lol