It is an interesting dynamic, I just don't feel that it makes the show dark. I actually love how right after Faiz I ended up watching Agito because the shows are so similar but so different. The main plot point is similar, they just switch the sides of the opinion's on the dilemma. I just find that so interesting and almost a great study of sorts.

Yeah, I really have to get around to watching Agito, but I still have to finish Black, and then Kuuga's next.

Probably going to do what I did with Faiz and Kabuto. Starr both and stick with the one I prefer. But shouldn't I watch Kuuga before Agito?

You don't need to watch Kuuga before Agito. The show's are only connected by G3's suit being based around Kuuga's and a few throwaway lines in the first few episodes. Other than that there is no connection between the two.

Well guess I'll give it a shot between those two. Just hope it doesn't take me near as long to finish as it did Faiz. How long ago did I start watching that season? Hahaha.

It was about March or April :lol May have been February.

Just finished Kiva. With that, I can finally say I've watched every Heisei Rider series! No particular reason for saving Kiva for last, it's just the one that happened to get left behind.
I don't really have any interest in tackling the Showa Riders, so what am I going to do with my life now that I've nothing else to watch!?
I've been watching episodes daily for so long, it's going to be weird not having anything left...

We're two pretty similar dudes, so I'll be interested in how this plays out. I think Kuuga is one of the worst things ever made, period and I've never been able to make it past the first episode of Agito and now no longer want to when I found out it was another empty tale of Japanese media with forced Bible references.

Well I'm up to 39 on Wizard and by seeing toy reviews, the eclipse ring, Phantoms, oh what a way to tie everything together! Only about 11 episodes, not counting the two episode special. Then I'll have like 30 episodes of Hibiki and then, what ever comes next.

You could give Amazon a shot. One of the few Showa series that's fully subbed, as well as being an incredibly short series.
Or perhaps you could move on to Sentai?

I'm not big on Showa either, but Amazon is so unique that I found it really enjoyable.

Yeah, should be interesting to see. I also recall you having difficulty getting passed the first handful of episodes of Blade, right?

And funny to see you mention Amazon, since that was likely to be the first Showa season I was gonna watch lol.

Yeah man, there is nothing really wrong with Blade as such, but I come to these shows for the special effects as much as I do anything else, they are superhero shows after all. And one of the core gimmicks in Blade - a really cool gimmick I might add - is beating monsters allows you to capture them and gain their powers. On paper this is awesome, but when you see the special effects used to capture them....mother of God it is bad. And it only gets worse as things progress, as Blade and Garren start chaining powers together so it's supposed to be this MASSIVE DEAL and the result looks like the kind of effects found in most web series.

A lot of people can shrug this off, power to them, but I just can't, I need good action to enjoy a toku series. A toku show can have a bad story and still be great to me if it provides the spectacle but I just don't think it works the other way round. This isn't a medium for great stories, or drama, after all. If I was looking for great literature I'd be watching a play or reading a book. I come here for the explosions and the lasers.

I'd at least give Black a shot. Its effects are relatively modern and it is a really damn fun show.

Finished watching the Imagin anime. While most of the jokes were kinda meh (as usual with the Imagin), it also had some really good stuff, such as the suit actor dub, the train rider file or Ura's dirty jokes (seriously, how did they get throug with that?)

So I officially started Ryuki last night.

Black Episode 13: Ah the return of what I liked about Super-1, training to defeat the monster. I really enjoyed that Kotaro was stressing that he couldn't defeat the monster and had to develop a new way to defeat it. That just shows more depth for him. Also yay for the small part of Battle Hopper lol. Golgom is just evil taking mother's with newborns like all the Showa Kamen Riders tell their villains, they are Unforgivable. Actually the little kid finding the Evil Hideout actually felt like another reference to Super-1 too. I am really enjoying how this feels like more of an evolved Super-1 which I feel the shows should really evolve as the time went by. I also love not having previews of the next episode so I don't know what to expect.

Ah geez, just finished watching Ryuki, dem feels........

Gonna love it. Better love it >:o

I know right? Now if only it ended like what..10 minutes earlier, right?

Anyways, gonna change gears a bit and tackle my first showa era Kamen Rider season.

Now..if only I can find a place to watch Amazon I'd get started >_<

Edit: And I found it, wonderful.

Enjoy the ride, man. Ryuki is incredible, especially when Zolda comes in.

He's the green one whose fighting style is best summed up as "walking armory", correct?

Ayup. He has far and away one of the most satisfying arcs in the series. He's also just about as human as a character can get, he is written wonderfully.

My all time favorite character/rider in the franchise.

Shinji is a great lead character as well, he really grows throughout the series.

I...can just go on and on gushing over Ryuki, I really can. But for your sake I'll shut up and tell you to enjoy. The show doesn't have the best start, but damn does it get going.

Edit: Still downloading Amazon. Have about 65% finished....ugh.

Not gonna lie, what I read about Ren in the Secondary Riders thread really piqued my interest.

Ryuki has really good story arcs. The one with Gai and Raia was pretty good but the one in the 30s with Alternative and Tiger is fucking amazing.

Ren is definitely one of the better main/secondary riders. And his growth over the show is fantastic.

Agreed. It's such a character driven show and many of the arcs the characters go through are incredibly satisfying.

AAAAMAAAAAZOOOOOON!

...what the hell did I just watch?

So, as I said, Amazon is my first showa era season of Kamen Rider and having just finished the first episode I..really don't know what to say haha.

Being over 30 years old, yeah the show does show it's age. But I mean, it's over 30 years old, I can't imagine the budget was all that high, so yeah it's not going to look anything comparable to what we're seeing with shows like Wizard or Gaim, or even some of the older heisei era shows.

Plot-wise, again not really sure what to say. This was only the first episode, some very very basic things were..narrated, I do wish that we actually were shown a bit more early on rather than it just summed up and narrated to us, but I digress. Basically there's a 10-faced demon that wants this armlet, a wizardy science guy from the Amazon gives it to our titular hero, performs a ritual, says a few last words and then dies. Amazon makes it to Japan where the demon is doing demonic things and the guy he was told to meet that would explain things to him dies, he tears apart the monster and then howls into the setting sun, continuing his fight alone in his confusion. Oh and he sorta made friends with this kid who is the nephew of the guy he was supposed to meet up with.

We didn't really get too much characterization out of Daisuke, considering his dialogue is almost exclusively wild man sounds and howls that was kind of expected at this point. I'm hoping that he at least starts to learn a bit more Japanese or at least scales back the screaming a touch, wearing headphones while watching was giving me a bit of a headache. He seems like an alright dude though, all things considered.

Masahiko was your typical era kid, the kind you get used to after growing up on old Godzilla flicks. He wasn't annoying, which as about the best thing you can ask for in something like this.

The villain, well he's the villain. Not really sure what else to say about him at this point.

The fights were interesting. Having the rider literally ripping apart the monster with his hands and teeth was something else, especially given the use of blood. The only other season I know of to really do anything quite like that was Hibiki, and beyond blood now and then they dropped a lot of that fairly quickly.

Amazon is a really cool design too, far and away one of the most unique in the entire franchise. Aside from being an obvious body suit, not something I'd personally nitpick given the age of the show, it definitely has a much more organic look and feel, something only really attempted again in the failed Shin Kamen Rider. It's a nice change of pace and it's appreciated.

So yeah, it's a fairly short season and I liked what I saw, even if I don't really know what to make of it. So I will be sticking with it. Plus the music is that classic old Japanese toku kinda music that I grew up on in my Godzilla movies and Giant Robots and all that.

Re-watched Movie Taisen 2010 and finally paid attention to the crossover bit- only to realize that I didn't miss anything by not caring the first time and sleeping the second time I watched it.

The Decade portion felt worse this time. I was already annoyed from the point were Tackle was introduced, but my aggression reached a maximum when Decade used Blade to kill Ryuki. This movie was terrible enough without knowing the early Heisei Riders before, but having watched Blade to Kiva now made me realize how insulting Decade actually is. Thinks didn't get better, especially not when Kid-Kiva and Kid-Hibiki joined the fight (I have no problem with children, but those two are one of the things I always disliked about Decade).
The W portion was really good, actually even better than in my memory (no pun intended) but the crossover was extremely lame and overall pretty stupid.

Couldn't they have made just a movie about Begin's Night and leave everything involving Decade out? >,>

The two filler eps that introduced Megumi, and the uneasy trio team-up(Shinji, Ren, and Shuichi) episode were two of the best eps of that show.

After a lengthy hiatus (I've just not had the time lately) I jumped back into Hibiki with episode 13. Couldn't care less about Asumu being hospitalised which just goes to show how little interest in his side of things at the moment. I really liked how these episodes focus on Ibuki as an Oni just as much as they do Hibiki though - it's nice to appreciate the other Riders without the titular character always about.

Zanki too! I need to see more! Man these suits are just gorgeous.

That's honestly my opinion towards that and the W/OOO crossover. I just consider them to collectively be Kamen Rider Skull: The Movie.

Urghhh, that OOO portion. 30 minutes that ruined everything about my favorite rider. Well at least this wasn't canon.

Decade causing rage. Tends to happen.

Just watched episode 2 of A-MA-ZOOOON!

Like I said before, it shows its age but at this point that's honestly kinda adding to the charm of it. The effects aren't terrible, I actually really like how cheesy some of them look. And Amazon's henshin is actually kinda cool, fairly catchy in its own way.

Story is still not really all that prevalent, 10 Faced Demon wants to rule the world, needs Amazon's armlet to do so, Amazon still has no idea wtf is going on. It's simple, but it works well enough to set up the conflicts.

My only real big complaint is just how much narration is used to go into all this detail. I have always been a subscriber to the "show, don't tell" school of thought so it's definitely something driving me a bit crazy watching this.

The fights are still a bit hard to follow as well, mostly because of all the really closeup tooth and nail wrestling kinda stuff going on.

Watching without headphones has helped a bit too, the sounds are much less obnoxious when they aren't being blasted right into my ears.

A-MA-ZOOOOOON! Episode 3

This was a step up from the previous two. Even just something as simple as all the faces of the 10-faced Demon now being painted red shows that they were starting to pick things up a bit, there's a bit more polish to the show at this point and the show is starting to find it's direction as well introducing Tachibana and developing Daisuke a bit more as a character and him starting to learn a bit more. I approve of this most sincerely. Really starting to enjoy the season.

I was hoping, can someone give me, say, a review of Blade? I want to watch it before I sub it, and know if it's worth subbing.

That was something the show did early on to balance out the fact that Amazon couldn't talk. It eventually gets dialed back, especially once he learns fluent Japanese between episodes.

That ackward moment when you see that Axel's "Got it Memorized" pose is the same as Kazari's, and you realize that Greeeds are really Nobodies and the Yummies are Heartless.

Gotta smack 'em with my Metal Chocobo~

Oh good good. Was one of my only complaints so happy to hear it isn't sticking around.

I totally noticed that too! It another reason I love OOO lol.

Black Episode 14: This was another great episode. I loved that Golgom thinks they need to send out stronger monsters against Black because he keeps beating them. Too bad even with the special Tuna serum it didn't help them beat Black. Kotaro and his crew were excellent with taking care of Taro, the son of the Sushi Chef. The Power Stripes are totally awesome, and I loved the fight scene too very awesome. I really enjoy how there is more connectivity at least with the villains right now. I can't wait for more.