Mild correction: It is slow. The series will intentionally stop any sense of pacing once you think it'll pick up.

Which for me is a reason Agito succeeds better than Kuuga. While it is clear Kuuga is a slow building mystery, it definitely has quite a few slow patches with the only excitement ever really coming with a new form, info, or the last couple of episodes. Agito can be slow as well, however the pacing is a bit better and when the show finally gets into the main mystery/plot it is nothing short of a rollarcoaster ride compared to Kuuga's slow Sunday drive feel. I'll admit that Shoucihi isn't that great of a character and in retrospect doesn't contribute a whole lot to the situations that come. Whereas Godai is a more complex character who does contribute outside of just showing up to beat the bad guys.

I didn't really get that feeling, but to each their own. :thumb:

Did we watch the same show? At least Kuuga didn't introduce plot threads and then outright ignore them for the entire show. And those last five episodes completely killed the momentum of the show, as well as almost entirely failing to be a satisfying ending.

Shouichi isn't a bad character, but he only acknowledges the power of Agito for two or three sporadic episodes at most. For the rest of the series he just doesn't seem to care. I thought he was transforming unconsciously at first because he didn't seem fazed that he was Agito. Godai is just a way better character.

If you can get a sense of real excitement out of Kuuga, more power to ya.
Every time something exciting would happen, the episode would end and the beginning to the next would resolve it before the opening credits.
I still have 8 episodes to watch, but Kuuga has yet to honestly ever become gripping and manage keep that tension or interest.

Anyone else think the reason why despair kills Gates is because of Phantom intervention and not just despair on its own?

Think about it. Anytime, outside of Sabbaths, a Gate starts breaking apart due to despair it's because of a Phantom fucking with their hopes and is in the room telling them to give in to it.

I mean, yeah Haruto was told by his dying parents not to lose hope, but if a kid sees their parents broken and dying, they won't usually start fulfilling the final words of the parents until a bit of initial grieving. And if Haruto didn't become Dragon during that point, it leads me to believe only Phantoms can breed Phantoms through the despair in a Gate.

I thought that was pretty clear. Obviously despair happens constantly around the world every single day; plenty of them gates, I'm sure. But only the ones influenced by Phantoms get a bad case of the purpley cracks.

This is interesting, given the debate a few posts ago. I just started Agito.

I'm 3 episodes in, and am willing to give it more time. If it doesn't grab me enough, I may rewatch Black.

I just picked Kiva back up; I'd taken a months-long hiatus. I like some of the basic ideas, but the execution has frustrated me so far. I couldn't stand Wataru: hooray, a Rider too frightened to talk to other people! Also, I kinda want to punch Otoya. Also, the writers for their tendency to invert Buffy by having the women of the series be monster hunters fully incompetent at actually hunting monsters.

I took in episode 13 yesterday. Wataru seems less awful. Otoya is still awful, but now gets to do something. Jiro is still more fun to watch than the two leads.

Kuuga 42.
Started off strong, throwing us right into the action.
Then it went back to typical Kuuga fare. Mhmm.

I thought that WAS the case with Shouichi. Like becoming Agito was just this instinctual thing for him at first. Like how he sort of attacks G3 in the second episode out of nowhere.

He didn't even really talk all that much as Agito until way later on which was when I felt he started getting more used to being Agit o more or less.

Where can I find subtitled torrents or streams for the 1971 series? In the only places I've found to watch it, the episodes have been separated into parts. I hate that.

I hate it too. But I'm living with it. If you find a good place, let me know! ^_^

KRDL has, well, downloads. You can find them on KITsub's own blog too. (though note that the torrents are usually lacking in seeds)

Ah, yeah. I'd found them on KITsub's blog right before you posted this. Thanks, though. They still plan on finishing the series?

No idea. Their last post said "no more 5 month hiatuses" but that was in May so...let's say two weeks.

But nah, I dunno. They've only done 3 episodes in the last 2 years. I honestly wouldn't hold my breath.

All of KIT's work has to filter through one guy for release. He's been working on Drive with Over-Time and that seems to have kept him too busy to finish up any of KIT's regular projects (I assume).

I love KIT's work, but they get sidetracked with other projects really easily.

Kuuga 43.
So the kabuto Grongi turns out to be the guy in the military attire. Not sure if we already knew that and I just forgot, though...
So the girl who's father was killed by 0 returns once again, this time for a flute recital that Ichijou attends. However, a disgruntled former worker of the building takes the president hostage, which causes Ichijou to miss it, afterwards she catches the end of the situation, watching him take down the worker. She freezes up and then things end.
Also, Godai gets a vision of the silhouetted man once again. He collapses and nothing is learned.

I liked the moments where we got to see Ichijou connect with her. Seeing him happy is great.
Otherwise, it's just another episode of Kuuga.

Re-watched A-Z Gaia Memories of Fate.

Really, all I have to say is that I thought it was pretty brutal that the NEVER guys break into Futo tower by straight up shooting up the guards with actual no-nonsense guns. On top of the undead aspect it made them seem pretty hardcore for Neo-Heisei Kamen Rider villains.

...Then that impression was completely ruined by the fact that when Maria got shot 3 times in the chest, there was no bullet wounds or a single drop of blood on her white dress. Damn this being a kids movie. Totally took me out of the scene.

Kuuga 44.
Kabuto Grongi reveals he's stronger. Kuuga wants to become stronger, but they have no idea how he can.

Alright. Fuck Enokida. Her story is that she's unintentionally neglecting her son for her job. Except that she's not. She's well aware of how much time she's not spending with her son (To the point that she intentionally shifts topics whenever he's brought up), and there is never a moment where she has shown any sense of pain in her decisions. She'll go quiet when he's brought up, and then she'll immediately change the topic (Or a police radio will go off to end the conversation immediately).
There has yet to be a real moment when she shows hesitance in making a decision. She constantly chooses to aid the detectives in making better super bullets after the last set of super bullets became obsolete (Which tends to be one episode after their debut).
"But she's choosing to save the lives of hundreds. That's valiant."
Yes, it is. But since her entire fucking story is about having to neglect her son, it's hard to see her as a good character. Just a neglectful bitch with a large brain.

Kuuga 45 and 46.
Bad Enokida. No. You don't get to have this moment. Stop it.

Kuuga gets his ass beaten by the kabuto Grongi, who displays powers identical to Kuuga (Including Rising form). We also see the Grongi form of the dude with an abacus, which is a bird, but I can't tell you what. Marked by the tracking bullets and being armed with the explosive bullets, Ichijou and 2 others go in and find kabuto and bird duking it out. After birdy escapes, the other two chase him down, able to kill him using the stronger bullets. Ichijou tries to kill kabuto, but he survives. Kuuga, after another near death experience (With aid from the doc), he gains a more strength and starts fighting once more, saving Ichijou and engages Kabuto again.
Kuuga goes Amazing Mighty and takes him out in one blow.

Now a dude clad in white, speaking to the rose, says the ultimate darkness is coming.

I've been told 46.5 is not necessary to watch, so I'm just gonna continue on to 47.

Fuck Kuuga.

Nah, he's cool. But the ending isn't quite what you'd expect.

Actually, I'm kind of sad you don't like it, but in rewatching it, it's not like I can argue that you're wrong for finding it slow and dull, because it is.

Yet strangely, I still like it. But I ONLY like it for Kuuga, and I'm clearly giving it a lot more credit in my mind than it deserves.

That ending pissed me off so much that I can't even give the series as a whole an analysis.
Fuck that show.

:lol

I mean, I love the show and all, but your last post was all "On to 47" and then this.

:lol

I was going to warn you that this is when the show pretty much ran completely out of money, but I didn't have the chance.

It's fine to like it. There is...Some things worth enjoying it for.
Godai is likable, and his ability to instill hope is admirable. Ichijou is one of my favorite characters in Kamen Rider period, and he can't even transform. And...Kuuga's design is good.

I don't want to sound mean, but I went into Kuuga expecting a lot. I got nothing out of it. The story was so slow that we, as viewers, got no information until the early 20's, when the Grongi started speaking Linto, so we could actually keep up. Not helped that even when the story looked to be advancing, the integral characters would disappear and it would be just MOTW for a few episodes straight (I'm looking at you, bat Grongi).
The characters rarely felt like they were growing (It took the entire flipping series for Enokida to acknowledge that maybe her son is starting to have abandonment issues), while others just didn't change at all (Everyone at the restaurant, Sawatori, and Minori, for example).
But let's be a little more fair, shall we? The story arcs they did present were great. You could feel the emotions the characters were going through, the dread and despair was conveyed wonderfully. The downside would be that it would end next episode and never be brought up again. It really felt like a waste of time to give characters these levels of attention now, after the fact, since they play no real role in the plot at hand.

Then, as if it's just pushing to see what it can get away with, with the exception of maybe 2 occasions, every cliffhanger is instantly resolved before the opening theme of the next episode. Kuuga stabbed and pinned to a wall and the episode ends? Next begins with Ichijou firing at the monster's back, Kuuga unpinning himself, and the monster running, as if that tension never existed at all.

I did not enjoy Kuuga at all. Half the cast played no role beyond set dressing, the other half that were important didn't actually contribute outside of the rare occasions.

The action was lacking, being very subdued. Some would say that's not a bad thing. And it's not. The first 20 times. The remaining 30 made fight scenes just dull and time consuming. The bike scenes were nice, but those don't save a series. Kuuga's transformations were also fun, but the Rising forms were glorified finishers, such worry was placed on Rising Mighty that he barely used it, and Amazing and Ultimate were used a whopping 1 time, so it's hard to really call them memorable.
And that climax. Oh, that climax. Punching each other on a snowy mountain. Then cut to Ichijou, then cut to them in their human forms, still just punching each other. Then they fall down. That was the most anti climactic fight I've seen and it was so angering that the only reason why I watched the final episode immediately afterwards was so I could just get it over with.

The final episode was mediocre. Showing everyone after everything was said and done. Godai saved the world and everything is perfect. Yay.

I really wanted to like Kuuga, I really did. While I'm forgiving to a lot, it's attempts at trying something different led to such a boring experience that was only enjoyable because Ichijou was written well.
And that's the problem with Kuuga. It's not bad, in a sense. It's just boring. It reels all it's action in, it wants to make the characters "Real" in the sense that they do fucking nothing, and it just doesn't want to keep any sense of flow or pace.
It's not offensively bad as Decade, or as facepalmingly dumb as Faiz (Which I couldn't even finish), but Kuuga is the slowest, most dull, most boring series Kamen Rider I've ever seen.

These final 2 episodes filled me with more despair than a Phantom.

I think Kuuga is just one of those shows where either its uniqueness clicks with you or deeply irritates you. I've never really seen a lot of people who were just middle-of-the-road on it. Personally, I still love it despite all of its flaws.

That said, it is definitely a show that does not age well. Skyrider holds up better over time, and that show had a damn disco soundtrack. The show's budget was obviously minuscule, the CGI was not nearly advanced enough for what they wanted it for, it was way more slow drama than action-adventure, and the ending... Okay, so I get what they were trying to do with the ending. It's a metaphor. I can respect the idea of doing something like that instead of the big CGI explosionfest. It really doesn't work, though. Still, not as bad as Faiz's ending.

Then I will be your hope.

...

Okay, I was going to google up a Kuuga MLP drawing, but the only one I could find showed him Rider Kicking the yellow one in the face, so, uh... nevermind.

:lol

I don't mind the fight episode, I get what they were going for, and I can kind of appreciate it for what it is, though it isn't really what I would want out of a finale like that.

I also get what they were doing with the final episode, but again it doesn't really do much for me. I think I would have appreciated the last episode a lot, had they shown at the end that Godai died to defeat Daguva, but I understand why they didn't go that route.



What are you going to watch next? I enjoy you're episode by episode reflections, and I'd like to read along with your next show, especially if it's one like Kuuga that I'm pretty familiar with. I can't remember which other shows you've done (in part because I probably missed many of your posts, sometimes this thread grows so quickly I'll miss pages and pages of discussion), but I'm tempted to try and pick out just your posts from this thread and read through them.

To me, Kuuga is the shining example of different doesn't mean better. It aimed to be a police drama, but in doing so, it made Ichijou feel like the only real character. That decision marginalized half the supporting cast and made Godai only feel like an attack dog at times, where we'd spend an entire episode around Ichijou, then Godai would pop in and kill a Grongi, ride off, then we'd end the episode with Ichijou.
It wanted to have a mystery aspect, but in doing that, the audience was left so far behind in information that keeping up with the plot was borderline impossible. Even when the Grongi started speaking Linto, they would still move into Grongi just to make things difficult to keep up with.

Godai felt like a discount Eiji. Godai never felt like a growing character. The brief moments he did (Like his violent outburst against the porcupine Grongi) were removed by the next episode ("I don't want to be like that anymore, so I'mma smile." "Kay." and instantly resolved). He's not bad, and he's very likable, but he was just rather static.

I don't know how to comment on the fight scenes, as the only series before it that I've seen is Amazon, so I don't know how later Showa era handled fights.
I can understand what they were trying to do, but they felt like they were stumbling too much to fully follow through.

And no worries. I found a Kuuga MLP image~
http://img01.deviantart.net/4f70/i/2...ad-d5enlfl.jpg

I wouldn't have been so disappointed if it weren't the climax. Everything the previous 10 or so episodes were building up to. Ended with a 30 second long fist fight.

The final episode makes sense, everyone enjoying life and the things Godai did. But that's just it. It's people going "Yeah, Godai is great." "Yeah. He's awesome." for 20 minutes.

Really? Thanks.

I was thinking on watching a Sentai next, but I may watch another Rider series (I've been intending on revisiting Den-O, Kabuto, and Ryuki, while I've yet to see Agito, all of Faiz (15 episodes in. New record!), or Hibiki).

It's interesting you say that. I always saw Eiji as a watered down Yusuke. :lol

I saw that one, but missed the tail. Whoops.

I think you were supposed to be uncertain if Yusuke lived or died in the final fight. I'm not sure if it really worked like that for contemporary audiences.

I'd always recommend Hibiki. Switchblade is to Hibiki as Matrixbeast is to Gekiranger. It's also a slower-paced series, but the character work is much more consistent than Kuuga and the cinematography is freaking gorgeous (watch the Hibikianon or Delta subs for the episodes they cover, if you can - TVN's TV rips do not hold up well - they aren't Blade bad, but not a ton better). Plus it's only 29 episodes, so it's relatively short.

What Rider series haven't you watched?

I can't really see how Yusuke is superior. Sure, he goes around doing random stuff to make people smile, but it's just banging on trash lids or juggling. Nothing really substantial.
In terms of characterization and growth, it's hard to even compare the two.

Actually, that's wrong. Very early on in the episode, characters are saying stuff like "I wish Godai didn't go on an adventure so soon. I wonder when we'll see him again." So they make it quite clear that Yusuke is alive, he just left quickly.

Ah yes. I've heard of Hibiki's infamous brevity and nonexistant second half :lol
Anyway, you had me tensing up at slow paced, since I don't want to actively dread watching another episode like with Kuuga, but it does sound a lot more interesting. How many episodes do the other sub groups cover before I have to switch to TV-N?

I haven't seen any Showa (Sans Amazon, which I watched while I was massively depressed, so I should really give it another go, too), Agito, Faiz (I only got 15 or so episodes in), and Hibiki.
I also haven't seen the Kamen Rider J movie or The Next.

I regret not continuing Hibiki, but things came up and I got far enough in that I don't want to restart... but I can't remember where I left off.

Oh. Guess I misremembered that. I haven't seen that episode in years.



Hibiki's drama to action ratio is better than Kuuga's, but the main focus is on Asumu growing up and learning to be a man.

Delta did the first 8 episodes, I think, and Hibikianon got to 13. The latter are just scripts, though. You'll need the raws. I think Hibikianon was on a streaming service, though. No idea how available Delta is since the group crapped out.

I swear, if I ever learn Japanese I will figure out the mechanics behind fansubbing just so the world can have a good, complete (by my standards) set of Hibiki subs.

Well, October is coming soon, wanna join the Kivathon, Matrixbeast?

Damn. I did something similar with Shinkenger, but I remembered being bored with it, so I didn't quite regret it. When I did get the time, I was in your shoes, except a little less interested :lol

Yeah, I've heard about Asumu.
And that kind of sucks. The better options only having 8 and 13 done? Damn.

We'll see. If I can decide, download, and finish the next show I decide to watch (Either Hibiki or some Sentai...), I might join in on the fun~

Agito, because it is fucking Agito.

Yeah, Hibiki's more on the peripheral, which I think makes him a stronger character. He's a little bit of a sage, a little bit of a hermit, and a little bit of a sensei, kind of.

Kuuga just bored me. I didn't get very far, but I feel like a lot of it's popularity comes from it being "oh so dark and horror-violent" like Agito. I much prefer Ryuki to both, though filled with it's own flaws, the horror violence felt less cheap.

Is it better than fucking Kuuga?

Kuuga isn't that dark, actually. I mean, yeah, there is lots of death, but it's just statistics. A news reporter will go "Unidentified Lifeform 30 has killed 129 people today." And that's it. We don't see how destructive they are. We're just told how many people they kill from a reporter or police radio (Sometimes we'll see them get one or two kills, but even then, it's not that violent).

I'm honestly baffled to Kuuga's overwhelming approval...