I consider it to be the best Rider show. So yes, it is good.

This can also come down to that violence isn't automatically dark. What makes a violent act so disturbing or dark is usually the means behind it. Now true murder is disturbing, but in the context of a story, sometimes it is the reaction or reasoning that makes it so much more graphic and dark. Truthfully there never is anything that I can remember in Kuuga being "dark" outside of maybe Godai's beatdown on the Grongi in front of everybody.

Honestly? I don't think so. And I actually slogged pretty far into Agito, got to like 47 or something.

Agito is one mystery painfully, unforgivingly, and needlessly stretched out over like 50 episodes. And unlike a good mystery, there's hardly any clues along the way. At least none that the audience can put together. It has so, so little substance. Episodes at a time will pass without anything actually happening.

And Souichi was a fucking horrid protagonist.

Because it was that exact flavour of "dark" and "mature" the internet needed back when it came out. Think about it, it was liek 2000/2001, right? The internet was just expanding, subbed anime and tokau was just managing to be shared effectively, and American audiences were treated to a more "mature" version of their childhood shows. Kamen Rider was like Power Rangers except it had people die, it was less overtly gimmicky and colourful and far less campy. Much like those who believe the Japanese dubs of the UT are somehow far and away these great improvements over their American counterparts, Kamen Rider and Sentai were way more "advanced" than the weastern alternatives.

At least that's how I see it. And I mean, I was totally part of this mentality. I wasn't into Riders or Transformers (as much), but I was more than aware of how things were. It was like back then if it wasn't subtitled, it was "for kids." Meanwhile, a show like Gaim that is outwardly colourful, energetic and "kiddy" ends up far more sinister and mature as it reveals it's darker machinations. Yet Kuuga is supposedly "darker" because it has, like you said, a statistical lead in the death count.

There is so much wrong with the structure of this statement alone.

Yes. I personally find Agito extremely overrated. But yes, personally, I think it's better than Kuuga overall. The ending is just as disappointing, though...

That feel when you realize the first Heisei series to have a decent ending is Blade...

Kuuga fanclub unite! Spoilers, obv.

I think it could be interpreted that Godai did die and Ichijou is lied to everyone that he's alive to protect their smiles. At the very least I think that would have been an interesting way to end it.

Also, Hibiki's pretty good. I'm almost done with it; I don't think the second half is as bad as people say, but there are problems with it. I'll be doing an overall review when I finish the show.

All valid criticisms of the show.

I think the action was fine, even by today's standards, but you just need to remember that it's an old show. One of the things I like is that the bike is actually used a lot. Many other shows don't feel like they put the "rider" in Kamen Rider. The sequence when he kills the grasshopper grongi is one of my favorite scenes in the show.

I actually really liked that fight, really helped show that maybe Godai has become the monster. Not because he wants to, but because he has too. But that final battle is way better than Agito's. (Spoiler alert: because Agito didn't even have one)

I think I like Kuuga because it's different, and I think it does it well, similarly to how Hibiki is also very different and very good.

I think most of Godai's character is implied rather than shown, although it is hinted at. It feels like he learns how destructive Kuuga can be, as well as the pain the Grongi are causing, and he needs to learn to live with this power and control it. Much better imo than, say, Agito.

If you're going to watch Agito, I feel that only the episodes from 30-46 are really worth watching. Hibiki's good, but I think it is kind of a slow burn like Kuuga. Very different from your standard fare, that's for sure. I'm actually planning to watch Faiz after I finish Hibiki. (~4 episodes left)

See also: My opinion of Agito. (although not quite as harsh)

It's hard for Rider shows to have decent endings, I feel. In order for an ending to be good, it has to fall into place naturally. But when you have a mandate of when a series has to end, and a dysmally short schedule to get it done, it's really hard for that to happens. It either happens to soon and you have to pad out the events, or it happens to late and shit has to be crammed in. And even if it ends well, there may still be something that ruins it. (either and extra twelve minutes like in Ryuki, or aan extra episode like in W)

Also, I'm glad to see I'm not totally alone in the "Agito is over-rated" club.

(Sorry for double posting, I just have a lot to say about Kuuga)

You wanna fight? Cause that's how you start a fight. :lol

I didn't get that vibe from either show, except for maybe a couple instances where the monsters kill people in interesting ways. Never heard anyone recommend either show based on that; in fact I don't see people really recommending them at all. Honestly I don't think any series (that I've seen) has gotten into the dark/violent territory.

In my opinion, no, but I get the feeling we don't really have similar tastes.

Well, if we're going by statistics, then Kuuga contains over 2000 confirmed deaths. Agreed on the violence part.

Edit:
You mean the 20 episodes in the middle where absolutely nothing plot related happens at all? In the same show where characters just disappear for episodes at a time? I didn't know this show was popular, and I don't understand it, but YMMV.

Agito's only real saving grace are the characters (Namely Gills, G3, and Another Agito), and the 15 or so episodes I mentioned earlier. The designs are very nice, though.

You wanna throw down brah? :lol



Agreed. I don't even get a horror vibe from Kuuga, and I'm Mr. Horror. Probably the closest I've seen in terms of the dark/violent area is probably Ryuki.

:lol You have no idea how refreshing it is to see this written by someone who isn't me.

The designs are pretty slick.

I consider it like this. Feel free to disagree with me completely:

Good endings: Blade, W, OOO, Gaim.
Okay endings: Den-O, Kiva, Fourze, Wizard.
Bad endings: Kuuga, Agito, Ryuki, Faiz, Hibiki, Kabuto, Decade.

I'm one of the people who liked the final episodes of Kiva and Double, so shoot me.

That's disheartening to hear. Bad mysteries can be a huge detriment because the audience is left sitting there until the show just tells us what is going on.

Kuuga is a little weird in this regard. You can see hints towards a more mature story, but Godai is this constantly bubbly and upbeat guy that he makes sure a scene is lighthearted.
Yes, facade and all that, but until the finale, we never get to see his inner feelings (Until the complete beatdown on the Porcupine Grongi), so it doesn't really change much.
I guess since the Grongi rack up high death counts, it's counted as dark in the eyes of others, though...

However, I will give Kuuga this over other "Dark" series, both Toku and Anime alike. It isn't pretentious. It isn't filled with pseudo symbolism.

Better than Kuuga? That's a step in the right direction, at least...

And that is terrifying to hear. I really don't want to sit through a second crappy anti-climax.

But the series ends with Godai on a beach juggling for some arguing kids. So we know he's fine.
It would've been an interesting path to have him die, I'll agree, but that's not the ending we were given.

Hibiki does seem to get near universal praise, but the problem is the apparent blasphemous second half, which is making me hesitant.

I know it's an older show, which is why I'm not super critical. But too many of the fights boil down to simple punches, maybe a little grapple, before the finishing rider kick.
Dragon form is just a slap to the chest with the rod. Very straight forward. Just a straight swing with the rod. When Titan form's strategy of "Walk forward and tank hits" becomes interesting just because it provides a sense of variety, you might want to reconsider a new choreographer.

The bike fights were fine, and were new and exciting to me since current series so rarely did them. But it was only done 3-4 times in the series, so it didn't offer enough flavor to save the fighting as a whole.

That is one way to look at it, but it didn't really show it. Kuuga has always been primarily a fist fighter, so a bland fist fight doesn't convey him becoming a monster.
That and the fight scene was incredibly brief and mostly covered in a white filter on top of the heavy snowfall, making it difficult to even watch, anyway.

I feel them trying to be different was a negative, but that's just me.

I really can't agree here. Godai learns the destructive force of Kuuga when he first achieves his rising forms, but beyond just taking fights to isolated areas, he doesn't seem to express concern over his growing power. We do get to see how he feels when he finally sees the pain the grongi are causing, but after that episode, he's back to his happy go lucky self. He really doesn't feel like a changed man. Same goes for the finale, when he resolves himself to use the black power (However, considering the following episode, it's hard to tell).
Even the doctor's final diagnosis of "His power is constantly growing" seems to have no effect on Godai, as he just thumbs up and leaves with a smile.

I agree, with the caveat that Ryuki would absolutely be in the "good" endings were it not for the last twelve minutes of the last episode.

Move Gaim to okay and I'd agree. I'm blanking on Wizard's ending, honestly...

Gaim's ending was really good. Unless you're counting the Jaim episode. But why would you?

I'll admit, I'm warming up a little to Ryuki's ending on the whole. I'll also agree with some that it might have been better if the show had ended with Kanzaki, realizing he was a selfish idiot who literally got everyone killed in a dozen alternate timelines for no reason, suffering for his mistakes. But even then, I'm not sure I'd lob it in with the good ones. I'd give it a solid okay.

(On a side note, I can't remember the point of the Rider War in the first place. Why did Kanzaki believe killing 12 Riders with Odin as the champion before Yui's 20th birthday would prevent her disappearing?)

Yes, but what if they're spooky ghost kids?! :p

It's not that it's a fist fight per say, it's the fact that it devolves into the two as humans just beating each other to death, to the point where they can hardly stand. Also ties into the Grongi wanting the humans to embrace brutality, which Godai is forced to do, to a degree.. Idk, that's just how I see it. The snow doesn't help, especially when the video quality is already sub-par.

Iirc, it was so he could win and use his wish to save her, but I don't remember the specifics.

My list is largely the same, but I'm more forgiving of the early Heisei era. Also including the Showa shows I've seen all the way through.

Great endings: Stronger, Black, Blade
Good endings: W, OOO, Gaim
Okay endings: V3, X, Kuuga, Agito, Ryuki (with movies and time loop factored in), Den-O, Fourze, Wizard (would have been much better if Koyomi had been played by an available actress)
Bad endings: Amazon (Emperor Zero is one of the era's lamest villains), Hibiki, Kabuto, Decade
Worst ending ever: Faiz

Drive is shaping up to be at least "good" at the rate it's currently going.

As for the main series finale: Gremlin steals the Philosopher Stone after Fueki's plan fails and he bites the dust. Super Gremlin and Wizard have a decent brawl before the former beats the latter onto one knee. Haruto punches into Gremlin and grabs hold of the stone inside (while symbolism of reaching for Koyomi's hand cuts in) before pulling it out of him. It morphs into a ring, Wizard uses its power to Rider kick Gremlin into oblivion. Haruto rides off into the sunset to find a final resting place for Koyomi (more accurately, the Philosopher Stone that symbolizes her.)

The last two episodes barely matter. They're like a scrapped Rider Taisen feat. Decade script.

Even the Jam episode wasn't the worst ever. Unnecessary sure. Reliant on the existence of a ridiculous movie, yeah. But I personally thought it was great seeing Micchy and Kouta fight alongside each other one last time.

At the very least, for sure. Let's hope it doesn't fall flat on its face right at the very end.

Squee! Mind if I join you? :)

Hmm, speaking of Kiva, having just re-watched episode 5 there was something that bothered me a bit. Garulu form's specialty is supposedly speed, looking at its stats, but this episode's about the only time Kiva faced an obviously speedy enemy in the series and Garulu already gets outpaced in its second appearance. I love the design of Garulu form but it feels kindof redundant since its specialty is never fully utilized.

Don't worry about that. None of Kiva's forms matter.

Of course!

Well, it is the speed form, but it's more about bestial ferocity than something like Clock Up or LaToraTah. Baasha is calculated precision and Dogga is brute force.

Plus, with Emperor being Kiva's truest, perfect form, the Arms Monsters don't really need to be used that much if at all since Emperor does it all better.

Ultimately, that's true, but I never felt there was any justified occasion to bring out that form in the series.

"Oh there's an enemy I can't reach, guess I'll try Bassha."

"Oh there's a big tough enemy, guess I'll try Dogga."

"Oh there's... some regular fangire I could just fight in normal form, but better use Garulu cuz the script demands some screentime for it."

Especially Dogabaki.

It got more screen time than that vehicle Ixa had for an episode. ...or that ability where he could randomly steal Kiva's powers...

Yes! :D

What is Kivathon? Everyone participating decides to (re)watch Kiva all at the same time, then talk about it or something? Or is it like a group live stream thing where everyone watches it together? Am I looking too far into this? Lol.

Well, for me, the progenitor of the term, Kivathon is marathoning the show through October. Because monster motif. You can do whatever you want as long as you watch all of it through October.

This year must be an extra spooky Kivathon then. What with Ghost joining in, too.

On a related note. My older sister forgets the names of all the Kamen Riders so when she asks me about them, she refers to each one based on what they look like, or what I've told her about their shows. Den-O is "Time-Train Guy," Fourze is "Rocket Head," Gaim is "Fruit Samurai," Drive is "Car Man," etc. To her, Kiva is forever dubbed "Kamen Rider Spooky" and Ghost is "Spooky 2.0." :D

2Spooky.4U

As a quick little heads up, if I do participate in the Kiva thing, I think I'll probably post my thoughts on every episode.
"What's so wrong about that?"
If you haven't seen Kiva, you might get spoiled a bit.

I'm having fun watching a series and posting my thoughts on an episode by episode basis. Sorry if it clogs up the forums, but it allows me to form my thoughts on the events of a series as they happen, rather than after the fact that a long, summarized review would have.
The biggest problem is that, in doing so, I tend to also summarize the plot of individual episodes at the same time :lol

Edit:
Also, since I got so ranty and angry about Kuuga, I never ranked it.

1. Blade
2. OOO
3. Double/W
4. Den-O (Need to refresh memory)
5. Gaim
6. Fourze
7. Ryuki (Need to refresh memory)
8. Amazon (Need to refresh memory)
9. Kabuto (Need to refresh memory)
10. Wizard
11. Kiva (We'll see if it rises or lowers after "Kivathon")
12. Kuuga
12.5. Faiz (I honestly don't think I have the tenacity to finish that series...)
13. Decade

You can thank your Sunbutt Princess that I wasnt around last night when you were shitting on Kuuga, Matrix :lol

Oh well, as Switchblade said, some people get the greatness of Kuuga and some don't. Opinions and all that stuff.

@Topic: I watched the Den-O movie, because the tie-in with the show was so strong and I had it available anyways. And honestly, I’m not sure what to think. Gaoh was cool but I wished he got more development than just: "I'm a time pirate, I capture time trains and then destroy everything.”

First of all, major waste, because the actor was really cool. Second: How the hell does he even do that? I mean, he can jump between time periods with the aid of the Imagin, but how the hell does he know where the trains will be? I mean I get it, he sets a trap for Den-O who has to come with the Denliner and then snatches the Denliner, but he is known as someone who steals time trains before Den-O was a thing so how did he do it?

And I’m not sure if the movie was good enough to warrant the heavy tie-ins in the show. I mean it was funny to see Deneb kidnapping Ryotaro, but still… don’t like it. Even W didn’t have that huge of a tie-in were the movies actually played a bigger role for the plot, but that’s another story.

The movie was fun, don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed watching it, but for a movie this wasn’t different enough to a normal episode and normal episodes came short because of the tie-ins. That’s a little disappointing IMO.

My favorite moments of the movie was in the sub-plot that involved the picture of Ryotaro’s parents, and I think that could have been told in a normal episode.

But oh well, I watched Episode 28 immediately after and it was awesome. The slight sadness involving the Imagin fading away was nice, and Climax form is awesome. I love the masks on the body that drive around on the tracks of the suit, that’s really cool.

Kiva had a lot of stuff that was only used once. Most of them were never properly explained, either.

I'm not gonna get into the whole arguments about Kuuga and Agito, because its all about varying taste.

I'm just gonna say I like them, and if that bothers you, then the thing you like is bad because I dont like it yet other people do. If you don't like the copious deaths in agito and Kuuga, that's fine, but I dont think that makes them bad. By that logic, every Ultraman that has scenes of a giant monster destroying a city is bad too. Again, I'm fine with people not liking it. But again,if someone is gonna be a salty butt because someone likes something they dont, they can deal with it.

Did they ever properly explained how all the past monsters became weapons?

How very thinly veiled.

I started a rewatch of Kiva months ago, but only got maybe 3 or 4 episodes in. I'd participate in an October Kivathon, for sure.

Explain? yes.
PROPERLY explain? I wouldn't exactly say that.

As I recall, King just kinda waved his hand at them and turned them the weapons. He was imprisoning them and preserving them, because they were the last of their kind. But HOW he did it? never explained, and like so many things in Kiva, such a power is never seen again.

Just giving my opinion. :p again, all I want is for everyone to get along, and to not get angry about a series just because people like it even if you dont.

Not you specifically, I mean everyone in general.
I'm also referring to people getting mad over others disliking something they like.
I have been on the receiving end of both and it sucks a lot.
People can like what they like, even if others dont, and vice-versa.

I'd do my darndest to participate. Provided I could survive it.


So why are they weapons?

But people should be allowed to discuss it as well.

People should be allowed to discuss it, yes. But not to the point where things get so heated that fights break out and take up the whole thread. I'm not saying that that has happened, but you, it can and we don't want that. ^_^

It's quite fine to love and enjoy Kuuga.
But to call it great is an insult to the franchise.
Now then, onto task 2...
http://i.imgur.com/TGFEATN.gif

The death is no problem. Really. I would prefer if they weren't meaningless statistics, but it wasn't a real issue.
The real problem was that it was boring as fuck. Nothing happens, and when the show starts to hit a stride, it makes damn well sure to put a stop to all of that within 2 episodes.

I've been heard unexplained powerups happen a lot in Inoue shows. I haven't gotten to this point in Faiz but from what I hear... doesn't Kaixa literally toss an upgrade at Takumi's head or something?