Stronger Episode 32: General Shadow vs any villain who can compete with his intellect makes for a great episode. I loved seeing Secretary of State Wolf and General Shadow both trying to make a truce with Stronger that was fun. I loved Shigeru's reaction to the generals squabble he was having a field day there that was great. Stronger's Charge Up form is awesome I love his special moves with it, that was awesome. Also I'm so glad they changed the ending theme, to match what's going as well as adding the Charge Up form to the opening too. Tobei helping Stronger against Baron Rock was great too. If General Shadow some how managed to defeat Stronger he wouldn't have an army left with how many people Stronger keeps destroying. General Shadow sure picked the wrong opponent to have a vendetta against lol. I can't wait to see Stronger kick more Delza army butt here.

Stronger Episode 33: Well Secretary of State Wolf's plans certainly got cloudy lol. It was a good plan I thought he was one of the better of the Delza generals, especially that he was more powerful than Stronger under the full moon and if his plan worked he definitely could have won probably. Tobei certainly is reminding me more of him from X, and how he's a little more capable now taking on some of the henchmen and defeating them. Shigeru was great with his magical teleport ability or something and faking being asleep by the sleeping gas, he is so amazing at tricking his foes, the Delza Army has certainly picked the wrong opponent here. I am intrigued with Commander Blank and his Frankenstein roots, I can't wait to see his fight with Stronger. I continue to love the Charge-Up form and the Super Electro Lightning Kick or whatever was completely awesome here. Well I can't wait for more, especially with us getting closer and closer to Stronger vs Shadow.

Stronger Episode 34: Well I like how Snake Woman's planning is working more than some of the other two part generals, with learning Stronger's plans with her first plan then attacking again next episode. Though Commander Blank I enjoyed that he just went to beat the crap out of Stronger rather than attack kids or some random ploy against him. Blank vs Stronger was a brutal fight for both of them, there was someone who actually pushed Stronger and was a real good fight. The fighting was much better this episode especially Charge-Up Stronger's Electro Dive Punch move than pushed Blank into the freaking ground. Tachibana didn't do so well this episode being captured again but he does help give the captured children hope though so that's good. I like General Shadow and Snake Woman's chemistry together they seem like a great villain couple right now. Well I can't wait for more especially with V3 coming in next week, I haven't seen in much but I do like him in the appearances I have seen him in though.

Just finished the Fourze movie "It's Space Time!" ("Everyone Space Is Here!").

Has to be the fanservi-est fanservice of a fan-serviced movie I think I've ever watched.

It shipped so hard I thought I was on a Princess Cruise.

Fourze was the first KR series I watched while it was airing, so I can't say I'm not thankful to it for what it delivered, but in contrast to both past and future Rider series, there were a lot of turkeys thrown into that show. I've even watched the other specials, Movie War Ultimatum and Megamix, and I would suggest brushing one's teeth before watching this saccharin induced pile of cinema.

It's a toss-up between this and the Fourze/Wizard Movie Wars. Koichi Sakamoto loves him some skirt twirls.

Stronger Episode 35: I was excited for V3's return here, I haven't seen his series except for the first episode but I love seeing Shiro from his appearances an X and the other movies I've seen. Also I just love the actor who plays him too. The humility between Shiro and Shigeru was amazing, with Shigeru thanking Shiro but him just saying that it was because of Shigeru's own strength he succeeded. We need more Kamen Riders who are just friends in the beginning rather than fighting nowadays. Stronger had to toughen it out against Snake Woman she was very crafty, and I definitely felt that they hinted there was some sort of relationship between her and General Shadow. V3 vs Marshal Machine and V3 vs General Shadow were both good. I can't wait for the next episode to see X again and to see more of Amazon, I love returning Riders.

I finished Ryuki. That was a really good show. I'm going to miss it a lot. Shinji was such a funny, cool guy. One thing that I can't believe is that the whole Rider War was for nothing. Everything was just reset to normal. At least Shiro and Yui got a happy ending together.

Stronger Episode 36: Well I was having a field day watching Keisuke return to action, I loved Kamen Rider X so it was fantastic to see him again. Also great to get one of my first times of seeing Amazon in action too. Amazon and X worked great together kicking Delza Army ass. I enjoyed that Stronger could get past a magnetic enemy I always wondered about that for a while. I love that General Shadow is basically like it's not my plan so I'm just going to tell Stronger everything, though it felt like it was more boasting because Stronger was just being distracted. I loved Stronger, Amazon, and X fighting together that was awesome especially with throwing the two generals into each other destroying them. I'm glad that Stronger has heard of his predecessors, I'm pretty sure that Tobei mentioned it to him in their off time lol. Well the Delza Army generals sure are more dangerous right now, especially with blowing up two planes this episode, Stronger was definitely fighting to get justice on these destructive generals. I can't wait for more and to see more of V3 and Riderman next episode too.

Every time we see the other classic Riders come back I always pity whichever monster ends up having to fight Amazon.

Lol yeah I can imagine it sucks to be them.

I think Fourze/Wizard wins by a LONG shot.

Stronger Episode 37: I see we get Rider Vs Rider fight back here too. Riderman vs Stronger was pretty awesome, I would have loved to have seen more because of how the action of the Showa Era is compared to the newer stuff. It was great to see V3 and Riderman back in action, I have only really seen them in the ZX special so it was great. I love Riderman, he was fantastic. General Shadow vs Stronger was good but I knew something was off because Shadow wouldn't go down that easily and it's good that he's keeping up his manipulations, so I definitely see him being defeated soon with that ominous Ace of Spades slip up that happened. Shigeru's disguise was hilarious, it was barely a disguise but it was great. I can't wait for Stronger to kick the Delza's army butt. Two episodes left and Ichigou and Nigou coming too I can't wait for more.

Stronger Episode 38: Now this was the battle I was waiting for with Stronger vs Shadow. That was a great fight especially the finish of one being stabbed while the other was kicked. Shadow was resilient but still couldn't get the job done. I see why he's brought back in the movies now, he is one of my favorite Kamen Rider villains he was very intelligent and basically had used Stronger as a pawn for a while. Excellent intellect and manipulation skills with him. If he fought Stronger before he got the Charge-Up form he probably would have defeated Stronger. I will miss thee General Shadow. Now for the next part of the episode, I loved Ichigou and Nigou's returns they were phenomenal, I love how Marshal Machine thought they were just urban legends. They were both kick ass and worked great with Stronger. Tobei was very happy to see them which was another great moment. I can't wait for the finale to see all 7 of the Riders kick ass together, that should be a blast, I should get a kick out of it lol.

Stronger Episode 39 (Final): That was a brilliant ending. This definitely was a fantastic series finale of Kamen Rider because I know it took a while before they brought it back, so this was a great finale to bring back all the Riders even their actors too. I just loved seeing them all work together and kick ass. Especially loved the use of kidnapping Tachibana as an important point this time and just loved how Stronger got him back in his normal way. I will say my only disappointment was that Stronger didn't say his catchphrase one last time in this episode. Fighting the Great Leader was something else and especially if he was the Great Leader of all the evil organizations that was one heck of a twist there. They all kicked ass and they all saved the day, I absolutely loved this ending. Well another Kamen Rider series is finished and an outstanding one at that, I'll post my thoughts on it later but still just shows me more and more why I love the Kamen Rider franchise.

Stronger episode 4.

So Tachibana has his own theme song now. Also the dude must be going stupid in his old age. He's curled up on the ground with a bunch of bikers kicking the crap out of him and his only concern is recruiting them to be racers. Christ, Tobei.

I always wonder what happened to Tachibana between shows. When V3 ended he was still running his shop with all of his friends and probably still scout leader for the Shonen Riders. Then in X he's all alone with a new restaurant and by Amazon and Stronger he's just wandering around Japan in his yellow jeep. I'd love to know the full story there.

Stronger episode 6.

Man, Shigeru is kind of a dick nugget. I'm not saying he would have just left Tackle to die in that ditch, but I am saying that is kind of exactly what he did. What the heck man.

And Tachibana continues to be unappreciated. Fun stuff.

Greetings, everyone!

I've just finished watching Kamen Rider Drive today and before that I watched Kuuga (really liked it a lot, especially towards the end), Agito (it was quite good) and OOOs (same as Agito) the short movies ZO (loved it for what it was) & J (I didn't enjoy this one). I'm currently watching Blade (I'm on episode 11) and I have plans to watch Faiz afterwards. After those...maybe Kabuto & Hibiki and that's it for the foreseeable future.

I have an important question regarding the franchise and I thought this forum and thread was the best place to ask:

I want to watch some Kamen Rider movies, specifically Super Hero Taisen GP and its follow-up mini-series; Surprise Future, Fourze & OOO: Megamax, Missing Ace (Blade) & Paradise Lost (Faiz). Of course I did some research before asking this question and I'm aware of when I have to watch the last two movies I mentioned. As for Drive, there is no issue since I already finished the series.

What I don't know is how many spoilers for Blade, Faiz, Kabuto & Hibiki are present in Megamax; Super Hero Taisen GP and so on. I already watched Drive x Gaim: Full Throttle and that one basically spoiled several key points of Gaim's series and ending. Which I didn't care cause I have no interest in watching it. But thanks to that now I'm trying to be very careful with spoilers for the aforementioned series I do plan to watch/currently watching.

I don't care if the movie in question spoils a final form or something like that, but finding out stuff like "X character actually died" or "this dude left earth and now has his own planet" is plot-related and I do mind.

So basically if someone could give me a heads-up or more info without spoilers I'd greatly appreciate that. Thanks a lot!!

From what I understand, while the actual movie doesn't have a lot of spoilers, the Rider 4 special after GP does have some plot relevance to to Faiz. Wouldn't know about Megamax, though.

Stronger episode 7

Shigeru Jo: Huge dick, confirmed.

Also, very inefficient? He's shown the ability to explode monsters by electrocuting them when underwater. Evaporating that entire lake just to jump kick this one is seriously overkill.

For the most part you should be fine. Most of the older Riders who show up in the team-up movies are just voiceless suits. The only time you'll really want to be careful is when Faiz's Kento Handa shows up. GP itself didn't have any spoilers for Faiz, but 2014's movie - the Showa vs. Heisei SHT - had some pretty big ones. I've heard that the Rider 4 specials might have some spoilers, but I've only seen the first episode of that.

Thanks for this answer and the previous one! Indeed I found out that Takumi from Faiz shows up in the SHGP miniseries follow-up so that's precisely why I decided to make such a post. Like I've said, I'm trying really hard to not spoil mainly Blade & Faiz for me, but if I can avoid Kabuto and Hibiki's spoilers, that'd be even better.

So what I get from all this is that in all the movies I mentioned I won't spoil anything from Blade (I think Garren shows up in the megamax one, but probably it's just the suit actor with no plot relevance), but I should avoid Super Hero Taisen GP until I see the 555 series first?

The movie should be fine, but I may hold off on the Rider 4 specials. They're not essential to the film, so you won't be missing out on anything.

And Garren's actor played a different character in Fourze, so that's why he's in Megamax.

Finished Den-O. It took me some time, but not because I didn’t like the show, I just didn’t feel like sitting down and watching more than one episode at times so it took longer.
Anyways, it’s a great show and I enjoyed it a lot. The Imagin are so much fun, the suits look nice and the action is good. The big problem with this show however is that a plot is nowhere to be found. They try to put it all into the last quarter of the show and only then introduce the enemy behind the Imagin (which is laughable by the way) and all the tries to tie up the loose ends fail in my opinion. I mean, I can live with the ending but man that stuff comes out of nowhere. No build up at all.

Story is definitely not the strongest point of this show, so it depends if you like the Imagin and their weekly soap opera. If you’re not into that then you probably won’t enjoy Den-O much. I did however, and I will watch the movies later on.

So, here’s my ranking for the shows I’ve watched so far. It’s rather hard to put them into a numbered ranking since some I really like so much I wouldn’t put them behind others, but that’s the spirit of a ranking so here we go:

1. Gaim
2. Kuuga
3. Agito
4. W
5. Ryuki
6. OOO
7. Den-O
8. Drive
9. Wizard

Den-O places relatively low even though I enjoyed it a lot, just because the other shows I’ve watched could entertain me as much but had fewer flaws when it came to the overall story and characters. To me at least. Gaim is at the very top because I think it’s the best I’ve watched yet, Kuuga and Agito are rather close (Agito is the better show but I enjoyed Kuuga a tick more) and W - Den-O are rather close too. I enjoyed those a lot as well.

Drive and Wizard are at the very bottom as they’re the only shows that made me tired of watching which the others never did. I had to force myself to continue with both; I did feel like dropping them more than once. Drive is technically a good show (at least in the second half) but man I couldn’t care less about it. Wait I can, it’s called Wizard. Wizard puts the others to shame, even though I wasn’t as offended by the supporting cast as others were. I actually like the gang. But the show itself is so boring and stupid at times, it has to be my least favorite.

I haven’t decided on what to watch next yet, but I have Kabuto ready to go and I do enjoy the shows designs so maybe I try that. I do know that Blade is a huge fan-favorite, but I want to save this one after Faiz. Just so I can remind myself there’s some light at the end of the tunnel when I have to make myself watch Faiz. I’m really afraid of Faiz. It looks so bad.

So while I'm watching episode 8 of Stronger, I start thinking: man, this show would be so much better if Tackle was a teenage sidekick. Her weakness, general inefficiency, tendency to get captured, and the complete disrespect she gets from Shigeru would all be much more palatable if she was just a teenage sidekick of some sort. It's unbecoming for a grown woman and superhero partner, but teenage sidekicks are chumps. I mean, it wouldn't make it perfect, but it'd make more sense. But no.

Then I realized, I didn't actually know if Tackle was an adult. I knew Shigeru's actor was in his twenties, but I had only been assuming Yuriko's was too. So I checked and wouldn't you know it, while Araki Shigeru was 26 when he played Stronger, Okada Kyouko was only 16 when she started playing Tackle. While the Rider's ages don't always match up exactly to their actor's, they are usually very close. So there we go. A teenage sidekick is she. Shigeru is ten years her senior, so I guess him being kind of a smartass makes sense.

Of course, this actually makes his occasional criminal negligence and physical abuse seem even worse, but eh. I'd already confirmed the dude is a huge jerkass. It's a unique personality for a main Rider though, so it's cool. In any case, this makes my perception of Stronger somewhat more positive. Pretty alright thus far.

On the other hand, looking this stuff up led me to find out that both actors have passed away by now, which is pretty sad. Especially in the case of Okada, who died tragically young just a little over a decade after Stronger ended. :(

Yeah, that was pretty sad. Takehisa Yamaguchi, the guy who played Riderman, also died around the same time.

Faiz isn't that bad, imo. I went in expecting to hate it more cause everyone said it was. I do understand what people's problem with it is, so don't take my word for it, though lol

Faiz is so far the only series I haven't been able to finish (That wasn't airing at the time) :lol
If you like casts of intolerable characters because it somehow, in some weird world, feels more "Real," then you may get a kick out of Faiz.

Watched Kamen Rider J earlier and thoroughly enjoyed it, by far and large my favourite of the three 90s movies. While I found Shin (and to a lesser extent) ZO overblown and way too underdeveloped for their running times, J balanced it out perfectly by going for a much simpler story. The characters are wafer thin and could all be summed up succinctly with a single sentence each, but I didn't come out of the movie feeling like I needed to know anything more about them. I could just sit back and enjoy all the wonderful visual effects and fights it had to offer.

Some sad Trivia: All three leads in Stronger (including Tachibana here) died of lung diseases. Tackle had severe asthma, Stronger suffered from pneumonia and Tachibana died of lung cancer :(

That's pretty much where I'm at on J, too.

Stronger, episode 9.

Man, what an episode.

The plot in this one was as ridiculous as it was horrible. It's not the first time one of these organizations has tried to mind control people into killing children, but still, always a treat when they do. And they even turned it around at the end! And it even featured one of my favorite Showa things. There really isn't anything like a good old fashioned Shocker-style crucifixion. Man it's been a while since I saw one of those. Hilarious.

Speaking of hilarious, can I just say, jeeeesus the mantis kikaijin design in this episode is one of the worst things I've ever seen. "A mantis with SKULLS FOR EYES" sounds like a wet dream considering how much I love ridiculous shit, but seeing it in the suit it's so completely terrible. A+ shitty Showa kaijins in this season. Truly a delight.

And I realize those things I just said sound super sarcastic, but I mean them. Showa crucifixions and crappy costumes are endorsed by the barstench fartface party. Fun stuff.

Anyway, I kind of feel like Mister Titan should have figured out by now that the bike squad is like, literally the most ineffective thing you can throw at Stronger. It's always just five minutes of random bike-fu involving Stronger just crashing the crap out of the mooks, and it's sad. I guess it's good as a distraction/filler, which is ultimately its only purpose, to keep Shigeru out of the action, but still. Learn to spice up your hate life, Mister Titan.

Definitely works though, there really wasn't a whole lot of Shigeru in this one. It really kind of felt like a Yuriko and Tachibana episode, which would be nice, except they don't really do anything more than usual. And speaking of learning, they established a while ago that even people who don't know about Black Satan know that if someone's walking around with a black mark on their ear, they're trouble. You'd think an ear inspection would be the way out heroes introduce themselves by now. But no. Let's just trust that dragonfly eating priest. Seems like a good idea.

Also, I really love how these Showa episodes just refuse to acknowledge that anything bad may have happened by the end. Sure, the mayor of the town died, and I'm like 99% sure in the time it took Yuriko to stop the band at least a handful of children were murdered. But hey. It sure is a peaceful, happy ending!

Man, I really liked this episode. I don't even know.

I’ve watched the first 13 episodes of Kabuto and I enjoy it. Tendou is not easily likable, but I enjoy the character just because of what a huge dick he is most of the time, even when he does something nice.

The setup is interesting although the Worm isn’t really identifiable or interesting as an enemy since they just act like monsters. Monsters which could work very well in horror movie to be fair, and that’s what I like about them. Their designs aren’t too corny and they are a considerable threat to anyone without a Zecter, even the larva ones.

But then there’s Zect, and even if they battle the Worm they seem to be the real enemies here, as they don’t hesitate to eliminate people who are in their way, sacrifice innocents for their benefit or manipulate the media. So yeah, I’m definitely interested to see what’s going on with this.

And having the destroyed city of Shibuya as a tie between the characters is kinda nice, especially now Hiyori remembers someone wearing a Rider belt during the commotion.

Kagami is a likable little goofball, and I’m surprised how much development he already got. There’s the thing with his brother, his struggles with Zect and his short-lived identity as TheBee. He’s definitely the character people can easily identify and struggle with and I like that. And yes, I know he gets his own Zecter later on and I do look forward to that.

What I probably like most about Kabuto so far are the suits and the action scenes. The suits are downright gorgeous; I love how techy they are yet feature distinctive insect characteristics. I love how they start in a pupated form and hatch out of it to combat advanced worms. The suits hit all the buttons for me; I love all of them so far.

With the action scenes, they are well done even though the CG is really horrible most of the time. But the show is rather old now, so it can’t be helped. And it’s not like CG got any better in Rider anyways, it’s always horrible. But the way they use the Clock Up in beautiful environments is really cool. Making the rain stop in mid air or have cherry blossoms stop their fall from the trees. Very nice to look at, even with the terrible CG.

So I definitely keep watching.

Update on Blade:

I just finished watching episode 30 and I'm feeling a bit anxious regarding the consensus that the 2nd half of the series with the staff change (regarded by western fans like some of the best heisei has to offer) will live up to its "fame". This has got to be the worst two part episode I've seen so far in the few Rider shows I watched: the acting of the female villain plus the other guest actors was cringeworthy and the shenanigans with Chalice almost derail the character.

I seriously hope episode 31 goes back to being like the first 20 episodes, despite the majority thinking they are weak. While I agree they present many flaws, at least I liked the mystery and the creepy atmosphere the show had going on for it. Hopefully the final third of the show answers many of the questions presented and give Kenzaki more backstory.

Was it the Takoyaki Fued 2 parter?

Yep. That one. I want to forget it ASAP but perhaps I gave it too much importance because I knew of the problems behind the scenes and I was afraid the show was going to take this direction from now on.

Yeah, that two parter is strange, but far from representative of the rest of the show. Don't worry too much about it.

Just started episode 14 of the original series, the one where the second rider shows up. Been digging this series so far, but I REALLY haven't enjoyed the past 3 episodes where they've been phasing Hongo out. Hopefully this makes up for that.

Edit: Definitely better. I don't really like the way they wrote Hongo out (why couldn't they send the new guy overseas and just have Hongo stay in Japan? I get why they did it, because he got hurt, but it didn't really make all that much sense plot-wise. Oh well) but the new Rider seems like an interesting character so far. I dig how his suit is more colorful.

By far my favorite part of the episode though was the blatant racism. The goons were all wearing luchador masks, and the villain used a cactus as a sword? I can't handle it lol

The episodes after Fujioka's accident are pretty awkward, yeah. The show was basically trying to figure out how they were going to handle the main character being absent. Their was no way to really put the show on pause given it aired weekly, so there are a few episodes where they try out different approaches to moving forward. The episodes with Ruriko and Taki doing the legwork and Kamen Rider just showing up already transformed were an early attempt to compensate, but ultimately it was decided that they needed a new character. Ichimonji was always meant to be temporary, though, and the actor basically took it on as a part-time job (you'll notice that Taki gets most of the un-transformed fight scenes and Ichimonji only shows up occasionally for his first several episodes - he does get more integrated eventually).

As for why he stays in Japan while Hongo goes abroad, well it's a lot cheaper to have the action set in Japan instead of to travel around the world. Especially for a fairly low budget kids' show.

Get used to the masks, they become standard Shocker mook attire from here on out.

I was hoping that Taki would end up becoming the next Rider because of this. He showed up when Hongo started disappearing and was doing a lot of fighting. It made perfect sense. Then you have random camera dude show up and become the next Rider...it's okay though, I like him.

I'm not really doubting the production reasons, rather the in-universe explanation. If Hongo knew this other guy was a Rider as well, why not just send him abroad? Unless of course Hongo felt more confident doing it himself. But then he's placing the safety of his friends in the hands of somebody he barely knows? Whatever, I guess it doesn't matter in the long run.

Crap.

"I was away fighting evil in _____," was the Showa era's default explanation for what all the other Riders were doing during whichever show was currently airing. Any time you see an episode where a monster specifically references the bad deeds he's been doing in another country, it's a very safe bet that you're going to see a previous Rider show up.

So this the reason for changing to Kabuto related avatars, well then as one of my rider series I put in to a sort of mixed tier I am going to definitely responding to this.

Tendou is definetly different to most kamen protagonist, I classify it as the secondary rider being the primary character with Kagami being the primary rider archetype as the secondary rider, Kagami is great but then I am fairly biased here.

The worm are definitely good villain and really keep a sort of horror movie vibe to them which was cool but looking back so do you quite a few older heisei monsters and Zech are interesting bunch of characters.

I would agree with you on the suit design and use of effects for Kabuto being top notch, there are things I disagree with about Kabuto but that is for later discussion in the plot.

Also because most conversation about rider end around this topic, glad you are still finding ways to avoid Faiz.

Well, at least it became a trope lol.

Stronger episode 13

Damn, Mister Titan's power level is over 9000.

His intelligence level, on the other hand, seems rather lacking, seeing as how he didn't seem to register "hey my only weakness is water, it'd probably be a good idea to have my final match on the shore!" as a really dumb ass decision.