Fourze is fun. I think it has some pacing issues near the end, but the characters are mostly great and the show is generally really enjoyable.

The episode before Cosmic States debut episode is the closest time I have ever cried while watching toku. Like I even knew what would happen, but still I had almost cried.

Funny. My son and I were talking last night about the three Kamen Rider series we saw: Gaim, Den-O, and Fourze. Both of us agreed that while it was hard to pick a favorite rider (I'm leaning towards Gaim, he towards Den-O), Fourze was a really good series that kept itself focused on delivering a consistent but not unvaried emotional tenor.

Well, you are better than me at least. I cried the very first Kamen Rider season I ever watched.

I fully intend to watch both Fourze and Drive...I just don't know which one I'm currently in the mood for...and I don't like trying to watch two series at once.

Flip a coin~
Neither series is going anywhere~

Just finished the first episode of Drive. Definitely gonna stick with this one. Don't really have much to say about it though, other than...yep, definitely the first episode of a Rider series. But I definitely like the setting and the suit a lot.

I liked the characters better in Fourze after one episode, but overall I like the feel of Drive more, so that's the one I choose. I'll probably watch Fourze after Drive.

They didn't make the club yet in the episode I saw, but I heard that there is one and it reminded me of Persona. Same with the high school setting.

Fourze Episodes 43 and 44: Wonderful, wonderful episodes. This was brilliant for Yuuki and Gentarou. Also that one of the KRC became a Horoscope was a great idea. That this really played off Yuuki and Gentarou's friendship was great. That all the talk about friendship that Gentarou always goes on about that he forgets a promise like that is huge, well it shows that Gen isn't totally perfect and that he needed something like this to show that. I enjoyed Gentarou making up for it and being determined to get his friend back and was fighting 3 Horoscopes to protect her too was awesome. Ryuusei taking that energy bomb for Gentarou was great, it shows how strong their bond is now that he is willing to practically sacrifice himself for that is great development. I also see that Yuuki ships Tomoko x Ryuusei lol. Yuuki I felt bad for with what she had to go through but I'm glad she fought through that. Also her parents and definitely what I was expecting lol. Libra was interesting and seeing what comes next with him in the preview intrigues me more though it makes sense that he realizes his worth lately. It was interesting that Kengo was able to protect them from the Horoscope attack I can't wait to see what that was about. I think they stepped up the game in the episodes here, I can't wait for more.

Yeah, I don't think they officially make the club until episode 6 or episode 8. They establish the seven main characters one by one.

I'm at episode 24 in Fourze and 32 in OOO. I like to switch between two series at once so I don't get bored or burned out with one. I use that same strategy with Super Sentai, where I'm currently switching between Gingaman and Abaranger, heh.

Should be even a bit later. The official foundation is when Kengo finally approves, which should be after the Tomoko episodes (which were 7 and 8, I think?)

The Drive cast starts a bit slow, but they sure grow on you. They have a very nice dynamic, especially from the point when the three Riders are fighting together.

I cried almost every season. Except for those I didn't really like, such as Faiz, Kabuto and Stronger.
Most modern Heisei is basically a bawl-fest for me.
Eeeyup, I've always been a crybaby, lol.

Finished Black. Just truly wonderfully well put-together.

Battle Hopper might be the best supporting character ever.

I'm the opposite. I tend to get really into things when I'm into them, so I go straight through. If I alternate between two, then my hype for one is lost while I enjoy the other.

For example, I was playing through Metal Gear Rising until I started Fourze. Then all of my MGR hype got transferred to Fourze. But I knew I wanted to watch Drive more than I wanted to watch Fourze, so I started Drive...and once I did that, it was like "forget Fourze, let's watch Drive!" Right now, if I watch anything other than Drive, i'll probably think "I wish I was watching Drive instead."

It's even hard to watch a Sentai and a Rider at the same time. I've been trying to catch up on Zyuohger, but it's just hard because I'd rather watch Rider.

Yeah, I guess your brain and mine are just wired differently. I can get laser-focused on a show or a game (I finished Bravely Second in eight days without taking time off because I did very few things other than play Bravely Second that week), but over 40+ hours and dozens of episodes I get burned out. And sure, new stuff or stuff I like more will take precedence (I started Fourze before OOO, but now OOO is way ahead of Fourze), but I rarely hardline a single show at once.

I like watching things short bursts (say, 4 to 6 episodes), then switching it up. Otherwise, I'd get sick of it before episode 30 and never want to watch it ever again. Whatever. We both know what we like. How we watch it isn't important.

I remember when I accidentally beat Persona 4 too quickly :lol

Anyway, I prefer watching one series at a time, too. No particular reason, it's just how I like to watch my shows.

I've only played 3...mostly since it took me 175 hours to beat the game, I was a bit too scared to pick up 4 since it'll likely take me just as long.

I wasn't aiming for a 100% completion, but I was trying to get all the Social Links maxed out (I only failed at maxing out one due to a string of rainy days before the climax). I finished P4 in 84 hours.

The first time I played P3 and P4 I think they each took in the neighborhood of 90-100 hours. Those are long games, but if you get into them they're hella satisfying, heh.

I made it a point to beat The Reaper and get a bunch of awesome Personas. I got the MC to lvl 95 and Messiah to 97. I ran out of days to beat Elizabeth, but I absolutely WRECKED Nyx. Each form took like 1 hit lol

But I digress.

I really wanted to do a new game+ for P4, but after learning there isn't really much beyond keeping your stats, I decided against it.

I only played Persona 3 and never beat it. I saw the first episode of the Persona 4 anime and it was good. I didn't discover the Shin Megami Tensei series until 2006. Odd that I grew up with JRPG's but never knew about SMT for years.

Don't worry. A lot of people never really knew about SMT since it didn't really gain traction in the US like it did in Japan.

P4 as a game is pretty fun, though I would recommend playing the PS2 version, rather than Golden, which alters the story by introducing mary sue, I mean...Marie Sue.

Since I don't have a Vita, i'd go with PS2 version anyways. But with 5 coming out, I'm just gonna wait for that one.

But yeah, I first discovered SMT around 2007. They all seemed really cool, but I ended up going with Nocturne. I enjoyed it but didn't get very far. Picked up Persona 3 FES about a year later but didn't play it until 2012 and absolutely LOVED it. I grabbed SMT IV when it came out and Devil Survivor last summer. Can't wait for P5. Still debating if I want to try SMT Apocalypse (IV didn't keep my interest as much as the others did) or spend that time with other ones instead (Strange Journey, Digital Devil Saga, Soul Hackers, etc)

Just watched Drive 3. I feel like part of what made the early episodes of Ghost so exciting for me was the fact that they had a time limit on collecting the Eyecons. It made everything so much more tense, and then when Specter showed up, even more so. Drive doesn't have the stakes early on like Ghost did, so these generic MOTW episodes aren't as interesting. However, I'm still enjoying it. I like the detective aspects of it...and I still really love the suit.

Chaser should be interesting as well. I can't say I'm too big a fan of his suit though.

I frequented forums like RPGFan and RPGamer when I was younger, so I was aware of SMT as a mostly-Japan-only series before I ever played one. My first proper SMT game was Nocturne, which I played in the mid-2000s.

Weirdly, I hated Persona for several years before loving it. I tried playing Revelations: Persona on the PS1 around 2000 or 2001 and that thing is a piece of garbage. I didn't even try P3 until P4 was already out, but when I finally played them I became obsessed (I've beaten P3 twice and P4 four times). I went back and played P2: Innocent Sin and P2: Eternal Punishment relatively recently - both are weird, but pretty good PS1 RPGs. I also tried Persona 1 again, but it's still a burning tire fire.

And... I guess I don't hate Marie as much as MatrixBeast does. She checks every box in a list of tsundere character traits, but I thought her storyline in Persona 4 Golden wasn't that bad. P4G adds a LOT of interesting content to the main game (including playable sections in January and February, when the normal story in Persona 4 ends on Christmas Eve and then goes to an epilogue). Marie is only one part of Golden, but I don't think she's *that* bad.

I might give Golden another chance one of these years, I just didn't care for the addition of Marie in a perfectly good story.

Same thing happened to me too regarding Fourze's design. I haven't seen Drive, but if the Fourze writers are involved, maybe I can end up liking that design too. (As of now, it's not really my thing.)

Riku Sanjo, W and Drive's main writer, wasn't in charge of Fourze, but he did write a lot of episodes for it.

Noted, Switchblade--thanks!

Anyway, I just saw the first two episodes of Kamen Rider W. That was pretty good! And THAT suit design is beautiful.

So I had just finished Kamen Rider Hibiki.

So to put things short that last episode may have been the worst last episode of a Kamen Rider show I had ever seen. They have the huge epic battle at the beginning and just skip to a year in the future. Also Kiriya becoming an oni I just did not like that.

Another thing that bothered me about the production change was how the Makamou were handled. While they were always pretty MoTW they at least had this sense of mystery around them. Then when the change happened they completely give them a new vibe. Also having another set of parents appear in the last episode was totally out of nowhere and just raises more questions. I feel that the original writers had a better idea in mind for the Makamou.


Now the production changes did not bother me that much. The show started to with its own feel, and ended up being more like a typical Kamen Rider show. The changes to some characters wasn't really necessary and it really felt like the new writers just were putting in moments for the character "just because we can." It really showed in the 40's as the show was going into its final arc.

Also that final arc started out okay I guess? Kiriya wanting to become an oni was out of nowhere. I get that he wanted to beat his father, but the show felt like it was leading to how Asumu was going to mature and become and oni.

Also on the final episode it was really obvious that they wrote it last minute. It felt rushed and the whole thing with Hitomi felt unnecessary. Also Ibuki's disciple just leaving was dumb. Like I was hoping to see her become an oni, and to an extent I did just I wished that we could see her fight along side Ibuki and the others.

Also Kiriya I really disliked. He was pretty annoying always trying to one up Asumu, and when he became an oni I just quit. I knew I was not going to like this kid when I saw how he puffed his cheeks while playing trumpet.

So overall I am pretty glad that I got to watch to show form beginning to end. The beginning was pretty good, and being a trumpet and baritone player myself I really was excited to watch this show. When the show changed staff it did not bother me all that much. If you remove Kiriya and the final episode episodes 30-48 were not all to bad, they were just different from 1-29.

Anyway that is another rider series that I have tackled, now I have to watch Kugga, Faiz, Blade, Kiva and finish Agito. In fact I would probably restart Agito since the last I saw it was two years ago.

Ryuki is pretty awesome so far! 25 episodes in and I have to say, I've been enjoying it plenty, good characters and an interesting plot. I was really struck by how similar it is to Gaim though, I really wasn't expecting that at all. Lots of Rider-to-Rider conflict in some epic battle royale, and a morally questionable secondary Rider to boot (Ren is awesome though, he's practically Batman). Still, I feel like there is going to be a massive mood shift in the show soon so we'll see how it goes from there if there really is a big shift.

But Keiichi Hasegawa, the secondary writer for Drive and W was also working on Fourze ;)

Neither were the head writer, though; that was the Gurren Lagann guy.

watched Drive 7 and 8 last night. While it may not be the most rapidly moving show in the world, I don't think it's so slow to the point that it's boring like some people seem to think. The only thing I don't like is the fact that the shift cars seem to pop up out of nowhere, allowing for some crazy deus ex machina. Oh, the steel beam is gonna fall on the dude? Better use the shift car ability that will be perfectly suited to this situation even though I've literally never used or even mentioned it before.

Watching this immediately following Ghost definitely shows a lot of what people were saying is wrong with Ghost. Specter and Chaser are pretty much the same. The shift cars and the eyecons are pretty similar too (as well as, from what I can tell, the lockseeds in gaim). However, I feel like Ghost may have handled some of it better. The Eyecons all had to be earned in Ghost, and we knew what abilities he had as he gained more Eyecons. Drive seems to just pull them out of thin air whenever he needed a new power. I also felt like Specter was an improvement over Chaser. He clearly was causing issues for Ghost and posed a legitimate threat. Meanwhile, Chaser seems like more of an annoyance, and Drive seems to feel the same way as well. Perhaps that's because of the 99 day limit - every time Specter showed up, Takeru got further from his goal but closer to death.

I can't help but wonder how differently I'd feel if I had watched Drive first...

Probably the other way around because I can't relate to anything you're saying here :lol

Chaser was pretty bad early on; all he really did was show up to artificially pad out two-parters by distracting Shinnosuke just enough to add 5-10 minutes to the story. Trust me, though, when I say that by the end of the series Specter will have nothing on Chaser.

Their interest factor is kinda reversed. Makoto starts out strong but after he becomes an ally he’s basically worthless and doesn’t get much love, Chase is a boring enemy at first but as soon as his past becomes clear and he starts to grow out of his Mashine Chaser role he becomes really interesting.

I can see that. Then they decided "let's do the same thing with Alain and then focus on him instead." Hopefully the next episode of Ghost shows Makoto a bit more love.

Yeah, I'm simply talking about at this point in the show. Specter was a formidable opponent, while Chaser just kind of shows up and fights.

Chaser was really overused, so much so that it basically negated his threat potential. If he'd only show up occasionally, then I think he would have been much more intimidating, but having a Chaser fight every episode really wore down the ability to view him as a legitimate danger.

Having finished Kamen Rider Hibiki recently and still having an itch to watch some toku I want to know what to watch next.

I've already seen Ryuki, Hibiki Kabuto, Decade, W, OOO, Fourze, Wizard, Gaim, Drive, what's out of Ghost, and what's out of Amazons so far.

So that leaves me with the showa era, Kugga, Agito, Faiz, Blade and Kiva.

I like Faiz a lot personally. *hides* Kuuga is pretty nice and well made though, definitely worth checking out if you're feeling more sane.

Black seems to be the obvious choice.