That seems to be a DVD rip. I'm looking for a BD one though. Thanks nonetheless as I'm downloading it just in case.

I'm not a fan of Missing Ace outside of the battle at the beginning of the movie. I just feel the Aces are killed off way too quickly without any sort of development so I don't give a crap when they die and they really ruined Amane. Yes, she had an obsession with Hajime in the series, but never to the point where she couldn't function without him. The movie pulls off her feelings in really really creepy way.

Is the Director's Cut even out on Blu-Ray? All I've ever see BD-wise is the cinematic cut.

I never even thought about that. I just figured all of the movies were out on BD in their complete forms.

Amazon Episode 9: Very fun episode. I enjoyed the usage of Mole Beastman and how the Crab Beastman threatened him, and that Gedon still know he's around. I felt bad for the Mole Beastman who was just trying to learn to like music before getting attacked. Gedon is just brutal and crazy with wanting blood like they do. I liked that Amazon had thoughts like he did and that he knew what he was fighting for. Ritsuko was pretty harsh but should be a little more weary if Amazon was saying he was going to protect her. It's very weird that Amazon doesn't use specific named finishing moves but I still love his wild, acrobatic, and brutal style in his fights. Also his new clothes look awesome, and I'm glad that was kind of a sign of apology from Ritsuko. I can't wait for more.

I don't hate that movie. That's a compliment since it's a Rider movie. How did your friends like Blade?

Do people hate the movies? I always go in not expecting much more than loosely strung-together action scenes so a lot of the time I come out impressed.

Like, obviously Super Hero Wars blew chunks, but the spring movies have only really gotten better since then. Always full of plot-holes and other weird stuff, but if you can approach them with the right mindset I think stuff like Kamen Rider Wars was pretty good.

The summer movies are generally really fun too, in my opinion. Stuff like the W movie is even genuinely great.

Personally it depends on the movie for me. I enjoyed a lot of them, the early Heisei ones are intriguing. The Neo-Heisei ones range from horrid to amazing.


Amazon Episode 10: An episode that focused mainly on Amazon, I am shocked. It started off with a great fight and ended with a great fight. Also seeing how his supporting cast helped him as he was poisoned was great. I love the Mole Beastman he was totally on top of saving Amazon from taking him to Tachibana and then grabbing Masahiko and his sister. Also I see where the brutality of Amazon really showed. With him bleeding a lot, stabbing the Cat Beastman in the eye, and knocking his head clean off, yeah serious brutality here. I think a Mortal Kombat game might even find that too violent lol. Still loving it though and can't wait for more.

They loved it. One friend loved Kotaro, hated how easy it was to manipulate Tachibana, enjoyed everything that dealt with the overall story, didn't care for the lack of development for the villains, and found the ending to be absolutely fantastic.

Another one said it was "SHINY!" That's his term for awesome.

And the third just hated the Hajime and the Pauper two parter.

When I first got into Kamen Rider, I thought the movies were supposed to be much bigger. Episode Final and Project G4 were the first movies I saw and they felt like they were supposed to be part of the series (despite Final being in a different timeline). Then I saw Paradise Lost, which was freaking boring as all ****ing hell. Missing Ace had some good moments, but the Ace riders hvae no development, making them completely irrelevant and unlikable characters.

Have yet to watch the Hibiki, Kabuto, and Den-O movies. Thought the Kiva movie was down right dreadful. Not even going to get into the Decade movie mess. W's movie was okay, OOO's was boring, Fourze was decent and I haven't watched any of the movies after Fourze.

As for the team up movies, I though the W/Decade one was good, the OOO/W one was absolute garbage, the Fourze/OOO movie is the best KR movie I've ever seen, and the Wizard/Fourze movie was mediocre. I can't remember if I watched the Gaim/Wizard movie, but I haven't watched any of the team up movies after that.

W Returns: Accel is the only Kamen Rider movie I can think of that was good. Some were okay, a lot were terrible (has Den-O flashbacks *shudders*). I remember falling asleep when watching the Fourze summer movie. I re watched it and the only thing I remember are the Iron Men, the special form, and the bad CGI battle between them.

I love the Fourze summer movie (though I did watch it while tripping balls, which could have influenced my opinion :lol), but otherwise I'm in total agreement. I usually skip the Kamen Rider and Sentai theatrical projects because they're pretty much universally terrible.

Oh yes, I forgot about the W movie with Accel. That one was good.

How do you know they're universally terrible if you've never seen most of them?

Anyway, I forgot to mention the various Movie Wars so here's my quick 2 cents on them: They're just as hit or miss as the other movies.

2010:
Decent-ish Decade "story"/Good W story/Good team-up
Core:
Zzzzz.../Ugh/ARRGGH!
Megamax:
Great OOO epilogue/Good Fourze side-story/Good team-up + fun anniversary stuff (this movie is basically the s***)
Ultimatum:
Solid Fourze epilogue/Decent-ish Wizard side-story/Decent-ish team-up
Tenka... Fateful... The one with Wizard and Gaim!:
Great Wizard epilogue/mediocre Gaim side-story/decent-ish team-up
Full Throttle:
Decent-ish Gaim epilogue/Good Drive side-story/Solid team-up
Genesis:
A decent-ish Drive epilogue and a solid Ghost side-story making for a solid/decent-ish team-up.

The TV shows are where the meat is to be sure but I insist a lot of the movies are fun enough bonuses.

Speaking of Rider movies, I just got done watching the Kamen Rider 1 movie. Here's my one-sentence review: WAY better than The First! :D

No but really, outside of the usual strangely convoluted Shocker evil plan, I think they did a pretty good job with it.

The whole generational thing isn't as much of a theme as I would've assumed but the contrast between the old-school bombasticness of OG Shocker and Nova Shocker's more "subtle" attitude came across real well and just like with Kouta in Kamen Rider Wars, Takeru already has a "young hero" vibe that makes him well-suited to being opposite Hongo.

It also justifies being specifically about Ghost beyond simply being the show airing by very naturally tying into Ghost's usual themes of connections and whatnot, which I didn't expect.

Beyond that it was just a generally fun action movie that made Hongo look cool and in my opinion it works very well as a "send-off" for him. Probably the most all-around solid Spring movie we've gotten yet, even if that's faint praise.

We finished Missing Ace and as I expected, they were bored out of their minds. Like me, they found no reason to like any of Ace trio and someone really needed to just let Amane die.

Again, I'm pretty EZ-2-PLZ when it comes to Rider entertainment and have liked most of the movies I've seen, including the ones everyone seems to not like (Paradise Lost, Missing Ace, KR3, Gaim's Soccer Whaaa?). I think MegaMax is probably the best realized - and I'm not even an OOO mark.

The Onigashima Warship however... UNGH...

I don't think you're supposed to like them. That's the whole point. These shiny new jerks show up and they think they're so cool but the OG Riders have to show them how to get s*** done at the end of the day. Missing Ace has a very classic "getting the band back together" plot like that.

You know, the only nice thing I have to say about that movie is I watched it when going through Decade (because he's SO important in it...), and it got me to watch Den-O for whatever reason. If I stretch really hard I can call it okay-ish but that's generous even by my standards.

It's the only Rider movie where I kept checking the run time and then, when it finally ground to it's finish, I felt like I had wasted my time. It was so bad. I will say Deneb gets on my nerves and Zeronos is likely my least favorite Rider, so that just rubbed salt in the boredom wound.

It's not the poorly written part that bothers me, it's the ones I find to be flat out boring. I'll take bad action and poor writing over being bored to death anytime of the week.

Ryuki Ep.3: Oh my God, where was this show all my life? I thought I might end up hating it because it uses cards as the power source but man, was I wrong.

The overall plot of the episode was simple but the action was better than most modern Rider shows. There's something very cathartic about a Rider not relying on random powers-ups or form changes. It was just a monster and a man, duking the hell out. Why can't we have more fights like these anymore, Toei?

Another thing, the costumes and the props. Ryuki's costume and his sword look simplistic. This ends up adding a level of realism to the whole premise in my opinion. Let's look at Gaim, Drive and Ghost and their primary weapons. Gaim is a walking talking fruity samurai and his Daidaimaru is an orange slice. Drive is car and his Handle Sword is a steering wheel. As for Ghost, he's a an orange neon sign and his Gan Gan Saber looks positively outlandish.

I am not saying all of this is bad. The costumes of Kamen Rider are part of the reason why I'm such a fan of the franchise. But compared to these guys, Ryuki looks realistic.

The fight took place at a school, another thing I appreciate. There's not a whole lotta fight venues in Kamen Rider, aren't there? A change of scenery is always welcome in my book.

Finally, the characters have this older, more mature look to them, like they're actual people concerned about some supernatural event, not just a bunch of kids. Although I maybe being hard on modern Riders too much. I mean, Kouta turned out to be a pretty mature guy despite his initial naivety, Shoutarou is a private detective and Eiji isnt half bad. But these early Heisei guys seem to have more presence, you know? And I like that.

I actually don't know what you mean by that. Early Shinji is just as naive as early Kouta, and if you want a more mature modern Rider, what about Shinnosuke? The man is a consummate professional.

Either way, super happy to hear all the Ryuki love lately.

I really like Ryuki, it's a fantastic show with cool arcs, fight scenes, characters and story.

Part of the reason Ryuki might look more realistic to you then later shows is that they filmed the early Heisei shows at a higher framerate. High framerate stuff makes detail pop out a bit more.

As for the form change stuff, there was some of that stuff in early Heisei like the various forms of Kuuga and Agito, but Ryuki has a ton of Riders, which compensates for the lack of forms.

I disagree with you about the sword thing. I don't think looking simplistic makes it inherently more practical. The daidaimaru has the orange asthetic because it's Gaim's weapon, but its still a functional short sword. However, when it is stuff like weapons with toy gimmicks, then yeah, it loses practicality. Something like the Cosmic States Sword having to plug in the huge switch is an example.

Another thing about stuff from early Heisei is a lot of it is focued on adults. Kuuga's big focus was on the responsibilty of the police force to save people, for example. Blade starts with Kenzaki getting kicked out of his apartment for being gone too long on a mission and his employer just getting completley destroyed. The only show I think of from that era that spefically focuses on kids is Faiz.

You learn something new everyday.

I don't know enough about Faiz to refute your claims but that series seems quite dark to me.

I don't know why i found myself thinking that as well. Maybe it's because Shinji had an actual job while Kouta doesn't? It's just a feeling i have, not a logical thing really.

Glad we agree on something, Fish. The reason why I didn't mention Tomari is because despite being a mature guy personality wise, he doesn't give off a mature vibe. As I said before, its not a logical thing, just an emotional thing.

Really? Because if I consider all the outright murder and darkness within the first 5 episodes I don’t think that's correct. And from what I’ve heard the show doesn’t change that tone over the course of its run.

No, it's about kids as in the protagonists are literally youths. The tone is indeed pretty dark, though not as much as people play it up as sometimes. It's not too different from Ryuki's style in my opinion.

Well Gaim deliberately goes for the whole coming of age angle, so Kouta at the start is very much some random kid fresh out of school in a way Shinji isn't, it's understandable it would feel that way to you.

Hey, I'm very agreeable when it comes to liking stuff! :p

In Shinnosuke's case it probably comes down to his occasional fits of childish behavior, like how over-the-top mopey he gets about his birthday being close to Christmas. Also he's pretty hotheaded sometimes. That range is what makes him interesting but again I get how you'd feel how you do.

I should have phrased that better. He was saying that Shinji felt like an adult, and I replied that the only Early Heisei Series that didn't focus on adult characters was Faiz. One of the central mysteries of that show revolves around teenage characters that were together in Elementary school and what happened to them. Takumi and Kiba are around 18-19.

I didn't mean it focused on kids as the audience for that show. God no. Faiz has a lot of messed up stuff in it .

Fun fact, Toei actually revealed their ages on trading cards.

Takumi - 18
Mari - 16
Keitaro - 21
Kiba - 21
Yuka - 17
Naoya - 23
Kusaka - 21

Mari and Kusaka's age difference has me somewhat baffled. Maybe it's just me, but I always assumed all of the Ryuseiji they were in the same grade together since Mari and Kusaka were friends, and usualy you're friends with people in the same grade.

Bringing back to this question because stuff got in the way, I wanted to ask if they had fixed the editing of the show. One of the main reasons I quit so quickly was because I felt like the camera angles just kept changing way too quickly and scenes were too quick as if the show was being edited by someone with ADHD. It was giving me a headache.

Yes? I might've just gotten used to it but I feel like the editing calmed down after the first chunk of the show. Just a bit, at least. It's definitely not Drive levels of crazy, anyway. I can't even remember the last time Onari yelled "ka~tsu!" while the camera got uncomfortably close to his face.

Ryuki Ep.10: Man, this stuff is so different from Faiz. I never got past the second episode of Faiz. Everything was grey in Faiz. Ryuki is colorful in a quasi-realistic way.

The fourth Kamen Rider looks like a Metal Hero kinda guy to me. His gun looks cool.

I also enjoyed the car chase scene in one of the previous episodes. It's actually two cars bumping into each other! The last time I saw something like that, it was in OOOs when Shintarou Gouto have chase to some Greeeds, I think. I can't recall correctly.

Overall, Ryuki is turning out to be better than I expected. I'm loving it.

I'm not sure how official this is, but I've heard the idea a few times now that Ryuki was originally meant to be a Metal Heroes series before Agito proved that Kamen Rider was popular enough for Toei to keep around annually.

I love Ryouki as I've said many times. Yeah, Zolda looks like he escaped from Winspector / Solbrain! Henshin Grid has an incredibly brief bit about the influence of Metal Hero on Heisei Rider design. I think that's one of the things I love, being that I love Metal Hero, too. Although the newer series are so massively plastic and toyetic, it's gone beyond that influence. Never got sick of Gaim's plastic armor and, especially, the Sengoku Driver clanking around as if made from heavy metals.

...which definitely has nothing to do with the designs, given the whole Ryuki/eyes Knight/mouth Zolda/antenna dividing of Kamen Rider 1's design they did.

Unless secretly Zolda was based on some unused concept sketch or something, assuming that rumor is true. I've never really heard that before myself.

I don't necessarily think Ryuki was a Metal Heroes concept before Agito proved Rider viable again. A lot of Metal Hero asthetics and concepts have absorbed into Rider since MH was gone (IE G3), so I just think that is just how the people creating the shows keep the spirit alive without having to bring back an entire brand and worry about its success.

Which is probably why trying to revive Metal Hero is kind of redundant. Though I'd love a "Heavy" Metal Hero reboot with a larger focus on the sci-fi elements.

Ryuki Ep-11: I like how nicely everything ties together. Kanzaki Yui investigating her older brother, the reporter from ORE Journal investigating the mysterious train where she runs into Kanzaki Shirou's former professor while it seems that Ren's lover was Kanzaki Shirou's labmate, I think.

The Mirror Monster in this episode was especially smart. Using a boomerang to knock out Ryuki's sword in midair? Definitely tactical. Of course, Ryuki using Strike Vent to distract the Mirror Monster while picking up his sword then breaking the Mirror Monster's boomerang and then finally finishing it off with Final Vent was tactically brilliant. Why can't we have similarly good fight scenes anymore, Toei? I don't know about anyone else but I really enjoyed this fight scene.

By the way, this happened in one of the earlier episodes, but Zolda has the best looking Advent Monster.

And Ryuki's opening is pretty kickass.

Isn't it just? I'm also extremely fond of the insert themes myself. Seeing Ryuki do that Rider Kick is never NOT cool.

I still say Ryuki is a Top 3 rider show. Only real weak part of it is Yui (also the early 2000s Rider CGI but w/e).

I said, almost three months ago.

Oh well.

Well, I'm back at it now at the very least. Just finished watching episode 1 of Black, and what an interesting one it was. The show as a whole has suit, set and effect work leagues above any other Showa series I've seen has, and even by modern standards none of it is too shabby. The first half in particular was striking. Camera work, use of lighting, it was all pretty interestingly put to use, making it all feel unique not only among Showa series but the franchise as a whole.

Second half was somewhat more traditional, but not bad. Looking forward to seeing how the whole Shadow moon plot develops.

I will always maintain that Black has the best first episode of any Rider series.