Watched the Heart/Mach movie. Considering I was pretty meh on the first Drive Saga, I'm really impressed by this one. Although part of that is probably the choice of characters. I like Chase as much as the next guy but Heart is probably my single favorite Kamen Rider villain and Gou is awesome too. Not to mention the Heart portion is basically a buddy cop flick with him and Otta, who was my favorite side-character in Drive, so it's almost like Toei made this movie specifically for me.

Part of me feels a V-Cinema epilogue to Drive was kind of unnecessary, but this felt like a pretty natural addition to its story that doesn't particularly "cheapen" the ending we already had. It felt a bit more focused than the Chaser movie all around too. There was only one jarringly wacky gag and it happens within the first 6 minutes, so the tone is a lot more consistent. I especially love how they had Shinnosuke take a backseat this time to let the rest of the cast shine, only putting him in where it counted. I could probably come up with some criticisms if I tried but nothing jumps out at me as being glaringly wrong. All in all it was a pretty enjoyable film.

Finally finished Black a bit ago. My feelings on it are mixed...is...I guess, a statement I wish I could make. I guess. Truth is, I'm not very mixed about my opinion on the show, which is that I unfortunately just didn't care too much for it.

And it is unfortunate, because the beginning is really strong, as is the ending, and a few bits in between. But by god, if I tried to claim I got even halfway to caring about the vast majority of everything that happened in the meantime I'd be a humongous liar. The characters weren't engaging or entertaining to me, and neither were the stories of the week, so I just...didn't care. It really could have stood to be much shorter.

That's not to say I think it's a bad show. I don't think there is or can be any real debate that it is the best or at least the best realized of the Showa series, and I don't think it's even close. But it just didn't click with me in any meaningful way. So yeah, eh.

Though I do have my criticisms. I think the brotherly relationship between Kotaro and Nobuhiko was poorly utilized, and poorly demonstrated and just...kinda poorly done I guess. Felt like it needed a good dose of show don't tell. All we hear is how they were these super close brothers and best friends, but when it came to actually showing that in flashbacks or whatever evidently all they could think of is that damn shot of them in a boat, which they must have shown like five hundred times over the course of the series. It just felt kind of shallow for what they were going for.

Also, the ending felt weird. Specifically Kotaro being left all alone and the narration talking about how all his close friends being gone, and then him saying this big final goodbye to Nobuhiko, Kyoko and Katsumi. But it's like...dude, no, the girls are still alive? Like what is even going on with this scene. They just left because of Gorgom, with Gorgom gone there is all of no reasons for them to not come back. It's weird. I guess it's just a dumb way to not have them in RX or something.

Meh, I dunno.

The next series I'm tackling is Kiva, which should be an interesting experience. I haven't seen any of the series between Blade and Wizard, and Kiva falls flat in the middle between those two. Also it's supposed to be pretty bad. Guess I'll see.

Kiva is great. It's by no means perfect, but people seem to over react to it being bad. I'll gladly take Kiva over most of what came out after it and series like Den-O and Kabuto. The main rider has some truly excellent character growth.

As for Black, Black is my second favorite show, and it is by far the best Showa rider series, but it is plagued by a lot of issues, some of which occurtred due to poor staffing. I does have way too much filler, but at least the Kaijins are the best looking of the entire franchise, the cinematography rocks, the music kicks ass, and Kotaro himself is a very likable character, even if he isn't exactly the deepest. Plus, he is the only rider who handled everything on his own. He was so badass he didn't need anyone to hold his hand along the way. :lol

I watched the Drive Saga Heart / Mach movie and it was pretty bad. The Heart portion felt like the short "extra" episode some Heisei shows would do where the actors and writers do random shit to poke fun at themselves. And that’s fine really, it’s simple fun, but selling this kind of stuff as a part of a movie is terrible.

Thankfully the Gou portion was a bit better, not by a lot though. It tuned the stupid comedy down a notch and had a worthwhile story to tell, but it was still worse than a regular episode of Drive.

The best part was probably the end fight scene for each segment; Kamen Rider Heart has a neat gimmick with him summoning the powers of Heart, Medic and Brain and the fight of Kamen Rider Mach had great choreography, some really cool moves that surprised me.

And it’s not all bad, some jokes worked for me (Brain and his handkerchief never get old) but the amount of bullshit which was thrown around was just too much. Especially since some moments with an interesting setup simply begged for better execution.

I enjoyed the Chaser Saga movie much more, and even with that one I had my problems. So watching this one… yeah I wasn’t really happy with what I saw. But I guess people who really like Drive should watch it anyways, even just to see what the characters are up to now.

It's available? *watches*
Barely 10 minutes in, but so far, there is 1 thing I can say! This is EXCELLENT riffing material

Oh, Kiwami... *lustful sigh* Perhaps in another life, we could've actually agreed on stuff. Alas... :p

The jokes really do write themselves. Though I'm pretty sure that scene of Heart in a bathtub was already riffing on itself. :lol

I really liked the Heart/Mach movie. It has the comedy we all know and love in Drive with a not terrible story (I'm looking at you Chaser...)! It's a great side story, however, I wouldn't like it as much as an epilogue. I'm glad Mach's section didn't completely rip off Accel's movie, because it seemed to be. My only real gripe is that the Blue Mach was called Mach Chaser. How does blue represent purple and gray? I would've preferred to just use the Mach Chaser suit from the show because I liked that, despite the laziness. However, I like Kamen Rider Heart's suit after watching the movie, yeah the Tridoron torso sticks out like a sore thumb and the eyes on the head are... Interesting... I like the skirt and horns that really scream Heart. Really good movie and I'm glad they learned from Chaser. I was really surprised to find I enjoyed it all the way through.

So I finished Kamen Rider Kabuto. Great start, saggy mid, good finish, if a bit sloppy. If it didn't follow it's own rules all the time, became a cooking drama for a good portion of it's mid-season and had a completely infallible hero, it doesn't ruin it's appeal. The show is beautifully composed, much of it's early season CGI is clever, it's Rider "Cast-Off" System is brilliant and the fight choreography / suit acting is amazing. As with most of these shows, the script is all over the place but it's main plot is strong, with a great payoff (even if we never find out the deal with "The Other End of Time" was). The actors do their best with their one dimensional characters; Kagami's hairdo had more development than most of the cast.

Still, I recommend it on it's conceptual cleverness and great action.

Heart/Mach definitely was....something.

Didn't really like it. Feel they really overdid it with Genpachiro in the Heart portion and the ending was as predictable as they come, and the Mach part, while not bad, just didn't really engage me.

(why do so many of these v-cinemas spent so much time giving the characters love interests??? at least this time it wasn't a new character, but still)

Started my Rewatch of Super-1 because I watched HK-Subs first.

Super-1 Episode 1: Still just as amazing as it was the first time. Love that he wanted to become a Cyborg to help further his parent's work. Love that Dogma tried to steal the technology and love that he can't transform yet. So much good stuff. I was also feeling a bit sick but there is something about Kazuya that helped me regain my spirit. Can't wait to continue.

So... I watched Heart Saga, and I have a question. Why did Heart call Judge Roidmude "065"? I thought he will calls any evolved Roidmude by their name, not core number?

Ex-Aid Episodes 1-4: Holy crap he's pink! I like the idea of the riders being doctors of some kind its a nice little trait to see and makes for an interesting dynamic among the riders. Design wise Ex-Aid looks alright but the bright pink is a major turn off the black form is much better to me but Brave by far is my favorite rider design wise. All in all I'm enjoying it so far.

I've been watching both Ghost and Faiz and, while Faiz is winning the "let's watch" daily sweepstakes more often than not, I'm not really hating Ghost. It's just a goofy kid's show.

Faiz, I'm 10 eps into and I'm really loving it. I've heard the "no one says what they really mean" deep sixes it in the long run but, right now, I'm digging it!

after finishing agito I decided to check out blade, its a lot more serious than agito was which Is a really good thing. I'm only on around ep 3 but I am enjoying it a lot. Except the annoying little girl.

Glad to know you're enjoying Blade!

Blade is an awesome show. The little girl never gets much better, though, sadly. On the upside, once you've finished Agito and Blade you're out of Heisei shows that prominently feature annoying children (unless you count Shunpei from Wizard, who is basically a 5-year-old in an adult body).

I was anticipating you saying Onari :lol

Amane is weird. There are moments when she is a great character and reminds me of Lyana Mormont from Game of Thrones, and then there are times when I hate her because the writers just made her totally dependent on Hajime towards the end of the show.

Nah. Onari is, no contest, the worst thing Kamen Rider has ever done (yes, even worse than what happened to Hibiki - not by a lot, but still), but he's clearly an adult. Shunpei is a kid: he lacks advanced motor control, he's constantly playing pretend, and he dresses exactly the same way a 5-year-old would dress himself.

The actress that portrayed Amane, Hikari Kajiwara, was one of the goths on Fourze but, man, she looks totally different - not just grown-up but like a different person.

If there is one thing I will give her credit for in Blade it was that she was quite good at acting for being a child.

Not just one of them, the leader, to be precise. And also the Zodiarts in that two-parter
But if you look at her face, you can clearly recognize her. It does help hat she has a birthmark as well.

Just watched episode 1 of Kiva.

Don't really get it yet, but...was okay? Wataru's kind of a weirdo.

Like Kivat though.

Suit's pretty good.

Ever heard of the Scarlet Pimpernel? Wataru's kinda like that.

I lay it on parental abandonment and disassociative identity disorder.

I Loved Kiva's first episode and pretty much the whole concept is pretty fantastic / bizarro. I'm holding off the whole thing while doing Faiz (and Ghost) but, the big criticisms are the present / past split is poorly executed and the relationships are weird to the extent that they can be seen as sexist.

I have watched all the Heisei Era Riders...except for Hibiki. Tried to watch episode 1...I find it quite boring lol.
Did anybody complete watching it can tell me if its worth watching the whole thing?

If you didn't like the style of Hibiki and prefer a more typical KR style, jump ahead to episode 30, which is written by Toshiki Inoue and he's basically the Heisei go-to guy. From that point on it's what you'd expect and 100% less "arthouse". Personally, I love the early style and think you should give it another chance sometime in the future.

The first 29 episodes of Hibiki are my favorite Rider show - it's weird and unconventional, but it has some amazing characters, beautiful outdoor scenery, and a really cool mythology.

And then the producers got fired and Toei brought in Toshiki Inoue to fucking ruin everything. :mad:

Episode 3 of Kiva.

So is every plot of the week "Fangire gets way in 1986, then resurfaces in 2008 so Wataru can fight it?"

Do the 1986 characters even accomplish anything then? Seems like a weird setup.

And Otoya sure is....something.

It starts to put some wrinkles in that formula as I remember it.

And Otoya is amazing.

Pretty much, yeah.

It will. Wataru's growth as a character and the transitions between 86 and 08 are what makes the show incredible. Well that and the designs and the music. Break the Chain is second only to Blade Brave.

It’s Faiz time again! As usual, spoilers below.

I didn’t want to make such a big pause but it happened anyways. But I had some free time yesterday so I watched episodes 11-15. And I encountered Kaixa / Kaisa / Kaiser? I swear I always imagined he’s called "Kaixa" with an actual x, like Ixa from Kiva.

I looked forward to meeting this guy since when I first watched Kamen Rider with Gaim and Micchy started doing his thing everyone was like "Kaixa Reloaded" and stuff like that. So I always knew he’d be a giant douchebag. And it’s starting to happen now, although I assume it’s going to get a lot worse.

Anyways, the Kaixa suit itself is awesome, I like it. Faiz continues to have kickass Rider designs. And his X-weapon is kinda cool too, I dig it.

Story-wise I was introduced to "Lucky Clover" which is apparently the elite among the Orphenoch. Mister J (no, not that one) is kinda weak for being one of them though as he already died twice and hasn’t really shown a tremendous power-up in his third live so I assume he’s gone soon? I guess you can only get so much screentime out of a foreign actor who doesn’t seem to speak Japanese. The deal with his Chihuahua is kinda cute though.

Can’t really say too much about the rest of them, although the poem-guy is currently after our renegade Orphenochs. Which are really nice by the way. I dig Osada’s current involvement with Keitaro as well as Takumi, as the latter was saved by her, knows her secret and fought for her against Kaixa. And she doesn’t really wan’t to kill people but can’t help but do it since there are always shitty people who want to harm her.

And my favorite Orphenoch, Kaido, is doing something new to: He wants to be a human now. Huh. Also Osada apparently has a crush on him? Even though she's also into Keitaro? That's kinda weird considering Keitaro works with Mari who Kaido has a crush on. I expect this will become a lot more frustrating in the future :lol

Faiz...

Is it bad that the only characters I honestly like in that are the ones who've murdered multiple people before the 5th episode? AKA, Kiba and his group. I dunno, everyone else comes across as an idiot and/or an asshole. Maybe I just deal with too many of those IRL to put up with it in fiction, I dunno.

555 is a strange show for me. I like how street thuggish the fights are, but the main cast is rather boring. The introduction to Lucky Clover is when the show really picked up for me, especially when Mr J fought 555. Then everything fell apart with episode 41 through the end when it felt like they were rushing plot points that should have occured around episode 30 in the last 9 episodes. Oh, and they forgot to give the show an ending. Instead, we get some open ended bullshit that didn't conclude jack shit, but just put the fights on hold.

Yeah, it's the X from xylophone, not the X from X-ray.

Note to self.......Go finish 555 its one of the few ive started and forgot about alongside Agito, Ryuki, Hibiki, and Kabuto all of which I enjoyed but never finished

So in the spirit of the season I rewatched episode 16 of Wizard like I have basically every year since it aired, and yes, I really am that fond of Wizard. :p

First off, it's one of the rare standalone episode from that period of Rider. I think it has something to do with episode 1 also being standalone, like they needed to even things out for some reason, but I don't know. The point is it makes it a convenient thing to watch.

It's probably not the best episode of the show or anything but I think it's pretty representative of Wizards strengths. Especially with how they've been largely background noise in Ex-Aid, I really appreciate the way Wizard did its Victim of the Week plots. Yes, they're quite formulaic in terms of structure, but I feel like they generally did a great job of making the Victim feel like an actual character and telling an interesting story around them. I've never had a problem with episodic shows, and I think explicitly focusing on that element allowed Wizard to do it a little better than Rider shows that went for more of a healthy mix between plots and Plot.

Specific to this episode, the story is about some seemingly kind of thuggish guy who's actually trying to bring some hope to some orphans on Christmas. Like Wizard in general, it's simple but it works. It's enjoyable seeing it play out, and despite the repetitive "mid-episode fight, end-episode fight" formula, Wizard's action scenes and really flashy and fun. I'm also extremely fond of the blatant deus ex machina that saves the day at the end. It's the perfect kind of nonsensically saccharine thing for the holiday (the episode is even called "A Christmas Miracle"), to the point where it's kind of missing the point to complain about it.

The main characters are also fun, as usual. Haruto is always entertaining, and they even get that brief little bit of character building in there with him noting to himself that the VotW's backstory mirrors his own, Rinko's poor luck with work is always funny, and Shunpei... is barely in this one and doesn't do anything physically wacky, which I know is a big plus for a lot of people. And of course, Phoenix is a delightful villain. He's just so dang passionate about violently destroying everything in sight you're almost rooting for him. :lol

So yeah, there's not actually that much going on with the episode, but it's a good time. Wizard in general is a good time, as far as I'm concerned. I should really get around to rewatching it in full like I said I would...

The Christmas episode of Wizard became a bit of a running gag with me. I kept joking about how if Haruto still had the Christmas ring later he could have wormed out of anything even remotely challenging.

Oh man, thanks for the reminder. I'm not going to watch that episode, but you did remind me that it's Christmas Eve and I hadn't watched my annual Christmas tokusatsu episode: Shaider episode 39 (or at least a very specific three minutes from the middle of it). Thanks. :thumb: