Implying anyone cared about the sick kids subplot in The First. Or about The First in general for that matter. :p

Of course not, they were pointless and awful, but that's what Inoue was tgoing for.

I fell asleep during The First, my review on The Next (from RYM):
Though stylish and innovative, Kamen Rider: THE NEXT is, unfortunately, a bit more ambitious than the material allows. The 2007 sequel to 2005's Kamen Rider: THE FIRST, it follows as a decidedly "adult" reboot (boobs and blood!) of the 1973 series Kamen Rider V3 (or attempts to, at least). The result is an uneasy mixture of superhero and J-Horror tropes that are so old they fail to really have much impact. In the original Kamen Rider series from 1971, horror had as even a part to play as the superheroics so this concept should work. It really doesn't.

The film follows renegade cyborg, Takeshi Hongo (Kamen Rider Ichigou) as he hides out in a small school masquerading as a (terrible) teacher, while the evil Shocker organization plots to use nanobots to turn everyone into Shocker cyborgs. His former partner, Ichi-monji Hayato (Kamen Rider Nigo), spends his time at host clubs, spending cash and making the ladies squeal - that is when his cybernetic implants aren't violently being rejected.

During a nanobot test run on a hot IT company, Shocker infects J-Pop idol "Chiharu" who leaves before they come and kidnap the few survivors. Thanks to the nanotech in her blood, she survives being thrown down some stairs by some jealous rival bitches and landing face first into a power main. Though she lives, she's hideously disfigured and, unable to cope, kills herself. Being that she's a bag of money, her understanding management dump her body in the sewer and have one of those rival bitches get plastic surgery and take her place. Music Biz!

Now, her hit single, "Platinum Smile" is killing everyone that hears it, Chiharu's Ringu-esque ghost has a serious Grudge with the living!

Oh, shit - this is a Kamen Rider movie, you might forget with all this generic J-Horror crap going down! Well, it turns out that the other survivors of the IT disaster are now Shocker Inhumanoids - Hopper Version 3 and Chainsaw Lizard, under the command of the equally colorful Scissors Jaguar. When Kamen Rider Ichigou (Hongo) investigates, they beat him half to death before Kamen Rider Nigo makes the save with some cool motorcycle karate.

When Hopper V3 realizes that Shocker have, in essence, killed his sister Chiharu, he switches allegiances and it's Three Machineskateers from then on.

As you can tell, this is essentially like two separate screenplays occupying the same movie. It's like director Ryuta Tazaki and screenwriter Toshiki Inoue, two long time legendary names in Tokusatsu just wanted to do something besides robot dudes kicking monsters into explosions, but really didn't know how to make the superhero / j-horror tropes gel. This isn't helped by the fact that the J-Horror ghost angle gets confused by a little ザ・ギニーピッグ マンホールの中の人魚 [Guinea Pig: Mermaid in the Manhole] body horror because - yeaaah, we're finally making a movie for adults - high five!! Seriously, within the plot, the ghost angle doesn't make sense to start with, throwing that in, while definitely creepy - just makes the questions fill your head so full they start running out of your nose. Ah, well...

Still, what works, works well; it's a "beautiful" movie; Kazunari Tanaka shoots everything through a black filter, making for an oppressive apocalyptic feel. I'd say the movie is worth watching just for the fight / stunts and weirdness of Chainsaw Lizard and Scissors Jaguar alone. Chain Liz is a horny, leather armored beauty ("You fill me with EKUSHATASHI!") who puts on a lizard shaped helmet and sprouts a chainsaw from her right arm. Scissors Jaguar, however, takes the cake - a dorky, short, rubber faced salary man decked out in barbarian fetish gear who puts on a cheap, rubber Jaguar mask (meta as fuck if you ever watch any of the regular Kamen Rider shows - the insinuation being that all of the cheapo monsters in the show are just genetically enhanced weirdos in cheapo fetish costumes!) whose two arms turn into the blades of a pair of scissors. His debut scene is amazing.

Had they integrated the two sides in a more organic manner (maybe made the Shocker freaks into Body Snatcher stalk monsters), this might not have come off so uneven. As a Kamen Rider movie, it pretty much fails any way you look at it.

In all this Power Rangers movie hype I almost forgot to say I finished Faiz (well, apart from Paradise Lost).

I'll post more thoughts some other time, but my god that last episode was TERRIBLE. The whole thing was so obviously rushed and barely even something resembling an ending.

Currently watching Ex-Aid and almost finished with Gaim. :)

Now you understand my frustration with Faiz



Also looking for a recommendation. Don't know which series I should attempt to binge watch next. I've watched Black, Agito, Ryuki, Faiz, Blade, Kabuto, Decade, W, OOO, Gaim, Drive, Amazons and Ghost.

You've seen quite a lot, but I would suggest if you want something lighter, Fourze, if you want something darker, Kuuga.

1-29 of Hibiki.

I’ve just finished watching the first twenty-nine episodes of Hibiki. I’m a bit behind on my “watching schedule”, so I decided to play it safe and take Switchblade’s advice and stop at episode twenty-nine.

I do plan on watching episodes thirty through forty-eight later though―if only to say that I’ve seen them. I want to experience the full series at least once. I’m a self-confessed fan-girl of Kiva and got some enjoyment out of THE FIRST and THE NEXT, so I’m sure I’ll find something to like in these last nineteen episodes.

Indeed, Hibiki is definitely a unique series. Quite artsy♡

Yep. I don't know if Inoue was angling for a season 2 or what, but it managed to be incredibly frustrating and disappointing, even by Faiz standards.

Good man and/or woman. :thumb:

I loved the whole series of Hibiki, the Todoroki and Zanki stuff is worth it.


SkyRider Episode 3: I love Hiroshi so much, he's just so awesome and wants to help people. Also, I am shocked about a Kamen Rider who actually helps teach these people different lessons to help improve themselves. This episode he taught this kid courage and that was brilliant. Also that he is Kamen Rider Kool-Aid Man is great too with his Rider Break breaking through the walls. I also love the continue the aspect of him dealing with his change into a cyborg. I can't wait to see more of this series.

There was some good stuff there, but it's not worth sitting through the rest of that shit for.

Judging from that list all you have left Heisi/Neo-Heisei is Wizard, Den-O, Hibiki, Kuuga, and Ex-Aid. Well, the only ones I cna remember off the top of my head. I suggest Wizard. *hears griping and complaining in the back* Just ignore the peanut gallery. They'll be dealt with shortly. :lol

Definitely. And hang with it - you'll likely resist the un-Riderish aura of the show at first but, trust us, it's worth it. So cool.

I'm on to finish Kuuga with a few Ghosts after I wrap up GARO s1.

Any of them? I guess it depends on what you're in the mood for, really. If I had to pick one I'd probably recommend Kuuga. I think a lot of the praise that gets thrown at Hibiki also applies to it, and, unlike Hibiki, it actually stays that way the whole time.

I'd suggest Wizard too, but I don't think most people end up enjoying it as much as we do. :p

I haven't seen enough to recommend it BUT the bike-fu in what I did see was berserk (non-CGI to boot!). I couldn't believe some of it, super dangerous looking!

So I decided to watch Kuuga since apparently, I was already 15 or so episodes deep. After that I'll probably move on to Hibiki and then......Den-O or Fourze maybe?

I have to say that I'm not necessarily a fan of the more episodic Rider series, and Kuuga is paced especially slow. That being said, all of the characters are pretty enjoyable so far, ESPECIALLY Ichijou, who is probably the best non-Rider ally I've seen of any show.

Something about the low-budget type of way the older Heisei shows are shot is very appealing to me. It creates this sort of unsettling, uneasy atmosphere that just doesn't exist in Rider anymore (at least not the mainstream shows; Amazons comes REALLY close, with obviously better technology). I'm not sure if Hibiki has it, but I know it was starting to fade away in Kabuto, and in the little I've seen of Den-O, it's totally absent. I like the idea of Toei doing this type of style with Rider web-series moving onwards, while maintaining the more colorful, "clean" elements for their mainstream offerings. Best of both worlds, right there.

But yeah, Kuuga's an enjoyable watch so far. Just a difficult one to binge watch, just like with Black.

Ichijou is friggin fantastic. He made the show for me.

Finally started Drive. I'm gonna try what I did with Gaim, and watch all the specials and movies and stuff in chronological order with the show, which of course meant I started with the Episode Zero special, not episode 1.

I expected that to be a little confusing, but it actually worked great as a teaser! They could easily have released it before the show started, like the weird little Youtube teaser thing Ghost had.

Finally caught up on Ex-Aid. Still not sure what to think about the show. It does have some moments I find really nice, but most of it is just so... noisy. Like, I don't mind singing Drivers and shit, but in Ex-Aid, the sound effects are just overwhelming.
Don't particularly care about the characters either. Like, Emu is kinda cute, Pallad at least has some stuff going on, Hiro's relationship with his father COULD be sorta interesting. But so far most of them annoy me to some degree. Hiro is like "ah, I'm a genius, I'm to cool for you" and Emu just doesn't know what he wants all the time. Hiro's father is like Honganji with a sugar shock, Poppy is way too much for me too handle most of the time and don't get me started on Taiga and Niko. Those two... argh.

You know, the underlying story is kinda interesting and I feel like some episodes have a really good premise, but with all the... stuff around it it just kinda gets buried under loud sound effects and over the top comedy. :/

Okay, I'm going to start a random rant about Kabuto so far: Ready, Set Go!

So, Tendou is the most annoying KR protagonist I've ever watched so far. He's so perfect and that's why he's so boring. Very rarely is the protagonist the reason I watch the show since most of the time they're just cookie-cutter Superman-like but geez they have to HAVE SOMETHING THAT'S A VARIABLE THAT MAKES THEM INTERESTING! I'll give some examples, Ryoutarou from Den-O is not the best character in the world and the best part of Den-O to me was the Zeronos guy. Despite this, I still stuck through Ryou's parts because there was something to keep me at bay and not get me bored, Ryou's memory loss. Another example is Emu from Ex-Aid. Seriously boring personality and we've seen it before, but the mystery about his Buster infection and personality changes keep me from not tuning off. These mysteries from both shows are like variables for the characters. The fact that it could be a game changer is what makes me stay, something could be different. Tendou doesn't change. He has no problems. His subplot about fighting Zect is pointless since he plows through them so easily. He's so annoying too. I like Takumi because his jerk attitude was played for humor, but when the story got real, he became more compassionate towards his friends. Tendou never changes. He's pretentious all the time. Sure, he shows signs of befriending Kagami, but I don't care because he's not interesting to watch and I rather Kagami be on his own because he has problems and is actually interesting.

I'm done and tired. Rant over.

Doin' Decade and, really, I'm not seeing how this is worse than most "bad" Rider shows. I get that people don't like the radical and quite often ridiculous AU versions of the Heisei and that the plot is paper thin as to allow for all of the attendant hijinx but, really? This is just fun.

Conceptually, I love it - it's Kamen Rider as a Dr. Who / Quantum Leap hybrid. While Tsukasa feels almost exactly like Tendou from Kabuto (not as handsome but, who is?), his travel mates in "I'm Kuuga, okay?" Yusuke and "Mars gets weak for a girl in knee high socks" Natsumi fill in all of his missed notes.

Not every revision works - Kiva still sucks, Ryuki is just completely insane, Kabuto's doesn't bother to make sense - but, when they do, it's pretty great. I really liked Blade's absurd corporate structure, Hibiki's world was pretty funny*, Agito's arc was great, the Shinkenger crossover was better than I expected and DiEnd's appropriation of the Blade movie Riders was awesome.

Sure, two-parters never allow anything too deep but it also never allows bad ideas to drag on too long. I really like Decade and DiEnd as Riders and their gimmicks are suitably wild (especially DiEnd's Final Ride).

I haven't quite finished it yet, maybe it bombs in the final ten episode stretch but, after Kiva, which is almost indefensibly bad and Faiz, which is sloppy as hell, this kind of easy fun is just what I needed.

*Interesting that, despite the perception that many of the Hibiki cast were disgusted with how it turned out, most of the cast reprise their roles here - unlike most of the other series actors.

That's because most of the Hibiki actors loved the show, hence why they were so upset with the mismanagement.

Concerning Decade, it's because the whole thing just feels like a mess. The story goes nowhere and I really didn't care for half of the AU worlds. While the ones with some promise (Specifically Kabuto being trapped in Clock Up) didn't really go anywhere because it had 2 episodes to get it over with. It had plenty of cool moments, too. But it just didn't do anything with it's main story that they constantly created ties to.

Tsukasa is bland and too aloof. Yusuke is great. Natsumi basically felt too pointless. Kaito was just a mess.

You don't have to agree with me. I just hate Decade, and after watching it twice, the only real difference in opinion I've had is that Yusuke "Not-Kuuga Kuuga" is a lot better than I gave him credit for initially.

Cool, because I still think Tsukasa is great. :p

Then why go back and work for the same company if you're that upset? Because Actors.

But have you seen KIVA???

Because goodwill. Just because they were upset with the changes doesn't mean they didn't love the characters.

And yeah, I've seen Kiva. It's a trainwreck of it's own. If I rewatch it like I did Decade, I'd probably be able to write a compendium of it's own problems. I still just dislike Decade more since it promised something big, but stumbled right out of the gate.

And I think Tendou is great. We all have the capability to be wrong.

SkyRider Episode 4: General Monster and NeoShocker are complete assholes with what they did to Miya. Turning her into a cyborg and controlling her was terrible by them. Loved this episode too, mainly seeing Hiroshi's anger towards NeoShocker was brilliant and that he helped Miya at least see her family again one last time by showing his own cyborg side was nice too. I also enjoyed that he crashed into the NeoShocker base and started beating the crap out of General Monster too. The battles with the grunts were awesome too especially those continuing kicks for like 7 times was amazing. He is one awesome Rider so far and I can't wait for more.

The thing about Decade is that the whole plot is batshit insane and nothing makes any sense, but it's a damn entertaining series.


It's sort of like the polar opposite of Ghost for me.

Ah. There it is. See, you went into Decade fresh on the hype train, whereas I picked it out of the garbage. It failed to meet your expectations while surpassing mine.

More Kamen Weeder shit.
http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/640...924/PgeZaw.jpg
http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/640...921/IvQcMP.jpg

SkyRider Episode 5: Loved the focus of this episode staying with the missing Airplane and how it connected with Emi's father. Hiroshi was brilliant taking control of the vehicle from the NeoShocker goons. I also loved him believing in Emi even though she saw the island in her dream and that it paid off to help save her father and all the people from the airplane. SkyRider flying the girl was cool and him taking out NeoShocker's monster and Rider Breaking through walls is great. General Monster living was no surprise but I did like this continuing the story. SkyRider brings this great presence to the show and I love seeing him fight and react with the people of the episode.

But that's what made Den-O so fun.

I'm up to 40 of Agito. A little draggy but now that I'm into the meat and potatoes of it, it's kicking up a notch.

This, with "Crisis on Infinite Earths" thrown in.

Ah, yes, of course!

SkyRider Episode 6: This was fantastic. The MushroomMan picked a great form to cause trouble from his sneak attack that hurt the girl and Hiroshi badly, to almost killing Hiroshi. Also he had no respect because he was one of the few monsters that actually stopped a Kamen Rider from transforming. Hiroshi tried like 3 times to transform and got stopped each time mid pose. Though Hiroshi was like Stronger and tricking the monster in thinking that he was defeated. Hiroshi like normal proceeded to go Kool-Aid man and woop the monster's butt. The battles were fantastic and I liked the use of his flying. Also, I just love how compassionate and altruistic Hiroshi is, he just is so honest and trusting and it's so amazing and inspiring. I can't wait for more.

My progress on Kiva has slowed to a crawl over the past couple of weeks, by which I mean I haven't seen any more episodes since I got to 30 a couple of weeks ago. Not intentional, but...happens.

But I'm back to it, so. It's still dumb, by and large. At least I'm at the part where Saga shows up, which is good...between Emperor Form and Rising IXA taking up most of the action scenes lately I'm glad there'll be a suit around I actually enjoy looking at.

Anyway, I'm watching 33, and I was waiting for her to pop up again to say, so what the hell exactly is Shizuka's deal even supposed to be? There's this whole thing where they're like "Wataru has no friends, his first friend was Taiga and then he vanished, and his second friend ever was Kengo who...whatever. Every time he makes a friend things go bad."

But it's like....Shizuka? Does she not count, somehow? Seriously, what even. When the show starts she's the only person Wataru interacts with, but they've yet to explain why or when they met or what....just what, really. And considering that she basically doesn't matter and appears and disappears from the show at random intervals, I don't think this is something the show is keeping secret for a reason, it's probably just...something they didn't care about, on account of Kiva's storytelling being god damn awful.

Also if the spoilers I saw are true, not that I really know the details or want to know at the moment, Mio and Taiga are supposed to be half-siblings, right? Cause like, yuck. I mean she doesn't know and I assume he doesn't know and more importantly I'm not supposed to know, but still, you know, yuck.

Really though, I wish I could enjoy this show more. There was this scene in 32 where Wataru walks up to that one criminal and just...you know, says Wataru things at him. It was great. I really like Wataru, or at least I did before his entire character started revolving around Mio. Ugh, romantic plot tumor if I ever saw one. One, or twenty, in the case of this series.

I still love Riki though. Even if in the entire show he's been used for nothing but stupid bullshit.

Man this cast deserved better.

You're partially correct except for the identity of the half-siblings

Forget it, barnstenchfartface. It's Kiva.

Huh, I guess you weren't kidding. :lol

Seriously though, Shizuka sucks. Like, keep in mind how positive I usually am when I say that. She's that bad.

Ohhh, ok, I see now. I thought I'd read that on Mio's page on the wiki but I just went and checked and I misread who they were talking about. This is way better.

I guess I owe Kiva an apology, that was my bad.