Hmm? I stopped watching just a little bit after Rook's intro when I tried getting through Kiva, but I was under the impression he's kind of just a dumb blunt instrument the others would sic on anyone they needed dealt with, while the games were just part of his weirdness. Does that get thrown out too?

I mean, that does seem like the most likely thing. Me saying he's in charge of games is just me being facetious. It just seems...weird, that he's part of the top four elite Fangires if all his role amounts to is muscle. When the others have fairly specific, important roles as authority figures, having one just the strong one to me feels silly. Like he could easily just be some random Fangire, not one of these super special ones.

Like, it's established that the power of the Checkmate Four itself chooses the users, but...there is really nothing to choose if all it means is indeed just muscle.

I guess it fits the "Rook" role, but...eh.

There's also the fact that Rook never gets brought up again after being defeated and he never interacted with anyone but the Queen...may contribute to how ambiguous he feels to me.

Right? Right?!! I mean, I haven't watched Wizard (I forget it exists) but what I've watched of Ghost is far less cynically produced than Kiva. It's like Inoue was heavily preoccupied with something else in his life and wrote this while simultaneously staring out the window, or talking to his lawyer (or, yes, taking a dump).

The way the women are written / treated in this show, I wouldn't be surprised to learn he was in the middle of a divorce during it's production.

Let's keep the mantra going and maybe we can make it canon (the only Kamen canon!):
KIVA IS THE WORST KAMEN RIDER SHOW, HANDS DOWN.

:D

Man, I've been saying that for years. So good to have others on the hate train.

But in all actuality I still think Ghost is worse. Both shows are wildly incompetent in almost every regard, but I feel like Kiva still has a couple things that almost work, while Ghost is 100% pure abject failure. I mean, if nothing else, Kiva had Otoya and Otoya was delightful. Ghost had Onari. I can see myself potentially giving Kiva a second chance someday; meanwhile, I am actively avoiding the last couple Kamen Rider movies because Takeru is in them and every time I see his stupid face I still get a little angry (and that's not internet hyperbole - I legitimately got kinda pissed seeing him in all the Ex-Aid/Ghost Movie War trailers). I'm not going to say Ghost is significantly worse than Kiva, but I do feel it ekes ahead just enough to be considered the worst Kamen Rider series ever.

From what I remember, Wizard isn't necessarily bad, just kinda bland

Beautiful fight choreography, though. And Wizard's designs are quite nice.
Actually, I rather enjoyed Wizard too, but since I'm also one of the Kiva lovers, my opinions might not sway you much. :)

See, I just don't know about that. Ghost was coherent. I mean, you can say its drama wasn't engaging or the action was boring or how Onari is a cancer upon this Earth or whatever but it at least made sense.

Kiva is just a very special kind of madness and I don't think Ghost at its worst comes even close to being as bafflingly stupid as it.

Wizard had three big problems:

1. The basic ideas were solid but the show had some pretty bad issues with executing them, especially in regards to the main villain and his plan. The main plot is pretty interesting but is poorly explained and requires a lot of head canoning to work and it centers around a character whose actress was too busy idoling to appear for more than 2-3 minutes per two-part story.

2. Status quo fatigue. By the time Wizard rolled around we'd been doing two-Rider, victim- and monster-of-the-fortnight two-parters with minimal ongoing storylines for several years in a row. Rider was desperate for some kind of shake-up by this point but Wizard was just more of the same.

3. Not enough people recognize that Haruto is one of the best main Riders ever. Yes, he was; you are wrong.

Hey, at least we agree on that much! :p

Kiva and Ghost are both great series to be. Sure flawed but I enjoyed the hell out of them. Literally I was shocked when I found out people didn't love Ghost, it like became one of my favorite series by the 20's.


SkyRider Episode 10: Well Hiroshi's back at it again with inspiring a kid, and I like that he tries to give confidence to those he saves. He's really like the guardian angel Rider here. Though I will say the kids that bullied Takumi (The kid that Hiroshi saved) are better than most that they actually gave him a chance to prove that he's not lying rather than other ones that bully others because they think they lie. Hiroshi continues to be an asskicker and I love his fights and his Rider Break. Also, him stopping the bomb with a chop was ridiculously awesome too. I can't wait for more.

SkyRider Episode 11: This was such a fantastic episode. It was great to see Michi get involved more to help save the kids with Hiroshi. Hiroshi really stood out this episode and showed great leadership skills in trying to inspire the kids to keep pushing forward and to not to be selfish so all of them could make it back safe. He was also fantastic in holding off the AntCommandos and SalamanderMan without Transforming which was awesome. Still the Guardian Angel Rider continues kicking Neo Shocker Ass. It was great to see how passionate Hiroshi's heroic spirit is with wanting to save the kids and how pissed off he got from what NeoShocker was doing. Interesting that the monster disintegrated rather than exploded here. Nothing stops the Rider Break! Seriously, it's one of my favorite parts of the show of him crashing through a wall. I love Hiroshi narrating and having a small part explaining the next episode preview it's a lot of fun. I can't wait for more.

When I finished Skyrider on Thrusday I said I'd post my thoughts on it "later, when I have more time." I guess by that I meant the following Tuesday at 2 am.

So, Skyrider.

I think that the most remarkable thing about Skyrider is how very unremarkable it really is. It's a super bland show. It doesn't have anything other Showa Riders don't do better or more interestingly. It doesn't have an interesting premise.* It has no interesting characters. It has no compelling stories. It had the chance to tell one in its last three or four episodes, but chickened out halfway through. I guess Kamen Rider just wasn't ready for moral complexity until Black came along. Oh well.

*I say it didn't have an interesting premise, but it's more like Skyrider had no premise at all. That's the other notable thing about it. This show never really had any idea what it wanted to be. Befitting its initial premise as a reboot of the franchise, it pretty much started off as "the original show, except with paragliders instead of bikes. he still has a bike though." But that apparently didn't pan out, so it then started to transition, dropped off everything from that early part, and just became, like...a really nondescript Showa series. Even more so than it already was anyway. There was just...nothing notable about it. No cool villain generals. No interesting protagonists. Like, one fun supporting character. I'll get to him later. There just wasn't much at all to make it stand out. And then...

And then old Riders started to show up. Which is like, not a negative, exactly. This sort of thing was not uncommon in the Showa era. Stronger famously had all the Riders up to that point show up in its final arc, and I loved that shit. But Stronger was a fine show on its own, and since they managed to get all the actors back it felt like a really big, cool event for what looked to be the end of Rider at the time.

With Skyrider it felt like they brought in all these old Riders to make up for the series' own lack of character. And they only got a couple of returning actors, so it wasn't that notable even when they all got together. The climax of the series has all eight Riders, but most of them just show up out of nowhere for no reason. Hayato and Shigeru were the only ones to appear out of suit for the last good chunk of the series.

And again, I mean, not a negative. Hell, I enjoyed seeing Shigeru again, I like Stronger. It's just...Skyrider. If only you could have been more interesting on your own.

Speaking of not knowing what it wanted to be, at some point the series pulled out something about Skyrider having "99 Techniques" right out of their rectums. So like, I actually watched the first 34 episodes of it last Spring-ish, and then the last 20 over the past however-long-it's-been since the rest of it got subs (four months? my word). He pulled the 99 Technique thing a bunch in those 20 episodes. Have literally no recollection of it being a thing in the first 34. I assume it's something they started doing after his upgrade, but again. Completely out of god damn nowhere.

Didn't stop them from completely dropping it for the last half dozen episodes or so though. 99 my foot.

Oh, and you know how his name is Skyrider? How he can fly? How that's the only thing that makes him distinct from other Riders? I mean, it's pretty obvious where I'm going with this, but, you wanna guess how much flying he did in the back end of the show? Because it's not a lot. Seriously, just lowball it. You'll probably get it pretty close. There was even one episode where a kappa monster was literally just flying around in his magic shell, and instead of chasing him with his own flight powers, he just...used his bike. Hey, he's Skyrider, not LivesUpToHisNamerider.

There was also this thing he used to do a lot in the early parts of the show, the Rider Break, where he rams his bike through walls and shit. It was more or less his Thing, and it was pretty cool. He also never does it again after a certain point. Until KyoryuGreen mentioned it in another thread the other day, I'd actually completely forgotten that was a thing he ever did. He actually did it one last time in episode 52, 53? Around there. It must have been the first time he did it in like 20 episodes. I was super flabbergasted.

Skyrider at its start was a completely different show from what it was at its end. But at neither time was it that interesting.

...and I say that, but I guess it's not necessarily true. For two reasons. One being that even if they failed to commit to the one twist that would have made the show actually interesting, the last three episodes were still pretty good.

And the other, well...what else but the great GanGan G? I actually rather grew to like this big ol' goofball. Not as much as I did Mogura or my beloved General Shadow, but he's a fun character. He definitely made an otherwise bland show more entertaining, at least for the duration of his brief appearances. He joins the list of Showa characters I wish would (but know never will) get figuarts or something.

Anyway....Skyrider. I'd give rate it with like 45/99 Techniques or thereabouts. Probably way more than he used in the show, come to think of it...

....ended up writing a lot more than I thought , but eh. What the hell.

I need to finish Skyrider. I have a bunch of unfinished tokusatsu series sitting around that I really need to get around to polishing off and Skyrider is near the top of that list.

Just finished Agito 35. Honestly, the show's got a LOT better, and G3-X is one of the best suits now that I think about it. I don't like how Burning and eventually Shining lose their practical effects for Agito's crest

Hot damn. Episode 22 of Super-1 was actually really, really good. And tragic. Did a very good job of making a more interesting character out of Megaal and further vilifying the Dogma. Pretty good.

The timing is also pretty appropriate--right as I was complaining about Skyrider falling to make Admiral Demon interesting, I get to the episode in which Super-1 shows how it's done.

According to the preview the Dogma Kingdom is being defeated next episode, which is...unexpected, but logical. I didn't know Super-1 was one of those series that changed villain organizations midway...as I said, this episode was great for the Dogma, but otherwise the organization hasn't been that notable. Hopefully the Jin Dogma are more interesting. Fingers crossed.

G3-X is one of the greatest Rider suits of all time.

https://i.gyazo.com/d7370dfcd10bcd4d...9683f000d1.png

Hahahaaaaaa. Oh Kivat-bat, you jokester.

Ok so I originally planned to have that be my entire post, but watching this Hyper Battle Video has forced me to reconsider my previous opinions. Indeed, perhaps...perhaps Kiva is amazing after all. For, after all, it gave us....

IXAcise. Holy fucking shit. Words can not describe my feelings watching this unfold. I haven't laughed so hard...Just. My god. "Ixacise! Ore wa tadashii!"

Just too perfect. God do I love joke-mode 753.

And Wataru's friggin face!

Oh my god. Having to suffer through 48 episodes of this show truly was worth it for this moment.

So the part that actually involved a battle was pretty boring, but up til that point...pure gold. Nothing less.

And of course, the real punchline of this whole "you too can be Kiva" thing is that in the show proper if a normal human kid tried to, they'd actually just die.

And the good times keep on coming.

Episode 23 of Super-1 was actually awesome. Not as good as the previous one perhaps (needed more time at the end to address the events from the hero's side...maybe next episode?) but still a really strong end to this part of Super-1's story. Was not expecting them to do what they did with the Silent Fist masters, but it is appropriate--particularly Benkei's poetic fate.

Jin Dogma looks like it has a bunch of odd characters in the upper echelons. Hopefully they're entertaining.

Currently at Agito 42
I...Don't like how Shining was handled. Just out of nowhere Burning evolves with solar power. Considering the episode ends with El of the water curbstomping everyone but Shouichi gets back up and activates Burning, wouldn't THAT be a better time to have a debut for Shining? But Exceed Gills fuck yes I love that suit and the monstrous style

Shining debuted in the special that aired between 35 and 36 (I think that's right?). Outside of that it's kind of crap though, so you might as well just pretend it came out of nowhere.

Wow. This is a doozy.

This may come as a big surprise to people who keep track of my opinions (which, um, would be no one), but despite being someone who generally dislikes most Rider movies, and also Kiva, I...I actually kind of liked Kamen Rider Kiva: King Man of the Demon World Castle Thing Place.

Yeah, I know.

So, it's obviously non-canon nonsense that doesn't even begin to fit into the continuity of the show in any fashion, but once you get past that, I find very little to dislike. It felt to me to at least have some semblance of self-consistency, at least enough so to not take me out of the movie most of the time.

There were some pretty stupid/unexplained elements, mainly Rey's whole part in the story and Arc's belt just popping up out of nowhere, but like, as Kiva shit goes this felt more business as usual than something deal-breaking. Compared to Tatsulot never being addressed in like, 30 episodes, this was pretty much the smallest peanuts.

Other than that, this movie felt like it had everything, by which I mean, in a large way, that it had nothing. No Mio, no Maya, no Taiga, no stupid fucking love triangle garbage anywhere in sight. I'd almost forgotten it was possible to tell stories about Kiva without that crap. It was really refreshing. So perhaps it wasn't really a super compelling tale, but hell, I'm just thankful to have anything Kiva that doesn't even bring to mind triangular shapes.

And the humor kinda worked for me, sometimes. I haven't even seen Den-O but the "Ore? Sanjou" line got a good chuckle out of me.

And Arc-bat going "Go to hell" was frankly just too incredible for words.

Speaking of which, Arc is really cool. Didn't even mind when the last fight turned into a PS1 cutscene either.

So yeah, I dunno. Maybe someone slipped something into my drink or I'm going senile early or something. It probably really is an awful movie, but what the hell, I enjoyed it.

That was Momotaros's voice actor. All four of the Imagin voice actors had cameos in the film where they put in spins of their catch phrases. This was back when Toei was working Den-O into everything they could.

The above is a far better narrative than Kiva could ever hope to be. I'm glad you managed to squeeze something of a happy ending out of it, fartface. :thumb:

I am, too! Actually, come to think of it, the fact that these two were the ending--the last things I had to get to before I could finally put Kiva behind me--may have also played a part in my enjoyment of them.

Either way, at least I don't feel like I wasted that last hour I spent on Kiva, which is something.

Ah. That makes sense. I'm not as familiar with the other Imagin's catchphrases, so I couldn't catch those. Though looking them up...yeah, I definitely remember Ryutaros's "I can't hear you" thing popping up at some point, at least.

I don't remember where all the others were; the cameos are literally the only parts of that movie I've seen. I do know that Rina Akiyama (Naomi) was a traffic cop.

Hm. Well. This is something.

Super-1 episode 24.

So this doesn't have anything to do with anything, but I'll just say I hate how XIG handled familial honorifics. "Sister Masako" my ass. There are ways to translate these things without making it sound like the characters are in some sort of religious order!

Anyway, so there's no addressing of what happened to the Sincere Fist school in this one, which is disappointing. Other than that, the episode does reference and concern the events that just went down at the end of the last arc, which is nice.

And the new arc brings with it changes, most of which I thought I was cool with, until...Junior Rider Squad. I think I vaguely recall reading that this was going to be a thing, but had completely forgotten.

In any case, I am all sorts of not into this. And I was so optimistic about this show after the last arc ended so strongly.

Will see I guess. Though I think I have some idea of what's going on.

New ending theme is lame too.

Just finished Ghost The Movie - 100 Eyecons and Ghost's Moment of Truth.

Meh.

If you ever did not want to have to sit through all 49 episodes of Ghost, just watch this movie and you will still get the same effect.

Also, I now think there needs to be a crossover between Ghost and KyuRanger, just to see who would yell louder Onari or Lucky.

The Next was even more bizarre and directionless than The First! The most entertaining part to me was probably the scene at the beginning of someone applying a very gratuitous amount of mayonnaise to their food, just because of the "Is that you Kosuke!?" reaction it got out of me. I thought it was sort of cool that they tried to make the Double Riders' suits more weathered looking, but it didn't look quite right to me, and it took me until almost until the end of the movie to realize that one of the kaijin was Buzzsaw-Lizard from V3 since they decided to upgrade her to a chainsaw for... reasons. The plot made barely any sense though, and there was a lot that was just left unexplained. A pretty hot mess all around.

Just watched the Ghost movie myself. It was... good? Just mediocre?

I'm not really sure, actually. I mean, for the most part it's a fine enough film. The only thing I ever really expect out of a Rider movie is some nice over-budgeted action, and it delivered that much. A coherent and/or interesting story is something I consider a bonus at that point and this one is like, 90% there. It's really frustrating.

For one, the movie's biggest strength is also a glaring flaw. The concepts presented here are all really neat. Too neat. Neat enough it sort of feels like they REALLY could've used some of this stuff to fill out the quarter or so of the actual show that was airing when this came out. A quarter that, as I definitely don't need to explain to anyone but am going to anyway, was full of "filler" MotW plots loosely strung together by an ongoing plot that seemed to be on vacation most of the time.

The stuff with Makoto's dad especially is just BEGGING to be brought up in the show more. The series made it clear early on that Takeru's dad was a surrogate parent to him and delving into why that is would've probably been a way better method to keep Makoto interesting than a plot thread about an evil clone that, even though I think the payoff ended up being good, spent most of its time just sort of being a thing that was happening. As it is, his daddy issues got brought up once or twice in throwaway lines specifically to tie in to the movie just before it came out. Again, this movie is frustrating.

The stuff with Dark Ghost can stay here fine enough though. He's a cool character with an interesting backstory and a consistent presence throughout the film, and his evil plan ties into the themes of Ghost well enough. I think he works better here than he would've in the series, especially since the show already had a bad guy with a big evil plan.

But as for the movie itself, I think it's a pretty dang solid story as these things go right up until the climax. It doesn't make much sense. And if I'm saying something in Ghost doesn't make much sense, that's not a good sign. So first of all, the big crux of the ending is that Dark Ghost's plan involves using Takeru's body. There's only one problem with that: Takeru didn't leave a corpse. Now given that the movie's primary setting is some weird pocket-dimension place, this might actually be explicable, but if it is, the film sure wasn't interested in explaining it.

It doesn't help that the whole purpose of this is simply to once again kill Takeru (who by the point of the series this takes place had basically already transcended death, so...), leading to another sappy scene when he inevitably comes back. Normally I'd be all over that but much like how the way it happens is confusing the way he comes back is kind of vague and weird. The only thing I can tell you is that the Heroes did it.

So yeah, basically the movie's connection to the show is what's hurting it more than anything. Taken as its own thing, maybe these wouldn't be huge issues, but it simply doesn't have that luxury.

Man, if even Fish Sandwich doesn't like the Ghost movie it must be a letdown.

Watching W again, this time with my little sister. She's taken an instant liking to it and I keep noticing things I missed the first time.

Like, seriously, there are way more pinwheels/windmills than I remember.

So, I just finished watching Kamen Rider ZO.

Right off the bat, I gotta say that I seriously love the monsters in this movie. While I like the two other organisms, which seem to be nice little callbacks to "Bat Kaijin" and "Spider Kaijin" from the original show, Doras especially is delightfully creepy. Kinda reminds me of Cell, in a way. If Cell had a creepy "little kid in a spandex ring" form going on. So, I was already sold on this one thanks to the creatures in it.

One thing I will say though is that it's a shame that ZO didn't really get as much time to shine as say, Shin did. I'd definitely argue that this one is a better movie overall, but it just feels like we didn't really get much of a chance to meet and learn about ZO as much as we did with Shin. It almost feels like this one was supposed to be the TV pilot, since the story seems a bit incomplete for some reason.

So yeah, the focus on the Main Rider was a bit lacking and I also have to say that going from Shin's hulk-esque mutation into his "Rider" form to what we get in here for a transformation effect is...rather underwhelming. It just feels like this one had so much more potential than Shin did at the time, at it was just kinda squandered.

Though as a quick side note, having the story centered on a mysterious Rider who acts as a brother figure to some kid named Hiroshi just makes me wonder how much shorter this movie might've been if Chase was involved in the plot. Appropriate enough, since Doras' final form looks like someone put Heart and Creation King into a blender.

So overall, I felt like it was a bit disappointing that there wasn't more to the movie, as I would've loved to have learned more about ZO and seen what other monsters he would've face, but I still liked it for what it is. Not quite as brutal and "eventful" as the Bixby-Hulk style movie that was Shin, but it was still entertaining. Probably my favorite of the Showa movies so far.

But of course, that might change after I watch the last one. Here's hoping J has a bit more to it.

I didn’t particularly enjoy ZO either, but I think J is awesome, so I hope you have more fun with that one :)

I haven't seen ZO in years but I remember really liking it. There's not much substance to it but it works well just in terms of being an action movie. The effects are awesome. Even the wonky stop motion.

Yeah, that's a pretty scary thought isn't it? :p

I didn't exactly hate it, but the last 10 or so minutes really drag down my overall opinion. The thing is written by the show's head writer and yet it contradicts the series enough that I'm whining about it. Maybe if the payoff weren't so underwhelming I'd let it slide.

Outside of that, I actually really liked some of the individual elements. Like I said, Dark Ghost was a cool villain and, I mean, hey, Makoto actually gets screen time and is important and stuff, so that's nice.

I think ZO is a good movie, but it suffers from trying to cram too much story in with the action. J has a much tighter plot that I feel makes it a stronger film.

I watched the Ghost movie last night while I was suffering from a headache, so maybe my opinion isn't based on reality, but...honestly, I wouldn't say it's a particularly bad movie. It's not particularly good either. But it's pretty much par for the course for Rider movies. It tries to go big, tries some interesting things, but ends up leaving nothing but questions in its wake. And the ending is definitely...something.

Does feel like a number of things in it could have been used in the show itself for greater effect...though I guess it also does give a little context to some of the things that do happen later in the show, such as Takeru's friends being able to beat up Ganma commandos when they all went to the Ganma world, or the weird focus on Takeru wanting to eat food in the penultimate episode, which at the time felt like it came out of nowhere. So there's that, but...yeah.

Just finished my first Kamen Rider series, Gaim, and I honestly feel like I spoiled myself. There is no possible way that a different season can top this.

I am watching Ex-aid and it shows promise, but I just felt way more connected to Gaim from the start.

Well, every Rider series is different and need to be taken on their own merits. Ex-Aid is very different from Gaim, tonally, but is still an excellent and, in some ways, crazier show. If you prefer a darker show to a weird show, you should definitely take the next few weeks and plow through Amazons and get ready for Amazons season 2.

So TV-N released all 4 episodes of the Alain-centric miniseries from the Blu-rays (though I just watched the back half since Over-Time did the first two a while ago) and the DVD epilogue Hyper Battle Video thing that came out after the show ended along with their release of the summer movie. If there's one thing you can't fault those guys for, it's their work ethic.

The Alain stuff is genuinely pretty great. Outside of some goofy bits with Onari, it's basically just 10-12 minutes bursts of poignant musings about the transient nature of life and the beauty of the world and crap like that starring everybody's favorite character. I love it. I'm not entirely sure the little epilogue bit at the very end was needed, but I don't necessarily think it's bad, either.

The DVD was also pretty dang good. I was expecting just another lighthearted skit in the usual HBV style but it's actually a really proper epilogue to the show featuring the return of Saionji, fleshing out his character and explicitly confirming a lot of stuff that was mostly just inferred in the show proper.

I said this about the movie too but it's actually a little frustrating just how much these things DO rise above their station. I wouldn't exactly say the show feels incomplete without watching this stuff*, but they're super worthy additions to it. The Alain series in particular, I think is probably best experienced alongside the show chronologically, but unless you're actually watching through the Blu-ray boxes, you wouldn't just know when to watch each one. Like, as cool as all this extra Rider stuff we get now is, I really wish things were as simple as watching the actual show and being done with it. I mean, it's bad enough that I'm not the only person who got confused when Shining Form "debuted" abruptly in Agito. At least that special actually aired on television just like a normal episode, so it's only confusing in retrospect.

*That being said, if you don't watch at least the first Alain thing, you'll have no idea who Harumi is when she abruptly shows up in the show, and then later the reveal that the thing they've been teasing with Necrom's super glowy power was actually a suicide attack comes in the form of Takeru's mind-reading abilities showing him a f***ing clip from the second one out of nowhere (not exactly Ghost's proudest moment).

Huh...

So I remember watching the first Alain episode, but I literally have no memory whatsoever of watching the second. My MDL is saying I did watch it so I guess I must have, but...guess it's worth the rewatch. Good to know that these things are finished somewhere, anyway. I've been curious.

edit: oh, and they did the earlier Ikkyu HBVs too...actually really not sure why I thought otherwise, of course they did. I have no idea why I thought those would still be left unsubbed.