Thanks!

...

Takkun has some weird dreams.

Not gonna lie, seeing the Orphenoch dance was delightful.

I will have to watch it and Decade eventually - I'm not looking forward to it though :(

Kiva isn't all that bad. You just have to have enough patience to sit through all of the time jumping.

And the ability to not bitch about love triangles.

Which I might add, that I couldn't do the very thing I said one should be able to do. Yet can do the latter. Odd, ain't it?

I could do both. Loved the time jumps and I don't get the hate for love triangles.

Honestly? Same here. I thought the time jumps were really interesting, even if it was pretty annoying that the '86 team barely destroyed any fangire. Plus the love triangles weren't near as bad as people make them out to be.

I'm glad people are more easily entertained than I am - a lot of work (and crippling back pain) went into Kiva. It's just sooo deep in the INOUE ZONE that I can only enjoy it in a masochistic manner.

Nothing to do with time jumping - just batshit writing.

I've watched Paradise Lost now too 'cause why not. It's mostly okay, the runtime keeps it from being too edgy and boring (also Kusaka dies early in the movie, thumbs up for that!) and the take on the world is rather interesting.

Psyga and Orga are cool too, the designs at least.

Definitely not the worst Rider movie I've seen but mostly forgettable.

You know, thinking about it more, it occurs to me in the 6-ish years I've been a Kamen Rider fan, I've heard Kiva referred to as both "s*** Faiz" and "good Faiz", so...

I feel like Kiva's writing is way worse (even though he wrote a vast majority of Kiva too I think it's still worth noting Inoue wrote literally all of Faiz himself), but there are some elements to Kiva that could make someone enjoy it more. Namely that it's WAY less mopey, especially at first, despite the ever-present ~misunderstandings~.

Kiva's comedy is probably one of its biggest redeeming qualities. 753 for life!

Oh, and also Kiva actually has an ending...

W 25-26. The doll.

I forgot how hilarious (and vaguely creepy and ultimately sad) these episodes were. Very well directed, too.

I fell out of watching KR during Ghost, but Ex-Aid brought me back big time a few months ago. I also decided to go through and watch all of the Heisei KR series in order as well, just finished Kuuga this morning. Overall I have mixed feelings on it.

On the plus side, I really enjoyed Godai as a protagonist. Sure his personality is kind of one-note, but when that one note is just being a really likable and nice guy, it works for me. Godai really embodied to me what it means to be a hero, in ways other than beating up monsters.

I liked the supporting cast as well, Ichijou in particular. He had a good dynamic with Godai and their interactions were always enjoyable to watch. It was also nice to see a non-Rider getting to see so much action, and be so effective at it.

The main problem I had with the show is that the pacing dragged, and the actual plot just wasn't that interesting. The story moved very slowly, with very little happening. Almost the whole show was just the same thing over and over: new Gurongi shows up, they try to find its methods to pin it down, then Godai beats it. It was more or less a monster-of-the-week format, which I don't generally like anyway, but was held back even more in this case since there was hardly any plot development alongside it to keep things interesting up until the very end. I also thought the Gurongi were boring villains for the most part.

Ultimately, I'd say Kuuga is a show with a great main Rider and supporting cast held back by a dull plot and poor pacing.

Black 43: Curse Golgom and their devious mind-control Fitbits! I also have to acknowledge the episode 41, with the time traveling samurai. It was like a precursor to those late-season cracktastic episodes Heisei seasons so love.

W is done, moving on to Wizard and Gaim to kill some time while I wait for my copies of Cutie Honey the Live to arrive so I can watch that again.

Currently working through Wizard, plan to go back for W and OOOs, but might just continue to gaim after wizard

After finishing Blade...

Damn, that final episode was some good stuff. Kenzaki is a real hero, the type that someone like Takeru only wishes he could be.

Binged my way through the last of Black. It was a good overall experience, but in typical Showa fashion had way too much uninteresting filler. The ending was quite good, I really enjoyed the dramatic showdown and Shadow Moon really driving the point home that Kotaro will have to deal with the guilt of killing his brother for the rest of his life, and it has a pretty cool apocalyptic vibe overall. The very last episode with the other Riders randomly appearing in a clip show was just silly though! I also really liked Kotaro as a protagonist, and his interactions with Kyoko and Katsumi tended to be absolutely adorable. Ultimately though, I don't know if Black can beat the short and sweet insanity that was Amazon as far as Showa goes. Guess I'll hit up the 2 Black movies and then I might as well start Black RX.

Oh man, I'm so torn here. It's like, I wanna stick up for Takeru, but on the other hand, Kenzaki is objectively the s***, so... :lol

I usually don't feel like I've missed something when I miss a Rider series. But I sincerely feel as though I missed something not watching Amazons. I may have to change that this week.

If it makes you feel better, you could replace Takeru in that statement with Emu and other riders that fill in the same selfless archetype. The way Kenzaki solved the entire conflict is just awesome. :D

A bit early to toss Emu in there. Probably, but we don't know just yet!

Early Black RX is pretty rough. It picks up a lot around the time Robo and Bioriders show up.

I'm 5 episodes in with Blade now. Damn this show isn't wasting any time, huh? The script is literally racing like it wants to go back to the future, you can almost smell the burning trail as the plot flies by. Not that that's necessarily bad though, I enjoy what I see so far. I like how they keep explaining stuff as it pops up which makes no sense for the world they are trying to build but for me, as the viewer, it works.

Love the Rider and the Undead suits so far, and the Rouze Cards are a delightful gimmick. They feel more like a TCG this time since unlike Ruyki cards they are all individuals and have very different powers which can be combined, whereas every Ryuki Rider had a basic set of summoning his weapons, Mirror Monster and final attack and then some extra which only a certain Rider had.

With Blade, every monster becomes a unique card (as far as I can tell by now) and they all have unique effects, that's neat. Also, I like how they incorporated the card holders into the weapons and how they fan out like a hand of playing cards, clever.

It's funny though how they can still put the MOTW in there every time, almost reminds me of Gaim a bit, with how the plot took front stage but they still had time to hunt down a monster or two. But hey, gotta show off the toys somehow, right?

Character-wise I'm still a bit lost as the fast pace didn't give me much time to know what's going on (it was so bad early on that I couldn't tell certain characters apart, for real) but now that I get to know them... Kenzaki seems like your typical good guy but they immediately gave him depth and inner conflict which I think is great. Tachibana is still a rather blank page for me but I assume that's intentional, for now everything he does is seal Undead to fight his demise. Then there's I-can't-remember his name, the Chalice-guy. Interesting setup to say the least, but I feel like it'll get much better soon as another character I don't know yet appeared in the distance and called him out for being an Undead who acts as a human.

So yeah, so far this is a full-speed rollercoaster ride but I want to continue riding it. Seems like a tyical well-done Heisei Rider show so far. And thank god because I needed that after Faiz. Seriously, five episodes of Blade and I already feel like I've seen more than during the entirety of Faiz.

@Kiwami: The first dozen or so episodes of Blade seem to generally be considered the worst part of the show, so if you like it already, you'll probably love it later on. Personally, I'm like you and really enjoyed the show from the start.

And I agree, the playing card motif is really fun. It feels very classy, and I love seeing them throw the cards.

Yay, Kiwami likes Blade and he's not even at the good part* yet~!

I'm happy to agree with him on one more thing but mostly it's just nice to know he's recovering from his trip into the INOUE ZONE (I remembered the caps this time).

*Also, the whole show is secretly the good part. People who say the first half sucks just didn't notice.

I think you two are right, so far this is pretty good already. Maybe the pace throws people off or everything after the first third is just so much better that the earlier stuff feels weaker in comparison, but right now I enjoy this a lot.

Gonna watch some more today!

I loved Blade from the get go though the frantic pace did make it a bit difficult to follow for the first few until you say "okay, this is not a passive show, I need to really pay attention".

(nods in approval)

I'm about to dive back into INOUE ZONE Hibiki which I couldn't do straight through - the tonal whiplash was enough to leave a welt.

I'd say it's a little of both. Blade definitely hits its stride around the halfway point (and stays there), but the early episodes are good in their own right, despite the breakneck pace.

I'm actually kind of surprised you picked up that Kenzaki has stuff going on already. I remember not really appreciating how much solid character building happens with him in those early episodes until looking back on them in retrospect. You really are in for a heck of a ride if you're already enjoying it now.

Are you watching the Turn Up Scrubs subtitles by the way? The TVN ones are really, really bad and I honestly think it completely undermined my enjoyment of the show.

Yeah I mean they show his struggle with the death of his parents very graphically and his problems with the situations of Tachibana and the involvement in the battle against the Undead in which innocents are harmed regularly. What I like about it is that they show it early, these kinds of feelings often appear at the middle or end of a series. But I like that the protagonist deals with it early for once.

There's lots of cool development going on currently, like with the scientist lady, I haven't memorized her name yet. With what's going on with the BOARD boss and her thinking it's her dad behind it all, that's very interesting.

And Chalice too. His involvement with the family and the little girl especially is intriguing.

I do watch subs which are not from TVN, I assume it might be Turn Up Scrubs, I downloaded the show when I was still early into Faiz, someone posted a link to Blade subs with a great quality and it was not TVN so I got those.

And I do like what I'm seeing, the resolution is great and everything runs smoothly. Subs are good too, not that I could argue much considering I don't understand Japanese but I haven't seen any major spelling or grammar errors so far or any of the hard insults or Engrish which I hate about early TVN stuff.

When you're watching TV-N's Blade subs, hope is always acute. Whatever that means, anyway.

No but really it's some of their earliest and most terrible work. Even ignoring their usual habits that people subjectively hate, a staggering amount of lines are objectively mistranslated in ways that frequently obscure and occasionally outright butcher the actual meaning. Like the line from the first opening theme I just paraphrased. It's not only inaccurate, it's also nonsense.

Considering I didn't know a lick of Japanese back when I watched Blade (besides all the words TV-N forced me to learn, I mean) I'm kind of shocked I even liked the show at the end of the day. :lol

I'm still torn over whether I think TVN's Blade or Hibiki subs are worse. I swear I really don't mind their more modern stuff, but they had some dark times early on. :lol

I haven't watched any TVN subs in a good while, but I have to cop to being a fan of their graphical representations during henshins and whatnot; I appreciate the effort.

Hibiki, because with Blade you now have an alternative. If you want to watch Hibiki, TVN is the only game in town (not for lack of trying, but the internet is littered with abandoned Hibiki fansubs).

Hibiki still hasn't been completed by somebody other then TV-Nihon? I figured that there would be at least one alternate to all of their old shows by now give how much disdain people seem to have for TV-Nihon. I remember reading a comment somewhere that a guy didn't even consider a show subbed if TV-Nihon were the only ones who did it. I might have said something about how silly that is but, given I think the same thing about HK Subs, I figured that I had no place to say such a thing.

Maybe its because I like TV-Nihon but I actually don't have a problem with most of their early subs. I think the only ones I actually don't like are their Blade ones. I can't speak for how accurate the translation is but the poor grammar combined with the video quality and some technical issues make for an almost painful watch in the early episodes. Thank god that started redoing those.

There have been at least four tries that I know of; they all died in the early teens.

How creepy. Also, *Insert Unlucky 13 joke here*.

Have anyone here watched W yet? I'm somewhat felt so disappointed by the series in some many ways. Apart from the finale which will make anyone cry, I literally felt W is a bit dull in several episodes. Is it the effect of watching a pretty good Rider series, like Gaim, Drive and the current Ex-Aid, first? Because, while I still enjoy W, it's hard for me to get so attached to the series.

I looove W. Although it was my first Rider, I feel like it held up on subsequent rewatches. I just found the main cast extremely endearing (okay maybe not Ryu), the villains great, and it is really good as slowly building up more overarching elements. How many other shows are about 2-in-1 superhero detectives that fight drug inspired monsters?! Drive and Gaim, while also good, don't manage to pull off so many individual elements so perfectly for me. I can kind of see where you are coming from though, it could be a bit weird watching a bunch of newer Neo-Heisei stuff then going back to the first one, where some of its elements might not seem as fresh by comparison.

TO be honest, the more I see it, the more I realize that W's villains aren't that great. The back-and-forth villains are seemed to be intimidating, especially Isaka, but because of the two-parters, they really didn't get a much needed screen time, especially for Kirihiko. Not to mention, Isaka's master plan is granting him a gigantic wings which is absolutely weird to me.

It bugs me to that Wakana so easily agrees with his father during Philip's revelation arc. I thought it was some kind of brainwashing but it didn't seem so in the end. The way they describe both Ryubee and Shroud's characters are so complex for my brain to process. Admittedly, they want to show them as a rather tragic character but the way they executed it is full of interpretations.

Still, you maybe right that W's whole theme about 2-in-1 Kamen Rider and Detective is great. I also really like Philip so much and Shotaro's antics are so delightful. I don't mind of Akiko and she's one of the breather in this series. But, yeah, maybe because W used two-parters arc, I felt that it has more potential and could be even greater if they didn't use it in the first place. The build up for W CJX was also a bit of bummer too and they should have just go with the other ways around or give Shotaro more exposition instead.

It might sound like a rant, but this is why I love Drive more than W. While the thematic is particularly same, Drive didn't dictate too much with its parters episodes. Believe it or not, Drive still has two (or three) parters but the way that they build up each elements of stories felt so natural compared to W. They really build up the last 5 or 6 episodes as a climax. Unlike, W, where I still even thought it will be the same filler-ish two-parters during Ryubee's final act.

I should specify that I like the villains in W because they are practically one of those rich backstabbing families in a telenovela, expect with super powers. It is hilarious and weirdly compelling at the same time. I have a sneaking suspicion that Riku Sanjo might just be a bit of a one hit wonder kind if guy though, most people seem to really like the first Rider by him they watch, and the other show to varying but lesser degrees. Like for me, I like Drive, but couldn't help but feel a bit disappointed by it by the time I finished since I felt like there was a lot of wasted potential, particularly with how they handled the Roidmudes among other smaller nitpicks. I might just be totally wrong here though, haha.