I've been watching 3 nen A gumi jdorama starring Masaki Suda and while they are investigating his background, they discover that he used to be a tokusatsu suit actor and he was supposed to take over the lead suit actor duties from his senpai and they go and interview his senpai and it turns out that the actor that played Evolt/Misora's dad is the main older tokusatsu suit actor.

can anyone recommend a good kamen rider show for someone who's sort of new to the series, i hear gaim is very good, (the only season i have watched is faiz)

From what I've heard, good places to start are:
Double (An all around good Rider show played straight)
Fourze (A very feel-good, fun show about the power of friendship)
Drive (Just a damn good show, really)
Kiva (Written by the same person as Faiz, I think, and a good starter)
Hibiki (Usual caveat that the creative team changes halfway through)

thank you i think i am going to watch kiva next :)

Just finished watching the Build Final Stage live show. I'm always super impressed by how much work goes into kids stage shows. I've watched a couple live with my kids and it's a full blown production.

But I'm also seriously impressed by just how polite the kids in Japan are. I know that silence is considered an act of appreciative respect, but you could hear a pin drop.

It also makes me realize how much I really enjoyed the character development in Build.

If you're gonna watch Kiva, so am I. I've been wanting to for a while. Sounds like a good time to try.

I haven’t seen a single Kamen Rider stage show yet, but the new Gaim one has me interested to try a few out. Did you watch it subbed? Which group had it?

Do that, I was pleasantly surprised by how much fun it is.

So far I only found the Build one, and that was through a group on FB. I'll PM you.

Also just finished the Ex-Aid True Ending movie. Not terrible.

Finished OOO recently. I had actually started it a few years ago but dropped it after around 12-15 episodes or so, it just didn’t grab me at the time. Something must have changed between now and then, because this time around I was into it right from the start and thought it was great all the way through. The cast is one of the strongest I’ve seen in Kamen Rider and the story was interesting with a lot of good thematic payoff, making this a top tier season for me.

The highlight of the show is easily its two leads, Eiji and Ankh. Eiji is a great character who gets a lot of fantastic development. The way his life history influences his current status as OOO, and the way it impacts his relationships with others and his personal philosophy as a hero, is all handled fantastically and ties together so cohesively. He’s by far one of the most well-developed lead Riders I’ve seen, and easily among my favorites. Ankh is wonderfully written as well, I especially liked that the audience is regularly reminded that although he’s allied with Eiji, he’s very much a villain who is only in it for himself. Ankh regularly engages in actions and behaviors that are outright villainous and dangerous for Eiji and his allies, and as the show goes on it really does feel like he might turn on them at any moment if it becomes convenient for him to do so. His best material though is definitely near the end, when the differences between him and the other Greed become more apparent, especially in regard to how his time with Eiji and the others has influenced him.

While Eiji and Ankh are obviously the highlights, everyone else is likable as well. I don’t have much to say about them, but I liked them. I thought the villains were good too, they kind of had one-note personalities and didn’t really get much development, but I think that worked here due to their nature as living embodiments of greed. Of course they don’t have much development because it’s entirely antithetical to their existence (Which makes Ankh’s development and desire to go beyond the other Greed that much more significant and effective). I really liked how fragile and insincere their alliance was and relationships with each other were, the constant betrayal and backstabbing made for great entertainment. I also liked what Dr. Maki brought to their dynamic once he allied with them, and I liked his material in general. The whole doll thing was kind of weird and at times made him hard to take seriously as a villain, but for me that was overshadowed by how generally unsettling and unhinged his whole personality was.

Besides the cast and characters, the other thing I liked most about OOO was how it had such a strong sense of theme and message. That’s not something I’m used to seeing in many KR shows, at least not to the level that’s displayed in OOO. It really takes that to a level I wish other entries in the series would, I really like when a show has a point to make. It’s something that elevates the material and just makes it more engaging, at least to me. The way it intertwines and addresses the contrasting philosophies and beliefs of all the different characters is handled at a level few, if any, other KR seasons have reached.

I was pleasantly surprised with how much I enjoyed OOO. I have a lot of thoughts about it that didn’t really come through well here, I don’t know what it is but I had a very difficult time fully articulating exactly what it is I liked so much about this series. I think I feel like I just can’t really do it justice with my limited writing ability, but I can at least clearly state that OOO is now one of my favorite seasons. I wish I could give a better explanation of exactly why, but that will have to do. It’s one that will stick with me for sure.

I always enjoy reading your thoughts on Rider seasons ShyGuy, especially when I've seen them myself.

I like OOO too, and adding to your post I just want to mention one thing in particular: Akira Date. He was my favorite secondary Rider for a long time (until Ryuga Banjo came around to be precise), and I adore this character a whole lot. He's great.

Thinking back to watching OOO – I really, really like this show. I have nothing but fond memories of it.

I'm glad you enjoy reading them, they often end up pretty long so I assumed a lot of people would just skip over them, lol.

I also agree with you about Date, he was one of my favorite characters. I had a lot to say about his and Goro's relationship but due to time I had to write the OOO post over the course of a few days, and realize now I forgot to mention them at all. Date was a really unique secondary Rider, being older than usual and with such a laid back and friendly personality. In a show with so many characters that have doubts about their abilities and motivations, his strong self-assurance really stands out and makes him very fitting for the mentor role he takes up. While he's primarily Goro's mentor, you really see how much impact he has on Eiji as well. I feel like he brings so much more than usual for secondary Riders in that he has the status as an experienced pro who can lead and teach the younger Riders. He's a type of Rider that really doesn't appear often, in fact that only other season I can think of that does something similar at all is Hibiki.

His interactions with Goro are so good though, their scenes together were always highlights. Goro actually kind of reminded me of Nago from Kiva, in that they're both young hotheads who are obsessed with a Rider power they don't really deserve at the beginning. But unlike Nago who self destructs because he never really gets effective help, Goro is given a powerful role model in Date who helps him mature and gain a better understanding of himself and others. When he finally gets to become Birth, it's a powerful moment because it really feels earned after all of his time and experience under Date's guidance, you can really see how much Date's mentorship influenced him. Date definitely ranks among my favorite secondary Riders.

Kamen Rider Decade episodes 18 and 19

Man it's been a long time since I watched this. I don't know shit about Hibiki but the whole three clan dynamic felt kinda unnecessary? Like, there was already tension between the boy and his master Hibiki, why not focus more on that then cutting between Tsukasa and Daiki and them getting the clans to do what they want.

Ex-Aid episodes 6 and 7

Been a long time for this too. It's nice that the characters of the week aren't just there to suck up air time like other Rider shows, but actually are used as methods for explaining our main characters' backstories. With Hiiro's being super sad and I love the twist with Kiriya's (if that sounds sadistic lol). Although I'm not a big fan of the hit effects in this show. I don't like having the action being blocked a bunch of the time.

Got to watch the Rogue trilogy. It got dark didn't it. Hard to think of Gentoku as a fashionista after watching these episodes. Of course at this point he was still under the influence of Pandora's Box.

Episodes 2 and 3 were brutal as far as the beatings were concerned. Felt bad for the two assistants and that one prisoner.

Overall a nice watch.

Ex-Aid 8-13

Man, and I thought Gaim handed out power ups like candy. I swear someone gets a new form every episode or two. I get the idea that it's all kind of like a game and everyone is trying to one up each other with regards to strength. And how it themetically ties in with mutating viruses. But it feels the show feel extremely frontloaded with the amount of stuff they're trying to sell. 5 Riders with level 3 forms for each and a few special ones in a span of 13ish Episodes? Holy shit.

Hopefully the latter part of the show doesn't introduced nearly as much.

To be fair, I feel like these other forms were at least used as much as possible once introduced, unlike Baron Mango Arms or Ryugen Kiwi. When Genm gets defeated in Episode 12, it was the first time I had seen him outside of Shahairiki Sports form since I started watching again.

Also, good on the writers for continuing to tie the side characters' problems into the backstory for characters.

I just got done watching the Rogue trilogy myself. I kind of hated it? I don't know. I definitely wouldn't call it bad, but I don't think I was in the right mood for it at all. It's zero fun whatsoever. I usually love seeing Kamen Rider push its boundaries and do crazy out there stuff, but Rogue represents what I can only hope is the pinnacle of Toei's recent string of "too hot for TV" ultra-violent Rider spinoffs. I seriously don't mean to sound too negative, because they did exactly what they set out to accomplish here, and it does its job of fleshing out Gentoku more, but the most entertaining part of watching it for me was coming up with jokey names for what's become a bit of a sub-genre ever since Amazons started.

The best one I thought of was "ketchup noir", for the record.

Finished up Fourze. I know I just posted my thoughts on OOO very recently, but I didn’t actually get through the entirety of Fourze in only one week…I’m just behind on writing up my thoughts due to a lot going on, I actually finished Fourze a while back (In fact I’m almost finished with Wizard right now). But anyway, Fourze was one I was pretty interested to start because I’ve heard a lot of good things about it over the years, I’ve seen a lot of people list it among their favorites. Having now watched it myself, my feelings on it are kind of mixed. It sounds weird, but although I think it was good, I didn’t really care for it all that much. Basically, I think it was good at what it was trying to accomplish, but it just didn’t appeal to my particular preferences.

The general tone of the show is very silly and lighthearted, it kind of reminded me of Den-O in that regard. Sometimes I enjoy that kind of thing, (As I did with Den-O) but with Fourze I think there were a number of issues that hindered my ability to enjoy it the same way I enjoyed Den-O. The main thing with that is the overall cast and characterization. Most of the cast just really didn’t feel all that relevant to the story, outside of the four main leads. Each of the members of the Kamen Rider Club got their little episode arcs, but beyond that they barely contributed anything and what development many of them did get was fairly superficial. They almost felt like glorified accessories in that they existed just to fill out the cast and facilitate the whole friendship theme going on. It was frustrating because the show clearly wanted the audience to care about these characters, and I wanted to like them more than I did, but it barely ever gave me any good reason to. They just felt kind of like shallow archetypes more than characters in their own right.

I think the core problem causing these issues is that the cast is simply too big. With W, there was just Shotaro, Phillip, Akiko, and Ryu. For OOO there was Eiji, Ankh, Hina, Goto, and Date. Then Fourze has a cast twice as big as either of those, and it simply can’t give equal time or development to all of them so it ends up spread too thin with minimal characterization across too many characters. This extends to the villains as well, who are without a doubt among my least favorite villains from any season. I found them very boring and generic with no compelling personalities or motivations, other than Virgo after their identity is revealed (Who I did think was a genuinely interesting character).

These issues I have were compounded by the strict 2-episode arc format that characterizes early Neo-Heisei. While it existed in W and OOO, those shows also had ongoing larger stories that carried out across the whole season for both of them, along with an emphasis on character relationship development. Fourze I thought stuck far too strictly to the 2-episode arcs without having any kind of larger story being told, it lacked the kind of propulsive narrative that keeps things interesting and fresh. It didn’t really go anywhere until the very end, and by that point it felt like it was just trying to cram everything in while it still had time.

I know this all sounds pretty harsh towards Fourze, but I honestly don’t think it’s a bad show. I feel kind of bad with a lot of my criticisms because my problems are with the things it didn’t do, but it wasn’t really trying to do those things in the first place. Fourze is clearly just aiming to provide a light, fun atmosphere without a lot of the more dramatic focus some other seasons go with, and that’s perfectly fine. Fourze really is good at what it wanted to do, unfortunately it just wasn’t a good match for my specific tastes and preferences.

After Zi-O, it's goodbye Heisei Riders, hello Reiwa Riders.

Finished watching Rider Time Ryuki ep 1. As a big Ryuki fan I just had a huge grin while watching this. I really enjoyed it.

So things I'd noticed. They used Abyss instead of Femme which... I don't know I would have preferred Femme. They mentioned Kitaoka. I hope they expound on why he isn't there. And why does Goro think Asakura is his master? And Tezuka really looked different. I wouldn't have recognize him. And his evil now too?

Anyway I'm pretty excited for ep 2.

Finished Wizard, I was already close to the end when I posted my Fourze thoughts (I didn't actually finish it all in just two weeks). I was nervous about Wizard, because over the years I’ve become well aware of its overall negative reputation. Until Ghost, it was probably the season I always heard the most bad things about. So I was prepared for something bad when I went in, but…I actually kind of liked it? It’s certainly not perfect, and I think there are a lot of valid criticisms one can say about it, but I felt that the positives outweighed the negatives, at least for me.

One of the main criticisms I’ve seen aimed at Wizard is that Haruto is a boring protagonist, which I just can’t agree with at all. I think this perception comes from the fact that he doesn’t undergo the same kind of growth arc that many other main Riders experience. He actually reminds me most of Hibiki, in that by the time the show takes place, he’s already an established professional and expert Rider. We never actually see him go through the process of gaining his powers and learning how to use them, which sets him apart from the vast majority of other main Riders where that’s a central component of their character arc. I don’t think that makes his development any worse, just different. I really liked his determination to be an embodiment of hope, and how he uses his own personal history to connect with others going through difficult times so he can directly relate to them. I really liked Haruto as a protagonist.

The cast in general for Wizard was strong I think, they had really good chemistry. Sometimes Shunpei was a bit much for me but he wasn’t that bad. Nitou is the other main standout besides Haruto, he gets a lot of good material as the show goes on. I liked how he functioned as a direct counter to Haruto in that while Haruto fights entirely for others with little regard for himself, Nitou is his thematic opposite as he fights Phantoms strictly for his own benefit. This came to a great conclusion at the end when it’s Nitou, not Haruto, who ends up being the one to stop Fueki’s plans. It’s a perfectly fitting conclusion to his arc where after spending the whole series fighting primarily for himself, he ends up sacrificing his power completely for the sake of others. Another reason I like this though is because it’s so rare for the secondary Rider to get the chance to be the main hero at the end, so it was cool to see something different like that.

I think the overarching story of Wizard is really interesting as well, but that’s also where my main criticism comes in. Once again, the slavish adherence to the 2-part format hurts the overall narrative by dragging the pacing down. It establishes a lot of interesting plot points early on with the mystery of the White Wizard, Wiseman’s plans to once again activate the eclipse, Gremlin’s increasingly suspicious machinations. But most of this goes nowhere until the very end because the show is stuck in the 2-episode monster-of-the-week format that leaves little room for advancing the story. Once the story does get moving at the end I really like the direction it goes, with the reveal that Fueki is both the White Wizard and Wiseman and has been playing both sides. And along with that, how Gremlin starts setting his own plans into action and becomes such a deadly threat for everyone, including Fueki himself. So I think Wizard’s main narrative is really strong, with a lot of fun twists and turns, but it takes so long before it gets there. It doesn’t diminish my enjoyment of the show, but I think it does hold it back from being as great as it had the potential to be.

Overall I liked Wizard. While the format and pacing does hurt its ability to fully utilize its narrative, it still has a lot going for it in terms of characterization and fun. And on top of that, the suit design for both the Riders and the Phantoms is incredible. Easily some of my favorite Rider and monster designs in the franchise. So while Wizard does have its flaws and doesn't quite reach the level of some of my favorites, it's still one I had a really good time with and will remember positively.

As someone else who also likes Wizard, I'm glad to hear you enjoyed! It was my first series, and while I know it's not perfect, there's still a lot I have nostalgia for, and a lot I love about it!

It makes me so happy seeing how often Wizard gets the love it deserves now. Even though Ghost has since supplanted it as my favorite Rider show, it's still a huge favorite of mine. It's definitely not the best show ever, but the things it gets right, I still feel it got VERY right. Formulaic as they are, I also maintain it has the strongest Monster-of-the-Week(s) plots of that whole era of Rider. I felt a lot more invested in those guest characters than I did in any other series that had a similar structure, and having rewatched the show fairly recently, I especially think they did a good job connecting the stories back to the main cast. Sure, when Nitou's grandma shows up, or the several different Gates directly related to Haruto's past, it's obviously going to be a chance to explore the characters a bit, but even outside of that, a lot of those episodes did a good job digging into what makes everybody tick.

I understand why it's a sticking point for a lot of people, especially when the show is dangling overarching plot threads in your face for so long, but as someone who enjoys a good episodic series, Wizard's pacing has just never bothered me.

I agree with this for sure. The nature of Phantoms, and the method by which they come into existence, lends itself well to stories with more emotional depth and nuance. It gives the guest characters for each 2-parter more effective characterization, since the show explores their personalities and struggles with more significance than minor guest characters would usually get.

In a way I almost wish I had watched Wizard before I watched the first three Neo Heisei shows preceding it, because I think then I wouldn't have been quite as exhausted with that format in general as I was by the time I got to Wizard. Since I've been running through seasons one right after another, four seasons in a row of that format in a relatively short time just got tiresome by this point. So I think my issues with Wizard's pacing aren't so much an actual problem with the show as they are just a symptom of the way I've been watching the seasons all in a row.

I have to imagine the big reason why someone might dislike a more formulaic show is when the show itself promises or dangles some kind of intrigue but then either never follows up on it or waits until the literal end. Wizard, and Lupin VS Pat are both shows that seem to set up a lot of cool threads but then either wait too long or literally never picks them back up, and those stuck out to me as reasons to criticize them.

Compare something like Dekaranger or a lot of older Ultraman shows. Those are entirely episodic, but I never minded that at all because they never tried to make me think they had something up their sleeves and made me wait for it.

Also Shyguy, if you think you were tired of the two-part format, imagine watching it every week for seven years!

Yeah, those 2 parters can really start dragging when you watch several of those shows back-to-back. I actually did watch Wizard before most of the other shows with that structure, and I enjoyed it a lot. But then, when I was wrapping up my Rider watching, the last four shows I watched (Den-O, Decade, W, Fourze) all did the 2-parter stuff, and I was sick of it by Den-O already. Not that that necessarily affected my opinion of the shows overall too much? I still liked Fourze a lot for instance. I was just a lot less forgiving with that structural aspect of the shows. It's been long enough since I watched Wizard that I can't actually compare how it pulled it off compared to those, though, which kinda makes me want to give it a rewatch sometime...but then the idea of jumping back into the structure is daunting in its own way, haha.

Anyway, agree with Fish Sandwich and AkibaSilver that it's nice seeing someone appreciate Wizard. In particular glad to see someone who liked Haruto, I've always felt he was a good and absurdly underappreciated lead.

All that love for Wizard here is just great and warms my heart. Glad people like my fifth favorite Rider series and my favorite main Rider.

Wizard was a series that knew exactly what it wanted to be and executed that wonderfully. Bonus points for the fact that I find the two-parters the most interesting parts of these shows primarally because you get good stories in a short amount of time and whenever a series doesn't do them justice it always hurts the series in question.

Wizard is a show that I wanted to like more than I ultimately did. Haruto, however, is one of my favorite Riders of the last decade.

Another issue with Wizard or Lup vs Pat is that they stick with a very specific format. Dekaranger and Ultraman have weekly villains that are completely unrelated to each other, so their goals and the way to deal with them can vary a lot. "Alienizer" is basically a generic term for alien criminals, not a specific gang working for a specific boss who is the actual antagonist. Abrera hangs around, but just to explain why all aliens have the same grunts since he's selling them weapons.

Both Wizard and Lup vs Pat set up a very specific story premise that limits what the episodic stories can do (up to Wizard never being allowed to fail to save a person because then Haruto himself would fall into despair, or the Lupinranger being unable to lose any collection pieces because their goal was to get every single one) but then they are episodic most of the way through, which is completely counter-intuitive.

I really like Wizard, but at the same time I can’t really bring myself to call it good. Great fun if you can deal with its flaws though!

So between showing up in Zi-O, Excite! Subs doing their shiny new translation of it recently, and also how it's hard to watch Ryukendo without being reminded of it, I've finally been given the push I need to rewatch Blade what I'm pretty sure is going to be all the way through at this point. Right now I just got done with episode 16 and I gotta tell ya', this show is the absolute bomb even to this day.

It's been almost 8 years (!) since I've actually seen the whole series, and it's a bit shocking to find out that it's sort of even better than I remember it being. I've had this thought going back and watching early episodes of OOO and Ryuki too, but it's extra surprising how strong I felt the opening stretch is in Blade, because part of me has always kind of bought into the idea it takes a while to get going.

Now I feel like it's the exact opposite. It comes out of the gate with so much momentum it probably just blindsides anybody who isn't prepared to keep up with it. It might actually secretly be one of the best and most unique first quarters or so in Rider history, given how many rules it throws out the window. A lesser show would've just been content to have a status quo of Blade and Garren going around fighting monsters for a while, but here their whole operation gets destroyed in the first episode.

I've always had a strong affection for the early Heisei soap opera style, and Blade is pretty much the peak of that with the way it goes for MAXIMUM DRAMA at all times. Kenzaki beats his first monster, and instead of being triumphant and cool, he's lying on the ground exhausted contemplating whether or not his partner just betrayed their organization. By half a dozen episodes in, someone is trying to blow Hajime's family up with a time bomb. Half a dozen after that, and Tachibana has developed an addiction to performance enhancing seaweed that alienates him from his friends. What the f***.

It's legitimately fascinating to me how much crap they already stuffed into just this relatively small stretch of the show. Every single main character essentially starts the show at some kind of emotional breaking point, and consequently they start getting major development immediately. To this day I still think Kenzaki is the best example of a Rider whose fighting skills gradually improve throughout the show, and that's only one facet of what makes him so awesome.

I'm not even sure where to stop here. I'm pretty sure there's literally nothing about Blade I don't like, so just trying to praise it would have me going on for like, I mean... I'd have to make another huge thread like that one about Ghost, but there's no point to that because everybody already knows how awesome Blade is. It's top tier stuff. Cream of the crop. A+ material.

You know what my favorite thing about it might be though? The show's commitment to the Rider part of its name. The heroes almost always arrive at and leave from scenes on their bikes. Chalice rides up a stairwell to get to the top of a building at one point. I love it. Just like I love the opening theme. Or the insert theme. Or the bad acting. Or the flawless build up to Leangle's debut. Or... wait, it's happening. I'm going on forever. Okay, I'll stop for now, but I guarantee you by the time I get to King Form's debut I'll be popping back in here to do this all over again.

Fish Sandwich, I hope by the end of it, you come back with a better impression of Leangle than I (or most people) do! I don't hate him, but his arc is the one thing in the series I've always felt iffy about.

How are Excite's subs of it? I tried to get through Blade a few years back with TvNihon's, but I managed to get to episode 6 before giving up. Part of the problem was a lot of video glitches, for some reason (I think VLC was set up wrong, so it's partially on young me), but the subs weren't TVN's best.

My feelings on Wizard is that it's very comparable to modern sentai. It goes full hog on the monster of the week format rather than Rider's usually more serialised nature; and as a result the plot and characters don't get a lot of development -- the only times I recall things advancing in any way before the last stretch were Beast's introduction and any new powerups.

This isn't necessarily a bad thing, it really just means it appeals to particular tastes and those tastes aren't the ones typical watchers of Rider might have due to, again, Rider usually being much more serialised and having much more advancement in its stories. That doesn't mean it's without its problems, but I certainly wouldn't even begin to compare it to something like Kiva or Ghost. It's just a different type of show, and one that just happens to not appeal to me. ... plus, I like the way Toqger and Zyuohger done that type of show more :p

Very competent. It you've seen their subs for Ex-Aid you pretty much know the deal. I officially decided they weren't messing around when a scene where Kenzaki tells Kotarou to smile, followed by Hirose saying the same thing in English, had Kenzaki saying "turn that frown upside down" to avoid the redundancy. TV-N naturally solved the problem back in the day by simply leaving the line as "egao, egao" which is... certainly one way of going about it. The biggest "problem" I've noticed is that their translation for one line changed slightly when it showed up in a flashback.

There's no obvious mistranslations, and it's actually in English, so I'd say there's never been a better time to start watching Blade.

I myself remember liking the very beginning of his arc and his interactions with Garren, and also the very end, but thinking a lot in the middle dragged a bit and was hard to take seriously ("ORE WA SAIKYOU DA!" being a meme for a reason and all), but we'll see how I feel this time around.

Cool, cool, you've intrigued me. Guess I'll check out episodes 1 and 2 tonight.

(I'm ignoring the fact I also have R/B and X Rider on the go, but oh well~)

EDIT: So I watched the pair, and now I want to see more. Being able to actually understand and follow what's going on is so nice, and while this opening definitely isn't the most forgiving to newcomers, it's caught me. Also

https://media.discordapp.net/attachm...756&height=426

(0w0) ﾅｽﾞｪﾐﾃﾙﾝﾃﾞｨｽ!!

https://i.imgur.com/169zG8G.jpg

...

...

Oh-

Sorry, It's just... I put that picture at the top of the post there and now I'm distracted by the sheer awesomeness of Blade King Form... and also Blade in general.

This show is seriously something else. Now that I've gotten to the part of the show with a spiffy new opening and a spiffy new head writer, I also remember why I partially bought the idea that early Blade isn't that great. It's because Blade just keeps getting better and better as it goes along. But I don't think it's even fair to throw the beginning of the show under the bus considering how it very specifically laid the groundwork for all the plot points and character dynamics that make the later parts of the show so engaging.

One of the things I pay a lot of attention to now that I didn't back in 2011-ish when I first watched Blade was writer credits, and while Shou Aikawa immediately shows a lot of vision for the show in the few episodes he wrote before properly taking over from Shouji Imai (literally his first episode has Kenzaki talking about fighting fate for the first time), I don't quite think you can say he's solely responsible for the show's increase in quality. It's actually pretty impressive how cohesive Blade feels between all the different people who wrote for it. All the episodes reference each other directly, and even blatant "filler" style plots like episodes 29 and 30 (written by a particularly manic Toshiki Inoue) have some degree of purpose to them. You'd basically never notice when someone else is writing if nobody told you.

I'd also like to take a second to give a bit of a mid-show report on my feelings towards Leangle, which I'm going to take the liberty of putting behind spoiler tags in case anyone cares. I know that's a bit much, and I'm pretty sure this is all stuff people know (and nothing too major), but on the off chance you don't know anything about Leangle, you're in the perfect position to enjoy his character and should probably go watch Blade immediately. Actually, you should do that anyway. But at any rate, Mukki, man. I love ya' and I hate ya'. You're one of the most unique extra Riders out there, with a cool and creative character concept of a hapless teenager who's essentially being worn by his own Rider belt instead of the other way around. How sweet is that? It's just so unlike anything else, and those aspects of Leangle, I genuinely find fascinating.

The problem is, I don't find Mutsuki himself fascinating, and I think I've finally nailed down why that is. He serves his role in the story way TOO well. His struggles become a huge focus of the show after he makes his debut, and the simple truth is they're less about him and more about making the overall drama level of the show higher while making the existing main cast look even better than they already do. Which means poor Mr. Strongest Rider is a total no-hoper when it comes to endearing himself to the audience. Sure, you can vaguely sympathize with his plight and all, but by design he's no real hero, and so he looks bad just for being normal, because the other Riders are all thoroughly reaping the benefits of early Blade's frantic pacing by this point. You care about Kenzaki because he's been jerked around by so many people and still manages to show unflinching faith in the goodness of people. Even when they aren't people. So when he starts showing that kind of faith in Mutsuki too, you're liable to care all the more about him instead of Mutsuki. Same deal for Tachibana. We see him in such an emotionally vurnerable position in the first dozen episodes that by the time he finally overcomes his issues to reemerge as Blade's reliable partner, we're extremely endeared to him. So when he goes out of his way to take Mutsuki under his wing, guess who we're more concerned with? Even Hajime is more likable despite being way more of a jerk because as a literal monster whose whole purpose in life is to fight, any sympathetic qualities at all from him are worth way more.

It's just not a fair fight. Maybe it's because I'm now aware of that, then, that I find myself enjoying Leangle a lot more this time around. Although I'm also at the part of Blade where he gets into his wannabe gang boss phase, so my newfound patience is liable to be stretched pretty thin. :lol

Oh, and before I forget to mention it again, the sound it makes whenever the Riders throw their cards to seal Undead is like, the best thing ever.

Also, in light of the last few episodes I watched, I might have to take back some of my initial praise for Excite!'s subs, but I'm not sure. There were a few lines I might have been the one misinterpreting, but one thing I do know is that they kept messing up characters talking about Chalice's cards in the plural. So consistently it almost made me think I'm the one making a mistake, but I'm absolutely positive I'm in the right here. Outside of those few specific instances, it's all been good though. It took until episode 20 for something to jump out as being wrong, and that was just the episode title card reading "Episode 2-", which, I mean, look at your keyboard. It's an easy mistake to make.

Everyone should stare in awe at King Form, yes. It's debut is one of my favourite episodes in all of Kamen Rider, but actually not even because of the form itself, but rather Kenzaki taking on the King Undead and winning through sheer grit in his base form.

Definitely. What's crazy though is that I remember Kenzaki's part in that episode and the ones leading up to it so fondly I forgot how many other things also happen around the same time. The show introduces the final form for its main hero while in the process of radically redefining the status quo of all the other Riders AND setting up a major new antagonist. I was watching the whole thing just kind of in awe of how much was happening.

Currently watching Ryuki and I am kinda confused why they are always listening to a Japanese news report done in English with a western accent. Like it seems so random.

https://i.imgur.com/UgdRzo4.jpg

Welp, I just finished Blade for the second time. Hoo boy, how I love this show.

My mind is a little blown by how well it holds up. I don't know what I was expecting, but it's just such a tight, engaging story. Basically everything established at the start comes back into play towards the end in a way that's insanely satisfying, which is extra impressive considering they're the work of two different writers. But no, even seemingly throwaway details like the media not reporting on the Riders' battles get explained way down the line.

Speaking of the Riders, that solid writing results in each of them having a very clearly defined arc, which is one of those things I pay a lot more conscious attention to nowadays and thus struck me on the rewatch.

Kenzaki is obviously just amazing. He's arguably the single most genuinely selfless Rider ever, but the way he's written keeps him grounded enough to still feel believable. Namely because he's kind of dumb. Like a lot of real people, he's not great with words and thus is incapable of giving self-righteous lectures to people. He doesn't even fully grasp his own motivation for fighting until halfway through the show. Instead, his heroism is conveyed mostly through his actions, and all throughout the show he keeps pushing himself further and further to help others against increasingly bad odds. Between that and the show establishing almost right away his unusually high compatibility with the Rider System, the conclusion to the series is essentially spelled out for the viewer before they could possibly grasp the significance. I don't even know if it counts as foreshadowing or not. The narrative just builds on itself, and it does it well.

Garren is also awesome. I've never actively considered Tachibana one of my favorites but every time I see an episode (or 49) of Blade, I can't help but question why that is. All of his plotlines hit the mark well, and his character might have the most depth out of anyone in the show. His character is so complex he's actually the in-universe first Rider despite being Blade's sidekick out of it. And also he's just one of BOARD's eggheads who was thrust into the role purely through circumstance in place of the original, intended guy. Needless to say, Tachibana has a lot going on, and while he isn't any sort of super scientist, being an intelligent guy does inform his personality in how much he overthinks stuff compared to the other Riders. He can't take the simple approach to life like Kenzaki, and is way thus way more prone to questioning things, which causes him a ton of anxiety throughout the show. But when he does make up his mind, he's undoubtedly a force to be reckoned with. His last stand of sorts in episode 47 is one of my favorite moments of the whole show. As is pretty much all of 15. Or any other number of awesome Garren moments. There's a lot of them.

Chalice is also great, but I struggle to go into depth about him when what makes him so likable is so self-evident. He takes a fairly stock character archetype and makes it work extremely well. The mysteries surrounding him drive a lot of the plot and like with Kenzaki, the show spends a lot of time early on giving you all the pieces to a puzzle you probably won't know you're supposed to be solving for a while. Ideally, anyway. I think the cat's pretty thoroughly out of the bag by this point, but even if you know what's coming, the process of getting there is a whole lot of fun.

Leangle was a surprise favorite of mine this time around. There's two major keys to this. First is that his tryhard bad guy dialogue is one of the areas where Excite! Subs shines. You just can't appreciate how adorably hilarious his dialogue is with decade-plus old TV-Nihon subs. I'd go around quoting stuff like "I'll show that damn clone a thing or two...!" if I could come up with enough excuses to. The other, way less ironic thing is that his arc was paced out way better than I remember it being. His character is pretty much constantly evolving right up until the very penultimate episode and none of his phases quite overstay their welcome in my opinion. And I mean, guys, come on, he's the Strongest Rider. How can you hate him? So what if they never added his Category Ace to the shots of the cards that open and close each episode? It not like that means he's weak or anything! Right?!

No but seriously, this whole revisit to Blade has been amazing. I could keep going on and talk about stuff like how much I love the varied personalities of all the high-ranking Undead, or how awesome the overlapping way plot threads are introduced and resolved is, but to keep things a lot shorter I'll sum it up by saying I can't wait to watch Blade again in another 8 years. You know, or sooner. Probably sooner.