https://media.discordapp.net/attachm...744&height=418
Same as before, it was great chatting with you Die! Blade getting two tributes must mean it's the best series, right?

Having done a little more thought about it, pretty much any other Riders would be identifiable to someone with a little knowledge. I suggested the Kabuto movie ones above, but they're still *very* Kabuto. Same with the Hibiki movie riders, and we already had the Ryuki ones, and pretty much every other movie Rider is a solo villain. The Missing Ace gang just happen to be nondescript enough to work stripped of any Blade context!

You know, I think you're right, aside from the most minor of card swipey noises. After last time, where they had Dark Kiva say "Gabu" every time he was on screen and nothing else, that's gotta be deliberate.

I guess it also feels more bearable here because there's an arc, a flow to it. Natsumi's flashbacks were just "Here's me. hanging out with my friends you've never met before" until it turned out her friends were evil. An interesting choice.

(Also, because I didn't leave a post for the Dark Rider episode, I'll do it now - who was taking the photos of the Dark Riders murdering the humans?)

At long last, the day has come! You mention my role as a translation cop, but neglect my true purpose!

Learning Ondul the Easy WEEEEEEI! (#EX)

https://i.imgur.com/6d8LWks.png
https://i.imgur.com/psuHiZ5.png

Today's lesson introduces us to a character so memetic, he transcends worlds. Junichi Shimura was Kamen Rider Glaive back in the Blade movie. Nobody really makes jokes about him. Junichi Kaitou was Kamen Rider Glaive, older brother of Kamen Rider Diend, in a weird pair of Decade episodes that tied the backstory of that show's secondary Rider together with alternate versions of characters from the Blade movie. People love making jokes about this Junichi. His immensely creepy fabricated smile earned him a spot in the elite club of Blade characters who have their own emoticons, with his being ( ^ U ^ ), which you may or may not see with those spaces.

While the smile alone would be enough, those couple of lines to his lil' bro (ii serifu da. kandouteki da na. daga muimi da.) were loaded with potential to be endlessly repurposed in different contexts, as well as being just kind of an amusing bit of dialogue to begin with. It has all the hallmarks of the greats of Ondul, and thus, this version of Junichi was promptly adopted into the language, becoming just as much of a fixture as anything from the original show.

And since he shows up so much, I actively held back on sharing a certain video back when we were actually going through Blade. So, now that we're taking this trip into Diend's world, I'm ready to present to you all the ultimate treasure of Ondul culture! When viral music medleys on Nico Nico Douga mix with memetic Blade quotes, the result is a work of true art of such depth and complexity that even I, in my years of study, have yet to fully comprehend its infinite beauty. All of these lessons were always to prepare you for this. Without further ado, here's Nanairo no Ondul Douga:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7DGqKYubsE

This is a great story that I find eminently relatable, considering I watched the entire Ghost/Ex-Aid movie -- before I watched any series besides Ex-Aid -- thinking Shinnosuke was a supporting character from Ghost. Sometimes these shows don't make it easy! Especially these episodes of Decade which, if memory serves, never even say the names of the world's Riders. With that sort of shine given to them, why would you assume they were from anything prior?

Oh, it's definitely the better of the two Inoue stories, both for sheer bravado (THE TYRANNY OF POLITENESS!) and for more direct and economical pacing. It's not a great two-parter, but it doesn't feel as aimless as a lot of the last story felt.

This one was so much fun to kick around that I honestly felt a little guilty, like it was going to end up being a post that only you and I enjoyed. I hope this arc's deconstruction/celebration/befuddlement was as fun to read as it was to make!

You are a treasure. Not just for that incredibly thorough contextualizing of a very strange performance, but for giving me a reason to post these two screencaps that I love like Kotaro loves milk, but could not find a way to use in the episode post:

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/decade/junichi1.png

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/decade/junichi2.png

(Also, a minor thing I saw on the Wiki when I was looking up info about what the hell Missing Ace's Riders were called: Larc wasn't named Haruka in Missing Ace, she was named Natsumi. Easy to see why they changed her name up for Decade!)

Blade... Blade is truly the gift that keeps on giving. I can't stand how much I love these

I don't know if I'm not reading into it enough, but I don't feel like, if talking about your threads, a lot of people intensely dislike it (there's someone like Kurona yeah, but dunno if 'a lot' fits). Like I said long ago, you and your opinions may (CMIIW) have a lot of weight in Tokunation board here as someone regarded as a KR expert, though by that I may underestimate your struggle in doing that, as I think difficulty of possessing an "unpopular opinion" is when you outright get bashed and ostracized by the community members, where you're the opposite. I mean, in the Kiva thread, even dreamcastegirl claims criticizing Inoue would mean trampling against everyone's feelings (dunno if that's probably joking, but I feel that part can be true even if it's joking, as mob mentality exists). T̶h̶o̶u̶g̶h̶ a̶l̶l̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶f̶o̶l̶l̶o̶w̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶a̶r̶e̶ ̶p̶r̶o̶b̶a̶b̶l̶y̶ ̶j̶o̶k̶e̶s̶,̶ ̶I̶ ̶d̶o̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶n̶k̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶"̶I̶n̶o̶u̶e̶ ̶F̶o̶r̶e̶v̶e̶r̶"̶ ̶c̶l̶a̶i̶m̶s̶ ̶c̶a̶n̶ ̶f̶e̶e̶l̶ ̶l̶i̶k̶e̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶c̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶o̶p̶i̶n̶i̶o̶n̶s̶,̶ ̶o̶r̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶s̶'̶d̶ ̶i̶m̶p̶l̶y̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶h̶e̶'̶s̶ ̶a̶b̶o̶v̶e̶ ̶c̶r̶i̶t̶i̶c̶i̶s̶m̶,̶ ̶i̶n̶c̶l̶u̶d̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶o̶u̶t̶r̶i̶g̶h̶t̶ ̶i̶g̶n̶o̶r̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶T̶s̶u̶r̶u̶g̶i̶'̶s̶ ̶d̶e̶m̶i̶s̶e̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶i̶t̶ ̶c̶a̶n̶ ̶s̶e̶e̶m̶ ̶l̶i̶k̶e̶ ̶a̶ ̶w̶r̶o̶n̶g̶ ̶e̶x̶c̶u̶s̶e̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶I̶n̶o̶u̶e̶ ̶w̶i̶l̶l̶ ̶n̶e̶v̶e̶r̶ ̶d̶o̶ ̶w̶r̶o̶n̶g̶ ̶(̶I̶'̶m̶ ̶f̶e̶a̶r̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶a̶ ̶t̶a̶l̶k̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶"̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶p̶r̶o̶d̶u̶c̶t̶i̶o̶n̶ ̶t̶e̶a̶m̶ ̶m̶u̶s̶t̶'̶v̶e̶ ̶s̶a̶b̶o̶t̶a̶g̶e̶d̶ ̶I̶n̶o̶u̶e̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶c̶r̶e̶a̶t̶e̶ ̶l̶e̶s̶s̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶n̶ ̶s̶a̶t̶i̶s̶f̶a̶c̶t̶o̶r̶y̶ ̶w̶o̶r̶k̶"̶ ̶o̶r̶ ̶a̶n̶y̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶k̶i̶n̶d̶ ̶c̶a̶n̶ ̶h̶a̶p̶p̶e̶n̶,̶ ̶e̶v̶e̶n̶ ̶i̶f̶ ̶i̶t̶'̶s̶ ̶a̶ ̶j̶o̶k̶e̶)̶. Not about KR, but I also have my personal attachment to something that I grew up with, but I won't give second thoughts criticizing them if they make a weird, utterly boneheaded decisions.

Yeah, you're not alone of not liking Complete Form, and for others iirc it's primarily the design compared to the base Decade. But power is what matters (for now)! The ability belies the appearence. There's also an particularly stand out example much later, but talking about that will be spoiler. I think I'd also even criticize the powers? Firstly, I'd say that calling out other Riders is something similar to Diend. But the particular resaon to me is how bland some of the finishers like Ryuki's one here. Not a Final Vent, not even a Shoot Vent, just an attack that is unrelated and significantly more lowkey, though it'd be practical for that situation against Ryuga (still Shoot vent also can work). The Hyper Kick is the same attack as the original, but... there were no Hyper Clock Up involved like Mishima's final battle in Kabuto. My personal artwork for Complete Form's finisher (that I wanted, ofc others can disagree for various reasons too):
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...883284/dcd.png

The TG Clubs in the world is murdered by the Dark Riders who assume their identity... Decade likes to revisit older part of the series, like using the character's powers, but this one's Worm's ability instead of anything the Dark Riders have? (I guess Ryuga and Dark Kabuto are evil counterparts of the main protagonists of the respective series, but this one's implementation is really the Worm's way of impersonating dead person). I guess Natsumi is, sentimental here that she found her true companions from back in the day, but I guess she's not 100% at fault here, others also can give better argument for her like to convince her that there are may be TG Club members in other, better world, but the Negative World Natsumi is... well... negative, just being mostly edgy.

I've been incredibly lucky to be able to enjoy shows with so many like-minded fans, but I am aware of how lucky that makes me. Even here, with fans of Faiz and Agito and Kiva, there's a sense that Inoue carries a lot of baggage with him. It never gets, like, hostile or anything, but we're all cognizant of Inoue's reputation, and the ways his work can be interpreted. He's a tricky creator to celebrate, even if there's no one to complain about it.

That art is great! Thanks for sharing it! I really like how you're incorporating so many other finishers into Decade's. Smart! Real smart!

And it’s etymology time again:

Jun’ichi Shimura -> Jun’ichi Kaitou (Kaitou = phantom thief)

Natsumi -> Haruka (Natsu = summer, Haru = spring)

So next time, you’re entering my house. And you’re currently three weeks too early for me to explain to you the backstory and who everyone is.

Destroying giant monsters is the Oni's specialty!

Uh, while I admit Shinkenger would be at least 22% cooler with ninjas, those kanji-faced colorful guys are actually samurai, the Samurai Sentai in fact, and have nothing to do with the katakana and hiragana-faced guys you'll probably be meeting next year. If you want a ninja Sentai, or rather the Ninja Sentai, go check out Kakuranger!

Ditto. It's only thanks to the wiki that I found out these guys were from a movie. This was my second recognition failure after mistaking Diend for being from Kamen Rider Faiz. Hell, I didn't even know this world was anything to do with Blade. Decade is good at giving spoiler-light introductions to past shows, but not so good at emphasizing the connections between those shows (or a movie in this case) and their corresponding non-Primary Riders.

I suppose this is the best opportunity I'm going to get to complain about the suit designs for Glaive, Larc and Lance. Two of them are literally just inverted repaints of each other and they all have that one eye which doesn't show any expression. Made it very hard to associate any kind of identity with them and I repeatedly forgot who was who and eventually stopped caring.

Probably didn't help that this is also my least favorite arc of the show. Not a bad arc, just meh, due to how much time it spends on Kaito's backstory despite that being pretty much forgotten and never brought up ever again. What was even the point of this arc? If that was Kaito's goal in this world, why was he wasting time collecting miscellaneous merchandise from other worlds? The problem here seems completely unrelated to his entire thing.

However, I can say one good thing about this arc and that was the awesome use of Kiva Emperor's Zanvat Slash by Decade Complete in the climax of Episode 22!

It's the most dreaded and despicable Rider of them all: Kamen Rider Dange!

Very bad*ss!

Neat! Thanks!

But... destroying that particular giant monster is Blade's specialty!

Please enjoy this sneak preview of the next three Decade stories, as I get basic elements of the tributes wrong and hope my co-hosts will pick up the slack. I'm looking forward to a lighter workload for the next couple weeks!

Definitely disappointing to see that Tsukasa's gift of pepper was of no use in the final battle against Fourteen. Pretty embarrassing oversight from the production team!