I was never able to finish the Eternal movie. Got really bored halfway, and wanted to get started on the next show I was planning on watching, which funnily enough was Faiz. Seems like I didn't miss much

Faiz HBV:

Man, this thing is straight up terrible. Way too much singing.

...

Nah, I'm just messing with you, Faiz's Hyper Battle Video is a legend. It's also something I didn't remember a thing about. That is, I recall the concept, but when it comes to what actually happens, it was all totally blank. It probably will be again soon enough, but at least this time I'll know why.

The entire video is paced out like a dream. It flows from beat to beat in a way that's just barely structured enough to actually make it more confusing than if it were completely random. It resembles a proper story, but it isn't one. We start out with Smart Brain trying to turn Japan into a musical with their fancy new boombox, a lot of distractions happen, and then Faiz defeats some Orphenochs with his fancy new boombox and everybody congratulates him for saving the day.

So, it probably shouldn't come as a surprise that at the end it turns out to actually be a dream. Takumi's dream, no less. I know it's probably unhealthy how much denial Takkun has going on, but honestly, it's hard to blame him for saying he doesn't have those after seeing this. Shinji just dreams about being friends with people and fighting evil, but this? Look, I'm no psychologist, alright? I'm not even gonna try and analyze what's going on here.

But it's definitely a good time. Is it the best Faiz thing ever? Not when Paradise Lost exists, it's not, but it's definitely up there.

https://i.imgur.com/hQql9eI.jpg

W HBV:

Double's Hyper Battle DVD, on the other hand, is basically just a compressed, slightly sillier than usual episode of the show. They didn't even do the gimmicky choose-your-own-adventure shtick that was standard at the time. Considering how good any random episode of Double is, I'm more than okay with this. There's not much to say about it, but it's consistently quite funny, and the only place where you'll get to see Shoutarou's discerning tastes when it comes to boiled eggs.

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

Oh, and I also watched the Gaia Memory Library Special, of course, but there's even less to say about that. It's not so much the other half of a two-in-one HBV, as it is exactly what it claims to be. A quick rundown of Double's various Memories and their abilities, that is both very concise and mixes in fun banter between Shoutarou and Philip.

W Net Movies:

These were hilarious as usual. The skits with Shroud and Akiko are something of a weak link, but all the rest are total winners. Jinno and Makura as mad scientists giving you the inside scoop on Gaia Memories! Kirihiko's futile struggle to avoid realizing that nobody cares about him, be it his wife who moved on immediately, or even his own mascot character! The main cast showing off their art skills! Isaka perving on Dopants... written directly by Riku Sanjou! In case you needed any more proof how much that man loves his job. Sanjou, that is. Although I guess it applies just as much to Isaka...

Well, you can all ponder the implications of that yourselves, because I'm calling this the end of the road. I've actually still got quite a few random bits of Double I'm planning on getting around to, but like, to be perfectly frank, there's no way I'm making a hard commitment to listening to like 8 hours of Wakana's Healing Princess and then explaining my thoughts on it. Odds and ends like that, I'd rather take completely casually. Either way, I'm out of things from Faiz and Double that pair nicely, so the gimmick this time is over.

So what did I learn from all this? Well, mostly what a nightmare old fansubs are. Everything else, I pretty much knew already. Faiz is great. Double is also great. I guess I don't actually have any kind of real conclusion to go out on this time. I did say upfront I wasn't going to try and be comprehensive. Well, maybe there is one other thing I learned, in that case.

I'm a little jealous of Shoutarou's writing talent.

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

If the future Seihou Faiz doesn't come with the sonic cannon we riot.

Honestly, my hopes for a Seihou Shinkkochou line is a figure of Chaco. For me, he was the real breakout character; and the real reason I'm not a fan of Faiz is that he never got a scene at the show's conclusion!

Been watching Zi-O episodes 1-6. I enjoy it so far, But I've only seen the 3 tribute arcs so far.

I love nerding out trying to recognize the episodes/fights from the original series where they diverge the timeline in Zi-O where they travel back to.

I also appreciate how in the Faiz episode, there was an attempt to recreate the style of Faiz's look/cinematography from back then.

Isn't Takumi supposed to be dead after Kamen Rider 4? And so isn't Kusaka after Super Hero Taisen GP? I guess with Time Travel, it's possible that intervention during the main series caused this

If I remember correctly, the justification is that when an Another Rider is created during the year the Kamen Rider was created, the Another Rider overwrites the Kamen Rider's timeline, undoing everything that happened in the show

I liked Zi-O as well, I'm always surprised when I see criticism of it because at least it was better than Decade!

I still preferred Decade, but Zi-O was a lot of fun

Heisei Generations Forever.

God damn this movie's plot is a hot mess. The time travel stuff was fine, it's just the world hopping stuff makes my god damn head spin.

I'm glad the movie didn't entirely center around a kid again like many other Rider movies. He's more of a means to an end and not the main focus of everything all the time.

God damn, since we got so much stuff brought over from this movie into Zi-O proper (Another Double, Another Den-O, Double armor), really makes me wish they could have brought over Tid. Maybe not for the whole series, but it would be cool to see a Another Kuuga humanoid suit fighting Zi-O.

So, the world this movie takes place in is "Reality", where Kamen Rider is just a TV show, despite the fact that the Aruto summons an Imagin, an entity from that fictional reality, to do so? Or how that Tsukyomi and Geiz travel back to the year 2000 where there's Riku's corpse and a real Kuuga despite Riders being fictional in this universe? I know the plot is about the Riders being erased, but why do they keep reaffirming even after all the revelations that this world id "the real world". Whatever

They never really make clear how the world layout works in this movie. If they had just said, "X world is where the Riders are real, Y world is where the Riders are fictional, and stated which realities they were traveling back in time into, I wouldn't have as much a problem.

Also, insanely cool to see Woz access the GaiaLibrary for the one scene

It sucks that this movie is the best Kuuga tribute we could have gotten without anyone from the OG cast back. Although, Kuuga armor I think is by far the best looking Rider Armor, so I'd say that may be a good enough tribute for me personally.

I still love this one. Ignoring the last ~10 minutes with the forced fight, this is one of the crossover films that really got good mileage out of the returning characters. The Takumi/Keisuke stuff, in particular, really worked for me.

This one I liked a lot less. Properly using the Black/RX transition was a nice touch, but the only thing about this film that left a lasting impression on me was the intrinsically goofy Hitler Youth Go-Kart Team.

That was the rule for the first half of the show. Then the writers got bored of it and went with more conventional team-up cameos.

Haven't seen Zi-O yet, but count me in for the camp that doesn't like Decade. It'd be kinda hard for Zi-O to be worse, IMO.

I've been out of the game for a few years on Toku stuff and just binge watched Zi-O.

I always said when Decade is involved you can throw continuity out of the window. And I was right. Just like Decade, someone took the plot of Zi-O and used a drill multiple time on it.

And whats up with the writers on the show? So someone thought it's a awesome idea for Decade to have a Zi-O card and Zi-O Have a Decade Watch? That's like writing one of the most powerful Kamen Riders ever!

Like Decade, I'll make Zi-O separate from the rest of the series and be it's own thing. I did enjoy the show though with all it's faults.

Why does Tskuyomi wear such ugly outfits? No seriously, most of them just look terrible.

To try and distract people from Geiz's awful tactical dickey.

My personal headcanon is that Tsukyomi wears all these outfits because in 2068, humanity doesn't have a lot of the luxuries they have in 2018. One of those things is nice clothing. So when Tsukyomi travels back in time, she takes full advantage of the past's luxuries.

Me, half a month ago:

Me, shortly thereafter:

https://i.imgur.com/deK0MOm.jpg

So, uh, it turns out I actually really loved listening to Wakana's Healing Princess. Emphasis on listening, though. This is one of the joys of going back to stuff I watched really early on after getting into toku. At the time, I probably just took a glance at the first episode of it in TV-N's batch, went "I don't get it" and then moved on. But now that I'm actually in more of a position to enjoy these things directly, I had so much fun, I'm now convinced episode 49 of Double is the real tragic ending. Philip's cool and all, but he never had a radio show, let alone one with 130% enthusiasm.

Not like that even matters, though, when it was already ended to match up with the point Wakana switched careers in Double itself. Which is a shame! I joked like the amount we got was overkill, but right now I don't feel like I could ever get enough of Rin Asuka constantly tripping over her words in the most adorable manner possible while occasionally playing an insert song or two. Did you know Finger on the Trigger had a sweet acoustic version? Because I don't think I did all these years, and that's just one more thing it turns out I was really missing in life.

One other thing I've been watching since finishing the series proper that I want to talk about is the Delusion Diaries. Not the actual skits, though. Don't get me wrong, they're the usual amount of extremely funny for W, but the actual meat of them, which I don't think has been subbed, is the talk show bits in the middle where the main cast sit down and chat for around 15 minutes at a time about the episodes. I've always had a fairly strong interest in behind the scenes content like this, and between these and the straightforward making of documentaries for Movie War 2010 and the W Returns movies, there are a lot of fun tidbits of information to be found.

Something about knowing Ren Kiriyama wore a blue shirt in episodes 5 and 6 because it was Trigger's debut and that was his favorite of Double's Memories (being the man of culture he is) really enhances my enjoyment of the show. As does knowing he's the one who came up with the choreography for the goofy little dance Shoutarou and Philip do in their seats at the start of episode 13, which I think really goes to prove my point about how good he is at being expressive. There's also things you actually could gleam from the show itself, but are unlikely to, such as the fact that Philip and Kirihiko were apparently never onscreen together right up until a single brief scene after Nasca's fight with FangJoker at the start of 18. Or how Koichi Sakamoto feels the need to make everything so intense that, when Akiko hits Makura with her usual slipper in 21, she does a full 360 degree spin in the process.

Speaking of directors, that's actually my big takeaway from the whole thing. I really have a newfound appreciation for just what a collaborative process making a series is. I have a tendency to just assume everything is in the script if it doesn't involve an explosion or a clever bit of camerawork, but the impression I got is that all these guys do a lot of work, even when it doesn't have the immediate impact or style a guy like Sakamoto brings to the table. Did you know the big scene in episode 48 was originally written so that it would just be Double in the suit talking to himself? Because it blew my mind to find out that masterpiece of a scene was in large part thanks to Hidenori Ishida deciding it simply made more sense to have Shoutarou and Philip properly onscreen. Mind you, with how talented Seiji Takaiwa is, I don't doubt he would've made the original idea work, but I think the results here speak for themselves. Apparently quite a few people were crying on the set, too, up to and including Kazu's actor, Gong Teyu, allowing Kiriyama to succintly sum up the emotional impact of that scene by remarking that even the final boss was tearing up.

Ishida is so dedicated to getting the most out of his actors, that when filming episode 25, he imitated a little girl throwing a tantrum on the floor to give an idea of what sort of performance he was looking for. It just goes to show how much thought can go into even the most minor seeming things. There was also a bit in the making-of for Movie War 2010 that stuck out to me, where Ryuuta Tasaki specifically directs Kiriyama to run his finger along the spot on his hat where the hole in Soukichi's would be when talking with Philip about people allegedly coming back from the dead. I can only assume that's something he came up with himself, but regardless, it adds a lot of extra punch to a simple, early scene that can get away without having any.

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

Kamen Sentai Gorider Episode 1

Why are the tie ins like Kamen Rider 4 and this so damn good compared to the movies they're promoting. It's weird watching this due to the slower pace and the lack of high octane energy, but I like it a lot. Reminds me a lot of Phase 1 Heisei were there was only 1 fight and episode and tons of dialogue. Seeing all the old returning Riders is great even if I haven't seen Agito.

But what has me most fascinated is the implications of the 2nd major revelation the characters make on Kamen Rider Blade's lore. So Kenzaki says that since he's the Joker Undead now, he's about as good as dead. At first, I thought this was an easy way to include Kenzaki into the "dead riders" category given the actors available, but then I started thinking. So when Kenzaki turns into a Joker Undead at the end of Blade, this special implies that instead of Kenzaki being some human-undead hybrid, Kenzaki the man died and now we see the Joker with his memories/persona wandering the world with Kenzaki's face? That adds a whole new layer of tragedy to his character then.

And this also implies that when he showed up in Decade, it wasn't actually him, but the Joker assuming his form?

[/QUOTE]But what has me most fascinated is the implications of the 2nd major revelation the characters make on Kamen Rider Blade's lore. So Kenzaki says that since he's the Joker Undead now, he's about as good as dead. At first, I thought this was an easy way to include Kenzaki into the "dead riders" category given the actors available, but then I started thinking. So when Kenzaki turns into a Joker Undead at the end of Blade, this special implies that instead of Kenzaki being some human-undead hybrid, Kenzaki the man died and now we see the Joker with his memories/persona wandering the world with Kenzaki's face? That adds a whole new layer of tragedy to his character then.

And this also implies that when he showed up in Decade, it wasn't actually him, but the Joker assuming his form? [/QUOTE]

I think Kuroto is simply lying Kenzaki hasn't been taken over by the Joker he's simply been infused with Undead DNA making him a half-hybrid.

As for Decade it actually been retcon that the Kenzaki and Wataru from Decade are from A.R Worlds.

https://www.kamen-rider-official.com.../character/275

https://www.kamen-rider-official.com.../character/273

I only watched Episode 1. Now that I've watched 2 and 3, now I get it.

Fourze 23-24

So yeah, work kinda kicked my ass this fall. I wasn't even able to keep up with new shows for awhile there, much less a rewatch. Things are getting less crazy now, though, so back it is once again space time.

I thought I remembered this Cygnus arc, but I seem to have gotten it somehow mentally merged with the Nao Nagasawa one. Mostly, I just remembered the way the cast pronounced "Cygnus." What we actually got here was another pretty good two-parter. Once it got going I recognized the Cygnus fanboy in his dollar store cosplay, but I completely forgot the arc's major plot twist. It's a cool concept, having a switcher who's unaware he's doing it. In hindsight, Fourze included a good range of characters who became Zodiarts in a variety of different ways and for different reasons.

Not much more to say, though. This was pretty much a classic filler arc with no new villains, no new character developments, and no advancement on any of the show's ongoing storylines. We got to see Tomoko and Ryusei hanging out together, but there's no sign of the crush that would later define their relationship yet.

Episode 23 saw the debut of the Giant Foot switch. Back when Fourze was airing I listened to the now defunct Henshin Justice podcast. One of their hosts speculated that Kengo's father was starting to die from oxygen deprivation while designing the Astro Switches, which explains why they get increasingly ludicrous as the show goes on. Giant Foot isn't a third arm growing off the leg, but it's still incredibly goofy.

Has Yuki gone crazy yet? Nope. She's still acting like a rational human being here.

Fourze 25-26

The graduation/prom arc, wherein the Kamen Rider Club must face the reality of losing two of their members while the show must justify keeping the whole cast intact.

I actually really like this two-parter. The Zodiart is pretty underdeveloped and her plan to trick people into thinking that older Zodiarts are back leads to some nice cameos, but not a lot more. Oh, and inconsistent translation of the constellation names, I suppose. No, the main focus of this arc was on the characters. Miu and Shun are about to graduate and they're having trouble. Miu is quietly freaking out about the prospect of the KRC continuing on fine without her and Shun is freaking out because Miu won't go to prom with him (as a side note, even if I didn't think "promposals" were stupid, I would still find Shun's ideas increasingly idiotic - what was he even going to do in a clown suit?). This leads to a lot of good character moments, especially if you've been a long-time Gentarou/Miu shipper. The show really pulls out a lot of stops to say farewell to these characters... only to reveal at the end that they're still going to be in the KRC. It's a cute ending, though, and it doesn't feel like it invalidates the build-up.

The other big thing about this arc is that episode 26 features the series debut of the Rider Girls. The Rider Girls, if you're newer to Kamen Rider, is an idol group that Toei put together to promote Kamen Rider. Their main gimmick was that each one wore a Rider belt and dressed in colors vaguely related to their respective Rider. They did a cover of the original show's theme song, contributed songs to a couple of Rider movies, and made a guest appearance in this episode to sing a song for the AGHS prom. And then they more or less disappeared. I looked them up awhile ago and apparently they're still a thing, although I don't know if they've contributed to anything official for Kamen Rider in years. I assume they just do birthday parties and mall openings now. I didn't like their song back when this first aired and my opinion of it has not changed.

Has Yuki gone crazy yet? No, but she has begun flailing around more when she speaks. That's probably not a good sign.

The KRG did an insert for Ex-Aid most recently (I think, for a show), though with how little play inserts get these past several series I can’t blame you for missing it. They also did vocals for some of Ex-Aid’s bgm iirc, though that was only in the series OST. They still pop up in Rider song collections with their covers often, and they’ve done the theme song for a couple of Rider mobile games (the latest of which I only know about because avex put it out on their Youtube page a few weeks back). Unexpectedly, they’re still hanging in there.

I was just surprised to find out they’re still around (as a group - the membership has changed and only one or two singers are from the original line-up). Toei pushed them really hard back around the time OOO-Wizard were airing but not as much since. I’d assumed that the whole enterprise was shut down at some point.

Fourze 27-28

I first watched this show as it originally aired, week to week. You really do get a different experience when watching it more quickly. I remember Cancer being around for ages when I first watched the show. Going back, I see now that he really wasn't. These episodes mark both his seventh and eighth episodes as well as his departure from the series. He really is a much more minor character than I'd remembered. Not that I'm still not glad to see him gone, though. He wasn't around as long as I'd thought he was, but he is still really obnoxious.

This was mainly a Ryusei arc and it culminated in the debut of Meteor Storm, aka Kamen Rider Beyblade. It's not my favorite suit and I think the weapon is dumb, but it's miles ahead of the next suit that will be showing up in a few episodes. We're still dealing with Ryusei hiding his identity, but we got some good moments with him starting to gain some more affection for the rest of the KRC. Tomoko is showing a lot more interest in him at this point, so I think we can consider that storyline to be officially started.

And now, speaking of things that debuted this episode:

Has Yuki gone crazy yet?

In episode 27, Yuki makes a giant stew for her friends which is full of giant planet-shaped balls. She serves it while wearing an inflatable shuttle on her head. In episode 28, her attempt to make Kijima laugh involves dressing up as the solar system and telling planet puns. There's still no Hayabusa puppet, so we aren't quite at peak Yuki yet, but the answer is still yes.

Yes, Yuki has finally gone crazy.

Kamen Rider Ghost 1-20 + Movies

So, almost halfway through Ghost and... I like it. I'm enjoying Takeru, I like his positivity and outlook, never wrong with a little more positivity in your characters. I also like the design of Ghost though I wish they used the base form more often, the color orange is vastly underused in tokusatsu in general and the fact that they switched him up to a bright, shiny red bummed me out, especially so close to Drive. Minor gripe, though.
Really like the gimmick as well which is a bit surprising since I typically loathe them but the jacket changing is pretty neat even if it does leave Ghost without a solid base form.
The supporting cast is really nice too, really appreciate Onari and Akari, they have great chemistry and back and forth which is adorable. Still not sure about Makoto, he's sort of become the "We're way outnumbered, never mind, here's Spectre"-backup but doesn't seem to factor into the plot all that much anymore. Still, half a series to go so that might change a whole lot. As for Alain... well... haven't really seen enough of him yet but he seems to have a pretty obvious arc laid out so it'll be interesting to see if it plays out as I think.

Loved Kamen Rider Ichigou too, great flick. Love it when they dig up stuff from the past, including the suit.

Anyway, loving it so far.

Well, I finished Kiva recently, thought it was okay at best. The only Heisei series I've yet to finish is Hibiki. But there are factors that stop me from continuing.

1. The infamous staff change over starting at Ep 30.
2. I found it a bit boring with the slice of life aspect of the show.

If that's the case you might be one of the few who actually prefers the second half to the first.

Fourze 29-30

By this point I think there's something about me that I've made very clear on this site. There is a specific vein of comic relief in tokusatsu that I hate. Aggressively, viscerally hate. I hate rubber-faced mugging into the camera. I hate screaming as a punchline. I hate spastic flailing around. My thoughts on characters like Shunpei, half of Drive's cast, and Satan... er, Onari... are very well documented at this point. So what I'm going to say next is probably going to be a surprise to some of you:

I freaking love Ohsugi. Yes, he is everything I hate in comic relief characters personified, and there is no place where that's on more display than these two episodes. I can't help it, though, I just really like the guy. I'm not sure why I like Ohsugi so much when I'd happily watch Onari die in a fire. Maybe I feel like it's less forced with Ohsugi; like he's not doing it intentionally, he's just helplessly pathetic and goofy. With Onari, it usually felt like he was actively going out of his way to put himself in ridiculous situations, Ohsugi seems more like he's trying to be serious and just failing at it catastrophically. I don't know. In any case, this is the arc where he finds out the truth about the KRC and joins up. There's a lot of bad slapstick and mugging to the camera and I'll be damned if I didn't kinda love it.

This arc also introduced Ran and Haru, the two junior members of the KRC. The show really goes out if its way to develop them, especially Ran. Naturally, like Genatrou's new homeroom teacher before them, they disappear after this episode. That feels as weird now as it did at the time. I almost feel like the show might have kept them around if they had the budget for two more characters - or if Miu and Shun were really written out. I know they show up again at some point and Ran turns out to be one of the Horoscopes - I want to say Pisces? One of the fish ones. Still, it's a little disappointing that they aren't at least a recurring presence.

The show's opening credits is partially given over to Super Hero Taisen footage now. I've decided that I'm going to skip that one. Yes, Fourze is technically in it, but only for a few minutes. The rest of the movie is just Joe and Daiki pouting because their boyfriends are fighting while Shoji Yonemura Plot #1 (of 1) runs in the background. I don't hate myself enough to sit through that again; not for a few minutes of inconsequential Fourze content, at least.

Having watched a bunch of Rider summer moves in rapid succession, I've decided they're all fun and neat spectacles with serviceable one-in-done plots. A highlight from each of them:

OOO Wonderful: The first Rider movie I ever saw, but that didn't actually make it any particularly memorable compared to others. Fourze's appearance in this movie is the best done of those kinds of cameos though. The big climax with all the combos together feels like it is trying hard to be Den-O but with nowhere near the amount of investment or excitement.

Fourze Uchu Kita: Why was Meteor Fusion not an actual Fusion between Gentaro and Ryusei? Anyhow, I really liked seeing the entire Kamen Rider Club take part in this ridiculous sci-fi mission, and I genuinely love the sequence of all the various minor characters from the show helping Fourze by counting down from 40.

Wizard in Magic Land: Does it count as an AU film if its about the characters themselves travelling to another world? Anyhow, the magic king character wanted to kill everyone because he's the only one who can't use magic, and yet I think I was suppose to feel bad for him when he is 'betrayed' by Sorcerer. He really should have been the main villain to begin with... The final fight between Wizard and Sorcerer was cool though, and surprisingly restrained in terms of special effects compared to most movie climaxes! You'd think being a Wizard movie, it would want to go all out with the flashiness, but I'm more than fine with this.

Gaim Golden Fruits Cup: The soccer AU stuff is so stupid and I'm conflicted about the fact that it just goes away really abruptly when Malus enters the scene. On one hand, it would have been hard to take anything seriously if they kept it up. On the other hand, I wouldn't have mind if the entire movie was a goofy sports movie featuring the Armoured Riders. As it is, its just tonally weird and the climax with all the riders (well, all of them minus Duke and Sigurd and plus one extra Kurokage [why]) kicking around an energy ball just didn't... score with me, sadly.

Drive Surprise Future: Honestly way cooler a movie than I remembered. I've always felt like Drive's action sequences had more of a focus on exciting melee compared to most, and this movie is full of it, mixed in with a lot of deft-defying shots thanks to a movie budget. Dark Drive is a straightforward but really cool-looking villain (and I guess he had to become the Paradox Roidmude because they only had the one undersuit for Type Special?). I only wished the movie had shifted away even more from the future stuff, and leaned towards more to be about Shinnosuke and Krim. Krim saying the 'take you for a spin catchphrase' and them both saying 'Nice Drive' at the end were really sweet touches.

Finished Decade sometime around last year, and... whew, what a mess. I can't remember the last show I've watched, KR or otherwise, that left this many holes and unresolved plot threads. I proceeded immediately after to watch the two movies (All Riders vs. Dai Shocker and Rider War) that were supposed to fill in the gaps, and ended up being even more confused and underwhelmed.

I couldn't care less about Dai Shocker and every villain that shows up here, everyone's motivation and backstory were all over the place, and basically there were just so many why's and pointless characters (Narutaki being the most obvious). I actually didn't mind the AR concept and not being able to have most original characters/actors back, but the AR episodes are mostly bland at best and extremely nonsensical at worst. It may actually be better to watch Decade without the frame of reference for the previous KR shows, just so you wouldn't be dismayed over weird knock-off version of your favorite shows/characters.

It's not all bad. Tsukasa was occasionally entertaining, even with the cognitive dissonance when he goes all "aight I spend most of this two-parter acting like a snarky douche, now lemme give the obligatory love and friendship speech to wrap things up!" I didn't mind AR Kuuga/Yusuke, and I liked Kamen Rider Kiva-la's movie appearance and role (they really should've featured her in the series proper, so Natsumi wouldn't just be your token girl character/forgettable bystander). The Hibiki episodes aren't half bad and made me decided to check out the actual show.

For a show that's so heavy on crossover and callbacks, it's a bit ironic that my favorite episodes are the mostly stand-alone Negaworld one, which gave a strong Twilight Zone-esque vibe. The image of AR Natsumi continuing to fight on and fend for herself in this desolate nightmarescape reminded me of the Future Trunks saga in Dragon Ball, an uncompromisingly bleak chapter that left strong impression in an otherwise uplifting, all's-well-that-ends-well, show.

Overall, easily the worst of KR I've seen, though I'm glad I got this one off the list early. Still many more to go!

As someone who watched Decade when Ryuki was the only pre-Decade show I had seen in full, I can actually verify this. The weird lawyer shtick in that show's arc was extremely off-putting to me at the time, but I largely enjoyed all the other AR worlds.

Decade is a definitely a show you have to accept for what it is if you want to enjoy it. It's a roller coaster ride that I think genuinely nailed the "event" feel it was going for in a lot of ways (even bringing to life fandom wish-list type stuff like a Black/Black RX teamup and Rising Ultimate Kuuga), but if you watch it expecting some kind of cohesive story, you're going to be disappointed. It's a show with a very particular flavor that just won't click with everyone.

I personally love Decade, but in the way that I accept that from every objective standpoint it's a completely irredeemable mess. But goddamn, it's a fun mess!

Personally, I feel like they could've done the AR stuff while still honoring what made the various characters great in the first place. Onodera being literally nothing like Godai is of course the obvious example; I wouldn't have minded so much had Onodera had atleast a couple more of Godai's' redeeming qualities, but no.

There are shows I dislike more than Decade, but I'm not a fan. One of the only alternate riders I thought was OK was Blade, but other than that I don't know why they thought we wanted to see their fan fiction! The version of Kiva was particularly bad, I was disappointed Zi-O still didn't really do it properly but at least they did better than that! I find both Den-O and Decade overrated and I preferred Kiva to both unfortunately, which most people disagree!

Finished Kamen Rider Ghost, movies and all. And it was... fine? It lagged a bit in the second half but overall I really liked it. I wish they played around more with the ghost concept and some of the character resolutions was a bit... underwhelming. But overall it was good.

I got a little derailed the past month or two between Christmas, and birthdays, and politics, and... alright, it was mostly Pokémon and Fire Emblem. But either way it's been a while since I really continued Blade, and so yesterday and today I ended up binging through almost the entire back half. I'm finally finished Blade.

... It was pretty good! From what I've heard, I imagine my criticisms aren't too contrarian; the show around the middle was a little... uh, middling; and the Mutsuki stuff went on WAY too long. I loved when Tachibana took him under his wing because it was a great dynamic that showed development and the dude's a surprisingly good teacher; and then you mix in Shima who surprised me in how much I liked him and there was promising stuff but then for some reason they decided to just repeat the first part of his development until the last minute and... uh, right, I started this off saying Blade was really good. And that's because it was! Those two things aside, it's not top 5 or anything for me but it's certainly a wonderful series to go out on. Despite the direction change about halfway through, the series still felt very consistent and organic in how it handled all its concepts and like Drive I felt it had a great mix between serialised and motw storytelling; there's always something progressing even in the slower episodes and you've got a cast that is so easy to fall in love with. Even when I felt the series was meandering a little with, say, Kenzaki and Hajime; it comes swinging out of left field with huge development for the both of them before centering the entire series around them! It's awesome just how much I came to love the two and how much I came to cheer for them. I'm very much a rambler so I apologise for this not being laid out very well, but overall I hope this conveys the sense that I really, really liked Blade!



But it's not just Blade alone I finished tonight. There's a couple miscellaneous things left; in particular Hidden Ace and the recently-subbed Grease movie, but in terms of the series themselves? It's been a wild ride these past 2 years, but I've finally finished all 20 Heisei Riders. And that was great.

There's been some lows, absolutely. I can't quite get into Ghost overall, for instance, and Ryuki unfortunately wasn't my thing either. But even for those series that I disliked, there was generally always something there -- something about Heisei Rider that just really struck a chord with me. That relentless heroism; the faith in humanity; that overwhelming good will topped off by monsters getting beaten up by dudes in bug suits.
This was just something I absolutely needed. In a lot of media I've seen and read and etc for the past decade or so, a lot of it has just been dredged in pessimism or irony poisoning or being self-referential to such a ridiculous degree that it's difficult to get anything genuine or optimistic out of it. I'm not saying this to drag any one particular piece of fiction (we NEED media that's very pessimistic, for instance; it is important to have shows and books and games that explore the darkest parts of our reality), but just that as a general trend it's been hard to find anything that's both unapologetically fun and which I can connect with. And then I watched Fourze. And as you might guess for watching the other 19 series surrounding it for 2 years, I kinda jibed with it. Here was a show that was just so extremely silly at all times and yet was absolutely high on emotion. Here was a show where the main hero is a punk wearing a rocket-shaped helmet that still extolled the virtues of love and compassion over all else. Here was a show with a main character premise so dumb as someone who wants to be friends with literally every single person in school, and yet still managed to slip in questions about the extents of altruism and how far you can go for your friends.

Now not every Heisei Rider has been capable of this for me. There is one in particular that I have just come to hate in its entirety, and I'm sure if you search through my posts long enough you'll find which one that is. But I'm not here to tear that one down. I'm not here to trash a show people might love for no reason when no-one asked; I don't need to when there's so much else to love -- but my point is that even when Kamen Rider has such a huge low for me, just about everything else has been just what I wanted. Maybe I'm reading too much into a show for kids made to sell toy belts that scream if you so much as look at them funny, but I can't ignore what shows like OOO and Kuuga have done for me in making me feel like my faith in humanity in love isn't misplaced even when there's things out there that can utterly destroy you; or how much Den-O and Fourze made me laugh and cry in equal measures; or how Build and Blade made me question things. And I certainly can't end off such a marathon without writing something to say how much I've loved it all.

I just fucking love Kamen Rider.

"Might"?

Either I missed you taking potshots at Kabuto or something, or you're trying to spare my feelings. :lol

I really empathize with you on the rest of that post though. Especially the bit about Fourze. Since I got into Rider during OOO, Fourze was my first "new" show, that I was around from the announcements and the rumors and everything leading up to the start, and the whole time, I was madly in love with it. It was the kind of ray of sunshine that you could only get out of a hero specifically and directly created with the intent of making people smile (in response to the 2011 Tohoku earthquake), and while there ended up being a lot of Rider series that are more consistently on my mind than it, I honestly believe Fourze had an immeasurable impact on making me the optimistic person I generally try to be. There's something so sincere about that show that makes it hard not to want to, I guess live up to the standard of a guy like Gentarou.

Of the Rider shows I've seen so far(All of Phase 1 Heisei, half of Showa, W and OOO), the only one I've actually disliked so far is Decade. Certain seasons have definitely been weaker than others, yeah, but I atleast found enough stuff to like about most of them to keep me going.

So, funny thing: it's not actually Faiz. Overall I didn't like it, but I don't hate it and there's still things about it I enjoy (Auto-Vajin is still the best Rider)

Hell yeah! Even looking past it being my first (though that still kiiiiinda factors into why I rank it so high), I have a lot of respect for what Fourze did -- while it's not like W and OOO didn't set the stage in this respect, Fourze was really what pushed modern Rider forward into being a lot more bright and colourful and just fun overall. Even taking Den-O into account and how a lot of these shows like Agito and Decade are actually fun underneath their grungy appearance, Fourze went just all-in on this and really set us up for Drive and Ex-Aid and Wizard. Heck, Gaim probably would have been a thousand more depressing if it hadn't come after Gentarou loving his friends 24/7.

And likewise, Fourze kind of set the stage for me as well. I'd marathoned a lot of Sentai seasons beforehand (Gokaiger through Kyuranger) but I really found that Rider's way of doing things just absolutely got me.

All this talk about the bright ray of sunshine and beacon of friendship that Gentaro is makes me suddenly a lot more nostalgic for Fourze than I usually am.

Also Kurona, congrats on finishing all twenty (time break!) heisei shows. Maybe one day the franchise will tackle vampires and monsters again but with a different, better direction...