So with Switchblade formally withdrawing from rewatching Super Hero Taisen as part of going back through Fourze, I figured I'd do my part to keep the experience complete and rewatch it for everyone. I mean, I haven't seen it since it got subbed, but, hey, what's the worst that could happen, right?

Well, it didn't literally kill me, so that's a positive.

I was bored out of my mind though. It actually gave me a newfound appreciation for Chou Super Hero Taisen, which was at least fun to roast, an experience I was hoping to repeat here, but man, this movie is so dull. The direction is utterly lifeless for the most part, a common complaint I remember not understanding back in the day, but now that I've had years to develop a better sense of this stuff, oh man does it look bland. There are probably Hyper Battle Videos out there with more dynamic cinematography. And that story! I'm not even gonna try and comment on it, except to say that this movie's greatest legacy for me personally will always be cementing in my mind that Kaitou is definitely in love with Tsukasa. The whole thing is just such a mess. It's like the magnum opus of the bizarre genre of cynical nostalgia Toei had going with Rider for so long where I guess, as fans, we're supposed to be excited when a suit we know gets slaughtered with as much dignity as the average Sentai mook.

I think the most fun I had was hearing Meteor transform for the first time in a while. It slipped my mind just how groovy that music is. The fun got cut short when I realized how much more fun it would've been to just have a proper Fourze/Go-Busters crossover instead. Imagine the chemistry there! Gentarou could get himself wrapped up in some Vaglass plot and have to work with the Busters, and the whole time Youko would be all like "are we sure this guy's brain works right?", and Hiromu would just be actively insulted at the notion of having to work with some random punk high-schooler, saying nothing but constantly giving him dirty looks. Then Ryuuji would be desperately trying to keep the peace, while secretly being the most flustered of anyone by Gentarou's youthful exuberance, because Ryuuji is an old man who can't keep up with the kids these days.

I mean, I think there's potential there, anyway. But I guess having them on-screen together for maybe a minute or two tops is just as good, right?

Wait wuh-

Oooooohhh, that frequently despised Inoue show, I get it. Still, definitely some people out there (and around here!) who love Kiva. I think I'm one of them, but Kiva is also my favorite Rider show to make fun of, so I'm not sure that counts.

For me, I felt Kiva was pretty solid during both the first and last acts, but man, that middle chunk is definitely tough to get through. I don't hate it, but I can see why some people would.

I wasn't skipping it to pass the buck to somebody else. I would never recommend watching this movie to anybody, and I'm posting this now so Fish's future therapists can't blame me for this decision.

Fun Fact about me: Not counting miscellaneous Power Rangers episodes from my childhood and that one time I watched RPM, Super Hero Taisen was the first Toku thing I watched.

It was an... interesting introduction.

You know what's funny? I know about the reception about Faiz and Kiva, and watched them with zero expectations and ended up not hating it. Though I can see how terrible it is.

I would say Kiva is better than Faiz though. Faiz had that horribly rushed finale that could've easily been 2-3 episodes.

Ugghhh I remember hyping up the movie because not only it's an official Super Sentai and Kamen Rider crossover but also brought back Decade, whom back then was still under scrutiny.

It doesn't help that this movie had a very weak action scenes, even the hyped up Decade vs Gokai Red felt so.....tired, lazy and amateurish.

I watched the SD Kamen Rider anime OVA earlier today, and boy was that a riot. I loved almost every second of it. It really makes me wish that there were more Kamen Rider-related anime out there. I think the only other one is the Imagen short-form series, right?

Highly recommended

No, it's okay. I take full responsibility for my actions. Besides, I'm actually feeling way better already! whydidn'tIjustwatchMegaMaxagain I watched the Net Movies for SHT and it cheered me right back up! can'tbelievethosemoviesonlycameoutlikethreemonthsapartwhatadowngrade I had forgotten all about them, but they're probably some of the funniest Net Movies out there, with some really inspired jokes. SHTisthebiggestjokethough There's fewer segments, that in exchange run longer, so the result is something a little more focused, while still being totally wild. Having Eitoku get arrested for trying to murder Seiji Takaiwa (which Ninja Red was real upset about for some reason) because he was jealous of not playing lead Riders is probably the best part. Not only does it explain why Jun Watanabe played Beast the next year, there's now the extra irony that Yuuya Nawata actually did work his way up the ladder from Geiz to Zero-One. All the bits are pretty great, though. An entire segment dedicated to Urataros and Naurtaki breaking Gokai Silver's fanboy heart by explaining "adult circumstances". Finding out the Go-Busters are horrible detectives. Good stuff! I had a really good time! unlikewithSHT

I'm so sorry.

ZI-O Over Quartzer. Honestly one of the worst Toku movies I have ever watched and I've seen the Taisen movies

the movie does raise a metric crap ton of questions though given some of the riders that appeared and some forms of certain riders/chracters

I decided to start rewatching Blade, this time using Turn Up Scrubs translation(my first watch being the infamous TVN subs). And yeah, the translation is alot cleaner from what I can tell.

It's also been a firm reminder of two things:
-Just how weird Blade's' pacing is during its first act.
-How much I liked Kenzaki as a protagonist.

Like, for real, I love how, yeah, Kenzaki is a good and nice dude like most Toku protags, but he also has a backbone and doesn't take people's' crap, even if he is a bit gullible. It's a nice balance that I personally don't see too often.

Fourze 31-32

In which things get anime as hell.

We're getting closer to the part of the show that I don't remember as well. I'm already seeing some moments where I recalled the main story beats correctly, but got a lot of the smaller details wrong. Obviously I remembered that these are the episodes where Ryusei kills Gentarou and he's subsequently survived by the raw power of friendship. The way it played out was definitely not how I remembered it, though. I forgot that this was also where Ryusei's secret identity got exposed and that we saw the return of a good ol' fashioned Rider ally crucifixion (although it doesn't feel the same without Tachibana Tobei there).

It's a good story arc, though. We finally get to see Ryusei stop hiding his real personality and the development he goes through here is great, culminating in a long delayed friendship handshake. I really liked the scene where he went up against the Zodiart mooks without transforming, although that also made it clear that the Bruce Lee whooping sounds really silly when he's off camera.

We got Cosmic States in this episode, of course, which is a suit I've never been a big fan of. It is, in fairness, better than I remembered, but still a little ugly. I forgot that it could combine Switch powers, although I don't think that's a trick that's going to get used much from here on out. I still think the sword is awful. I really hate Rider weapons that obviously look like giant plastic children's toys, and the rocket sword thing is one of the worst examples of that (not THE worst, that's Specter's stupid grabby-hand staff). I also don't like how Cosmic States' fighting style in its premiere is basically "stand still and throw CGI at things." Fourze's fighting style is so unique and fun that it's disappointing to see less active fight scenes.

There's one other big change with this episode. This is the first appearance of a Horoscope as the Monster of the Fortnight. Cancer wasn't around as long as I'd remembered, but it was still several weeks. From this point on, the Horoscopes are going to basically replace regular Zodiarts because Fourze had an episode limit (as it turned out; I may reminisce about the rumors of Fourze season 2 at some point during this retrospective). I was always disappointed to see what had been major event enemies get turned into regular weekly monsters. This is the big place where Fourze had pacing issues for me.

Anyway, the preview for the next episode shows that it's the Kyoto arc and apparently the debut of two prominent new character who actually stick around for the rest of the series: Leo, who has finally found his way to the main series from the Movie War, and Yuuki's Hayabusa puppet, who... well, let's just say we're about to hit peak Yuuki.

I have a big, slightly spoilerly review in the movie's actual thread, but I liked Over Quartzer enough I feel like doing a bit of an abridged version here.

In short, it's a bizarre film that's sure to be the enemy of the literal-minded, but there's beauty in its chaos. Probably something that will either really click with you, or won't at all, without much middle ground.

2nd batch of Blade episodes down; Dealing in Garren's' struggle with his fear, Chalice's' quest for acceptance, and Leangle joining the cast.

I love that, to anyone who didn't know better, at this point Blade would be seen as a total decoy protagonist as all three other Riders are much more heavily involved in the overall plot than he is.

Also Sayoko was too pure for this world. It isn't fair, man.

With all the actual series of Heisei Rider done, it's time for me to catch up on a bunch of miscellaneous side stuff I haven't yet watched. I'm starting off with a few movies!

Kamen Rider Blade: Missing Ace

I finished this movie a few hours ago, and I'm not gonna lie, I've already forgotten a lot of what happens in it. I didn't... hate it, but this movie genuinely failed to impact me and I didn't feel it accurately captured the feeling of the show like so many Heisei movies manage to do, even some of the worse ones.

I guess Inoue was just really on an 'Alternate Future movie' kick after Faiz so this is what we get this time, with a lot of rule changes and a lot of things that feel sort of pointless.
We finally get to see the Undead Blade uses to transform! It's not exactly a big thing for him to overcome or anything, it's just sort of there to stop him from transforming for half the movie.
There's a second Joker! ... alright, disregarding how that doesn't work at all with the Playing Card theming or the rules of the show, this feels very underutilised? Hajime doesn't have a terribly big rivalry with him or anything; he's not a parallel to Hajime or even Kenzaki, he doesn't even use Joker's powers in any significant capacity aside from sometimes having some mooks. He's just a standard villain who stole Hajime's look.
There's three new riders! They're horribly underdeveloped and are just kind of annoying assholes for most the movie that go nowhere before their deaths.

I dunno, this was just such a sad note to end on when Blade's ending was absolutely phenomenal and this leaves me with nothing. It actually took me until just now to remember that Hajime sacrificed himself, jeez.

Kamen Rider Build NEW WORLD: Kamen Rider Grease

... aaaagh, I don't like to be this negative so sequentially; but this one was even worse for me than not just Missing Ace, but even the Cross-Z movie. Build deserves so much better and this might just be, in my opinion at least; one of the worst Kamen Rider things I've ever seen.

I'm honestly not sure what to say about this movie other than it just made me really sad and that there's almost no decision here I like. I mean, okay, let's go with the positives here; I really like Katsuragi's little line about "when they're in your hands, they're not weapons; they're hope". That's great. Loved that. In a V-cinema duality which seems determined to tear down every single thing Build did, somehow a line like that which so perfectly encapsulates the season slips in. It's also nice to see Utsumui get to be part of the team, and... I guess Banjou looks cute with dark hair? Fights were kinda fun too.

Otherwise a lot of this is just very bad. Grease himself goes through no journey or lesson (at least Banjou did, even if he was re-taking the grade) -- if anything, he acts incredibly self-absorbed and whiny half the time; letting the fact he got rejected get in the way of fighting off a terrorist. The villains are just really boring and their only claim to fame is "really powerful, and inexplicitly half of us are American". There's a new macguffin gas that does anything you want it to; elements like the Katsuragis being here aren't given anywhere near the weight they should be; and once again we get half-baked romances that they didn't even try to form during the movie.

Gaaah, it just annoys me so much that this of all things is Build's final piece. At least V-cinemas for other series like Drive and Gaim had something good in there or were at least fun, even at their worst. But this was just bleak.

Kamen Rider Zi-O Episode 29 & 30

Anyway, time to move onto something better; like a Blade tribute that features Diend rolling up with Knight and Baron before any actual Blade riders get a chance to stroll in!

It makes me a little bit sad that just as Blade was my last Heisei series, this is my last Zi-O tribute rewatch. With Hibiki, Ryuki and Faiz I'd gotten into a kind of nice pattern with it, where even if I didn't enjoy the series itself I got a lot out of rewatching the tributes and what they did for what they're homaging. And... this is it; this is the last one.

If I can go on a tangent for a little bit about these, actually; I LOVE Zi-O's tributes to the Heisei 1 seasons. People have gushed about them a lot already and so have I, but it's only on these rewatches that I've realised just how much I like them. For one thing, it's really neat that I can come into them and understand everything that's going on straight away, even the basics of the current ongoing arc. Oh, sure, I've watched the series; but I don't remember everything that happened in it -- and yet, a few lines and flashbacks here and there mean that for once, a time travel series doesn't have me confused as to what's going on. That's fantastic, and surprising given how confusing Zi-O is as a whole! I can absolutely imagine, like, a Hibiki fan or a Kabuto fan not terribly interested in Zi-O jumping into just these tribute episodes and still being able to understand what's going on. I mean, until they whip out video game hammers against Kiriya. Ex-Aid armour was an interesting choice for the Hibiki tribute...

But as well, it's just really nice seeing this much devotion and effort given to what were essentially niche mid-2000s passion projects. Like, okay, yeah; it's Kamen Rider, but early Heisei in particular is when it was throwing everything at the wall and trying to get on its feet and was constantly seeing rewrites and low ratings and everything. It was such a messy time and yet, despite that; most of them managed to get out a unique story that really felt like it was something the writers wanted to tell. Yeah, on one hand it's a big merchandise-driven toy advert; but on the other hand that just felt like the means through which these writers could say what they wanted to say; show what they wanted to show with the window dressing of honouring a legend from the 70s. How they could write a story about an amnesiac being idealistic in the face of horror and protecting everything he loved despite not being grounded in any way; about a man sacrificing everything just so that he doesn't have to choose between the world and a single person he's grown to love; about unrelenting hope against monsters of our wildest dreams. That's what thrills me about Kamen Rider: it's exactly the sort of thing I want to see from media, even if they're at the same time trying to sell me a talking sword or a transformation phone. About people telling the stories they want to tell -- and then, a good decade and a half later; those stories being honoured and cherished in the best way they can.

Zi-O had plenty of faults, but when it was at its best; it served as an ode and a gallery to these weird mid-2000s projects and was able to continue those stories without going against the artistry of their endings.

... So anyway, this two-parter is awesome! My feelings on it are much the same as when I first saw it; in that it probably tries to balance a little too much -- Blade, Trinity, White Woz, Geiz & Woz; and then you throw in Diend for a big chunk of it too. But it's surprisingly a lot more balanced than you'd expect, helped by it having an impressive pacing that lets each and every one of those mini-arcs shine and feel properly resolved. Blade's stuff is what I'm here for, so I might as well focus on it; this was just a superb follow-up. Any lesser series taking Blade and Chalice's powers away might have felt like a cop-out and an insult to Blade's ending, but instead this all feels incredibly deserved. Kenzaki sacrificed everything to save Hajime 14 years ago -- and it was heroic, and beautiful, and tragic. But it's been 14 years. The idea that someone can sacrifice so much for someone, but that with enough time we can find a way to help that person and ultimately move all of them forward? It's so, so incredibly Kamen Rider and it is very Zi-O. And it's wonderful! I love seeing these two finally get a happy ending. Something a lot of people don't bring up either is Amane -- we don't get any mention of her mother, but it's awesome to see her grown up and managing the café on her own, and while understandably still pained by Hajime's disappearance, she's still able to move forward with her life. Just seeing all these characters happy warms my heart...

Though I will admit, it's not without its faults. Until his final scene, Kenzaki's attitude is just utterly bizarre in this. He's very aggressive and provokes fights with Hajime for no real reason; he says that as Jokers they're forced to fight, but it's hardly like he puts up any resistance. He goes out of his way to track Hajime down and fights him then and there!! TWICE!!! What the hell, dude?! It almost feels like the two are switched; with Hajime pleading to not fight and only putting up token resistance. It's an unfortunate mischaracterisation I feel in what is otherwise a very, very good tribute.

Still, point is: these episodes were great, and with each tribute rewatch I've had the more credit I think Zi-O deserves. They done Blade good.

Other cool things about the Grease movie:

- Shoujirou Nakazawa's direction
- Grease never letting go of those dog tags throughout the entire final fight.

Other not so cool things about the Grease movie:

- That second good thing is horribly let down by the context of the plot
- Build is becoming dangerously close to being another Gaim situation for me.

"Gaim Situation" in my experience can describe... a LOT of things, and changes from person to person. What is it to you?

Is it worth it to watch the Build V-Cinemas for hate viewing or so bad their good stuff?

Oh man, that's right! You weren't even on the forum back during my Gaim PTSD days! To keep it as short as possible, I'm saying Build is a show I loved that's running the risk of becoming something I really don't.

The common thread is that the things I didn't like later in the show (and the V-Cinemas in Build's case, obviously) have led me to reevaluate my overall opinion on the series, and not for the better. The Cross-Z and Grease movies, to me at least, aren't merely crappy in a vacuum. They're an escalation of underlying issues with Build's writing that have been there longer than I wanted to admit to myself. Seemingly minor symptoms I chose to ignore.

Part of me has been saving up a big rant on Build for a while, but if that's ever going to happen at all, it's not right now. The thing about my opinion on Gaim is it never stopped evolving. It eventually looped back around into being a series I can say I enjoyed again, and the whole experience kind of taught me how to avoid falling into the same trap again. I spent a good year or so denying to myself that there was ever anything in Gaim I loved to begin with, and no matter how similar the situations get, I don't think there's any risk of that happening to Build. After all, the things we believed in were not an illusion, right?

I'm gonna say they aren't. Being "so bad it's good" generally involves something being hilariously inept, which is kind of the exact opposite problem those movies have. They're frustrating because it feels like a lot of talent and passion all being applied in the wrong directions.

I think the ideal way to watch them is if you can pretend in your head they're not related to Build at all. If you put aside all the toes being stepped on, they're not bad movies. Very backhanded compliment, I know, but I'm really trying here. :lol

Build is a weird show for me. I was absolutely loving the hell out of it when it aired, almost ranking it as highly as Ex-Aid in terms of overall quality. But within six months I really struggled to remember much about it. There was a thread on here back in December where we all ranked out favorite shows of the decade and I didn't even remember Build existed until after I posted my list. It really has ended up in that weird media zone that belongs to Kabuto and season 7 of Doctor Who: I just tend to forget that they exist unless someone directly reminds me of them.

And yes, the subsequent irony of my Tokunation avatar is not lost on me.

Watched Ultraman vs Kamen Rider. For only being 12 minutes, that was hype as hell. Never forget Hongo driving right through a Kaiju's' head.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...sisfromep2.png

Hi folks, I was gonna do one of those threads about my experience watching a kamen rider series, like all the cool kids are, but one already exists for ghost, and this is a rewatch anyway. Also the pic is from ep 2 can you believe it?

So anyway episode 2 of ghost is pretty alright. It introduces us to some of the mechanics of the world we're in (ganma holes. a deeper explanation of eyecons). The messages are pretty solid in this episode and ones I really like, mainly don't let someone else exploit your dream for their own profits, which is funny considering it's about Edison. Takeru comes off well in this episode, unsure of how to deal with the whole being dead thing, but Akari reassuring him, and getting him to believe in himself, and he got a good moment where he stated a person's value is more then their labor. Also we got something I wish had continued thru the series which was Onari doing something you wouldn't attribute to monk (finding the victim of the week the second time).

Oh also we saw Captain Ghost, which design-wise is one of my favorite of the big dumb cgi toy thing. I really wish we got more details into what its deal was.

Fun fact: I distinctly remember it blowing my mind skimming back through Ghost when I made that huge thread and finding out Takeru had been on the Infinite Potential™ train from that early on. :lol

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...uEmpathHug.png
So this made 0 sense when I first watched this episode, but going back it's kind of mind blowing.

Anyway Episode 3 of ghost! it was really good. I don't a 100% agree with the moral of the week (I think Takeru should've encourage the victim of the week to form their own marry band and organize a group of like minded journalist), but the rest was really solid stuff. The comedy beats hit well, particularly when Takeru and the Ganma become visible to everyone. Yuresen established a rule here about the creation of eyecons, that they can come from when ganma play upon the emotions of people, that I feel was forgotten, but then again they collect all 15 eyecons by like ep 16, so -shrugs-. This ep was also good because everyone got something to, Onari had a good subplot about getting work for the detective agency, and Akari had her subplot about creating the ghost visualizer sparkles. I really like the prop of the ghost visualizer leaf blower. Also the final fight of the ep was great! it was good to see everyone contributing in some way, and robin hood damashii looks great, as does the bow gun oddly enough.
So good ep yeah.

Now up to episode 30 of the Turn Up Scrubs version of Blade. I think they actually did less and less "scrubbing" as episodes went on because these last few episodes have been full of typos and some very literal dialogue. Like, I'm 75% certain that the TVN subs were not all that different, but maybe I'm misremembering.

Anyway, this is around the time most people say Blade starts to improve, and yeah, it's easy to see why. The pacing gets alot better, the show begins to realize how much building a proper mystery can help your narrative, and we get some better comedy moments.

Also the body-double two parter with Hajime is just alot of fun overall, even if him getting amnesia kinda just happens because. The reaction shots especially are all really funny and well done. Props.

Okay, so I fell really behind on Zero One, but I've caught back up with that and now it's time to get back onto this train (rocket?), too.

Fourze 33-34

The school trip arc. First and foremost, there's a lot of really nice location filming in Kyoto here. After Hibiki it's really rare to see Kamen Rider film anywhere outside of the usual dozen or so same locations, so it's great to see the show invest in a travel budget for a change. It really is a pity that the show doesn't do this more often, although it probably does save a lot of money.

I'd be curious to find out when Movie Wars Mega Max got a home release, because there's a lot of stuff from it that shows up on the main show for the first time here. Foundation X makes an appearance, but the big deal is that Leo finally shows up after spending months doing... something, I guess. Leo makes a good debut here, easily taking down Gentarou and Ryusei in their strongest forms. Libra is also there, but much less impressive. There's a major plot development for him that I completely forgot about, though: this arc ends with Libra gaining the ability to see who will manifest a Horoscope. That's a big development for the character, but it also retraoctively fixes one of my big problems with this era of Fourze.

I remember being really annoyed at the time that we suddenly had new Horoscopes popping up every other week, effectively replacing the standard Zodiarts. I completely forgot that Libra could now track them, which obviously means that they're going to be more frequent. I still prefer the extended arcs we got with Scorpio and Cancer, but this does make the pacing seem less abrupt.

That aside, the main plot here is about Gentarou, Kengo, Ryusei, Yuki, and Yuki's Hayabusa puppet (like I said last update, we are now at peak Yuki) going on their school trip. Things get dicey, though, as a classmate named Yukina has decided that she is going to make Gentarou her boyfriend. I liked this story. Yukina was very frustrating for most of it, although that was kind of the point. Yuki also ended up the butt monkey of most of her shenanigans, which actually got some good laughs from me. What salvaged the character was the revelation of why she was so insistent on pursuing Gentarou: she knew he was Fourze and she wanted him to have a fun, normal school trip. That was a nice touch and it made for some good moments near the end of 34.

Oh, and I almost forgot, we got the first appearance of Professor Emoto, who worked with Gamou and Kengo's father back in the day. He eventually turns out to be both Virgo and Tachibana.

Next up we're into an arc that I really don't remember much about. The preview shows Yuki and Nozoma rocking out on electric guitars, though, and that can't possibly end well.

Just watched the Zero-One Hyper Battle Video, and I really enjoyed it. As in like, actively. It's hard to totally pin down why. Something about it just seemed more straightforward and solid than a lot of more recent HBV's... is what I'd like to say, but then, I can already barely remember most recent HBV's, so, uh... at the very least, I think it was better than BiBill Geiz. Not to single that one out, or anything, it's just the only one fresh in my mind.

I guess that'll be the real test. If I actually can remember anything from this in a couple years, I'll know for sure it was good. For now, though, I thought it had a very focused script, surprisingly enough courtesy of Masaya Kakehi, who for the record, I'd still love to see writing more of the show proper! Obviously there's no ambitious narrative here, but you can tell by things like the pacing it wasn't phoned in.

What I think I was getting into more than anything though was just Fumiya Takahashi's performance as Aruto. I found myself paying more attention to it than usual in light of some of the discussion in the thread for episode 25, and I'll stand by what I've been saying since episode 1. The guy has loads of talent. He spends the vast majority of the HBV in total clown mode, and nails it the whole way through. He's great at knowing exactly how pathetic to make Aruto look at a particular moment, he's got an excellent range in his intonations, and his dubbing when Zero-One is on-screen is seamless (that last one owing as much credit to Nawata, too, of course). I've seen inexperienced actors playing screwball leads in tokusatsu who take a while to really "lock on", and I'm tellin' ya, he ain't one of 'em.

Oh, and this is just one last minor thing I found funny: Hopping Kangaroo's messed up text-to-speech transformation jingle is inadvertently justified by its in-universe origin as a Key that Zea made after basically having a mental breakdown. Talk about lucky!

Can't believe Rogue's train ticket troubles, Ex-Aid's adventure with the spirit of his bike, and Drive indulging in luxury cars aren't all considered masterpieces to you. (I don't actually remember what happened in Ghost's.)

In the first one, he competes with a Ganma for an Eyecon, while Ōharu crushes on a fat woman. In the second, the guy from the first few episodes revived and brings the Leonardo Ganma from Movie Wars Genesis back with him. Ones a recap, the other’s an explanation of why they chose THOSE historical figures to be Ghost’s main 15.

Whoa whoa, who said anything about Drive's not being a masterpiece? That's actually exactly the last one I remember really hitting the spot. To this day I have a huge soft spot for Type High Speed. Whoever came up with the idea to take that random sound the DX Driver makes and say the "High" was for "high-class" has godly talents to put Kuroto Dan to shame. After that, though?

Ghost's first one I mostly remember for making Onari into a creeper. The second one is very impressive with the way it expands on the lore and ties up Saionji's character, but it also kind of completely misses the point of an HBV in the process.

The Ex-Aid ones, I'll admit, are largely down to that show's mountain of side material starting to blur together in my mind. If they didn't go crazy and have Emu getting his face shoved into medical waste or something, they tended not to leave much of an impact.

Build has pretty much the same issue. I'm totally blanking on the first one, and while I remember liking Prime Rogue well enough, I... uh... you know, I'm not sure why I didn't mention it as an exception. Maybe I'm still just confused why, coming right off of Amazons, it wasn't some kind of thing on Amazon Prime. :lol

Award for best HBV goes to Faiz. Don't even @ me.

I've seen Masked Rider Dragon Knight (As Saban would have called it) on CW but missed the last 4 weeks as they were stream exclusive.

Fourze 35-36

Yeah, so I kinda dragged my feet on this one. I watched the first episode ages ago, but just got around to the second tonight. I'm not a huge fan of this arc. There's some really good JK stuff, but the Zodiart is kind of annoying and most of the other supporting characters get very little to do. I regret the choice, though, because 36 ended up being much better than the set-up in 35 led me to think it would be. The scene with Gentarou playing guitar on stage while JK sang was really good. "Gene" is a really stupid name for your rock god alter ego, though. I thought that at the time and it's still true today.

This is an arc that really works better on rewatch. The Core Switch is first brought up here and it's something that makes way more sense knowing the full story. It still comes out of left field, but at least I know the context better now. There were some more good explanations for why we're getting only Horoscopes now, too, what with the Kyoto wormhole being closed. The show really did a much better job of justifying the villain upgrade than I remembered.

Action scenes were good, too, although Cosmic crapping out when JK temporarily left the KRC feels like a cheap attempt to prolong the story. Not as bad as Machine Chaser in Drive, but the stalling was still palpable. Meteor's continued rivalry with Leo is always fun, though, and I liked both his trick in the second fight and the return of the older Horoscope suits.

Next up is an arc I've been looking forward to: the moment when Yuki completely goes off the deep end.

You know, it's fun to joke about, but I've never understood why all the Horoscopes popping up towards the end of Fourze was considered an issue by a lot of people. Like you've said, the in-universe explanations of how it was happening check out well enough, and on a more meta level, I always saw the why of it being about escalating the stakes as the story heads for a climax. That part of it is probably arguable in its execution, but even then, I wouldn't begrudge Fourze too much for it. Remember, Ryuki wanted to have proper story arcs for its 13 Riders, and the end result was that there weren't even 13 Riders in the show. So if nothing else, Fourze gets points for remembering it was on a time limit.

For me it was always because the earlier Horoscopes were EVENTS. These were the big villains that were tougher than normal and took more than two episodes to defeat, often requiring some major power upgrade. By the end of the show they’re functionally indistinguishable from ordinary Zodiarts and that loses a lot of the prestige.

I meant to do it not long after Blade since that was my last Heisei Rider, but I finally got around to rewatching Heisei Generations Final. I think the combination of it being a rewatch, a bigger time commitment than an episode and Three Houses existing is what put it off for so long...

But I'm glad I got around to it, because it's even better than I remember! A lot of it is just dumb fun, but goddamn, it's fun. The final half hour in particular has just so much love and care stuffed in there that despite Den-O and Build being the only real returning actors, you still get a real sense of, like, Ryuki and Hibiki and Fourze are really back! The voice clips are used well, the choreography and effects are well done, all of them get to show off what's special about them (as well as Agito using elbow light beams...?) that makes the whole thing feel special. Like, you know, a celebration or something! Wonder why!

The plot is weird and if you try to figure it out for even two seconds your brain'll shut down, and the villain is pretty terrible and lacking definition. But despite that, it all feels good to watch while you're watching, and it doesn't bother me too much. Just a great excuse for all the Heisei Riders to beat up a giant monster and save the day!

You mean FOREVER, right? I'm agreement in that after re-watching for the heck of it a little while ago, I am actually more fond of it than I was the first time, and I already liked it the first time. Lots of movies have done the thing about bringing back a whole bunch of suits, but this movie's sequences in particular really made it feel like a special showcase of Rider history. Also the twenty rider kicks in the final fight will probably be one of, if not my favourite scenes ever (even despite Kuuga's really wonky CG...)!

Yup, I meant FOREVER! God, I even made a note about not trying to mix them up...

But yes, this is 100% what every 'all riders' gathering should have been. The SHTs and the like were really fond of using random rider and final boss monster suits and just having them punch and kick normally as if that would be a cool thing to see, but FOREVER gets it right. It KNOWS what makes each of these Riders' fighting styles and abilities special and what'll hit that right nostalgic note for people. I don't wanna see Wizard punch the Utopia Dopant with as much interest and excitement as paint drying; I want to see him flipping and whirling with fire shooting everywhere! I don't care to see Blade get kicked down by some Grongi after doing nothing but flailing with the Blay Rouzer, I want to see him use his Rouze Cards for cool as hell finishers!

It took until this movie to really realise that somehow, and lo and behold; it's wonderful to watch!

Well, I just watched Over Quartzer.

That was... an experience. I really, really don't know how to put it aside from that. It's bizarre in all the ways you don't expect, and I kind of loved it, but my brain's still kind of going crazy from it!

The rewatch of episodes 31-40 of Blade took way longer than I would've liked; My job has been killing me with the overtime since the virus scare started. It also didn't help that this was the chunk of the show I was least looking forward to re-experiencing(new subs or not).

Because the thing is, to me personally, this is probably the weakest chunk of Blade. Tachibana's' character seems to regress a bit, Mutsuki's' character arc continues to drag on for way too long, and sorry to say, but I really don't jive well with Trial B's' plot and the sudden reveal of who orders him around is.

That said, there are some highlights. Hajime's' character arc comes to a very satisfactory close, Kenzaki continues to be one of my favorite protagonists in the franchise, and Mutsuki getting karate chopped in the neck with simultaneously hilarious as it is awesome.

But yeah, just one more chunk to go and then I'll start shotgunning through Kamen Rider 1. Sorry Forze, but supporting an official release comes first. Gotta help secure those DVD releases.

Toei has the new channel starting April 6th so I'll catch most of their shows on You Tube next Month.

I may start with Rider 71 and the 75 Ranger show. So I'll be watching both lines from week 1 next month.

Well right now I'm in the middle to end of ghost and I'm just starting drive and in the middle of Den-o