I've decided to finish Drive now. I initially dropped it early on while it was airing, and watching it again, I can't for the life of me see why. I've gotten back to where I dropped it, episode 6, and I'm enjoying myself quite a lot. My only real qualm is the nonstop introduction of new shift cars, but that wouldn't really bother me enough to stop watching a show.

Thinking about it, it might honestly have just been burnout, as I watched Decade through Gaim as they aired, with multiple of the Sentai as well, along with watching some older series, both KR and Sentai, at the same time, so I think I was just henshin hero'd out by the time Drive came along.

That said, Drive is fairly fun. I like the dynamic between Shinnosuke and Belt-San. They have some fun banter. The lead woman, Kiriko, is hit or miss for me. I'm only 6 episodes in, and when she's good, she's a fairly solid character, but when she's icy for no reason, it's hard to like her.

Fourze 37-38

This is probably the last arc of the show that I really remembered clearly and it is pretty much all because of Yuuki.

Way back when the show was originally airing I made a thread on here to gauge people's thoughts on Yuuki - like, dislike, liked now dislike, etc. I fell into the "liked now dislike" camp. This is a really rough arc for Yuuki. I did my running gag about her going crazy during most of this rewatch and it was all in build-up to these episodes. At the start of the show Yuuki was Gentarou's really hyper but well-meaning friend. But now? Now she's wearing the Hayabusa puppet everywhere, praying to a rocket while wearing a headdress, and flailing and wailing all over the place. I think it's supposed to be cute. It isn't.

I used to listen to the Henshin Justice podcast around the time Fourze was airing (back when said podcast still existed). One of the regular guests had this theory about Yuuki that I've always liked. He proposed that Yuuki has spent too much time standing near Gentarou when he transformed and her brain has been getting increasingly damaged by cosmic rays. I liked that theory because it was funny and it really tracks with how badly the character went off the rails.

Now, the rest of these episodes aren't bad. I actually like them a lot. Elleen is one of the more memorable and likable guest characters. Part of that is that she is 100% right when she says Yuuki is a terrible choice for an astronaut. I wouldn't trust her to be in charge of the kiddie rocket ride outside of the grocery station, much less a real space flight (she will miss most of the Fourze/Wizard Movie War, in fact, because she crashes a space ship and is presumed dead). I also like Elleen because she has a good story that puts her in a strong conflict with Gentarou. I really love their final showdown and it's quietly tragic that she forgets everything that happened (although it would totally pay off if she shoved Yuuki off another cliff).

So from here on out we're mostly going to be in territory that I've long forgotten. I saw the trailer for 39 and it does look a little familiar, but I really don't remember what the story is around the Taurus Horoscope. Looking forward to finding out.

Seriously, though, Yuuki is the worst. I mean, not Onari bad, not no one is Onari bad. At least Yuuki's cringey comic relief ties into the plot and isn't just random bullshit.

Holy shit. This Nira character in Drive is literally a complete monster.

Yeah, I remember those episodes! For me Drive was kind of average for most of it's run and then when it got into the last 20 episodes or so it suddenly got really exciting.

Oh, Nira. What an absolute scumbag.

I love that guy. He is such a great villain. I really liked how he seemed like another quirky Drive character, but the more you get to know about him the more you realize just how awful he was. His beef with Shinnosuke was very personal, which made all of his actions feel so much crueler. Definitely one of my all-time favorite Rider villains.

Like, wow, just when I thought 001's plan was cruel, and when he was gone Nira would just fade into the background, I sure was wrong. He came back full force and proved himself to just be straight up evil. :lol

What made him work so well was just how petty he was over the whole thing, too. Why did he do what he did 12 years ago? Because someone else was better than him, and had the audacity to be a nice guy. Why did he try to kill the girl? To make Shinnosuke's father's sacrifice pointless. And why does he torment Shinnosuke? Just because he can.

Yeah. And the show even pulled a "he fucked up but he's sorry and he's totally on Shinnosuke's side now" misdirect before things got really dark. Damn it, I loved Nira. This whole era is really whenI felt Drive went from being a huge disappointment to really good.

Finished Drive, sans some of the movies/specials, because this show has way too fucking many :lol

All in all, it was alright. It didn't blow me away, but I found it to be fairly enjoyable. I do feel that there were places where it just slowed to a crawl, primarily the first half of the series. While not bad, there were times where I definitely made myself keep watching.

Around the point where Freeze gets axed though, is where it really picks up. I do enjoy how the show made a good point that the monsters weren't evil just because, since Nira and Banno were pretty much the absolute worst. From then on, it was really intense and quite fun to watch, me desperately curious as to what would happen next.

While not in the top of the Neo-Heisei series, it's definitely an all around solid series, with a great cast that managed to balance the goofy without being annoying.

Yeah, that's about where I am on it. I really didn't like the first half. It felt way too goofy and I did not like the return to two-part monster arcs coming right off of Gaim. I also hated Chaser and how all he really did was pad out stories by showing up to throw a fight scene in between Shinnosuke and the resolution to the current plot. After the halfway mark, though, it really took off and rapidly turned into a show that I couldn't wait for the next episode of. It's a weird show to look back on, but the good moments are the parts that really stuck with me.

On an unrelated note, I'm halfway into the Taurus arc on Fourze and I mostly remember what it was about now.

While I do like Chaser, I did find his involvement in the first half to be pretty static. It was the same every time. Case about to be solved, Chaser comes in and saves MOTW, Shinnosuke learns about a twist in the case, finally beats monster.
It was the same formula for so many episodes, and the fact that it was a monster of the fortnight format just made it tiring.

Around them finding out about Freeze's true identity was the real turning point for the show. The villains were all set in place, Go had gotten past his introduction arc power bonus, Chase was a full blown hero, and from there it just really got into gear.

Fourze 39-40

Like I said last time, we are officially into the part of the show that I don't remember very well. At least, that's what I thought. I got about halfway through the first of these episodes and my long-term memory managed to start pulling the rest of the plot out of storage: the injured girlfriend, Taurus going crazy, JK an Gentarou dressing normally. I will admit that I forgot about the golf showdown, which is certainly one of the weirder moments in the arc, but I remembered a lot of the main beats. I'm curious to see how much this continues happening as I finish off this last block of episodes.

I liked these two, by the way. I tend to have a strong dislike for stories with authoritarian regimes and stories where the heroes get turned upon, but I like these episodes. Part of it is that it's Fourze, so even at it's darkest it's pretty goofy (Sugiura's main power as Taurus isn't brainwashing, it's a complete defiance of physics). I also just really like the emotional core of the story, culminated in the confrontation between Sugiura and the class president on the roof. You really feel bad for him when Virgo shows up and sucks him into that wormhole. Even knowing the plot twist that's coming up next episode, it's still pretty sad.

Speaking of things I forgot: Virgo transporting Nozoma away. Again, something that loses a lot of drama on the rewatch, but it's still a really well-played scene. I like this last part of the series for Nozoma, where she gets to stop being creepy and start being more insightful. Speaking of the KRC, I forgot how much Miu and Shun are barely in the show anymore. More than before I'm really wishing they'd just replaced them with the swimmer girl and her friend. Having those two graduate really makes it hard to keep them relevant to the plot.

I want to like Drive. It has concepts I like.

But dear god does it not work for me. Shinnosuke is not remotely interesting until over halfway through the show, Kiriki devolves from a cool character to an object for the Riders to chase after, Krim is an asshole, and a horrible mentor. The SCU are all varying degrees of annoying, Chase and the other Roidmudes are likeable, but so poorly handled throughout...and Gou. Gou is one of my least favorite characters of fiction in general. I hate him so much.

Gold Drive, and the Chaser movie are the only genuine positives I can give to the season. And a lot of the suits are nice too I guess.

The golf showdown that got interrupted by actual golf? I think? I went back and checked the airdates, and that arc definitely skipped a week in the middle, but it's kinda been long enough I forgot what exactly it was preempted for. I only faintly remember it being funny for some reason.

Recently I finally watched BLACK and BLACK RX. Now, I probably should've done this way sooner, but I've always had a little hang-up that's stopped me from getting around to it. I find RX more interesting. That's probably another one of those statements people who aren't me don't make much. Part of me really wanted to just do that one first. I mean, it's a pretty loose sequel anyway, right? But my long-standing interest in RX's wicked style and killer theme song doesn't mean I don't find BLACK interesting, too, and with such a classic series, I'm practically obligated to watch it. A bit of a dilemma, yeah?

But then the idea hit me, one I've had before. Just do both. It was a crazy plan, and probably an unnecessary precaution, but I figured watching both shows together like some kind of weird tokusatsu version of Memento would give me the deepest possible appreciation for what each one brings to the table. Instead of longing to go back to the style of whatever one I watched first once I got to the second, I'd get to enjoy those tastes in small bursts, the contrast only serving to make the flavor that much richer. So I promptly set about watching BLACK and RX in alternating chunks of two episodes, like I've been doing a lot lately, starting with BLACK, and ultimately saving RX's final episode for last, which I didn't plan on going in, but RX is shorter, ends on an odd number, and the penultimate episode leaves on a solid point for a break, so it all worked out nicely.

That's really the moral of the story here. This whole thing went better than I could've possibly expected. Both of these shows are real winners in their own ways, and putting them in such direct contrast only served to make things even more interesting.

BLACK is the truest possible (then-)modern reboot of Kamen Rider. It takes things back to the absolute basics, and tells a story about Koutarou Minami, a tortured hero who overcomes his sorrow to become a warrior of nature, fighting a lonely battle for humanity's freedom against the vile machinations of an authoritarian secret society embodying the worst evils of society. Rather than try to put extra frills on that concept like the other series made in the wake of the original, BLACK seeks to execute that original concept again, using years of hindsight and improvements in production quality to realize it on a level that wasn't possible in 1971.

RX is a show that isn't too concerned with feeling like Kamen Rider. Rider is just one of many, many hero tokusatsu series it pulls from for inspiration. It's the ultimate possible generic tokusatsu show of the era, telling a story about Koutarou Minami, your cooler older brother who, with the help of his many friends, stands strong in the fight for humanity's freedom against an authoritarian monarchy who seek dominion over the Earth. One could easily argue RX to be a mess of tropes put together with little thought, but I would contend that RX was making a very deliberate, and successful attempt to be something of a greatest hits collection for all of tokusatsu.

BLACK was a clear evolution for the franchise. The only thing about its execution that isn't impeccably tight is all the bits of Black's suit that constantly look half a second away from falling off, and those are only loose because they keep throwing the guy through walls and out of buildings. It's a tense show with a great idea of what it wanted to be about, that also takes the drama to new levels with its series-spanning story arc regarding the fate of Koutarou's adoptive brother Nobuhiko, and his eventual transformation into the dreaded Shadow Moon. I'm telling you right now, if you haven't seen the show, there's a reason this guy is so well-remembered and popular even today. The idea that Nobuhiko would, instead of simply existing in the background until getting rescued in the finale or something, actually become the main villain of the series for the back third or so must've been absolutely mind-blowing to audiences in 1988, and what's even better is that most of the episodes centering around him were written by none other than Noboru Sugimura. I have never seen a writer as good at pushing heroes to the absolute edge as Sugimura is, and he does this amazing concept the justice it deserves.The material with Shadow Moon is thrilling. But it's also not the whole show, and I think it'd be a mistake to go in looking for that. Shadow Moon's storyline is merely the cherry on top of an otherwise largely episodic series, that focuses on doing standard monster of the week plots in style, always heavy on the mood and atmosphere.

Perhaps the greatest secret weapon of RX is its serialization. It's something I didn't at all expect going in, but there's a huge amount of connective tissue between episodes. Every week still delivers a beginning, middle, and an ending where RX blows up at least one monster, but, even when the show isn't doing an outright multi-parter (like the very first two episodes, no less!), plot points frequently lead into one another. An easy example of this from very early on is Koutarou receiving a disk in the third episode containing the data he uses to build Rideron in the fourth. This creates a great sense of momentum that makes the series super exciting. You're never too far away from a big event in RX. It's a bombastic show where things are always happening, especially thanks to its great set of villains.

The monsters in BLACK have wonderful designs. As with the rest of the series, it's the OG show taken to a new level of craftsmanship. Much as Black's suit incorporates the fleshy bits at the joints, the monsters emphasize their organic nature with detailed, creepy looking costumes, often tricked out with animated mouths and everything. Some of these guys are genuinely a bit scary, all helped by the often horror-like atmosphere of their initial scenes. BLACK is a show I'd really recommend to anyone who has a particular affinity for movie monsters in general. There's some really great work here, and it's always a delight seeing what terrible creature Golgom is going to send out to their bidding next.

The Crisis Empire don't seem like the ideal baddies for a Rider show. In fact, I got major Gingaman vibes from them throughout. This ends up working out hugely to the series' benefit, though. Having a selection of generals with wildly different motifs is just plain fun. Their aristocratic backstabbing and bickering keeps their scenes feeling lively, and the variety of monsters at their command is just unreal. You've got robots! Gross animalistic monsters! Talkative monsters with neat gimmicks! It's all here man! The diversity means things never, ever get stale, and like all good Sentai villains, you almost start to root for them in a weird way. It's the total package. Similarly helping out in the variety department is RX's ridiculous arsenal, which includes three forms, three bikes, a car, two swords, and a gun. The wealth of options he has at his disposal is nothing but a benefit to the episode plots, which have tons of options to get RX in and out of a pinch... even if Bio-Rider is broken as s***.

BLACK's desire to keep things simple results in a show that could very well be called the definitive Kamen Rider. It's a touchstone work in the larger franchise that achieved very well-deserved massive popularity, and will probably continue to relevant as the years go by. It's in the fortunate position of not being old enough to be too dated, but also being old enough to be old-school. 80's nostalgia stubbornly refuses to die, so I figure BLACK's got a real edge going in that department. Again, it comes with the caveat that it's not going to meet modern standards of arc-based TV storytelling, but it's a truly excellent show that hits some truly incredible highs, and a great gateway to the Showa era for anyone who hasn't yet given it a chance.

RX goes all out on a ton of different ideas, and admittedly is a little lacking in the spirit that makes Rider what it is, but I can't help but adore it for what it is. It's a show that says you can face terrible tragedies in life and still come out on the other side a happy person with a fulfilling life. You can have a promising career, a family to call your own, and loyal friends who will ride or die with you to the ends of the earth. That even your greatest regrets can eventually receive closure, and that you can move on to a brighter future, as long as you always keep the light of justice in your heart, and respect the beauty of the world around you. That kind of stuff, that's what I watch tokusatsu for, so there's absolutely no way I'm complaining that's what RX wanted to be about. I said Ryukendo might be the most definitive hero toku show ever, and RX might give it some stiff competition.

BLACK is a masterpiece.

BLACK RX is a treasure.

These are two awesome shows I'm more than happy to finally have under my belt. They have their common points, like the excellent soundtracks by Eiji Kawamura (you'd better believe that put me in my comfort zone coming off of Kakuranger), the usual complement of awesome theme songs, and Koutarou refusing to forgive evildoers, but at the end of the day, each show goes in a totally different direction, and I think they each stand on their own as something worthwhile. As for the question of which one I ended up liking more, though... well, I'll just let this montage of RX episodes that ended with sitcom freeze-frames of Koutarou looking like a total gormless goof speak for itself:

https://i.imgur.com/olVN0ql.png
https://i.imgur.com/qSTK2Rw.png
https://i.imgur.com/xpl2FeW.png
https://i.imgur.com/kfXvyz5.png
https://i.imgur.com/TInE650.png
https://i.imgur.com/VPzPH8J.png
https://i.imgur.com/IM7eUO0.png
https://i.imgur.com/Vq102dg.png
https://i.imgur.com/7qSZlER.png
https://i.imgur.com/WVhtRbB.png
https://i.imgur.com/svFEJuo.png
https://i.imgur.com/VPGS2LB.png
https://i.imgur.com/fRf82du.png
https://i.imgur.com/blHQyF9.png

And for those of you keeping count, yes, an entire third of the series ended this way.

Forgive me if you mentioned it in your post and I just didn't catch it, but I have to ask, and yes there's a point: Did you notice the butt jeans?

I watched both Black and RX with a friend of mine, and at first I didn't notice, but he pointed how there are ALOT of shots that focus on Kotaro's' behind. And thus an in-joke between us was born.

Anyway, of the two, I actually prefer RX over Black. Due to being tossed around between ten different writers, Black took too long to get to the point, and there are alot of things brought up in it but immediately dropped.

Meanwhile RX, while mostly silly and stupid, it atleast acknowledged it was silly and stupid, and embraced it. And I really appreciated that about the show, even if I didn't find it that great overall.

Can't say I registered that much! I think I was more focused on his winning smile in RX, and the classic Rider in-joke of him staring off into space while thinking about whether things are or are not Golgom plots in BLACK. :lol

Hey now, the housewives watching with their children needed something, too :lol

Is it wrong to chase after Rio Uchida? She just finished a jdrama where she had a rotation of 5 guys (not the burger chain) as booty calls.

Black is one of my all-time favorite Rider shows. I usually put it second behind Hibiki, in fact. It really is an amazing show and a great distillation of everything that makes Showa Rider good. Black RX, meanwhile, is definitely an underrated gem. It gets a lot of undue hate for not being Black, but in a lot of ways it's just as good (and in some ways even better).

I totally agree about RX and its more serialized story. Black really only stopped being episodic near the very end; RX had a lot more compelling story arcs. I'll admit that I didn't feel the show a lot at first, but the episodes where Kotaro goes into the Demon World and gets his new forms really won me over. I almost want to say I liked RX's villains more, too. The Gorgom priests are iconic, but the Crisis generals felt a lot more developed as individual characters.

In terms of the monsters, both shows have the same designer: Keita Amemiya. Yeah, the Garo guy. If you really liked the monster suits, especially the ones from Black RX, I recommend checking out Metalder, which is another show he did the designs for that had the same multiple enemy group concept as RX.

Having watched BLACK now, I really appreciate why Ishinomori's early title for it was "Kamen Rider #0". It nicely conveys the idea of going back to the roots so far, you surpass the original in a way.

That arc is the perfect thesis statement for why RX is a great show in its own right. An epic four part adventure serial about a superhero braving the dangers of an inhospitable alien world, meeting new friends and enemies, suffering shocking betrayals, and discovering new abilities within himself, all for the sake of saving the life of a single little girl? And this show is supposed to be worse than its predecessor?

No way! That explains a lot about why those guys look so good. The monsters in RX are generally less creepy, but still wildly creative. Triplon from that aforementioned arc has gotta be my favorite. And yeah, Metalder is definitely something I'm interested in checking out at some point in the future, but, unfortunately for Metalder, I can kinda say that about a lot of shows. :lol

Watching Kamen Rider Build. Moving at a decentish pace. Just hit episode 7, where the have to sneak into one of the other countries...And Banjou was dressed as a clown, for some reason...

Only reason I can fathom?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1eswGrkMU8

Black RX mostly gets flak for being "lighter and sillier" than Black. I think the people who say that are mostly a) focusing on Black's darker episodes and b) looking specifically at the first 10-ish episodes of Black RX. Yeah, Kotaro doesn't have a goofball sidekick running around after him in Black, but Black also didn't kill off two major supporting characters in the finale. The tonal whiplash from Black's finale to RX's opener is definitely real, but it's not the complete story between those two shows.

Just to round out watching BLACK, I took a look at the er- round table discussion, that was a bonus feature on the Blu-rays. Nothing too special, obviously, just some of the actors and staff sharing anecdotes, but there's always something fun to learn in these kind of things. There were two pieces of information that I particularly loved hearing and felt like sharing:

- In BLACK's first episode, Tetsuo Kurata himself is actually wearing the Grasshopper Man suit for the shot that fades into Black's first appearance, because Jirou Okamoto was the only suit actor available at the moment, and obviously had to be Black, so the director basically said "f*** it, we'll just have Koutarou get in there".

- In RX's first episode, on the other hand, Kurata was up on a harness for 20 minutes for the scene where Koutarou is getting hurled through, uh... I guess that was space? It was a trippy scene. The point is, they apparently just told him to flail around until they decided they had enough footage, and a close-up of him genuinely wincing in pain ended up being used in the finished episode, to his surprise. I went and tried to find what he was talking about and...

https://i.imgur.com/DKkfYUY.png

Yeah, that is, without a doubt, the face of a man who wants off this crazy thing right now.

That's definitely the crux of it. It's honestly really sad that RX isn't talked about in a positive light more frequently. I don't think I should've been as shocked as I was to find out it actually has so many genuinely strong elements to it.

I always appreciated just how expressive Kurata was in his acting as Kotaro. Interesting to see how uh, he wasn't exactly acting when it came to the space scene in RX.

Gotta say, I'm kinda glad Banjou's Sclash Driver got destroyed/damaged. I really preferred the original Cross-Z design over the Sclash version.

Magma is looking neat, too.

Yeah, Grease wears that look a lot better than Cross-Z did.

Finished my rewatch of Blade with the Turn Up Scrubs translation. And while the scrubs didn't really change my opinion of the show in any major way, I will say that yes, they are better than the infamous TV-Nihon subs, even if only by a little. There are definitely a handful of episodes where you can tell TUS thought "Good enough" on the old subs, or that there wasn't much in the way of proofreading.

But yes, if you wanna see Blade and TVN and TUS are your two options, go with TUS. I can't speak for any other subs out there.

As for my opinion on Blade as a whole, I seem to have a reverse opinion on it that alot of other people who've seen it do. I've mostly read that people think the start is rough, but the 2nd half of the show is a great ride all the way through.

Personally, I feel as though Blade flows in a similar way that Faiz did.

In that, I actually really enjoyed both the first and second acts, but felt that the third was rather weak in comparison. The first act for just how bizarre and unique the show was in terms of pacing and editing, and the second for having a much smoother narrative and more compelling aspect of mystery.

I'm not saying the third act of Blade is out and out bad, but it definitely dropped the ball in a couple aspects. The twists felt forced, and Mutsuki's' character arc dragged on for way too long.

However, that ending makes it all worth it. That was straight up the best way to end the show IMO.

Is Blade the best Rider show ever? No. But is one worth watching overall.

Now all that's left is the HBV and Missing Ace.

I'm down to the last 10 episodes of Build, and jesus fucking christ, cool it with the plot twists.
Good lord, it feels like one of those action adventure shows like Supernatural, where they have to have big twist reveals and cliffhangers to ensure another season, except Build is cramming all of those in the span of one season...

Also, while I got the reveal for why the full bottles' elements are what they are, I still don't have an answer to what the benefit of the Best Matches are.
Like, tell me. What can Panda do that Hedgehog can't? What benefit does Rose have compared to Octopus?

They make more noises when put in the role play toy together.

Man, at least Double and OOO had a reason for combos.
Like, if you wanna be Fourze, and do whatever you want, there's nothing wrong with that...At least Fourze's switches sounded dope when triggered.

Okay, finished Build, sans Be the One and whatever other bakers dozen of specials and sub movies they crank out for the series these days.
(Kinda miss the pre Decade seasons, where it's just one movie and the HBV...)

It was alright, though definitely filled with flaws. I'm not particularly a big fan of the goddamn parade of plot twists the series had on a per episode basis. It was making following the plot rather annoying, and I was watching it back to back. The full bottles were borderline impossible to follow and their relevance were questionable.
However, my biggest issue stemmed from Evolt. I really hate grand puppet master enemies that reveal they've been in control for literal years, since it makes their plots not only ridiculously convoluted, it also makes the "I was planning that all along" moments just cheap methods to hide their pretzel logic.
Hell, despite all his grandmastering, what if Banjou, in one of the early episodes, got hit by a stray bullet? Did the fucker have a contingency plan for that? Since he sure as hell was shot at a lot, and he's the kind of idiot to bring his fists to a gunfight...
What if Night Rogue didn't do the "I'll deal with you later" schtick the couple times he had Build and Banjou on the ropes? Then what would he have done?

So much of Evolt's plans hinge on coincidences that, because they fell into place, he could say that he masterminded everything, when in reality it just made no sense. What would he have done if key stooge for the final quarter, Mad Rogue, hadn't accepted his offer? Oh but wait, he knew Mad Rogue was plotting against him the whole time? And he knew Build's father was working against him? Then why was he, at any point, caught off guard?
Another large issue was Namba. Why, would this character who could destroy planets, and boast about it to your face, actually work for you? How could this old man assume he had the guy who literally betrayed everyone else he's worked for wouldn't do the same to him?

Build wasn't bad, per se. It had one of the better villain to hero turns in the franchise that didn't feel too forced, a great main trio, and a solid cast overall. And unlike Drive, I didn't find it so bland that I didn't have much to say. Honestly, I feel if they retooled Evolt's main plan so that I wasn't banging my head against a wall, I would've loved this series more than I do, since the final quarter was some pretty solid stuff otherwise.

I don't quite see it as a shining pillar of the franchise, but it's good. I only have Zi-O and Ghost left of the Heisei Phase 2 series, but I'm not gonna watch Ghost since I hated the first batch of episodes I watched. As it currently stands for phase 2, though, I'll say...

1. OOO
2. Ex-Aid
3. Gaim
4. Double
5. Build
6. Fourze
7. Drive
8. Wizard

Also, as a quick disclaimer, Wizard is the only one on that list I actually found bad. Fourze and Drive may be low, but I think they're both average shows that are worth watching and enjoyable.

I do not want to watch Ghost.
I do not want to watch Ghost.
I so don't want to watch Kamen Rider Ghost.
So I'm gonna watch it.

I need to finish my rewatch actually.

I was gonna saw we could suffer together, but I only saw the first 6 episodes before dropping it during it's original run, so you're probably far, far ahead of me :lol

Watched the Blade HBV and Missing Ace.

The HBV was silly fun as they usually are. And man, if Mutsuki had that kind of chemistry around the rest of the cast starting from the halfway point of the show I might've liked his character alot more. But yeah, I overall enjoyed it.

Now, Missing Ace, on the other hand...

https://scontent.fyip1-1.fna.fbcdn.n...81&oe=5EB63B29

(and yes i know that shot is from the show and not the movie hush up)

Okay, so the above reaction image is a bit hyperbolic in terms of my thoughts, but man, Missing Ace had problems.

It's not so much that the movie is meant to be an epilogue to an alternate ending, but moreso that certain aspects of it fly in the face of things that had been established about these characters proper before the last two episodes hit.

I also question how exactly we're supposed to believe there's a language course for Undead speak when both Kamen Riders are Undead were thought to be mere rumors and legends in the show proper. Was it literally to just pad the movie out an extra 3 minutes? Because if so, unnecessary.

What also doesn't help the film overall is just that, well, it unfortunately has to be compared to the show's' ending which was, as I said before, perfect, thus making the entire thing feel really unneeded and wasted potential in terms of us getting an actual epilogue to the show instead. But, overall, I thought the movie was just, alright. Not great, but a decent flick to kill some time with.

Actually no, I left off on like ep 8 for my rewatch.

So...Ghost.
Onari isn't too bad, as long as you basically tune him out when he's on screen.
I also got to his deadline, and the incredibly cheap way of him getting a hard restart on it. Kind of kills the tension, guys...

Also, I really don't like the look of his driver. He gets his first big power up in the form of his Toucon Boost, and while his Eyecon is supposed to look cool, because the damn driver is the size of a truck and obscures everything, it just looks the same as always.

The Ghost Driver is straight up my least favourite Rider belt there's ever been. It just about has nothing going for it aesthetically

These are fair criticisms. I personally like that episode because of the whole Takeru living his life part is real nice.