Oh! I only just noticed this post since it went up right as I was making my last one. You should be happy with what you wrote about those episodes; it was really good! Also, I'm starting to notice we're all really bad at taking compliments! :lol

(For the record,my first toku thing of the year was also this episode of Kabuto, naturally. I'm probably going to go and rewatch Ghost's Hyper Battle Videos for the fun of it pretty soon, to give a slightly more interesting answer to the question at hand.)

More than half of my experience of writing is getting to the end of the process and going Wait Is That All I've Got, so those feelings are pretty relatable. (It feels very common, for the creative process.) I'm glad you're throwing down things you're happy with, though!

I sort of mentioned it near the beginning, but, yeah: great moment in a great episode dedicated to a great relationship. Tendou's as shocked at Hiyori's protection as Hiyori was about Tendou's. It's very much the two of them seeing how similar they are, how their feelings towards one another are frequently obfuscated, misinterpreted. At the end, they're able to see in each other something greater than their apprehension and frustrations.

(Hey, quick note about my process. It's bad! I don't really do any prepping or roughing out what I write. I'll start with a vague idea of a major point or two I want to cover, like Hiyori/Tendou or the teamwork of ZECT In A Van, and then just write until I feel like I've hit a beat I like as the end. With this episode... I genuinely could not imagine trying to talk past that Tendou scene. Everything that comes after it is great, and I knew I could count on you to articulate the sheer fun of the big battle at the end, but that Tendou scene. Everything after that was just denouement for me.)

I don't think you're supposed to want that! Every episode that has a kid wanting to be a Kamen Rider makes the characters in it cry!

That is a way better setup than RiderWiki, but I feel like you picking an entry for my least-favorite Blade story is... are you pranking me? Is this a New Year's goof?

It is important to celebrate the New Year by honoring the personification of the sun, as it was in olden times. We should have all been watching Kabuto every New Year's! Nobody told me!

I love the acknowledgement of your Ghost-watching being "for the fun of it". It's okay to watch these things when you feel like, kids, and not just from some longform schedule. Don't live by our example!

I was just being cheeky, yes... There are good things about the previous year to remember, and there is also Black Fang.

I made some comment the other day about not really remembering anything from shows I've watched (fun fact, needed to go look up Reiko's name from Ryuki), but something about the bad episodes... like, seeing that goddamn bike was Proustian, immediately taking me back to the six or seven hours that I had to watch it slowly drive through empty streets, and get blown up because of aerodynamics (???)... honestly, it was like I was there again, hating watching an episode of Blade all over again. And they say time travel might not exist...

Good rib!

Haha, the first toku thing I did this year was come to the boards and then watch this ep of Kabuto to follow the discussion, which - yes, this feels like a pretty great choice :D Especially with how hard it's been over the past several months to feel connected to people, watching an episode reaffirming how important it is to value friendship just hits different this time around.

....but the actual first thing I did this year was take the dog to the dog park to run around in the snow at dawn, wearing multiple hoodies because it's cold and she's tiny :lol

Just a friendly reminder that my 15 step process for writing about Kamen Rider was only kind of a joke; that's legitimately how every single one of those posts about Kuuga got made!

Thankfully, it's rarely that extreme. What I've been doing for Kabuto is pretty much what you just described, with the bonus step of trying to make sure it's not too redundant of something you already said in your post. A lot of times this goes pretty well! Sometimes, I use a picture of Kagami running away in tears because I don't feel it went as well!

Let's just say there's a reason Hiyori bad-mouthing her own art was such a relatable beat early on. Not that I want to turn this thread into a support group for people writing way too much about Kamen Rider on forums.

...Unless you guys are cool with that, in which case we could keep going like this for a while

Hey, like I said, I do all this on impulse. Reading a glowing review of one of Ghost's best episodes barely any time after already reminiscing about it from you bringing up your first thread is absolutely the sort of thing that will put me in a mood to watch some Ghost!

Firstly, please post pictures of your dog somewhere on the forums because she sounds adorable thank you.

Secondly, man, I can't say enough about how much better 25 came off retroactively due to the work 26 does. Like, the whole story is about how necessary it is to depend on each other, how the size of the obstacles the the characters are facing isn't something they can handle alone. But the the first part of the story, where everyone's just doing it themselves, thinking they're unstoppable, that shit is played with zero judgment. There's nothing in 25 that says we're watching a story about Tendou and Kagami needing to be more humble about their capabilities, or inclusive of others. It's actually the opposite?

Which makes 26 so good for revealing itself to be the punishment for those boys thinking they could do it all alone. And all without a single speech highlighting the lesson!

No Mods Or Kings In 2021! We talk about what we want, when we want, where we want.

I'm sure I've mentioned this before, but getting to know a lot of creative people in my life, and seeing how ridiculous their psychology is, led me to create this distillation of how artists view their art:

THE NEWEST STUFF: Ugh, it could've been so much better. So many missed opportunities.
THE OLDER STUFF: Yikes. Abysmal. No one should judge me by this. Needs to be dropped in the ocean, where no one can find it.
THE RECENT STUFF THAT WAS PREVIOUSLY NEW: I can't believe those ingrates didn't see how genius this was.

Like, for every post I finish where I'm like Don't Sweat It You'll Get 'Em Next Time, I'll occasionally need to look through an old thread of mine for something, and I'll be like Holy Shit I Can't Believe I Came Up With That. There's something about the process that makes appreciating something you've created so difficult. It's all the phrases that are too rough, or the connections that you feel are too strained. Every line has the echo of the work it took to get there, and you can see every crack and stress in it. But once you've forgotten the work, blanked on the process, it's just the creation, which can be appreciated on its own.

...until eventually it's been replaced by more assured work, in which case it needs to be obliterated.

Which is why, I want to delve deeper into the conflicting views between if these kind of things are character flaw that is intended in the story, or writing flaw. And tbh, this applies for series like Faiz too, with how a good number of people cited it as writing flaws for miscommunications, or those mistakes being intentional for the characters (there are those that acknowledged characters miscommunicating, but that Faiz' one is too severe where it reached outright kindergarten levels). So by this it seems that, by this review at least, it's the former. Goro-chan a.k.a Mishima laughing at his naivete isn't something to criticize Kagami for, it's just in his character to act dismissal of others. Riku Kagami, Gatack's dad is pulling the exact same shit as Tendou did in previous episode, where he's the one getting you cannot know the truth. Wouldn't he got the blame for doing the same? (Tendou's doing the wrong thing previously, but the other one?).

For people like Kagami, especially he needs to prioritize teamwork, especially for someone who isn't the best in teamworks before. Of course, having your life considered worthless is painful, but Kagami also needs to know his limits, and put away his ego (for wanting to be considered special) if the situation needs it. If him or any of the heroes insists to solve things alone based on ego, let this be a lesson where people sometimes view humility as weakness, ego isn't always a good thing to have in your missions either. But for this one too, what catches my attention more here was Tadokoro, where would he break away from his drone-mindset this time? He clearly cares about Kagami and Misaki, and he seems to be more moral and well-adjusted compared to Kageyama and Mishima, but he has obeyed any HQ order without question (and at least he'd resign when he can't proceed anymore). Admittedly ZECT in a Viano team this time assisted directly in a fight, but they've always been about defeating the Worms before, but not being successful doesn't mean they didn't do that.

And regarding WorMisaki, it's a case of a Worm gaining human feelings, it already had happened too, like the one that faced her, Tsurugi. He was the Worm who killed Mika and real Tsurugi, but Tsurugi's arrogant personality also overpowered the Worm's own, and it became the Tsurugi that is known as Sasword. Probably also explains Tsurugi's fast reflexes to counter WorMisaki lowering his guard, albeit with a scar on his cheek.

I feel like about Tendou getting his ass kicked isn't about him being alone, he just suddenly dropped in performance here. Previously he has shown to be able to take these kind of enemy hordes alone. Even beating a Worm while going Clock Up with Masked Form (the one before Cast Off) by reflecting lasers. Tendou is losing his cool more and more in this episode, and the one that made him lose it was his sister Juka, but the only other person who made him go apeshit like that was Hiyori, which'd be an important foreshadowing. Dunno why, but I feel like, Tendou underperforming at this part of the episode, would've him thinking that, like what he preached before, emotion is a weakness, and that him underperforming due to being carried by emotions for Juka and Hiyori would reaffirm his stance of that... Tendou tells Hiyori a bit regarding the past where he's the one with belt, but he still didn't tell anything right? Also yeah, it's not as simple as that. You're ok with another "dragging", or about yet another plot mystery part of a Rider series, if there's a progress and change of it even for a tiny amount?

Yeah, it's definitely intentional. It's to the show's credit that it's so subtly applied in 25, where it's not clear until later that the boys are out of their depth.

Sure, Goro's always dismissive of others, but Kagami is being naive here. A clock that looks down on people is right twice a day, after all!

I don't 100% follow what you're saying about Kagami Outrageous, but he's probably got some really good reasons for keeping the truth from Tendou.

Well, Tadokoro is basically playing the Hiyori role for the Kagami plot. Tadokoro is hard-pressed to defend ZECT anymore (them trying to murder Gatack because he asked too many questions is probably his breaking point), and he doesn't feel like his subordinates respect him, since they completely cut him out of their plan. Kagami needs to show Tadokoro that he matters, and that their team can't succeed without him.

This particular Worm was no slouch, though! She whipped both Daisuke and Kageyama single-handed, and she was backed up by multiple Worms when she faced Tendou. He's definitely more distracted than he's been in the past, but I'm not sure he could've beaten her alone on his best day.

Well, it's all about how it's incorporated. Here, it was using the mystery to enhance the character development, which is great. Previously, it seemed like it was ignoring the character development to address the mystery, which is less great. It's always about how these various types of storytelling are utilized.

I’m not sure what toku thing I want to do first this year. I’m thinking of rewatching and catching up on saber, but I’m open to suggestions.