Admittedly, from what little I have seen of Gavv so far (already up to episode 3), I am already liking Shouma as the show's lead hero. I am also enjoying what I am seeing so far on Kamen Rider Revice on which I am already up to episode 5 especially the dynamic between Ikki and Vice.

"Kamen Rider The Winter Movie: Gotchard & Geats Strongest Chemy★Great Gotcha Operation"

I randomly remembered I hadn’t seen this movie yet, but kind of wanted to just for the Fubuki VA gig. And I do like Geats, so there's that, but...

Man, I really, really can't stand the Gotchard cast, even almost 2 years later. They are so irritatingly annoying. The ever present dumb antics, the constant screaming of "Gotcha-Boy" - dear lord. I feel like I lost more brain cells watching this than were used to write and direct these characters.

Anyways, the story is super basic, like these two sets of shows just exist in the same world no questions asked? Yup, here we are. There’s enemies, fight them! Here’s a quest for you to solve. Quest’s over, well done, goodbye!

I know they want to have pre-school kids in the cinema, I know that’s the target audience to begin with, but neither Geats’ nor, and I can’t believe I’m saying this; Gotchard’s main shows are so bluntly simple.

Action wasn’t anything to write home about either, especially given how awesome Geats was in that regard, in fact I noticed one scene, were a Rider was shooting their weapon into a general direction, but there was neither an enemy there nor did they bother to animate a shot coming out of the weapon, It looked quite weird.

The highlight was Valvarad acting like a slasher movie villain for a second, unexpected but surprisingly fitting.

The one saving grace of this movie, or two depending on how you want to look at it, are the Rider Chemies. They are so dumb, I love them. They use little puppet plushies for most of their scenes, except the Geats Chemy ("Hi Friends!") which has a 3D model sometimes, although I prefer the puppet. There are scenes were they just have these toys sitting around idle, they do nothing, just sit around chilling. That is so Toku, they trick your simple brain into believing these little critters can move so when they are just there doing nothing you don’t even question it anymore.

And yeah, the Geats Chemy rules. Not only because of the voice work, but also because, well – how the heck did I never get spoiled on its backstory? Ace had a cute dog in the past, Constantine, nicknamed "Con" (heh) who died in a car accident, but couldn’t leave Ace behind to move into afterlife so their soul followed him around, the freak situation which turned the other Geats Riders into Chemies also hit that soul so it became a VTuber, I mean a Chemy, of course.

Heck, the story starts with the scene of the dog dying, I forgot all about it because the movie was a drag to sit through so when this plot came back at the very end I was genuinely surprised. And well, I’m a big old softie when animals are involved so this got me good.

This winter movie also marks the first appearance of Kamen Rider Majade, who should’ve been the main Rider of the season anyhow, I will never let go of that thought. It was cool. Like, I’m not a fan of doing this kind of debut when the show has to essentially repeat it to not confuse viewers, but seeing her kick ass again was neat.

Overall the film was quite boring and not very well done, could’ve done without watching it to be honest, I did love seeing the weird Rider Chemies however. But now Houtaro is in my head once more and I can hear him scream "Gotcha!" again, please no, make it stop.

After weeks, if not months, of being stalled, I have finally continued right where I left off on the original Kamen Rider series and I am already about to be five episodes away from reaching the show's halfway point. Getting through this series unfortunately really does take forever.

Almost finished my watch through of Gavv, might post longer thoughts when I get to the end. My overall thoughts some five episodes away from the end is Gavv at it’s best is some of the best Rider around, genuinely, but I just think the show is overall just kind of a mess.

And maybe not in the way other Rider shows are a mess. I just think the show lacks a clear focus and a driving engine, but is able to convince you for like half the show that it actually does have a focus and an engine, right up until the point where it needs to actually start paying things off and the reality that the show has kinda been going nowhere the whole time becomes suddenly super apparent.

There are far worse offenders in this regard in other shows, but it almost hurts more here cause I really loved Gavv during the first half, and even during its messiest moments in the back half I still think the show is pretty wonderful, I just maybe wish they gave the writing room a few more draft attempts before shooting.

The main reason for checking in though is I finished watching the Gavv Summer Movie and I thought it was super fun. Kinda felt like a bit of a filler episode rather than like a proper movie, but it was fun to get all the cast back together (they are really what make Gavv for me, such a loveable bunch of characters with such tangible chemistry, they manage to put that on full display here, if only briefly) and play through a what if scenario, while retaining so much of the wonderful queer-coding of the main show and introducing us to Zeztz.

While it doesn't have really any higher production values than a standard episode really in terms of pure production quality (and it seems like all the new Riders / forms are just reused parts of existing suits from the main series), it balances that out in the scope and scale of the action scenes.

Honestly, just as an aside, and I know this has a lot more like filmic language and choreography baked into it compared to a standard episode. But even like taking a standard episode of Gavv, I have also gone back and started watching Drive again which I am pretty sure was one of the final shows for me before my Toku candle went out and I kinda fell off actively following every series. And like maybe from a pure production quality standpoint things haven't moved as much as you would have maybe wanted, but shows like Gavv and Zeztz show we really have come a long way when it comes to the superhero stuff in a Rider show.

I’m still early into Drive, so it might change, but right now, every fight scene is just dudes standing still cranking plastic crap, while their Drivers shout Engrish and fire CG bullshit at each other. Like I am so close to falling off of Drive again because I think the actual Rider stuff is the worst part of the show, it is just so boring.

I feel like shows like Gavv and Zeztz have done such great work in fleshing out action scenes and making them interesting in the moment to moment, not just flashy poorly disguised toy commercials (even though I know that is what they are all in cases, you don’t have to be blatant about it).

The scene of the Stomach Family all fighting shoulder to shoulder had to get the biggest pop from me though. Even if it was only brief, I still feel like this movie uses them better than the actual show does!

I also liked how it leaned into the body horror stuff from Gavv, one of the many meander to nowhere storylines in Gavv is the body horror stuff, and I do think it was a shame they never really committed to it fully. But it comes back in full force here, and is pretty gruesome as well.

If I were to have any real complaints over the film, it is probably running time. I think the film is fine as is, but I couldn’t help but wonder how special this might have been had we had more breathing room to play out more of the what-if scenarios, to spend more time on the relationship between Shouma and Taorin and to give the villains proper motivations. Again, I don’t think it ultimately matters because I think the film is pretty great as is, but that doesn’t mean I can’t want it to have been even better.

Well, I understand that Heisei shows are largely viewed more positively due to nostalgia, and there's certainly something to criticize about them. But still, there was Wizard, with its absolutely stunning fight choreography. Although, as for Drive, I remember its action scenes mostly for the emotional intensity, not the spectacular fights. And, well, for the inventive effects, like Jackpot.

Wizard was one of my favourite shows back in the day, and I recognise sentiment had shifted in my time away, but back in those days Wizard was not looked upon kindly.

I totally agree! The first half of Gavv was awesome, when it was fully committed to all the ChocoGummy drama. After that it became more focused on the Granute society, which only emphasized Komura's villain problem as the Stomach villains are directly connected to Shouma and yet resist every chance to admit they've done wrong, except for Nyelve who wants to prove the value of intelligence in a system that values power instead. Shouma, Hanto and Lakia continued to get their own developments, which were still good, but they were often detached from each other, in a show that once stood out for connections.

I'd say Drive did have some spectacular fights as well though. Like, I understand it's common for the first and last few episodes of a season to have exceptionally high quality action, but the premiere with all the Tire Koukans and the rebounding Tridoron kick was pretty memorable for me, as well as the debut fights of Deadheat Burst Mach and Drive Type Tridoron! Perhaps also since it came after Gaim, which weirdly scattered many of its best action scenes throughout the middle instead.

Exactly! The Drive finishers are some of my favorites. It's weird I nоt thought of them myself.

Final thoughts now I have completed Gavv. Sorry if this is a little long, once I get going it is hard to stop!

As I said before, to me, Gavv lacks a clear focus and a driving engine, but you'll love these characters so much and be so engaged within their arcs, that you won't notice at first how static the world is around them. It is only really in the back half of the show, where the world now also needs to shift into gear, arcs need to start culminating and threads need to start paying off that it becomes so obvious the show has kinda been going largely nowhere this whole time.

There are far worse offenders in this regard in other shows, but it almost hurts more here cause I really loved Gavv during the first half, and even during its messiest moments in the back half I still think the show is pretty wonderful, I just wish they gave the writing room a few more draft attempts before shooting.

The first half in a lot of ways is a fairly a-typical Rider show, that once again does the ‘oh we may look silly on the surface, but this is actually a really dark story!’ thing. But thanks to the core cast of loveable characters and the tangible chemistry they share, the show just sings. There is this intangible magic to everything, break it down to its base parts and I am sure you could be critical of plenty, but there is something about the whole here, and how that whole is executed. There is just this energy, this joy, to everything that is hard to define, but you can just feel the love that went into this show radiating out of every part of this.

I loved the show’s primary message about recognising that being who you are should not be seen as something forbidden and happiness is about finding others who will love you for who you really are, flaws, secrets, mistakes and all. This show got me legit tearing up quite a few times, it is so far beyond the sort of shounen cheesy melodrama we see in lesser Rider shows.

In lesser hands, this show’s overriding message may have devolved into a lazy 'traditionalism vs. liberalism' narrative, but this notion is shattered quickly by the fact the cold, corporate Granuto world accepts Jeebh’s fluid approach to gender identity without question.

Identity does not mean value. Like what a crazy, powerful, message that is. And one that the villains believe in as much as anyone else.

In fact, more than anyone, it is one of our heroes in Hanto who has to let go of the most internalised prejudice. Watching his relationship grow with Shouma, and in turn Rakia, it is just so good man. Such special stuff.

The whole show operates in a refreshing grey area when it comes to its themes and conversations. If the show is going to take you somewhere, it is going to have something to say. We aren’t just pointing at problems here.

It tackles all sorts of things like arranged marriage, class divides, the cycle of violence (and maybe more vitally, the cost required to break it), addiction and the need to impress our parents at the expense of our own lives and happiness (which probably hits home harder for Japanese audiences than it does almost anywhere else).

But yeah. The pacing. It doesn't ruin the show but it isn't... good. And again, I have seen much worse in other shows, but I still think it is bad enough here to talk about it. Cause and effect was seemingly not given nearly enough thought during the development phase and it hurts the final leg of this as it seems more focused on trying to land the plane, than really to truly deliver anything all that great.

It is like the back half of the show focuses on all of the wrong things, so many interesting plotlines are set up, and if not fully abandoned, they disappear for massive chunks of the show, so the show can just introduce more and more stuff, constantly delaying paying off the stuff we really care about, until it practically runs out of time and lands on a sort of half ending.

I also think the villains are the biggest weakness of this show, but a big part of this is again a pacing problem. For how important they are to the actual story, and for how personal each member of the Stomach Family is to our core cast, they simply spend far too much of the show in the background doing not a lot, and flame out far too quickly when the show decides to finally utilise them.

This approach is fine if you are some faceless corpo style villain who is doing shadowy things in the background, building to that inevitable showdown down the road, but these villains aren’t strangers to our protagonists, they are core to the story, but aren’t used like they are and I just think it is a waste.

I just wish we could have learnt more about the Stomach Family, and seen them play a more active role in the show, working together. I wish we could have learned really anything about the Granuto world, beyond the vaguest hints. I wish I could understand why the Suga (and Zombie Suga), Bitter Clones and the Hunty body modification arcs existed at all, since they take up a huge amount of the show’s running time, and could practically all be removed and nothing about the show would change. Well in fact, the show would get better if they did this, because then it would give them room to pay off things that actually matter.

But honestly, in the end, all I know is this show brought me such happiness. And now the show is over, I feel a hole in my heart where this show used to be. It fills me with such bittersweet sadness to know I will never get to experience any new stories with these characters again, but I feel so grateful to have ever gotten to spend time with these characters at all.

If that doesn’t show how much I loved this show, I am not sure what else will. And wouldn't it be me betraying the hopeful core message of Gavv to shun it for it's flaws, rather than embrace it in all of it's beautiful messiness?

You said focusing on Granute society.. of which I felt that the show didn't do that enough and I wished the show would do more in exploring the Granute World. Maybe like, the cast traveling there and maybe staying there for direct attacks or to learn more about Granute society or Stomach Inc. Maybe having the 2 parters done like the in the first half, but involving everyday Granutes instead of humans. After all, the Granute World shouldn't be exceptionally more dangerous than human world, as humans and Granutes are meant to be similarly sentient species (albeit Lango claims the Granute World runs on might makes right). The difference of the first half might be about some of the Granutes being hooked to human stuff and, perhaps having some systemic change, or such, to weaken the villains' influence (ruling their world), putting Hapipare in direct opposition to Stomach Inc as 'companies' that make people 'happy'. This applies to most Kamen Rider, but turns out it's just beat the big bad and everything is solved again by killing Bocca and Lango.

About the connection part, dunno if they did still constantly try connection, despite you not really feeling it, like how in the late show, there are still multiple moments of their bond like Rakia accepting Dente, Shoma consoling others after Dente's death and inspiring Rakia to let go of vengeance, dealing with brainwashed Hanto with him powering it through, Sachika's reality check of making everyone happy being tested against Rakia's past (with the praise of her not accusing Rakia as he genuinely changed), Rakia being forced to use his Granute powers to solve problems, Sachika insisting Shoma to not be self-destructive in his sacrifice to close the door between two worlds, Rakia declaring him as stronger than Hanto to get him to escape, Hanto telling Rakia to not die on him against Lango's Agents, etc.

These two are just typical traits of Junko Komura, where she prioritizes only the characters over plot and the heroes' chemistry and development, but she seemingly purposely doesn't want to give focus on the villains, and is known as someone who never does redemption except for Stacy (a really dragged one too), the villains are there for audience catharsis in them being beaten up; though actually she did two redemptions here in Rakia and Kenji (Dente never knew about real materials of Dark Treats).

Happiness being simply about enjoying good food as Shoma and Dente does. Happiness being about if one successfully help others through good deeds like Sachika (against Granute Chooul). Various type of happiness happening to many victim of the week like getting the needed money, getting your art accepted, getting to see favorite idol performing, just simply children's nature, etc. Maybe the contrast is having simple things leading to happiness, contrasting the villain never getting happy as their ambition was never met like Lango trying to reclaim the Stomach Inc's fortune.

The back half was directed by Satoshi Morota and not Gavv's head director, Teruaki Sugihara, who left the production back in ep. 46 with Shoma vs Bocca. Morota and Shojiro Nakazawa were given a big shoes to fill in Sugihara's absence. Even Takayuki Shibasaki who usually picked up the slacks weren't directing either. The result was the last 4 episodes of Gavv weren't executed as desirable as it could be. There's the real essence of Gavv when Sugihara directed. The premiere ep. 1-2, Caking debut ep. 13-14, Valen Frappe debut ep. 27-28, and the much better Shoma vs Lango in ep. 35-36, were all directed by Sugihara and he truly knew what made Gavv is Gavv. Sugihara felt like a father to the casts and he watched the growth of Shoma's actors and everyone else.

I think it makes sense on why the villains spend far too much time in the background, as they aren't about Earth invasion. The Stomachs are actually about ruling the Granute World, just that the method they use is turning humans into Dark Treats. Obviously their workers are there to attack Earth and serve as MOTW. The Stomachs are forced to get more involved in Earth only due to Bocca taking over and him wanting mass production of Dark Treats. Of which, I guess perhaps if the Granute World is explored more upon, which is what I primarily wanted for Gavv, there can be a time if them being more active onscreen, with them being a threat to Granute citizens and if the heroes gHappo there.

@DreadBringer - I would agree with your points about the Stomach Family if they decided to have a different type of villain, but choosing to have them so personally connected to the core cast, and then having them exist on an island for the entire show is just weird to me personally.

Like there are dozens upon dozens of examples through Toku of villain types that can function just fine as being largely in the background for huge chunks of the show, but the Stomach Family are not one of them. At least to me. They needed to be more present in the show, we needed to see more of them functioning as a unit.

I didn't know though about the changes behind the scenes though in terms of who were in charge of different sections of the show, that stuff is really fascinating to me and appreciate you sharing it. Knowing that now, you are right that you can see clear lines as different creative leads steer various episodes.

In fact, in my review of the show, I wrote that this is precisely why Philip, Koyomi, and Banjou Ryuga's connection to the show's villains isn't revealed until closer to the finale. At least, that's one of the reasons. Perhaps if Shouma was presented in the beginning as a Stomatch experiment rather than a relative, the siblings' passivity would have been more relatable. Yes, viewers likely guessed his connection to the villains early on anyway, but the show was in no rush to reveal Shouma and Masaru's obvious connection.

I'll just be succinct and say that I pretty much agree with @Locke's points on the Stomach Family. While I think they're certainly memorable, their detachment from the story and Shoma despite what the narrative says, hurts them more than helps them.

That said, I will say, it is a bit funny to see people referencing directors changing as some big behind the scenes thing... when like, that's basically been how it is? There's a main director, but there's still a ton of guest ones brought on, especially when it comes to there being multiple writers to factor in as well. Which is why I think it's kind of disingenuous to prop it up as this big thing that happened. Like "left the production" feels like you're putting way more weight on it than there needs to be. It was just his last scheduled episodes, clearly.

Yeah cause he does try to hide it early on, but then when the cat is out of the bag it is just kinda out there forever. If they were going to have the villains in the shadows they probably could have protected this reveal for longer. Especially as Shouma just straight up murders any Stomach who doesn't yield, too. It could have disguised his real connection to them.

That is good to know too, I know almost nothing about how these shows get made, but I guess it does make sense if this is a common practice of why I often find in toku shows I really like clusters of episodes and then other stretches I like less, I guess it is like during a comic run when they switch artists or whatever.

The same applies not only to directors but also to screenwriters. The funniest case I remember is Saber, where the main screenwriter is Takuro Fukuda, but Keiichi Hasegawa is the author for most of the episodes. So the similarities with comics are truly significant, since new teams are working with ideas that were sometimes conceived before they were even born.

I'd have no problem with the show focusing on Granute society if it actually delved deeper like you suggest. All we get to explain the Stomachs' prejudice towards humans including their own brother is the might makes right line from Lango, the hypocrite who couldn't beat Bocca without relying on Gavv's strength. And Jeep, whose arc had the strongest connection to Shouma's, ended up getting finished by Valen without Shouma even being present. I think the Granute society could've been better, if only Komura had prioritized that more.

I'll add that Fukuda gets a lot of misdirected hate for his absentness, as Producer Takahashi is the one who told him to focus on movies. Arguably it was a good decision, as while Ghost and Saber are unpopular, many people love Specter Rebirth and Trio of Deep Sin.

Guys, we have to be rational about this -- any problems with the story of Gavv are *clearly* a result of them using the budget to make Amazons instead. :p

Anyway, I could throw my own two cents about Gavv in the ring, but since this has come up, I'd just like to give a VERY basic outline of how the creative process behind these shows works, as I understand it?

Basically, for any given Kamen Rider show, going back at least all the way to Kuuga (and most of this info is also true for Super Sentai), there's a trio of people who we would probably consider something along the lines of "showrunners", who have a larger direct influence on the series than most other people involved.

- the chief producer (for Gavv, that's Naomi Takebe)
- the main writer (for Gavv, Junko Koumura)
- the pilot director (for Gavv, Teruaki Sugihara)

With the occasional exception, pairs of episodes in Rider are treated as single "blocks" on a production level. A director and a writer are appointed to handle each one, and the actual physical scripts even contain both episodes. (This is likely the biggest factor in the prevalence of two-part stories across the franchise.) Most shows generally have a "rotation" of a few directors who more-or-less take turns in the same order. Main writers are generally able to handle writing many more scripts than any one director will handle, to the point you'll occasionally see shows like Faiz or Ex-Aid where someone like Toshiki Inoue or Yuuya Takahashi will literally write the entire thing.

The chief producer then, as the one of that trio who has the least active involvement in the making of the specific individual episodes, is the one who focuses the most on overseeing the series as a whole, deciding a lot that's very important on the broader scale while generally being less visible in any singular element. Part of that job is having lots of meetings with the staff, and the main writer and pilot director are the people who naturally get brought in earlier than most to start shaping the production. But of course, once other directors and writers come onboard, they're also involved in those discussions too, since they're going to be working on their own episodes.

I can't speak to exactly how flexible the hierarchy of those meetings is, in terms of how much "guest" writers and directors are able to influence the overall story of a series. It likely depends on the specific production, but most of what I've ever read suggests everyone gets their say while still ultimately deferring to that core trio. (Or, god help you, to the executives even higher up, but that's a different discussion entirely.) The key thing to note is while episodic stories will absolutely be colored by those individual voices, it's highly unlikely a situation ever happens where a "guest" writer will make a decision for the overarching plot against the wishes or intent of the main writer, because they're supposed to be agreeing on those things before they even start writing. (In the specific case of Gavv, Koumura is even explicitly credited with supervision on every episode she didn't write, which is pretty uncommon for Rider.)

Similarly, even though the pilot director can only directly handle so many episodes in a year, their influence actually does extend well beyond even simply establishing the overall blueprint with those first few episodes. I recall reading around the time of Rakia's proper introduction in Gavv that they have a direct hand in deciding stuff like the casting and wardrobe for new recurring characters, and the design of new recurring sets, even when they don't debut in episodes helmed by them. Likewise, they also generally handle the visuals in the opening, even when new shots are first used in episodes they don't direct.

If anyone who's even more deep into this stuff than me has anything to correct me on, or even just thinks I could've worded something better, by all means, tell me where I went wrong, but as I've come to understand it after years and years of caring ~probably~ a bit more than the average Rider fan, this is the way these things go, and I'd hope people keep the facts in mind whenever they're trying to delineate blame/credit for the perceived failures/successes of a given Rider series.

Lango also killed his father, not in a duel, but in a rather cowardly manner. Incidentally, given his hypocrisy, he's perhaps the only sibling I don't consider traumatized by his elders. Simply because he tends to blame others for his failures, so even if Bushe had been an ideal father, he wouldn't have been spared from poison, in my opinion.

Yes, I also think that's an unfair accusation. And not just because I like the show and Hasegawa's style. Fukuda could have easily written the overall outline of the show, identifying the elements that can't be changed, and entrusted the rest to additional writers. At the very least, it gives more opportunities for new talent to shine, which is very beneficial for a long-running franchise.

I guess the real tension (which I felt too when watching Gavv), was when will other people like Hanto know Shoma's real identity as someone related to Stomach, and what will happen when he does. Dente even hints something might not be good if Hanto, with his hatred of Granutes, know Shoma's real identity.

I feel that, as ep. 38 shows, as Jeebh already denied the chance against Shoma in ep. 14, Shoma should have no words anymore to say to Jeebh and he'd only be about killing him. Jeebh shouldn't be different to the part-timers, which all Shoma gave a chance but denied it, resulting in their detonation. I wonder what'd those people think that Shoma does talk to the more despicable one in Lango while not giving Jeebh (the one seen as more sympathetic only because he's younger) any of his time later. Also, though people wouldn't say Stomachs are the strong suit of Gavv, they'd just blame Bouche and think the Stomachs are evil because of trauma suffered from his neglect, of which claiming it's about prejudice is underselling Gavv as a series, and that the real 'deep' theme and point is about cycle of trauma and abuse.

Though you'd make defense on most things, I guess yeah, guest writers may make inconsistent path or traits compared to the established stuff, like, while you defended this, but something like Riku Sanjo's characterization of Yuki Jojima compared to Kazuki Nakashima's writing of her. Or, albeit this is alternate continuity, Toshiki Inoue changing the nature of the wish in Ryuki for Episode Final compared to in the main series. Or perhaps, decisions like Tendou killing Tsurugi in Kabuto ep. 46 which may not sit well. Though yeah, dunno if the decisions that may drift is something that can feel against the wishes or intent of the main writer, but agreed upon or not being seen as that much detrimental.

Speaking of which, we can recall the Blade/Hibiki/Kabuto trio, where the team working on it changed (more or less) halfway through the show. I think in these cases, the original plan, if not completely abandoned, was at least significantly altered.

@Fish Sandwich - just wanted to say I appreciate this insight a lot, and while I am sure it is reductive versus the complexities of the reality of it all, it is interesting that it is anchored around a trio, as I would argue Gavv has three very clear directions that don't quite exist in harmony and tend to pull the show in differing directions (Stomach Family / Granuto society, Suga / clones / the old school body horror stuff and then Shouma's core arc and the relationships he builds around him).

I have been holding off on sharing my thoughts on my Drive watch as I wasn't sure where a good check in spot would be, but man, I just have to speak now with the episode introducing Kamen Rider Chase. Is the glow down from Machine Chaser to his good Rider form the biggest in Rider history? Like off the top of my head I can't think of a bigger downgrade.

Godai to Onodera?

Even that part-timer orientation video called Lango the second coming of Zombu and considering how that guy shunned Nyelve for his weakness, I doubt he was a better father to Bouche either. While neglect turned Lango's siblings to the side of evil, he only seemed to care about the company and decided that Bouche's ethics were getting in the way of profits, so yeah, even if Bouche had loved all his kids equally, the addition of Shouma likely would've pushed Lango to take over anyway.

Did Kabuto really have a staff change like that though? I thought it was just having to write around Hiyori's actress getting ill for a while. The most mysterious one is Blade though, like, 22 years later and there's basically no information about what happened to Imai.

Jeep being sympathetic isn't due to his youth, he's just one of the villains who got development like Desast in Saber, while Lango stayed as the same idiot he always had been despite pretending to be impartial by firing Jeep and Theta. Bouche is no saint of course, but unfortunately he gets blamed unfairly due to a collective headcanon about his marital relationship that many people repeated as fact. The actual source of evil in the family is Zombu and Lango.

I used to call this guy Two-Eyed Chaser, as it was most remarkable thing about his Rider form.

Hey, Onodera will always be my Yuusuke!

It is weird too, because as much as I don't love all the car themeing and stuff, I really admire the suits in Drive. They seemed to decide on smaller scale form changes, so they could really bake the core suits and I think it pays off massively. The level of detail, all the intricacies, the fact that the suits actually have backs and a sense of weight to them, they just look awesome to me. And it works too because the show puts more effort into establishing these things as mechanical, that require skill by the user to pilot, they aren't just like magic Bruce Lee powers, so making the suits really tactile hits home on this point.

...Then Chase transforms and is just in a cheap silver jumpsuit and a spray painted airsoft vest and they seemingly just went "eh, good enough". He looks like that always super cheap looking extra Ranger made exclusively for a Power Ranger's season that we see for like two episodes.

I?m so sorry.

I am finally back into the swing of things with my Toku viewings and I have just watched episodes five and six for both Gavv and Revice.