Uh, I can't stop you nor will I insist very hard to the contrary, but I certainly don't this think is a good point at all to be watching the movie. Oh well, whatever happens happens.

It's kind of silly to think all that hyping up for Delta technically leads to this episode where Kitazaki dons the belt, because the actual person who turns out to have had the belt just ends ups getting killed. Everything about all that set-up and Saya does not leave a good taste in my mouth.

Speaking of Kitazaki, I like him. It might honestly be a pacing problem to introduce him and Sawada so soon within each other. Sawada only just recently arrived as the newest, toughest villain who easily wallops the heroes. And now here comes Kitazaki... who is also the newest, toughest villain who is gonna easily wallop the heroes.

I like Kitazaki though. In my eyes, I consider him Faiz's equivalent of Asakura from Ryuki. He's just an especially evil guy who relishes in violence. I think I might even like him more than Asakura because 1) I think Delta is a cooler design than Ouja, and 2) his mellow and bizarre demeanour is more interesting to me than Asakura's bloodthristiness.

The Wiki says the Faiz movie released to theaters six days after Episode 28 aired, and I am but a simple fan living in 2003 Japan. I'm fated to watch the movie next!

So, defense of that setup: it's how every Kamen Rider debuts on this show. Takumi becomes Faiz after the belt doesn't work for Mari. About 8000 dorks from the Ryusei School sacrifice themselves to the Kaixa belt before Kusaka wears it. And four canonical non-Orphnoch Delta wearers get killed before Kitazaki wears it. It's like musical chairs, except with belts and disintegrating teenagers.

Man, a cooler design than Ouja? Tough call! I do like the stark black-and-white body suit, that's eye-catching. But that snakehead helmet, so cool. Real tough call!

The movie is an alternate ending to the show, I get the whole "watching it as they are released" thing but you also don't like spoilers, and the movie is spoiler city.

Also, Kitazaki is a great character, his almost child-like attitude while being so powerful makes for a very interesting character. Ray Fujita is one of my favorite toku actors and he puts in a great performance as Kitazaki.

The movie nonchalantly spoils a big plot point for the show granted the context is a little different and that's all I say on the subject for sake of not spoiling it.

Actually I do have to wonder how did the kids and fans back in 2003 reacted to the whole spoiler thing. Were they surprised they putted into the movie? Pissed off over spoiling a major turning points a month in advanced? Probably nobody was expecting it since the movie was an AU(and the trailers didn't even tried to hide the fact that the movie was going to be different from the show) that had no connection to the show.

I guess we'l find out when Die watches it! Since they haven't seen the series, they won't know what might be or not be an actual spoiler anyway (assuming nobody in this thread just comes out and says it...) so that should be fun to witness unfold.

edit: I don't even actually remember whether it was the movie or the series first that exposed me to the twists in question.

I guess my take on it is, if another fan were to say to me around Episode 26 "Kitizaki is Delta", that's a spoiler. If the show did a Hyper Battle Video around Episode 26 where they revealed that Kitazaki is Delta, that's a narrative decision. The former sucks, the latter is worthy of discussion.

Eh, it's really just one of those hindsight things that makes you go "why did they decide reveal that in such a nonchalant way in the movie, but then treat it like such a grand revelation in the show proper?"

That's a fair question!

I wonder how much of the weekly audience even saw the movie? I'm curious how much crossover there is between movies and shows. What if it's not a lot? Like, we're dedicated fans who watch everything we can get our hands on. But, I wonder if a large part of the audience in 2003 wasn't able to see the movie? Or even interested in doing so? I'm legit curious about that.

The Ryusei stuff is an absolute drag, no disagreement on that. Funny thing is, it's not actually that bad when you just consider the actual narrative itself, it's the execution that simply didn't land every single time. Might be the combination of overcrowded cast and bad pacing, I dunno.

Not... really? Not for me at least, this stretch of episodes really sucked for me because of Team Cannon Fodder, and while the Lucky Clover/Smart Brain stuff was nowhere as awful, they're also part of the problem to me. All of them felt a bit too one-note to have them take up that much screen time; they just don't have that aura of lore/mystery (a la the Grongi in Kuuga) or actual interesting personality (ala some of the Undeads in Blade), they're more like, 'Team Rocket, but kinky' to me if that makes sense :v

I'm super okay with them just being secondary characters; my favorite moment of them at this point was actually when Kageyama and Houjou (too lazy to look up dude's actual name :lol) swiped Faiz and Kaixa belt. It's when their actions reflect on the show's themes or contribute to the progression and development of the core seven characters (i.e. the characters that really matter to me) that they bring good value to the show, IMO. For some reason, the longer they stick around, the more I got annoyed and took them less seriously as actual threat with the constant defeat-and-retreat pattern.

(though while Ryuzaki was totally poor man's Asakura to me, I do agree Dragon Orphnoch's got a pretty cool design).

On the movie:

Go for it! If only for my personal morbid curiosity, because I haven't seen any opinion by someone who actually watch it at this point and continue to watch the series afterward. Would be really interesting to see how you re-interpret both everything you've posted and the rest of the series after that.

Also I guess it's too late, but... if you really went in to watch that with the mindset of a fan in 2003, I don't think you'd even realize it's a spoiler :v It's an AU movie that has nothing to do with the actual series' timeline or even narrative, and they did what the modern (read: people like us) audience think is wrong because the audience in that era has a different kind of expectation, I believe.