Fourze's plot does come to an almost dead halt for much of the later two-thirds. The "Ryusei is secretly Meteor" plot gets dragged out way longer than it should have been and the villains' lack of obvious motivation keeps the weekly threats pretty much at the "random kid is given a Switch, wackiness ensues" level. By the time the show realizes this there's less than ten episodes to go and shit starts getting really rushed.

So it is all down hill from here then?

To be fair Fourze isn't really that plot heavy anyway, it just has great characters portrayed by great actors who have great chemistry and their interactions make the quiet moments between the fighting feel worthwhile. Although I personally would have had less people in the club, as a lot of them felt like spare parts when Meteor showed up.

My only real problem now is, as the villains come more and more into the limelight, other aspects of the series are pushed out of it. And so where once this show was centred around the Switches and the motivations behind those who press them, they have less time to explore this now leaving the MOW to feel more tacked on and forced.

I can't tell whether the Meteor stuff is supposed to be a Clark Kent glasses parody or what but I'm struggling to believe a little more each episode that everyone in the club are that dense that they can't draw the connection. Half of their life in the club is solving mysteries for Christ's sake.

I guess I'd be annoyed that I have no idea what the villains are actually doing in this show but that seems to be a common thing in Kamen Rider I am discovering. The ULs spoke in an untranslated language and the Greed largely sit around while the show tries to explain such garbled and confusing mythology, the whole thing crumbles down as soon as you think on it.

The Greed have a clear motivation, though: get all their medals and become whole again. There's not much more to it, but there doesn't really need to be because they're creatures of pure greed. And in Kuuga you could still piece together that the Grongi had some kind of system and rules behind what they were doing - and if you watch the show with the Grongi subbed (assuming MCS ever gets around to finishing their v2s) then they very clearly explain what's going on.

All you get in Fourze until the last four episodes is "We need to get all twelve Horoscopes together! Because we do!" No other Rider series has such poorly motivated villains.

But the Greed need to get their medals together...because they do. There isn't much more to that either, sure there may not need to be, but that still doesn't mean they are interesting.

And without the Grongi translated what I got from the villains in Kuuga is killing people is a game to them. That is it. So they were just fucking around the whole series for shits and gigs.

And in Wizard it is just, we gotta make more Phantoms...because of the Sabbat...we wont explain what that is but...Philosophers Stone! Also new Phantoms turn up every week so we seem to be making them just fine but don't think on that too much...

I'm not defending Fourze but I've yet to meet any truly great villains in Kamen Rider yet.

That works for me in the Greed's case. They're supposed to be personified greediness so I don't need more motivation than wanting stuff.

I think the best villains in the Heisei era are the Lords from Agito and the Undead from Blade. The Lords' motivation isn't spelled out until late in the game, but they make that mystery a central part of the show and we get a clear sense of what they're specifically after. The Undead's mission statement is explained pretty early on and it works well with the fact that some are intelligent but savage and others are just mindless beasts.

I guess that is another reason, to add to the long list of them, to watch Blade! At this rate I probably wont be able to hold off until better video quality I'll be too desperate to watch the show.

So OOO 17. Dirty becomes Kamen Rider Bath mhmm?

Either way it was another episode that did more world building and you know I am a sucker for that. That said I thought it was kinda dumb that the Yummy conveniently splits into two when we have a second Rider, woulda been a real kicker if this happened earlier...

Then again Date is really fucking badarse. So who cares?

Toldja. :p

I am shutting up about OOO now, you have redeemed yourself! Haha.

Fourze on the other hand delivers another fairly meh episode. Pegasus' evolution into Cancer was terribly plotted, as for episodes upon episodes now we've had much better realised villains and much better written plots to have them evolve into a Horoscope.

That said it's hard to hate the show that has Meteor, who between his disco henshin and one inch power punches may well be my favourite Rider.

OOO 18 - You can deffo see Date's impact in the show, not only is he a great character but the way the characters play off of him is great as well. Birth's powers are cool as well. Great fun.

Meteor really is one of Fourze's saving graces. The dude is just awesome.

Date was actually so awesome his presence rewrote the show. He was originally planned to be around for only a few episodes, then die and pass off Birth to Gotou (and possibly come back as a zombie or something). The character and actor were both just so likable, though, that they kept him around. :lol

Honestly, I actually liked Cancer (Helps that my personal horoscope is Cancer :lol), but a nice design and a semi-interesting character attached to him, and that he shakes up the status quo among villains. Rather fun.

Date is awesome. I guess Birth is to you with OOO as Beast was to me with Wizard.