Oh man, you should have seen the original Faiz subs. They were TV rips from 2003 and they looked like someone had smeared Vaseline over the camera lens.

But can we find one weeb willing to say that Faiz was better when it looked like that, because it was the "true" experience?

Look, if I can't unsee it, you can't unsee it. That's just how fandoms work! I don't make the rules!

(Also, thank you for leaving my OOO guys intact. My Ankh hand already needed to be repaired when a wing broke off during a palm switch-out, and I think the next hit it takes could be its last.)

I'll be honest, I've felt pretty lucky at how watchable all of the Kamen Riders have been. Seems like a decent amount have gotten Blu-ray releases, and even the DVD ones seem solid enough. (Dark scenes are always going to be iffy on SD content.)

And, ugh, I can't imagine someone fighting for early-2000s-broadcast-quality as a preferred version. I can see folks kicking about a Remastered version as being Not Real Kamen Rider, but, yeah, you'd need to be pretty devoted to your nostalgia to feel like a DVD is too far from the intention of the creators.

Fun fact Horsepower's fiance was played by Mika Katsumura, whose claim to fame is Yuuri/Time Pink in 2000's Timeranger and Horsepower's cousin was played by Shinnosuke Abe, who went on to play Impactor Logia in Toho Studio's Gransazer post-Faiz.

Regarding the original broadcast versions of the episodes there's one detail that both me and my friend utterly prefer to the DVD versions, and it's solely due to the later being re-scored so the scene in question is way better with the original music choice.

There's one other upcoming character whose actor played another significant Toku character, and... and I won't say who it is for spoilers. All I will say is that as a Zyuohger fan it completely broke me.

The weird flipside to being excited when folks get rehired in toku shows is feeling maybe a little offended when stars of one show get picked up as one-off guest stars on a later show. Like, being the Pink Ranger is a pretty big deal! Being a two-episode vestige of the past is... it is not a step up!

I remember when Koyomi from Wizard was in a two-parter on Ghost as an idol singer and it's, like, a little insulting? Can you imagine a past Rider just being recast as a lower... tier... oh.

You'll have to let me know when it happens!

TACHIBANA-SAN! Why are you watching? TACHIBANA-SAN? Is it true that you've become a lower-tier character?

In fairness, she at least didn't bail on filming Ghost, requiring those episodes to be written around her absence.

There are a lot of tokusatsu vets that appear in Faiz. You'll see faces in here that pop up in Zyuohger, Garo, Kabuto, Ultraman Nexus, Shinkenger, GoGoV, and Amazons, just to name some stuff off the top of my head.