Okay so question: how similar is this to Black? Will watching this before Black affect my enjoyment of Black?

Black is one of those series that I've always wanted to watch (I've only seen a couple of episodes) but I never felt ready to sit down and watch through 50 episodes of 80s Rider. So if this, in any way, would lessen the experience of Black, I'll just hold off on it for now.

Similar elements, names and designs. While watching them, you notice that, but overall the stories are different, so I think Black and Black Sun can be watched in any order. The main thing is not to get too hung up on the connection of these shows, otherwise yes, you can be disappointed.

By the way, you will have to watch not 50, but 97 episodes, because there is also Black RX. With all the differences, this is a direct sequel, even with the same main character, unlike V3. Plus, movies.

As someone who has never watched Black, I feel you can just jump into this. It's really it's own story with elements plucked from Black.

Yeah you can easily watch it, all you miss are references, the story is different.

And missing out on the references is no big deal, if anyhing you might experience them the other way around - once you watch Black you'll be like "Oh, so that's why they did that in Black Sun!" :lol

I mostly enjoyed watching the series - the production values are fantastic overall, though they probably shouldn't have bothered with most of the minor kaijin costumes - but like others here I do feel that it unravelled badly towards the end.

I'm basically left with having watched a teenage girl rapidly lose everyone and everything she cares about in increasingly traumatic ways until she has nothing left but hate. Bold, certainly, but not very satisfying.

Did Kotaro always intend to become Creation King when he rocked up for the showdown with Nobuhiko? Or did that kind of happen by accident?

And WTF was Bilgenia's arc in this? He seemed to switch loyalty to go and work for whoever hated him the most that episode.

I'm not so concerned about missing references in Black Sun; rather, I don't want something from Black Sun to spoil the experience of watching Black. However, I want to watch Black Sun while the hype is still fresh :lol

Sounds like I'm good to go, then. Thanks!

The 1970s part really makes you wanna sing long long ago, 20th century. :lolol

Alright finally finished it.

And I can't help but feel that Kotaro never wanted his legacy to be the creation of a terrorist cell comprised of literal child fucking soldiers.

That was... A direction to end this on for sure.

I suppose it fits with the overall tone of the series, but isn't how I saw things going.

There's literal child fucking? This is even edgier than I thought.

In fact, if Toei doesn't stop making modern adult remakes or no change approach to them, then this may happen. It would seem that the Amazons with their cannibalism were extreme, but the Black Sun managed to overtake them. It's scary to even imagine how much the degree will be raised in the next such adaptation.