All right, so we couldn't wait until tomorrow and watched the last 5 episodes a little while ago. Wow, that was incredible. This is the first Kamen Rider series where I did not feel the ending was written at the last minute, because it did not do a stupid cop out, it did not leave any questions unanswered (well outside of Foundation X, but it seems like they are behind the events in OOO, which was unexpected and kind of cool), and the reasonings for Philip's return seemed pretty valid and not as convoluted as other "resurrections" have been in various series. Not to mention there was no random main villian appearing at the last minute as other series have done.

Overall, the show was well done. It was finely paced, and every episode being a 2 parter really helped make things move in it. I will admit, there were times I was hoping for some single episode stories, but that did not drag the show down. I think the only major complaint I have with the show is that it was very Japanese. What do I mean by very Japanese? Well, it was predictable. I guessed Philip was going to be the brother the moment Wakana mentioned she had one. I knew Shroud was going to be the mother from the moment she was introduced. I knew Philip was going to return somehow in the end. Almost all of the mysteries were easy to figure out in the first 5 minutes of the episode. I think there was only one episode that I did not guess correctly on who the Dopant was, which was the episode with the virus. The episode titles did not help at times either. Like "The End of R" obviously stood for revenge, which meant it was Izaka's final episodes. The same went for Kirihiko with the episode titled "Farewell N."

Other than that though, I loved the show. The rider designs were well done. I loved how W's normal forms had kind of an 80s feel to them while the Xtreme form felt more like a modern series rider. All of the characters were done great and grew on you. Even the main villians got enough screen time that you really felt for them at times and loved them. Terror is probably the best leader of an evil organization I have seen in a long time. He cared for his family, but lost himself and his feelings for them in his quest for power, but the writing for him was done with extreme care. In fact, I cannot really think of a time when any of the characters contradicted themselves from episodes back as other series have done. Oh, and they actually developed a relationship between two characters that felt natural and not forced. Speaking of characters, I think my favorite characters are Philip, Wakana, and Ryuubei. Although, Shoutarou was pretty awesome to, so he is up there. Come to think of it, this series is hard for me to really pick an absolute favorite character, which is not something I am used to with a rider series. I mean, Kiva was easily Wataru and Maya, Blade was Leangle and Hajime, Ryuki was Ouja, 555 was the Lucky Clover lady, etc. Design wise for the monsters though, definitely goes to Taboo, Utopia, and Clay Doll Xtreme. However, Terror, Nazca, Death (well, the design for Death that Dummy used), and Skull were incredible as well.

Outside of a few instances, even the episodes were entertaining to watch. My least favorite would be the two parter with Gene, but other than that, I did not really have any episodes I absolutely hated. There were parts I disliked, but that was about it. The only thing I could say that was a let down was the pacing of the movie, because the first 50 minutes moved at such a slow pace that I kind of wished I had watched the theatrical cut.

Finally, I am really looking forward to watching OOOs now. If for nothing else, to see how the build up of Foundation X continues forth because it is strange to have two rider series that connect with each other (honestly, I have never seen any of the series that do connect, as I have not seen Black RX yet). I still have to watch the Accel and Eternal movies, and I will get to the vs movie when we are watching OOOs, but until then, I am very impressed with this series and am glad I had the chance to watch it all in one weekend.

The Foundation X thing doesn't actually transfer over to OOO directly. In fact, they go unseen again until Movie Wars Mega Max. It's apparently a producer thing; when W's producers are on the shows (W and Fourze) they like to include Foundation X as an underlying and ongoing threat. OOO had a different producer and he didn't feel compelled to include them. I'd still watch OOO, though, as it's a really fun show with some great characters (and if you want more Foundation X you'll need to at least see how OOO ends for Mega Max to make much sense). Honestly, it's worth watching for Ankh and Date alone, everything else is just a bonus on top of those two.

When you do watch it, though, just keep in mind don't watch the OOO part of Movie War Core. It doesn't fit in with the show at all, the characters are all written completely differently, and it showcases some of Toshiki Inoue's worst and laziest writing ever (seriously, it's down there with The Next). You'll just be wasting 45 minutes of your life that you will never get back.

Movie War Core? Movie Mega Max? Which movies are these?

So OOOs has had a billion movies to?

EDIT: Does anyone know if Nihon has released them?

These are part of the now-annual December team-up movie series: Core is the OOO/W movie, Mega Max is the OOO/Fourze one. OOO only had four movies - the two Movie Wars, Let's Go Riders, and OOO Wonderful (his only real solo film).

I assume TVN has done the earlier ones, but I know they haven't done Mega Max yet since it just came out and they like to rip their own raws.

And TVN always gets the blu-rays. OT said they won't be doing the Mega Max blu-ray version. The OT version is good enough to watch for the moment. At least until I can upgrade to the TVN blu-ray.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnnmCbsY_ug

Just watching this scene, over and over.

I love the sounds his sword makes.
So godlike!

I know right xD

Saw a couple episodes of Ryuki over the weekend. I'm almost half-way through the show now.

Knight Survive is a fantastic looking upgrade! I love that DarkWing also gets a Survive Upgrade. I'd REALLY like to see a Figuarts of these two.

Also, good stuff with Tezuka and his demise. He was a great character, even if his Rider design is one of the more weak ones, in my opinion. Ouja is also pretty interesting.

Watching Kabuto right now & just noticed that Tsurugi's mansion is the same as the Sonozaki's from W.

Weird huh?

Man....I really want to watch Fourze now. I just started W. I plan to watch Kiva as well as Fourze. Decade too. >_< I have Hibiki, but I stopped after a handful of episodes, I might pick it back up at some point. I got sucked into KR way too easily, lol.

No, you get used to seeing that mansion all of the time, and other locations.

Like Kouga's mansion in Garo was also the Kanzaki mansion in Ryuki. And you see that place in a ton of different Sentai and KR series.

Not really, you see a lot of locations reused in tokusatsu. I always thought it was kind of fun, personally. There's a pretty cool fountain that shows up in a couple of the early Heisei Rider shows, Kitaoka's house shows up again in Kiva, the warehouse where Ouja and Zolda have their final showdown shows up all the time, too. I recently finished Dairanger and started watching Dekaranger and I find it very cool that the Dairanger ending and Dekaranger opening both feature the teams driving around the same curved road.

Hibiki is an amazing show, I definitely recommend that everybody watches all 29 episodes.

:lol I still plan on getting to these at some point myself. I've only seen the first episode thus far but I enjoyed it.

Oh wow, so not even 20 mnutes after finishing Black I find out that someone has subbed it. -_-

As for Hibiki, uh, you mean 49 episodes right? And sorry, but I couldn't even make it through the first 15, so I will not be doing that show again.

No he really does mean 29. Because the ending would have been absolutely fine at exactly episode 29 before the writing changed and the show went down hill. HARD.

Bingo.

And yeah, Century Kings completed subbing Black earlier this year. His own site has been down for awhile, but krdl has all the episodes.

You mean the show got worse? :eek: How could it get worse than it already was? Did they at least put action into the show? Or was it just Things appear, Things play around, kid does something whiny until Hibiki hangs out with him, Hibiki sees Things and chases after them, poorly rendered giant CGI animal appears, Hibiki beats drums, monsters gone, repeat and rehash in the next set of episodes forever and ever.

As for Black, I decided to start Kamen Driver Black RX tonight and watched the first five episodes. Oh boy, where to start?

First, how did Kotaro go from this:

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_UF72VLEQp9...ck_henshin.jpg

to this:

http://www.centurykings.com/wp-conte...tarojacket.jpg

I mean seriously, his fashion sense went from badass to fairy in an episode.

Secondly, uh... why are there aliens in a Kamen Rider show? Or rather, why are none of the monsters based off of earthly creatures?

I swear that being dead for whatever amount of time must have had an effect on his brain, because Kotaro is an idiot in this series. Not to mention he is just living with some random family without any explanation (at least, I did not catch one) and he is always around the same damn annoying kids.

It seems like this show was going to be a whole different series, but then Toei couldn't afford it so they just made it a Kamen Rider show and put Kotaro in it so they would not have to hire a new actor, but forgot to rewrite the character in the process. Oh, except for resurrecting Battle Hopper, making his sacrifice in the episode before pointless. Which even that seems to have been pointless as well since now Kotaro has made his version of Kitt. And where is Road Sector???

This show is a mess. It took everything that was great about Black and just spat all over it. I really hope it gets better because the next 42 episodes are going to be painful if it doesn't.

On the positive side, I like Bosgun's design.

Ugh... Black RX. I tried giving that show a far shake but I just couldn't get into it. Kotaro feels like a totally different character and while I like his girlfriend, the family he lives with annoy me to no end. Call me weird, but domestic abuse as comic relief just doesn't work for me. Replacing the kid of the week with one constant annoying kid character didn't do much for me, either.

The show as a whole is pretty weird. In a lot of ways it feels more like a Metal Hero show than Kamen Rider (especially with the alien villain council). It's probably not a bad show, but the decision to have Kotaro as the main character again forces it to be compared against Black, which is really to RX's disadvantage. I've heard before that adding Kotaro to the show was a fairly late stage development and that the show was originally going to star a different character. I'm not sure if that's just speculation or reality, but to me it would explain a lot of why Kotaro feels so different.

So I am up to episode 18 of Knight Rider Black RX and so far, there has only been one episode I truly enjoyed. However, what is up with the monster designs? Black had incredible designs that look realistic and felt like threats. RX's monster designs appear lazy and half assed. Even BioRider and RoboRider look blah, and I don't like how Kotaro is trying to mimic a machine when he is transformed into RoboRider as if he were an actual machine.

I have about 9 episodes of OOO's left and i love it. I could stare at Satonaka all day. Im about 2 episodes behind on Fourze. I read that it has a bad reputation but i love the action and humor. I am going full force into Den-O after i finish OOO's. I watched 8 episodes of it already and i have a feeling it will be my favorite. I tried Decade but with Fourze and OOO's being my first Rider series i kinda feel that Decade is void of any humor whatsoever. Atleast in the first 5 episodes or so.

Den-O is big with the comedy. I certainly enjoyed it (Especially after having finished Ryuki before it). The last...6 or so episodes of Den-O were pretty weak though.

As for Decade, it gets silly, most certainly, but nowhere near Den-O's level.

And Fourze's bad reputation at first stemmed from "Not Double" syndrome. It's current issues are generally undermined now by a great story and fun characters.

Black RX is really starting to piss me off. The show has decided to resurrect Shadow Moon. -_- I watched those two episodes a little while ago and was saddened that they copped out his death. Talk about lame. His final words to Kotaro no longer hold any meaning.

I just finished episode 25 and I'm starting to have a hard time focusing on it. I even fell asleep during the episode after Shadow Moon's return (23) and got up just as Kotaro was destroying the monster.

OOO was my first(and so far my favorite). And then Den-O second(also a great series). I'm 7 episodes into W. I really like it so far.

Only 7 episodes into Double? You should soon be getting to where it gets really good. I think Double is probably a better series than Den-O overall, but I might actually prefer Den-O now. I really like Doubles forms, and the interchangability, but I REALLY like Den-O's forms, especially Liner Form.

Overall, Double is a better series than Den-O, but Den-O is freaking hilarious, and that could be the factor that some people would prefer.

I still believe OOO had the best balance of comedy and drama (Keeping in mind that I have only seen Ryuki, Kabuto, Den-O, Kiva, Decade, Double, OOO, and Fourze).

I think I'd have to agree that OOO had a better balance. As much as I love my boy Den-O the comedy outweighed everything else just a tad too often. OOO was goofy with the underpants, and ice cream, and the crazy happy birthdays. But The serious side of it really was magnificent and made the comedic moments more enjoyable when they did happen.

I hated Den-O. Outside of Ryuutarus, I did not like any of the characters. I found turning the girl into a child halfway through was stupid and pointless, as it did nothing for her character. And then having a billion movies does not help either.

Now, wasn't there a real-world reason why they had to recast Hana as a little girl? What happened there?

I think she claimed it was health reasons, but it was more or less because she didn't want to do it anymore.

Ryutaro having to become some oft-forgotten kid was because the original actor had legit health reasons though, right?

Ok, well it wasn't something they intended to happen from the begining. Otherwise there would have been better transition. And the movies were extremely profitable. Say what you will of the rest but Ore Tanjou and Saraba Climax were excellent films.

This. Hana's original actress (Yuriko Shiratori) was a gravure model. Being on a little Toku show was a stepping stone for her and about mid way through she was done being Hana. So she left, she wasn't obligated to stick around if she didn't want to. So the showrunners were left with no choice but to throw in a story about her future being changed. And waht with Zeronos being her father (and having erased himself from history) we can infer that that actually had alot to do with it. She may be a singularity but without him she won't exist period. It's an entirely plausible explanation and what else could we have expected them to do when the actress left? Kill her?

Now for Takeru Satou I'm fairly certain he had health concerns. But he also originally intended to only be Den-O through Saraba Climax. Which was originally the finale of the franchise. He never agreed to do more and was already on another TV show by the time Neo Generations with Decade was being made. So they used the young Ryutaro from the TV series and explained it as someone messing with the past. And by the time we got to the Let's Go Kamen Riders movie with OOO, Momotaros had become completely associated with Sword Form. And Takeru Satou was filming Ruroni Kenshin so he was totally unavailable. So for all intents and purposes Momo is Den-O now as they've written out the younger Ryutarou too.

Just watched the W Net films, I'd recommend them just for the Kirihiko parts. Man, even when he's dead Kirihiko always gets it.

And now I'm about to watch the A to Z movie & after that I'll be entering the final stretch of W. Now just a few questions:

1. Is the Directors cut of A to Z worth watching, or is the movie fine as is?
2. About the W/OOO movie, since everyone here has said that the OOO part of that film has pretty much nothing to do with the series itself, is it okay for me to watch it without getting any major spoilers? I'm only considering watching it because I have a thing about watching a movie start-to-finish.

The OOO portion does spoil minor details, but really it would only spoil some of OOO's forms (which this board has probably already done for you :lol).

There is nothing in the OOO movie that will spoil the series at all. It is completely and totally non-canon and only shares the same characters and actors (and even then a lot of the characters act completely different in the movie).

Started watching OOO last night, really liking it.

I'll probably go back and give W a try when I'm done.

First up, I watched the Eternal movie last night. I thought it was pretty good because of the Foundation X build up. If they weren't involved, it would have been all right. I thought it was better than Accel though, which was quite good nonetheless. I have to say, the gay guy of NEVER was probably my favorite character of the movie. However, I'm not really sure about them killing Utopia and then saying they are going to use the files from NEVER to bring him back. That seemed weird since he showed no signs of being one in the series itself.

And then I have finished Black Rx. The last batch of episodes were decent, pretty good, but awkward. There really seemed to be no reason for the other Kamen Riders to be there other than for the sake of having them there. Kotaro still pretty much did everything on his own, and there were times that they did not want Kotaro to just go running out on his own to defeat a monster because he may die doing so. That was weird, but not as weird as none of them noticing there were two Ichigo's except for the idiot cook dude. However, the final battle was nice, and I have to say that I was surprised that they actually killed off the parents in the second last episode. I expected it to just be they were alive, but the kids thought they were dead. That was nice to see a surprise from the series and it is a shame the series did not have more of those earlier on. The final battle was meh though, as seriously, why can't the Japanese just have a normal creature for the true ruler of an emprie? Gorgom had a heart, Crisis had a giant head. I understand he likes to be ahead of everyone else, but come on.

Overall, the series was pretty lackluster. The villians barely did anything until the last bit of the show, Kotaro really felt out of character at times, and the show was just way too goofy. I can see why Saban decided to adapt it into Masked Rider, as it is the most kid friendly of the Kamen Rider series I have seen. The comedy really felt out of place in this show, and for being a follow up to Black and starring the same character, it was an insult. I hated the return of Shadow Moon, even if Nobuhiko was indeed dead, as it still diminished his character (although I do love his grasshopper spurs, when they worked). One of the things I loved the most about Black were the Monster of the Week designs. They looked so realistic and really felt like animals, whereas here, some of the designs were cool, but they felt lazy or boring compared to what Black gave us. In fact, I would have preferred someone from Gorgom appeared instead of Shadow Moon, trying to recreate the fallen empire, and then having to deal with Crisis as well. That would have been far more interesting. Plus, there seemed to be no reason for Shadow Moon's return, since he was only in 2 episodes and then died again. The rider forms were all right, but their reasons for existing did not make sense. I understand the story behind it, but I mean, they were pretty much just there to use as gimmicks over anything else. If there is one thing the show did well at though, it was having a strong female cast that does not get captured every few episodes. I loved Black, but I was really getting sick of Zelda and Peach after a while. On the other hand, it is insulting that they never brought those two back, even for a cameo role, Kotaro never even thinks of them. In the end, the show should not have been a Kamen Rider show, or at the very least, not starred Kotaro. For the most part, now that I have seen the show, I'm going to ignore its existence as much as possible and move on.

BTW, I am wondering, how did Saban's adaptation of this show handle the other riders? Or did the show not even make it that far? I only watched the first 3 or 4 episodes to it and never went back to it, so I barely remember anything from it.

Uh... yes he did. He told Shotaro right out that he was a NEVER and when he died he disintegrated the same way.

Oh that's right. I forgot all about that.

So I just watched probably the worst thing Kamen Rider related I have ever watched. It was a movie called Kamen Rider ZO, and I am not sure which is worst, the fact that Nihon decided to fandub it with some of the worst fandub acting I have ever experience, or the fact that it was just down right aweful to begin with. I mean, where to start? The effects were cheap, the editing was horrible (there are scenes that just fit, as the kid turns around to start running and falls in the middle of the woods, what?), and the fights were uninspiring. Thank the gods this movie was only 30 minutes because I wouldln't be able to take much more of it.

I loved ZO ;_;