OH, her! Wow, I totally didn't recognise her.

Then again I've seen a grand total of two Den-O episodes.

BTW, the way he beat the scorpion guy in 14 was really, really silly.

If it makes you feel better...I think her acting is pretty good in Den-O.

She rarely does anything notable, she's usually just hanging out in the background.

That's not the last time you'll see the Machine Tornador. At least the Machine Tornador song rocks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0iPupYkZL8

You can catch him skateboarding on it in Let's Go :lol

Yeah, and G3-X is on it to with his gatling gun ready. This was a combo they used in the show.

Wait, seriously?!
*Goes back to check*
Holy hell, he is :lol

OOOs final episode:

Great.

My mind instantly defaulted to Kougami screaming "Subarashi" :lol

On this day we mark a special occasion. A true and honest OOO's fan is born.

Happy birthday To me!

Honestly that ending, while dissapointed that the final fight was a big ol' CGI fest inside a silly giant cube thing, was fantastic. Puts the show on the same level as Double for me. (though I didn't blubber like a baby. But my mother being in the room while I watched it may have had something to do with that discretion)

I think the overall plot was wrapped up tremendously, however Birthday Man's ultimate scheme seemed... forced. Not dick-in-a-cheerio forced, but cat-into-a-crate-for-a-vet-appointment forced. It worked and it all worked out in the end, but it was a bit hard to accept. Frankly I just don't understand why he waited so long. Ankh's farewell was touching and somber, but once again this core-to-conciouness thing eludes me. I thought it was great to have Eiji use his core that contained his mind for the combo, effectively makign the two into one. But that one medal holding the mind thing just doesn't gel. So, if there is a single core in a greed that holds their conciousness, how did Lost Ankh exist? If only one core holds the mind, where did Lost Ankh's come from, and why did none of the other Greeed do the same? (they were all seperated from their cores, sometimes where literally all their other cores were togetehr except the conciouness) This is really my only true, inexcusable nitpick of the show, and it really just makes Lost Ankh seem redundant, but it's minor in the grand scheme and forgettable altogether considering how neat and tidy the ending was. I only wish the show had a proper epilogue instead of cheesy-peace-sign-photo-barrage (seriously Japan, does the peace sign mean something different to you or are you guys just really into peace?) musical. BUT it was set to the intro music which rocked, and Tajador's epic theme returned in the final fight, too.

I give this show 3 out of 3. Tomorrow I continue Agito, then probably Den-O, then who knows, maybe the next rider series after Wizard will be the best yet and totally be my thing?

W's was better, which by the way is episode 48 not 49.

That makes sense. you can say it was better, but how is it better if it's not the real ending.....

Point taken.

And it wasn't better anyway since OOO was a much better series overall.

That's my personal opinion however :p

I'll always be biased towards W as it was my first rider series. And if anyone calls bullshit on that, Saa, omae no tsumi o kazoero!

Cool! So wold you say it's beter than Double? Or is Double still your favorite?

Decade was my first completed, and we all know what I thought of that series :lol

W was, I believe, my second series so I don't have that whole first experience angle working for me. I like it but I did find myself to be very bored for a large portion of the series. OOO on the other hand was enjoyable through out. Even during the slow mid section.

I'm kind of biased towards Fourze, as it was my first completed...even though Den-O dethroned it as my favorite, and I'm not sure if I like Kiva more than Forze or not...they both have their strong and weak points.

I would personally place Fourze above Kiva. While Kiva isn't as bad as Switchblade believes, I do think Kiva's flaws are a bit too much to swallow at times, compared to Fourze's.

Finished with Faiz eps. 30-33. Just as Takumi and Yuji start to have an understanding of each other, Kusaka messes it up again. This is the first time I'm seeing a secondary rider to truly have a dickish behavior. I'm kinda hoping that Kitazaki kills him somewhere near the finale, that would be awesome.

Just saw a familiar face, Go Green of Gogo V is here as one of Mari's former classmates. Though from the looks of it he'll end up as one of Sawada's victims sometime in the future.

I had to check the cast list to make sure it was Go Green that I saw (it was!) and was surprised that Kaido was played by the actor that would play Juuzo in Shinkenger later on. I didn't recognize him but now that I know I do see it and I wonder why I didn't notice earlier. I guess due to them being really different personalities, one's a goofy orphenoc while the other is a blood-thirsty gedou. Seeing as how well he played the guitar in an earlier episode I wish he had a go with Dayu's shamisen in shinkenger, that would have been nice.

As much as I love Fourze, I would probably place Kiva ahead of it. In fact, Kiva would definitely end up being in my top 10 best rider shows, not sure about Fourze.

Kiva was just so damn awesome. Wataru was fully developed throughout the series. Megumi and Ixa were also developed quite well. The Fangires were awesome villains. I also loved the constant shift between the 80s and present day and the effects from it. Unfortunately, the downside to that aspect as Megumi's mother came out appearing useless since the Fangires she hunted always got away. However, I like to think of that happening due to a lack of technology, they just did not have the resources to actually kill a Fangire, just stop them. Dark Kiva was an awesome villain and Maya was one of my favorite characters in the show. The only thing I did not like in the episode was the time traveling two parter when Wataru tries to keep Maya and Otoya separated and Ixa tries to stop his friends from being imprisoned for something that happened in the 80s. I also loved the races who were in the dragon castle and their back stories.

Of course, who knows, I haven't watched Kiva since it ended, so I might see things in rewatching it that I do not like that I did not notice before. It wouldn't be the first time that has happened.

Chase, did you know that Yuji's girlfriend from the first two episodes was TimePink's actress? Also, the Dragon Orphenoch is Zero in Garo.

Kusaka has a recurring role on Cutey Honey the Live, too, alongside Taiga from Kiva. Takumi shows up in a Sentai movie, too. I want to say it's Go-Onger's.

Fourze is just far too goofy for me to ever say that it's better than Kiva. I liked Fourze and found it fun as well, but it's not the same caliber of show that Kiva is.

Really, I just found Kiva to just meander is mediocrity once the Fangire Queen was introduced and Otoya went to a wild ladies man to a more serious demeanor and Wataru lost his character flaw of emotional weakness.
I really found watching it to be more of a chore.

I found Kiva to be a great story overall. Dark where it needed to be, light hearted where it needed to be. Once the Queen arc was introduced I'll admit that it meandered a bit, but once she died things took a much better turn. Kiva is still one of my top favorite rider shows. There are just so many redeeming characters in that show that I can forgive some of the slower sections.

But Wataru over coming his emotional weakness is what shows he has grown throughout the series. That was one of the best things about Kiva. Wataru was the first rider since Shuichi in Agito to grow so much.

Kiva was a pretty awesome show. Although I have to admit I did kinda hate the 86 ending. I never enjoyed maya as a character, it kinda just stepped on what the entire first half of the series was going for for otoya

I will never understand how people can like Kiva on anything but a design level.

Easily. It had a great story with interesting characters on top of spot on designs.

Except it didn't. The story was full of holes and recycled Inoue plot beats and the characters were varying shades of inconsistent and stupid.

I don't know. Maybe if I hadn't already seen Faiz, later Hibiki, and the First/Next movies. But by the time I got to Kiva I was completely over Toshiki Inoue and, while Kiva was better than those other things I mentioned, it still has all of his same tropes being reused yet again.

I can't agree with that. Not that I'm saying you can't like it more. I mean, go ahead, I still love the show. But better than Double? OOOs story was told well, but concepts and ideas were either too silly to accept against everything else, or didn't jive with the rules the series had presented. Also while the final episode itself was great, the show just wasn't as enjoyable near the end. I felt like Ankh's character arch was mismanaged. His decision of "I don't want to be a Greeed" while perfectly in line with his motivations before, came far too late to really be a game-changer. It seemed like it was crammed in with everything else too late in the game. I also felt like Eiji's story, while again a very good one, was drawn out and became a bit repetative. I think it would've worked better if the purple medals didn't make him lose control at first. Having him lose control, gain control, then all of a sudden lose it again just to overcome it seemed a touch contrived. They basically used the same idea twice. And it was very blatant.

I also felt that there were far more "useless" characters than double. Double had a lot of random friends of theirs that showed up, and so did OOOs. I'm not talking about Santa verses the Resturant owner. I mean main supporting characters. Mainly Birthday Man's assistant and Hina. My God they were pointless, the assistant more than Hina. When I saw the assistant at the end trying to catch Eiji like everyone else in his power revelation I genuinely cocked my head because of how utterly vacant the character had been. She had no personality, no purpose that couldn't have been given to a candroid, no nothing.

Hina is also vexing. While Akiko started out pretty annoying, her boundless energy, determination and few genuine successes made her pretty endearing. Hell, I was laughing out loud at her antics by the end. She never felt useless, unlike Hina. Hina's only job was to stand there and look pitiful, occasionally hugging someone for a contrived bit of character realization. She had no personality, had as much energy as Ben Stein, and did nothing worthwhile. Her big thing is that she's super strong, but the show forgets that by, like, episode twenty. So realy, totally pointless. Akiko, for all her character faults, was strong, silly, supportive, yet well contrasted. I remember her infiltrating the Sonozaki mansion as a maid and uncovering the Sweets dopant, uncovering the Pupeteer dopant, as well as the only one besides Shotaro to put up any sort of fight against the dream dopant. Now think of that for a second, he's a dopant that invades and controls dreams. He projects his mental prowess onto someone else to control their mind. So for Akiko to be able to even inconvenience him, let alone mentally attack him, puts her mental control (or possible lack thereof) on the same level as Shotaro.

Akiko was awesome. Hina sucked.

Subjectively I think Double will always be my favourite. Objectively I still think Double is better. It was just better crafted, and it got far more emotional responses out of me than OOOs did. (And I had been spoiled to W's ending, so it had that working against it)

On W's ending verses OOOs: Really, as much as some people say it "cheapened" the second to last episode, I don't really see that. The emotion in the scene where Shotaro lets Philip go wasn't really undone, since it was still a major point to his character. And while philip wasn't gone long for us, he was for Shotaro, and seeing Shotaro not lose strength in the meantime was a huge service to the character. And his reuniting with Philip was very well done, really makign the relation between the two seem incredibly genuine.

Sadly, while I didn't want to do this, the main decider for which series overall was better comes mainly due to the acting. Shotaro's actor really, really portrays the character well, and really gets across the intense emotion Shotaro is based around. That's the best part of Shotaro and Philip: one is heart-on-his-sleeve and overflowing with personality, one is very reserved and awkward, sometimes oblivious, to emotion. They both aspire to be more, and grow in different ways, Shotaro accepting who he is and realising emotion is not something to just be ignored, and Philip wanting a family and to, basically, feel love and loved again.

Eiji... I like the character a lot, I like the actor a lot, but he's not Shotaro. He's just not the emotional powerhouse. I'm not saying he has to be the same character, but I can't remember a lot of scenes where Eiji expressed so much emotion outside of his oft-repeated civil war flashback, even when he should have. It got very tiring, honestly, and is one of the reasons I'll probably end up forgetting a huge part of him. He had a character, but he didn't have much of a personality.

Combine that with the other (minor mind you) flaws of the show and I can't honestly call OOOs better than Double. They are the same tier though. And OOOs did not ever dissapoint, especially coming off of Double which I, and many I've heard, consider one of the stronger series. I don't want to pick a favourite or which is better, but if I had to, it's Double, both times.

Thinking about it, did they ever explain Hina's super strength?
Honestly, while I didn't feel Hina was as useless as you say (I actually felt she took her entire situation, dying brother, monster possessing him (And keeping him alive), as well as her entire world just going to hell) in a rather realistic way, rather than turning into a 90's action girl like lots of other series (Both Japanese and Western) would do.
She did seem pretty mopey at times, but I didn't feel it was too often (Granted, as I said before, it took me 50 weeks to watch OOO (Since I watched it as it aired), so my knowledge of the frequency of certain reoccurring events is skewed).

Honestly I never found Hina to be all that weak or mopey. Certianly not Satonaka, she was a total badass as a part of Team Birth. In the finale she kicked tons of ass too. I've always felt OOO had one of the best supporting casts in recent years. Definitely better than Fourze & Wiizards' cast and in my opinion easily better than W's.

If he had something to do with 555 and Hibiki's second half, then he learned how to write a story before he hit Kiva. And a Kamen Rider series reuse tropes? Oh no, that has never happened before. :rolleyes

Thing is, I never took her as "accepting all this craziness" which I know was the intent so much as "just being incredibly complacent and standing around." She never did anything. And I mean never did anything. Not once can I remember her genuinely taking charge, asserting herself or her ideals, doing things by herself or in any way be a human being with motivations. She was an accesory. She was the token girl companion because every series has to have one. (most seem to have dead or missing parents, too) She had no plot, no goal, and for all their talk about how Eiji had no desire, she had no desire either. At least no more than him. She wanted her brother back. Okay, she never did anything about it and honestly took it about as well as Eiji took, well, anything.

Satonaka (see, I didn't even remember her name, and unlike Catface or Birthday Man it wasn't because I like my names for them better) wasn't mopey, she was just completley contrived. She had no reason to be there, wasn't a real badass (real badasses do stuff because of their personality, something she had none of) she just showed up in often moronic outfits and fired a gun. She was pure cheesecake pointlessness.

Hina wasn't mopey, she just looked pitiful. She always stood around with a sad puppy face. Not because she was mopey, just because that's what the director told her to do. She had no purpose and the show woudn't have suffered if both those characters didn't exist.

I suppose OOO's did have a greta supporting cast: i.e. the one staht actually supported the main character. Satonoka and Hina were just total wastes, one as a "my eyes are glossing over as she speaks" leading lady, one as an eye-rollingly painful droning robot that occsionally shows up out of the contrived ether to try and fail to convince us she's not just there for the mature male audience.

EDIT: Fuck, double-posted. Meant to edit my other one.

Ya, hina did nothing. Except for saving eiji like every other episode after the putotyra cores were introduced.


And akiko was the most annoyingly character in the universe. I would praise kabuto for the rest of my life if she never existed. This was all the development she got:
Why was I not told?! *slipper slap*

Why was I not told?! *slipper slap* I love Terui....



And she did nothing for the sweets dopant. She literally just stumbled into the answer, she did nothing

Oh great, she was useful for, like three episodes before he overcame them... just in time to lose control again. Where were her magic hugs then?

Also, I neve rgot that. The two weren't even romantically close. Hell, they were barely close no that I think about it. Why would he stop mid-strike at her, but bludgeon Date and Brotou (characters he's far closer to and has a strong friendship with) until candy came out?

And it's really hard to sell me on a character when, as I said, she's already largely useless and has no engaging personality. She was a damsel in distress minus the distress. You will never convince me that she was in any way interesting or enjoyable to watch. She couldn't act, she had no expressions outside of sadface and awkward giggle, and she did nothing. Like I said, she never took charge, never did anything herslef, even when she could have.

She went undercover as a maid of her own accord. If she hadn't then they would have never found out who it was.

Also I forgot to mention. Having no development was satonaka's whole thing. She was a worker. She did her job, and left. She didn't get attached to anyone so of course she wouldnt face development.