W was the show that got me into Kamen Rider and I was blown away by the depth and potential Kamen Rider could have.

Prior to watching W, I had always feared watching Kamen Rider because I thought it was a Grimdark series that exaggerated violence and horror and was purposely serious for the sake of being serious. My brief glimpses at Decade during my watching of Shinkenger did not do much to dissuade me from viewing Kamen Rider as a dull series trying to be hip.

Yet, imagine my surprise at W being both serious and hilarious! W was an amazing series that balanced the drama and the fun. It took itself seriously enough to move the story forward yet knew how to take a step back to have fun too. I simply loved it.

Therefore, W will always be special for me. I think I like Fourze better, because I simply liked the theme and the goofiness better, but there's no doubting W as a quality series.

Just finished watching the first episode of Den-O.

So far...well not really much to say yet. Wasn't a bad introductory episode for the most part. We got to meet our hero, looks like they're taking the accidental hero route this time, who has just about the worst luck imaginable. Speaking of imagine..we get a bit of a look at our villains for the series, based on the preview for the next episode they're called....Imagin? I'm guessing it's a play on djinn, what with the whole "wish" thing and the name. Not really sure what the deal is with them quite yet, nor this whole deal with the red dude in our hero and all that, but that's to be expected I suppose.

Show is definitely on the more lighthearted side, and having just watched Ryuki it gives me a nice contrast.

Also, most pathetic/awkward first henshin ever hahaha.

I know. :lol He literally has to have the belt put on him then accidentally transforms.

I'm seriously considering giving Fourze a chance based on how popular it is. It doesn't have a single thing that interests me, but then again one could've said the smae about OOOs yet I ended up loving it.

And then you super-agreed!

Fourze and Den-O are two series that are all about the fun, though Fourze is arguably superior because it still knows where it wants to take it's story. Den-O begins fun, has fun during the middle, and then during the last 10 episodes remembers that there needs to be a central villain and climax and throws all this pseudo-dramatic BS at you. It's still enjoyable, but it gives you a vibe that someone working on Den-O just forgot that there needed to be an end.

"But what about da moovies?"
Nogami for life. I stopped taking Den-O canonically after Final Countdown.

I had a really random thought.

Decade has the power to basically weaponize the Nine other Riders he can become. Some are really awesome. Like Hibiki's, and Kuuga's. Decade to when DiEnd shot him and he turned into a giant Deca-Driver. .. But the most useless, weird, useless one has got to be Den-O. Of all the awesome that could've happened when he Final Form'd Den-O.. He turns into Momotaros, and then shoots his sword up Kuuga Beetle's ass. ... The heck, man.

Den-O wasn't supposed to turn into Momotaros. The original Final Form Ride card showed the Denliner. It only changed after Tsukasa helped Momo get his shit together.

How awesome would it have been if Den-O turned into a giant robot train? EXTREMELY!

That doesn't explain the sword up Kuuga's ass :lol

Wouldn't it? Or atleast a new car for the train.

There is no explaining that.

My g/f and I watched the first 3 episodes of Black tonight. I am so glad to finally be watching it subbed after all of these years of watching it raw. While I understood a lot from the series, it was nice to learn some new information I did not know.

As for my g/f, she enjoyed them a bit, but she needs to get used to the episodic format. This is the first Showa series she has seen more than just the first episode to, as everything else she has watched has been from Ryuki on.

I need to get around to watching Black at some point. Maybe after Den-O.

Wizard Ep 6:

So far, I'm really enjoying this series. I like Koyomi quite a bit. The old dude is pretty scary looking, he gives me the creeps. I like that they explained the donut thing as his way to replenish mana.

And oh yeah! This episode guests Ryutaro's sister from Den-O, what was her name again? It's been too long since I watched Den-O. Anyway, she was never my favorite part of that show. Something about her super-sweet nature sometimes struck me as odd. I liked her being a conniving, manipulative scam-artist.

I still really like the way the magic circles are used for the transformations.

Watching kamen rider wizard episode 24.

Finally watched episodes 17-21 of the original Kamen Rider. They were quite enjoyable, but I will admit, I am ready for Hongo to come back. While I do not dislike Hayate, he doesn't really seem to have any personality of his own. He seems to only be there when the scene calls for him. Hongo at least felt like he belonged there.

That's mostly because the actor didn't want to make it feel like he was truly replacing Fujioka. Plus I think he was also on another show at the time. At any rate, Ichimonji does become more involved in plots as his tenure goes on, but there are still a lot of times when Taki does the heavy lifting on the plot scenes.

Episode 6 of Kiva, the Spider Fangire... I don't think I need to say anymore.

I watched the first half of Kamen Rider x Kamen Rider Double Decade: Rider War 2010. And Toei really needs to shorten these damn names. How do they fit them on the DVD case?!

My first, overwhelming, thought was this: Apparently to ressurect a Kamen Rider, it's the same as ressurecting freaking Tinkerbell. Which makes those jokes about Tsukasa a little to easy.

I enjoyed it though. Loving Kivaara, loving how kickass Decade can be when he tries. Not enjoying how the ending turned into Super Hero Taisen. "He was doing something ungodly evil to build something incredably good". No, you were being a troll. Stoppit.

Funny enough, I do not remember who Taki was. I watched the first 17 episodes back in Sept and I forgot all about him until the episode with the crab monster.

BTW, it is so convenient that Shocker does not kill our main characters. I mean, in the Crab Bubbler episode, Crab Bubbler is killing everyone he comes across. But then our main girls (and the bratty child) get in the way and he only knocks them out. WTF?!

Not even a monster would willingly deprive the world of Linda Yamamoto.

Just wait til episode 26 and you'll have something to say about him.

Oh goody.

Who?

And I wish they would, those three girls are there for nothing more than boobs.

Anyway, we watched episodes 4-10 of Black tonight. My g/f is starting to get into it despite the slowness it suddenly went into with episode 6.

Flipped back to Den-O since Agito lost my interest again (so much for the "Masterpiece" I once heard it called) and I do honestly like it. The main guy is a pretty bad actor though. He doesn't really do anything wrong, but he always grins when he's supposed to be upset. Like he's got the giggles. Also he's not much with the face he's not. Very rarely expressing as much as the people around him.

The red guy's funny. Fuck I'm calling him the red guy after that weirdo from Cow and Chicken. (I don't even like Cow and Chicken, I just thought that guy and his big red ass were funny)

Momotaro, would be the Red Guy.

And that wasn't bad acting. That's the character. Ryuutaro is shy, clumsy, always getting into accidents and trouble without meaning to. That grin is nervousness, thats all.

Oh no, I get the grin when he's nervous. I mean like when he's getting knocked out or something. A point where he's clearly not supposed to have that ever so slight upturn of the mouth. It's not like he's the Joker or anything just something I noticed. I guess because, while I wouldn't say Kamen Rider has had great acting, the actors from the past series (future series?) all make the right faces and emotions.

Also who are these two weirdos who hang out where Romatoph works? One's like a failed hipster trying to be a hipster because trying not to be a hipster was too mainstream, and Cher Deboner? I don't like 'em. Also the waitress lady "Soh-eechee-kuh" is wearing what I can only describe as the most unattractive outfit I have ever seen.

And thus concludes everything I don't like about the show because Goddammit Monstertoast makes me laugh my big red butt off.

While I wouldn't say Agito is a masterpiece, it is far better than Den-O. Nevertheless, Agito has some of the best character development ever. No rider series afterwards until Kiva gave us so a complex rider that was developed so much. I will admit, the first time I watched Agito many years ago (I want to say it was 2005), I had a hard time getting through the first few episodes, only to love it when I went to watch the whole thing as Decade was airing.

And that weirdo from Cow and Chicken was the devil.

What made you lost interest ?

So I just watched Superhero Taisen. Since I watched it for Fourze, I thought I'd comment in this thread. Spoiler warning, just in case.

What on Earth was that? Like seriously, what on Earth? That has to be the most nonsensical plot I've ever seen, and saying that about Toku is really saying something.

The mind-boggling scenes just follow one after the other. Events happen for no reason except to give the heroes excuses to fight each other. Or sometimes they lead up to something but just falls flat. For example, Ackdos and Warz Gil grow huge and Gobuster-oh comes in, and neither trade a single blow before both villains are killed. The Gokaigers transform into OOO's forms, and do nothing but stand there looking cool while they jam their keys into the Gokai Galleon Buster to fire. Why did they need to transform in the first place?

The heroes' plot to defeat the villains really left a bad taste in my mouth. I know deception has been used to defeat villains before, but having spent the entire movie showing the repercussions of the Rider/Sentai war, it was insulting to just brush it off as "they had to do it". People like Hina, Joe, Don, Gentaro and even Kaitou were visibly traumatized by the war. The elaborated the horror of the war in great detail, but tried to brush it off so fast I was still wondering if I was rooting for the right team.

Then Diend goes crazy and decides to wield a weapon of mass destruction against everyone for the sake of taking revenge against Decade. Sorry, but WHAT? Granted, I have never watched Decade outside of the movies but why on Earth would a secondary Rider, who has been consistently portrayed as a decent guy if a bit unscrupulous, do something like this? Why would he potentially destroy millions of lives just because he's hurt?

I think the worst thing about this movie is that it has soured my opinion of Marvelous and by extension, the Gokaigers in general. They're one of my favorite teams but now Marvelous' association with the ethically dubious Decade has made me uncomfortable. I'm worried that the Gokaigers have become too big, and Toei keeps trying to milk them for shock value.

That said, it was still a fun watch. It was nice to see some of the fights, and Gentarou's charisma was quite welcome. He brought his unique brand of joy and friendship to a movie that was honestly a bit bleak. It's too bad they didn't use him more.

Ultimately, this movie was just...schizophrenic. It couldn't decide what kind of movie it wanted to be and was all over the place. I had fun watching it, but I think this will be one of those instances I'm going to apply Fanon Discontinuity and I probably won't be very inclined to watch it again. It's just a big mess.

Linda Yamamoto is the actress/model who played Mari. She was hugely popular in the 70s after she left the show. She's kind of a ditz on Rider, but I find her character to be fun.

I actually think Takeru Satoh is one of the best actors to ever play a main Rider. The dude has to play six different characters over the course of the show and he manages to make all of them feel unique and believable. Even though they started dubbing the Taros' voice actors over the action after the first few episodes he still manages to convey a lot through body language and facial expressions.

I actually think Ryotaro (Unpossessed) is Takeru's weakest character, strangely. He tries to hard to convey his weakness. It does improve along the way, but compared to the character and feel he gives when acting as a taros, it's really quite the jarring shift to how bad his Nogami was.

It gets even weirder, because the net movies explain what started the "War" in the first place :lol

So I guess I should assume they make even less sense of the whole thing? :lol I heard the Net movies were comedic shorts.

Actually, the net movies were more enjoyable for me (For the most part. I love the Narumi bits, because I love learning more about KR and Sentai).
But one Net movie does explain what started the whole shebang :lol

Well, I'm halfway through 29 and Agito himself has not received any real character developement until now.

There's nothing wrong with him, but there's nothing really to him. His not-really girlfriend died, he got his memories back, than lost them (if they were even real) and I can't recall a single time where he actually felt like a human being.

Gills and G3 are stronger characters to me, but even then there's nothing astounding about them. Just good characters. Which sucks because even if the last twenty episodes are incredible, my opinion of the series overall is still going to recall the utter walks of boring drek and "just good" I had to wade through to get there.

It's just gotten boring. I can't get through it right now. I think they're playing tennis and it's really, really not funny or interesting at all.

I think I've isolated the problem with Agito: it's too serious. It's taking itself so seriously all the time that it's breaking my "suspension of disbelief" of Kamen Rider, or rather it's making the Kamen Rider bits less good silly fun and more guys in ridiculous suits fighting monsters with obvious zippers on their back. It's so serious it's making the Kamen Rider stuff look silly by comparrison. He seems utterly complacent and, rather unheroicly apathetic, to the murders of so many innocent people. He just runs away to fight a monster every now and then like he's on automatic, 'cept he isn't, and I think it was only two episodes ago that he actually bothered to ask them why they were doing this.

Really, the more I think about it, Agito is a horrible person. G3 I understand why he's only reactionary, and Gills is only just now discovering teh full extent of what's happening to him, but Agito is supposed to be the hero and he's kind of not. It's like if a firefighter only showed up to fight every other fire that happened.

I think this is it. He's better when he's other characters. When he's just himself, he's unconvincing and kind of annoying.

I still really like the show, I'm just picking these things out so I'm not stewing in them. I'm already on episode six and I had only just finished two last time. Also the one other thing I don't like is the Den-O suit. Not the helmet, the helmet rocks, I love how it's rolls up on his head, but the suit itself seems kind of bland comparred.

EDIT: How the hell did I double post? I was editing.

All of the Den-O designs grew on me while i was watching the show. When I started, it I thought sword form was terrible, and Climax form was worse. But knowing how it came together makes that suit special to me now.

Put down two more episodes of Fourze last night, 17 and 18. Meteor is kinda petulant, but I like that as Ryusei he's trying to be friends with the group and infiltrate the Kamen Rider Club. Though I don't understand why he's hunting the Aries horoscope if it doesn't exist yet.

I was saddened by the loss of scorpion, I like that she was kind of an unexpected person to be a Horoscope, and also the Scorpion design is awesome. I'm really liking Libra, and even though I find Gentaro's desire to be friends with everyone very cheesy, I like the earnestness and seriousness that he demonstrates. He knows it comes of lame, but he doesn't care, because he really DOES want to be friends with everyone.

Uh... that is called development.

That is what makes it so good. If I want comedy, I'll watch Sentai. When I watch Kamen Rider, I want seriousness.

Now I'm not saying it has to be 100% serious, but the reason I like Blade, W, and Black so much is because they were serious series.

W, serious? Yes to an extent, but W was the series that started the tradition of wtf comedy relief characters and I also refer you to the Liar and Gene Dopant episodes where Shotaro and Philip dress in questionable attire and Terui tries to make out with everyone in the office.

Yeah if you want to talk serious series then Black, Agito, Kuuga, Ryuki, etc. Those all come to mind, but certainly not W.

There's a difference between being serious and taking itself too seriously, though.