W 33.

This is probably the first genuinely good episode since episode 28. It's slumps like this that make me glad I'm not watching it weekly. It was just really nice to just have a good story again. Y'know? I'm guessing this might be unpopular opinion, and you don't have to agree with me, but I feel like the show really lost its way since Accel found himself.

Sure it's had some dramatic reveals, and exciting wrap ups, but the core and heart of the story, what it all began with, that had gotten lost somewhere. It was once a story of a normal guy, and his super computer partner saving the people of the city they love, in the name of the man that was their hero. Sure the action was small, and the stakes never reached any dizzying heights, but it had heart and soul and I loved it all the same. It's something I've missed from the show, for a while.

So to get an episode where the crux of the show wasn't in the action, or the new powers, but just a compelling well paced mystery that clicked beautifully into place, full of twists, turns and emotional resonance. It was pretty wonderful.

Some stray thoughts:

It's kinda weird, that so late in the show, they seem to be trying to make Phillip's trips to the Gaia Library more interesting with him running through it to dramatic music, or his words not correlating to text but to video clips.

The gay overtones in this show are glorious, especially now Sho and Phillip 'become one' and when the battle is done, Phillip steps out from behind him. :lol

"I don't dislike it." I'm definitely gonna use that next time my best friend asks me if I like how she dyed her hair THIS time :lol

First of all, God damn I have fallen behind in this thread. Like, several pages. But I was trying to avoid all the spoilers that were getting thrown out for Kiva and another show or two I've yet to get through and just..yeah.

You're not completely alone Locke. Though it probably is at the bottom of the list for seasons I've watched, I do still like Wizard, probably more than most seemed to have, it was, afterall, what really got me interested in jumping into the fandom.

Funny enough, that's a pretty solid example of why I don't really get the love for the SIC line. It takes a design and makes it look mushy and dirty. Like someone with greasy hands took a clay representation of a suit and kinda squished it up a bit with their fingertips or something. I dunno, I just do not get it.

And yeah, all these W recaps are making me want to rewatch it so bad haha. Was such a great season, probably my second or third favorite, right alongside Hibiki and just above Fourze, but not quite on the same level as Ryuki.

Anyways, yeah I still haven't really gotten around to watching anything recently save for the latest Gaim when the subs first went up. Kinda in another bit of a lull period I guess. I mean it was quite a while between watching Ryuki, Wizard finishing it's run, and me starting up Hibiki so I guess this is akin to that for me.

I'm liking Kabuto and I'm still really early in the show's run so I still am at that introductory stage where a lot can happen I guess. Gaim is continuing to be amazing. Dragon Knight I've all but given up on. I really want to try and watch Kiva all the way through, I only made it a few episodes in. And I really feel like I need to give OOO another shot. So many people love that damn season and I feel kinda off that I've barely been able to get myself to try it.

I'm looking to start watching KR, which series do you peeps recommend I start with?

Kamen Rider Ryuki or Kamen Rider W.

I will second the recommendation of W, but I cannot recommend Ryuki as a first season. While I absolutely love it, and if you are interested in the season then by all means make sure to watch it at some point, but it is not a good introduction to the franchise.

W is the best of both worlds between the darker tone the older seasons had and the more fun, lighthearted feeling you get with today's Kamen Rider.

Fourze is another season I like recommending. It was fun in a way that was just really endearing and didn't get obnoxious or feel too, again I hate using this word, "kiddy". It manages to have some genuinely dark and dramatic moments as well, and has one of the strongest starts to any season I've watched.

Beyond that though, I recommend just taking a bit of a look at the different riders, their motifs, the themes (as in...W has sort of a noir-inspired detective angle to it, not the theme songs), maybe read a brief description of the general plot (obviously avoiding any spoilers you can) and pick one that looks interesting to you.

The only ones I would say to hold off on watching are Ryuki, Decade, and, to an extent, Hibiki. Decade is an anniversary season, and one most people don't actually care for, watching it first does a discredit to the seasons before it and a lot of it just wouldn't make sense (what little you can make sense of it anyways). Ryuki and Hibiki aren't really your typical season, with the latter feeling more like a showa era season and even at times not really like Kamen Rider. Ryuki is my absolute favorite Kamen Rider season period, but it's different, dark, and again it just doesn't feel quite like a season of Kamen Rider, not in the more traditional sense. It has some amazing characters, which really are the driving point of the series, but whereas most seasons of Kamen Rider focus on the henshin hero, fighting monsters, leading up to some confrontation with a big bad or something of the like, Ryuki focuses much more on the characters, their relationships and how they grow, their conflicts amongst themselves, it's rider vs rider with the monsters being almost incidental.

W, OOO, and Den-O are good first series. They're solid intros to the workings and MO of Kamen Rider.

That's a shockingly immature way of describing it. "Greasy hands?" Seriously?

SIC is awesome because it's organic. The "dirt" is for a weathered, washed look that exemplifies detail. It's not so much a suit, it's a body.
SIC, actually, looks better to me in most cases. It takes silly, basic designs like Xtreme and makes them cool. Wheras the real Xtreme has silly little shoulder pads and a dinky sheild, the SIC makes it huge and greebly. They're like biomechanical bugmen, with a "carapace" design to the legs and shoulderpads and chest and stuff. Granted I didn't post a very good picture, leaving out the fine details that make SIC great, but if it wasn't for SIC I would never have given Kamen Rider the time of day past Skull. SIC makes everything dramatic and cool, like making Cyclone's scarf super long, or really heroic proportions in the armour.

They're art. Hand-sculpted, creative, unique art that takes something and makes it wild and, well, imaginative. Hell, I wouldn't own any W stuff were it not for SIC, as the Figuarts for W are garbage.

I think that's a bit extreme. I think they look good for the time period they came out (black joints on cyclone's half nonwithstanding)

but yeah, SICs are cool looking. Take PuToTyra for example. I don't like the design, but I think the SIC looks epic and monstrous.

W 34.

Okay, this wrap up wasn't nearly as strong as the opening but I think this is still overall one of my favourite arcs, largely because the twists and turns were seemingly endless, but rather than feeling shocking for the sake of shocking, or convoluted for the sake of being convoluted it seemed every twist had been carefully though out, with every twist clicking with a satisfying pang of realisation.

Plus Kirihiko was a character who I ended up falling in love with, right before he died, which seemed completely intentional but I was also sad that after one of the seemingly major villains, died very early on, long before he blossomed into exactly what you thought he was going to blossom into, he was never really mentioned again.

Not only this, but his death is violent, by the woman he loves and he actually goes down as a hero, not a villain. A left field, surprise, genuinely well played death like this surely seems like the START of a story, rather than the end of one but despite all the interesting details of his death, he was just replaced by Weather, I guess kinda like what they did with Phoenix and Gremlin and I didn't like it when they did it there, either. His death felt like a waste.

So I was really happy when this arc remembered he existed, and attempted to have repercussions for his death - something we sadly never got in Wizard's mess of an ending. If anything, despite what I said, I kinda wish this arc actually came LATER because I kinda knew from the get go, that as Taboo and Weather are more of the big bads than the actual big bad, and as we aren't on the final leg yet, the plot would never give Kirihiko's sister a break.

Plus the action really was great. I think the smaller budget really strains on bigger battles, because Weather completely schools the both of them but I never really feel his power, despite him kicking Sho and Ryu around the screen but still overall, it has very entertaining action sequences for a show that makes no attempt to hide the fact that it isn't really about the action.

Similarly, I don't like upgrade forms that get some flashy weapon and that is all they use - like the Goseiger super modes, where all the personal identity was stripped away and everyone fought the same, despite that making no sense - W was never a swordsman so it makes no sense for him to suddenly become one. As such, I enjoyed that he actually put down his sword and shield and relaxed into his more usual brawling style, and one of the coolest Rider Kicks he's had, and it's when he does that that he gets the upper hand on Weather.

Also, as an aside, ignoring the reversal thing, what is Taboo's power? Like Terror has that fear goo, Clay Doll basically can't die, Weather can control well...the weather. But Taboo can...shoot lasers and fly? Seems she got shafted almost as much as Nazca with his 'I can move fast and get a cool sword' Memory.

Taboo and Nazca never really get a definition of what their powers were supposed to be.

Agito 46: This had one of my least favorite and most favorite moments of Shouichi in this episode. Least favorite of wanting to discard his Agito powers but I understand why. Most favorite is punching out the Man of Darkness and wanting to still fight. Other part I loved was Hojo going into the G3 trailer and helping Hikawa fight even with losing his vision, I know there is a sort of weird friendship there and I'm glad Hojo did that. I love that Hikawa believes in Agito and knew Shouichi would come back. Hikawa still wanted to protect lives and fought even though he knew the risks. Also I loved how his machine gun helped break through the Man of Darkness' barrier. Ryou is a great hero in saving Mana even without his powers and keeping her safe the whole time against the Unknown. I'm so glad Gills is back and his awesome leg drop finisher. Kino is such a layered character that makes him even more intriguing and awesome; I love how he helped save Shouichi's life and inspire Masumi to become a Doctor too. Glad Mana helped inspire Shouichi too and her Uncle helped her too I think. The characters are amazing in this series.