This was a spin-off of the hyper-stylized SIC line. Instead of 7", though, they were a little larger than 3.75" scale. The sculpting and painting was really on-point, but some had pretty bad articulation issues. Bandai did figures from several of the early Heisei shows, often hopping between series at random and never completing a full line-up of anything. It was mostly downscales of the big SICs, but there were some original molds like Wild Chalice. The were a few bikes and a web exclusive Denliner playset, too. The line abruptly died without any notice or compilation after a few years, which is a very Bandai thing to do.

I put most of the figures in storage ages ago, but I have some of the Riders with bikes still out. The Kaixa is still one of my favorite action figures in my entire toy collection.

Neat! They look very cool. I especially like how the Blade figure looks like he's been carving up your table. These SIC guys got no respect for anything!

Yep. That sure is Blade and totally not years of putting drinks on that spot without a coaster.

Belatedly - sometimes I don't have much to say either, other than "Oh yeah I liked this" and I, too, would just read these as blog-style posts without the discussion. The discussion is also great. There is no bad here. But since this is basically the end of the thread, seeing your Blade commentary has honestly been a really positive part of my day for the better part of the last two months, so thank you for sharing how you see each episode of these shows. :) (I should say that more often.)

tho now i am wondering a little bit how many of the positive feelings i have for blade are colored by the spectacular ending XD which, hey, i still enjoy revisiting it periodically, so i'm not going to worry about it

Thank you! That's a very kind thing to say. I view these threads as a little oasis, sometimes, so I'm glad they can be helpful for others.

The ending of Blade is 100% so good that it's easy to forget some of the lackluster ways it got there. One of the downsides of how focused the ending is on Hajime and Kenzaki is that... like, there's a lot of the show that ends up being not a big part of the finale. It's not like there's a lot of dead weight in the season or anything, but there are more than a few threads that have zero impact at the end. But that ending! Real easy to forget about the stuff that didn't matter so much.

which sucks because this show IMO Does concepts and ideas both of these shows have and does them a million times better than both of those shows do

yeah literally almost EVERY CHANGE Made in Hibiki's second half is for the worst unlike in Blade not sure how spoilerlythis is I'm not saying oh X character does this or specific details but you can probably figure out what or who I'm referring too as we go in Hibiki. nteresting/likable characters get pushed to the side in favor of probably the WORST character in the entire franchise (moreso than Kusaka)an increased emphasis on toys/power up gimmicks A SHIT LOAD Of retcons/asspulls and unlike here where the staff of the second half did a good enough of a job to not make it obvious this wasn't planned from the start if it wasn't you can tell none of this was planned, At a point in the middle the shows pacing reaches a screeching halt and a bunch of new characters/ideas that weren't really established get introduced the shows pacing also changes from slower to faster after it but so much is happening to the point where your like wtf is happening.Doesn't help I am not a fan of pretty much anything the guy they brought in did after the 90ies, it feels like he does the same few tropes that people liked in his most popular show every goddamn show he writes (do you consider who it is a spoiler)

Oh... you're more interested in the Sealing Stone? A crucial artifact that existed in fantasy series like this. And not talking about villain opinions, but in Blade no, there are no other "series villain"/"main villain", there's only Tennoji for that role. The others are all one offs like Isaka or Miyuki, arc villain at best, everything happened in Blade is merely Tennoji's fault, especially Trial B whom he directly reprogrammed. Probably, with him being not a big deal in episode, this shows that not every series necessarily needs villains, unlike how some claims? (no villain =/= no journey/conflicts the characters face). Or, the villains here feels like those you'd see in purely black and white tokus like... Sentai?

Then again, the one where Hajime was suspicious at Kenzaki was proven right when Kenzaki just shamelessly took Hajime's pudding to eat it himself. And then, eventually Hajime became MVP here for noticing Titan's disguise by staying with him long enough, showing his schemes were successful.

And speaking about Titan, lol, disguising ability reminds me of.... Hajime a.k.a Joker. Hajime, like the Joker card itself which can be played as any card, Joker can transform into anything other card has. And now Hajime has to deal with something similar to him but better, he can seemingly transform into anything, outside the cards. So Joker's ability as a special Undead isn't better than an ordinary Undead lol?! The Chameleon Undead, which is one of the Titan's Fusion Materials. And...I don't think it talked for only 1 time is a big deal, he can just choose to talk or not if he wants. Hirose gets away with being angry of being accused as one and lifting a chair (this one lifting is ordinary).

Four Of A Kind finish was the other version of Royal Straight Flush with auras.... I don't think the second version is as good as the first version used on Trial D, the one where Blade shoots a giant beam. And this part is an irony from Faiz before, other than Faiz being about the Riders originated from good leader in evil organization (Hanagata in Smart Brain) where Blade is about the Riders originated from evil leader in good organization (Tennoji in BOARD), here, in contrast to Faiz' miscommunication, the monster impersonating Riders to sow discord is resolved very quickly by the characters checking with each other and assuming the obvious. In Faiz, the cast would never dream of doing that, and such a situation would've resulted in everyone hating each other for ten episodes, surely.

This is what I mean for "not everything is opinionated", not everything can be given room for interpretation. There's opinion and there's fact. Like for example, if Jungo from Ex-Aid is dead, then he's dead, it can't be given an interpretation that Jungo was only hibernating/faking his dead/etc. There's actually a clear cut, for "directly take over Mutsuki's body, but its grip is too fragile to mantain in battle for extended periods of time", as seen clearly in Leangle's debut, where in human form, Mutsuki was an insecure kid wanting to prove himself, but when he transformed into Leangle, he becomes a bloodthirsty warrior with a deep voice who attacks friends and foes alike (brainwashed). Spider Undead becomes a voice on Mutsuki's soldier so he can completely brainwash Mutsuki, inside and outside battle, and succeeded after he kills Shima.

One of his lucid moments has Mutsuki tell Tachibana he is afraid that the Spider Undead will completely destroy his self and obtain absolute control of his body and mind, which is eventually prevented by Shima's sacrifice, which takes effect after Tiger's sacrifice.

Yeah, the villains on this show are pretty bland. There's nothing interesting about any of them, which... I mean, if the villains don't matter in the storytelling, why are they even there? Why waste so much time and energy on them? It's frustrating.

Then why didn't it talk before when it was trying to fool the Riders? Seems like it could've come in handy before! It just feels like an additional ability that comes out of nowhere. We never, ever see it talk... until it's able to sound so much like Amane that three-quarters of the Riders are fooled. I don't know, it bothered me.

I don't know what to tell you. I fundamentally don't believe the show is saying that Mutsuki was blameless in his actions. If you want to think I'm just reading the show wrong, okay! I don't mind! But, no, I don't think he gets a free pass for what he did as Leangle, and I don't think the show is suggesting (let alone stating) that he didn't make any of those decisions.

Mutsuki's story is one of addiction, and the easiest lie an addict tells is that it wasn't really them who did those things, it was their addiction. Part of recovery is taking responsibility for both the things you did while under the influence, and the reasons you were under the influence to begin with. If it were as simple as Nothing I Did Under The Influence Was My Fault, recovery would look very very different.

Kerberos btw. The Tennoji's evolved form is simply Kerberos II. As the human Undead told, probably Hajime wasn't critically injured (he ran away from Kerberos), but he put himself to sleep here. The battle royale's reward seems to be more about shaping the world, and probably it's there to add up the stakes (it's so dangerous if someone undesired wins the fight like Tennoji or Joker). I want to see the personality of Human Undead, how he behaves, I guess here is what we got.

I feel in this part, the part where what's the meaning of justice was brought up again, after long at the beginning where Tachibana "betrayed" BOARD. This time obviously, from Tennoji using the Riders as his pawn to seal off other Undeads and make Tennoji the winner for a generic goal to rule the world, remake the world in his image. But what happened is the opposite of that part, the Riders just reaffirms their mission, not being tied to BOARD, and that'd include disposing of Tennoji. For a brand-new BOARD, well, throughout the series it wasn't seen much on how the cast does with BOARD (other than reappearing Karasuma), but it seems that the cast still lingers on Karasuma and BOARD up that time. For Tennoji "resigned" from BOARD, it's commonly what happened in plot twist villains, them doing something to hide their status like faking their death, etc. to progress more in silence (until the story reveals their true colors). And yeah, as I said previously in reverse irony with Faiz, Blade is about the Riders originated from evil leader in good organization (Tennoji in BOARD), so Tennoji feels entitled to control every Rider as he found BOARD and created the Rider system.

Tennoji was being too dumb to live here, he should've just left the area instead of holding onto Kanai, chanting the Riders to seal him, if he wanted to live and continue his scheme for another day. And let's talk about how Kenzaki (and Tachibana) responds to this situation, he wants to stop the threat, and did so, but as an ideal hero, he won't give any more retribution to those that are powerless for now, he thought about sparing Tennoji, because he's powerless human now, and is seemingly harmless.

True, Tiger Undead isn't one of the good ones, like exactly you described there, she's only nice to specific person. Which I've seen people to label their favorite characters (like anti-heroes or anti-villains) as purely good based on how they're nice to that specific person and performed good deeds for them, ignoring how he does to others. And Mutsuki here, possibly suggests the best outcome possible to prevent the end of the world, like probably what the audience thinks.... just unseal Shima! He won't do any harm as a living Undead being a pacifist, and Mutsuki has been freed from Spider Undead's brainwashing now, so it's safe without Shima protecting Mutsuki now. Unfortunately the story seems to side with Hajime to label that as naive, even if he doesn't want Joker to be unleashed on the world (which means he shouldn't be the last Undead standing). Dunno if Mutsuki is too empathetic here, without Spider Undead, he's troubled, but the flaw he has aren't mean ones, which are cowardly, insecurity, wanting to prove himself (but not by committing vile things, he feared to use Leangle after he realized he injured innocent people).

Hmm, I don't think the fights are fun here. For 45 probably yeah, Kerberos being the ultimate Undead, surprassing Joker, which is very advantageous in this series, taking away the only thing that can make a Rider function; the Rouzer cards, and even worse for Undeads, just absorb them. But in 46, this is the usual Rider case of forgetting the abilities? Tennoji as Kerberos II rdidn't even for once use the ability which is the main achilles' heel for pretty much everyone in this series, if Kerberos II is only Kerberos fused with Tennoji in that way (dunno if Kerberos II has new powers). The fight between Tennoji also was so anticlimatic here. For the idea of Undead/Human coexisting, well, it's up to the people to accept it or not, and it's obviously less likely in Undead, probably, the reason Undead attacked humans at the first place in Blade was them being salty that the world was now based on humans, a.k.a, the Undead that sealed all of them and became the winner of battle royale.

BOARD has to be formed, Undeads have to be unleashed, and the battle royale has to be modified to be different from the past time; in order for things to work for Riders.

Dunno if I'm wrong on this one, but probably it does in ep. 43, the part where when others question Kenzaki, he (obviously) claims he's himself in a more cheerful manner than usual, though it's unknown if it's from the poison or disguise...