Let's Watch Wednesdays Week 7 Kamen Rider Blade 19-21 Discussion
 

I haven't posted lately because of where I was at in the series before this lets watch started,but now were getting close.I love the struggle of the Leangle Buckle and it's user.It adds character to the user and shows that it truly is a powerful buckle.This is also the point were seeing Blade,Chalice,and Garren have become a normal thing,so Leangle's apperance is good timing.The series is doing great up to this point.

And thus the ever revolving Delta built continue to circulate like an STD. Wait... wrong series.

Thank the gods Kiryu is gone though. I must admit, I love the lighting used when Kiryu walked into the building injured and Mutsuki took the belt back. In fact, this show does a lot of really cool lighting effects whether it be for a night time battle, Kiryu lying on the floor injured after being rejected by the Garren belt, to the scene I just referred to.

With that said, we also come to the part of Stalker Garren. :-p I do like that he becomes a mentor figure for Mutsuki though

And of course, KAORU!!! Okay, not here, but now we are getting to the top dog Undeads, which is down right awesome. I still have to laugh that the Capricorn Undead is a queen. However, I just do not understand why the Japanese are always obsessed with hiding who a villainous character is when we already know fully well who it is. There was no need to hide Miyuki in front of a bright light when the Capricorn was talking to her. We already guessed it last episode.

Oh yeah, and everyone has all of their cards back, YAY!!!

Well we learn one thing from Kiryu's time as Leangle, if you want to stop him from using Remote on your cards, keep him busy. And by busy I mean shoot the crap out of him :lol. I like that Tachibana is trying to train Mutsuki, because having him in charge of his abilities would be better than the Spider Undead calling the shots...at least on paper anyway. We have some of the higher ranked Undead showing up. I know the last few episodes have been about building Leangle up, but it's nice to having some baddies with personalities(even though Capricorn didn't last long). Finally, I loved how Hajime tried to play off saving Kotaro's butt twice :lol

I'm loving Garren now. Total badass move shooting at Leangle so he could stop the total dick move of turning his cards back into undead. And is anyone hating mitsuki's girlfriend? I mean seriously, What kind of girl puts up with that kind of stuff with a smile on her face? But at least he's becoming a better person, I just wish it was for I don't know, say his girlfriend rather than wanting to get rid of a memory of being in a cold dark alone place which later turned into a kidnapping.

I didn't expect Kiryu to fail already! And it's good to know the meaning about Mutsuki's darkness. I'm also starting to like his character a lot more than before. I totally love the Undead, Miyuki and would love to see more female Undeads.

Glad to see Kiryu go. Seems like in most shows you get that one character who just gets shoved into the middle of the plot out of the blue for a short stint. Glad to see his was indeed very short.

Can't wait to see Mutsuki take better control of Leangle, under Tachibana's guidance he has to succeed. While we're on Garren, I've seen some people say they don't like him as much now like he takes a back seat. I like him much much more now than in the first 15 or so episodes. He seemed to have nothing driving him at that time, just blind rage most of the time. His character seemed to have no direction or personality traits other than, I'm scared and I'm a dick. He felt like a really empty character. But now he has more purpose and seems more enjoyable.

Yeah, I really hate Nozomi. That is why I wished Mutsuki had strangled her back in episode 16.

As for your question about smiling, it's Japan.

YES, it would have given him so much depth if he was trying to control the belt because it killed his girlfriend, but that might be too dark for Kamen rider, at least for anything other than an ending. And true, this is the first time I've seen a relationship that didn't end in death or marriage within a few episodes of it being revealed, so I'm not to sure how Japanese relationships work in the long term.

I really enjoyed this group of episodes. It gave Tachibana the resolve to resume his place as Garren, it further expanded Mutsuki (His brooding was getting annoying. Seeing him actually do more than either brood or apologize is nice), and now the high ranking Undead are starting to show up more.

Unlike the others, I actually liked Kiryuu. He was an interesting character. Strong enough to be a Rider, but ultimately wasn't chosen. Yeah, once he touched the Leangle Belt, he was basically the Spider Undead's puppet, but I still liked the character. I do understand why it makes sense to axe him off so quickly (It was kind of just a more harsh version of Tachibana's story 10 episodes ago), but I did enjoy him for the whopping 3 episodes we had him :lol

Kiryu was an okay villain. He was more of an excuse to get Tachibana back in the action and show the true power of Leangle if he went completely evil.

Tachibana training Mutski is an interesting concept. We can he that Mutski's power comes from the dumb luck of the Spider Undead being really powerful rather then training. However, what's all that training going to do if Mutski's being controlled anyway, what? Beat up the other riders better?

And Hajime hates Leangle..... great now more loner Chalice moments...

The villians in episodes 20 and 21 were jokes. Capricorn Undead was your standard two parter villain with a hold Koutaro hostage scheme to stop Blade. (Also, a male Queen Undead? Toei, you've gotta be fucking kidding me if you couldn't find one more Japanese female actress that's in her 20's to play the part) And the Orchid Undead was generic female villain material. They were queens but the went down easily. Seriously, WTF? The last royal Undead, Peacock, was a bitch to defeat and took someone's death in order to provide the will for Tachibana to overcome him. Now, Capricorn went down in 2 episodes like a monster of the week.

But coming off of Peacock Undead to this huge drop off in story quality is really disappointing. The Peacock Undead manipulated the sides everyone was on in order to win, hell he even created a new belt ready to have a new Rider work for him once he got Blade, Garren and Chalice out of the picture. Along with all of that rage Tachibana had towards the Peacock Undead when he killed his girlfriend created a great story arc.

Hell, even the introduction of Mutski arc I loved due to Mutski being bonded to this belt and having conflicting desires to use it or not. All of this growth under the fact that the Spider Undead is his puppet and his eventual decision to use his powers for good and further them despite his situation.

I know it seems a bit odd to bash these 2 arcs over the past few episodes and be reviewing what has happened so far, but we're nearly halfway through Blade. If the actual villains can't support the show over the middle section after such a great story so far, my opinion of Blade will greatly diminish.

Because you didn't expect him to be a queen until it happened. Does the gender really matter though?

Except we don't know who the main villain of the show is at this point yet.

I liked these episodes. Kiryu would have made a great villian but we all know how that turned out for him, I love how Mutsuki is learning how to control the Leangle belt and overcome the Spider Undead's control, and lastly Blade gets the Absorb Queen card which means we are only one card away each from Jack-Form and King-Form.

Trust me, you're about nine episodes from the moment where everything starts going crazy and the show really skyrockets into greatness.

It's really hard to talk about this show when you know what comes next...

So, err, add me to the camp of didn't like Kiryu. I sort of remember him appearing but I don't recall why or what he really did. Or even how he left...

Hajime and Tachibana's training/partnership thing is also pretty cool. I really liked it at the time, and it's one of my favourite Tachibana moments. It just shows how much he has trained and how much of a badass he could be.

So Leangle once again gets tossed around, has there ever been a Belt that gets used more by different people? :lol

only on 19 at the moment, watching 20 now.

20-

Garren is becoming a mentor to Mutsuki, and he is still consumed by Leangles power. This ought to be interesting. I wonder how in the heck Kotaro will take to being played by a cute undead :lol

I'm wondering what that Undead was.
I didn't know non-Kingdom Animalia lifeforms could be Undead.

It's nice to see Tachibana is getting back into the Rider business.

She's an orchid.

So Garren is becoming a role model and Leangle has a bad past alright. Aaand Kotaro got played, yet Chalice still acts like an idiot to him.

Might just be me, but am I the only one who is getting tired of Amanes obession with Chalice? Its getting annoying having to listen to her every episode- "Leave Hajime-san alone!" Kotaro is your uncle, you dont think he might have a reason for not trusting the guy?

That would have been an interesting reality if she won the Undead Battle Royale. Plant People!

And I guess we got to see why nobody tries dialing 555 during Undead attacks. But then again, the Toku cops show once again that they aren't the best at their jobs by not calling for a SWAT team when their standard sidearms fail to suppress a monster attacking them.

Bit late to the party, but I've been very busy recently.

I liked these episodes a lot, the brief chaos as Kiryuu becomes Leangle and releases so many undead, Garren's comeback, Mutsuki taking full possession of his belt, and the appearance of two new high-level undead. So yeah, lots of cool stuff happening.

I really like Tachibana beginning to mentor Mutsuki, gives him a new more wholesome drive as a character than Sayoko's death. I like the moments when Mutsuki loses control and starts acting real dickish too, because we see that he has a long way to go not ust as a Rider but as a person too, which hopefully promises some interesting character development in the future.

It's a pity that Capricorn undead was around for such a short time, but he didn't really do much, and his and Kenzaki's fights were pretty cool. I have to say, my favourite moment of their fights was when Capricorn calls Blade weak, then Kenzaki throws his sword at him and proceeds to beat the crap out of him. Pretty epic in my opinion.