[Kamen Rider Lucha]

Oh, geez. The third underwhelming Ninninger installment in a row. I know the show wants me to start getting hyped for the finale, but it's doing a poor job of taking me there. As it stands, this was a retread of episode 31... except way less interesting cause Kyuuemon wasn't involved. And awesome design aside, Kibaoni Mangetsu pretty much sucks. His motivations are lame, his plans are boring, he doesn't feel particularly threatening because they keep beating him, and, I mean, he literally just sprung out of nowhere with zero foreshadowing.

In theory, I like the thematic and plot stuff swirling around -- surpassing Last Ninja, creating never-before-seen Ninpou, the Kibaoni/Kyuuemon family intrigue, etc -- but right now I feel like all the good stuff is being spoon fed to us in really surface level exposition. None of our heroes are really discovering anything for themselves -- they're all still being told exactly what to do by other characters, and then acting like they figured it out themselves.

Guys, my enthusiasm for Ninninger is crashing hardcore. We need to get back to the Kyuuemon story ASAP or this show will not stick the landing.