[Fish Sandwich]

So TV-N released all 4 episodes of the Alain-centric miniseries from the Blu-rays (though I just watched the back half since Over-Time did the first two a while ago) and the DVD epilogue Hyper Battle Video thing that came out after the show ended along with their release of the summer movie. If there's one thing you can't fault those guys for, it's their work ethic.

The Alain stuff is genuinely pretty great. Outside of some goofy bits with Onari, it's basically just 10-12 minutes bursts of poignant musings about the transient nature of life and the beauty of the world and crap like that starring everybody's favorite character. I love it. I'm not entirely sure the little epilogue bit at the very end was needed, but I don't necessarily think it's bad, either.

The DVD was also pretty dang good. I was expecting just another lighthearted skit in the usual HBV style but it's actually a really proper epilogue to the show featuring the return of Saionji, fleshing out his character and explicitly confirming a lot of stuff that was mostly just inferred in the show proper.

I said this about the movie too but it's actually a little frustrating just how much these things DO rise above their station. I wouldn't exactly say the show feels incomplete without watching this stuff*, but they're super worthy additions to it. The Alain series in particular, I think is probably best experienced alongside the show chronologically, but unless you're actually watching through the Blu-ray boxes, you wouldn't just know when to watch each one. Like, as cool as all this extra Rider stuff we get now is, I really wish things were as simple as watching the actual show and being done with it. I mean, it's bad enough that I'm not the only person who got confused when Shining Form "debuted" abruptly in Agito. At least that special actually aired on television just like a normal episode, so it's only confusing in retrospect.

*That being said, if you don't watch at least the first Alain thing, you'll have no idea who Harumi is when she abruptly shows up in the show, and then later the reveal that the thing they've been teasing with Necrom's super glowy power was actually a suicide attack comes in the form of Takeru's mind-reading abilities showing him a f***ing clip from the second one out of nowhere (not exactly Ghost's proudest moment).