[Switchblade]

Well, it took a long time due to stopping, starting, restarting, restopping, and re-restarting, but I've finally finished Black RX, the redheaded step-child of the Showa era. So what did I think of the garbage baby show that almost completely ruined Black's legacy and is probably single-handedly the reason why there was no Kamen Rider series for a decade?

I liked it. Quite a bit, in fact. Honestly, I have no idea why RX has such a bad reputation and I say that as a huge Black fanboy. I mean, sure, it probably started off a little rougher than it could have and there is totally a shift in both the show's tone and Kotaro's personality, but it did eventually find its voice and there is some legitimately great Kamen Riding in here. The mini-arc that introduced Robo Rider and Bio Rider is especially great. I really enjoyed the villains (even Dasmader, who did rally a little bit near the end) and all the Amemiya monster designs. The supporting characters grew on me, too; Reiko was great and the Sahara family got really toned down by the end. I liked the little era near the end where Kotaro had his own little combat squad following him around and generally helping out in the few moments where they weren't getting captured by monsters.

I'm a bit more ambivalent about the return of the 10 Riders near the end of the series. For a start, it felts completely random and out-of-nowhere, especially after 95 episodes of Kotaro being the only Rider in town. I don't mind that none of them were played by the original actors and no one ever un-transformed, but I feel like they really didn't add much to the series and I don't think the ending would have played out any differently if they weren't there.

On the whole, though, I thought Black RX was a really good show and I'm glad I finally finished it, even if being completely done with the Minami Kotaro era leaves me with a lonely, lonely heart.

As for what's next, I've decided that this is the year where I'm going to finish up my backlog of unfinished tokusatsu shows. I want to finish up Zubat first, then I think I'm going to come back here and polish off Skyrider before moving on to the original series (I know I'll enjoy the original more, so I want to get Skyrider out of the way first). After that, all that's left will be finally watching Super-1.