[Fish Sandwich]

Hey everyone, guess what time it is!



Time for this picture of a distressed Geiz to perfectly mirror my reaction to finding out when the OP started that Inoue wrote at least two episodes of this show. First you make the Hibiki arc about freakin' Kiriya and then you let him work on the show? Are you people insane?! It's not like he's some extremely prolific toku writer who's probably written for more Heisei Riders than any other individual, making him a natural inclusion for the big anniversary series-

...

Okay, I guess there's a certain logic to this. You know what, fine. I've mellowed out a bit on Rider Time Ryuki already anyway.

I also did quite enjoy this episode, despite the above melodrama (I'm getting into the spirit of things). When you literally have the original show's writer, you're not getting a gold medal just for capturing its style, but for what it's worth, you know, the episode DID do that. Extremely well. Nobody juxtaposes dark subject matter, overly intense characterization, labored romantic subplots, and wacky comedy quite like Toshiki Inoue did with Kiva, and it's readily apparent he hasn't lost that touch a decade later.

Just like I did watching that show, the intentional comedy hit harder than usual, the unintentional goofiness (although it's pretty hard to tell how self-aware Inoue is being at any given time) was entertaining regardless of how it was supposed to come across, and, perhaps more than anything, sudden plot developments left me scratching my head desperately hoping the next episode would clear things up.

In case you haven't got the memo, I mostly like to roll with whatever bulls*** happens in an Inoue script, so Kamen Rider Ginga's debut was actually really fun for me. Again, it's hard to tell sometimes, but given all the jokes being cracked by Zi-O Trinity Form, they were clearly having some fun with the whole thing, so why shouldn't I? Even the extremely awkward cliffhanger became amusing once I remembered how many Heisei Rider episodes used to abruptly stop exactly like that.

Honestly my expectations were kind of low for these episodes even before I knew who was writing it. The Agito arc rocked my socks off, the Hibki arc told a surprisingly heartfelt story, and Wataru has been one of the Riders I was most hoping to see again in Zi-O, so without him, nothing they were going to do would've totally pleased me. It'd be cool to see the back half bring it all together, but even if it doesn't, I'm fine with having a quick detour into the Inoue Zone for a little while. Especially since it raises the possibility of a Den-O arc by Kobayashi (like in Decade!), or a Drive one by Riku Sanjo (which I still doubt would happen anyway). Do either one of those, Toei, and I'll call things even.