[Kurona]

Finally continuing with Hibiki, I reached the new opening. I... like it, and I respect that if they are going with a new direction; they decided to get a completely new opening to hammer that home. It's also a nice bonus that they can naturally integrate newer characters and upgrades without shoehorning them into the older opening; it was good when Go-Busters did it and it's good here.

Also didn't get a chance to comment on how cool Armed Hibiki looks. It's up there as one of the best looking Finals; I like how it's literally Kurenai wearing armour; and I enjoy all the disc animals forming that armour.

Anyway moving away from aesthetics this still really sucks. The characters are now so flanderised that Todoroki has gone from a little goofy and awkward to an absolute clown who can't so much as walk without disaster incurring, and Hibiki has gone from a caring, wisened father figure - to not just Asumu but the likes of Akira and Todoroki too - with a reserved and considered perspective to now just being an insensitive idiot who somehow can't grasp that Todoroki having relationship problems might be weighing on him??? Is this the same character???????

Somehow Ibuki and Akira escape this, which is probably because to begin with Ibuki was pretty static and Akira -was- the most stubborn of the cast. It's a bit hard for even Inoue to screw up the fundamentals of that. But even then Ibuki's neutrality feels way more played up than before, and considering Inoue's history with similar characters; I'm not exactly looking forward to what he has planned for Akira if he has anything. Asumu also continues to barely show up, while Kiriya has also started to just cameo and pop in every now and then rather than being a constant presence. ... actually, for a Todoroki-focused episode; where the hell did Zanki go?!

I just can't imagine that any of this is how it would have played out if the original author was here. It's such a massive contrast out of nowhere and I find myself desperately missing the show we had more and more with each episode.