[Switchblade]

Fourze 31-32

In which things get anime as hell.

We're getting closer to the part of the show that I don't remember as well. I'm already seeing some moments where I recalled the main story beats correctly, but got a lot of the smaller details wrong. Obviously I remembered that these are the episodes where Ryusei kills Gentarou and he's subsequently survived by the raw power of friendship. The way it played out was definitely not how I remembered it, though. I forgot that this was also where Ryusei's secret identity got exposed and that we saw the return of a good ol' fashioned Rider ally crucifixion (although it doesn't feel the same without Tachibana Tobei there).

It's a good story arc, though. We finally get to see Ryusei stop hiding his real personality and the development he goes through here is great, culminating in a long delayed friendship handshake. I really liked the scene where he went up against the Zodiart mooks without transforming, although that also made it clear that the Bruce Lee whooping sounds really silly when he's off camera.

We got Cosmic States in this episode, of course, which is a suit I've never been a big fan of. It is, in fairness, better than I remembered, but still a little ugly. I forgot that it could combine Switch powers, although I don't think that's a trick that's going to get used much from here on out. I still think the sword is awful. I really hate Rider weapons that obviously look like giant plastic children's toys, and the rocket sword thing is one of the worst examples of that (not THE worst, that's Specter's stupid grabby-hand staff). I also don't like how Cosmic States' fighting style in its premiere is basically "stand still and throw CGI at things." Fourze's fighting style is so unique and fun that it's disappointing to see less active fight scenes.

There's one other big change with this episode. This is the first appearance of a Horoscope as the Monster of the Fortnight. Cancer wasn't around as long as I'd remembered, but it was still several weeks. From this point on, the Horoscopes are going to basically replace regular Zodiarts because Fourze had an episode limit (as it turned out; I may reminisce about the rumors of Fourze season 2 at some point during this retrospective). I was always disappointed to see what had been major event enemies get turned into regular weekly monsters. This is the big place where Fourze had pacing issues for me.

Anyway, the preview for the next episode shows that it's the Kyoto arc and apparently the debut of two prominent new character who actually stick around for the rest of the series: Leo, who has finally found his way to the main series from the Movie War, and Yuuki's Hayabusa puppet, who... well, let's just say we're about to hit peak Yuuki.