[DreamSword]

A video popped up in my recommends today, and uh, holy crap what a coincidence, because it actually has to do with the show(s) I was considering covering next. That video is this:

And yes, the Golden Bat in Kikaider is a very small allusion to the Golden Bat talked about in that video.

Now, I wasn't planning on watching/covering Golden Bat itself(atleast not yet), but I'm definitely choosing to take it as a sign, because the two shows I was debating both actually have references to and were atleast somewhat inspired by Golden Bat. Those shows are:

1. The Skull Man: While the manga predates the anime by a good many years, The Skull Man is essentially an "Ultimate Universe" for Shotaro Ishinomori's' works as a whole; Containing a ton of references to nearly every one of his stories and you could even go so far as to say ties them all into a single, shared universe. It's even based on Shinomori's' original concept for Kamen Rider! I've only ever sen this show once before, back when it came out in the early 2000s, and while I remember liking it fine, I feel as though I'd have a much bigger appreciation for it nowadays, even if I'm by no means an Ishinomori expert.

2. Garo The Animation: I actually planned to use this as my entryway into the Garo franchise back when the show aired in 2014, but unfortunately a bunch of other shows and games I was interested in were coming out at the time and thus, Garo kept getting pushed deeper and deeper into my backlog. So yeah, never seen this one, and know damn near nothing about it, but it looked really interesting and I have friends who have vouched for it. And hey, I doubt it'd leave as sour a taste in my mouth as what Netflix Ultraman did! Which reminds me, season 2 of that comes out soon...

Honestly I'm having a really hard time deciding between the two, so if any of you wanna weigh in and cast your vote over which you think would be the more interesting show to watch/discuss, then by all means, lemme know! Either way, again, it's gonna be a bit because I'm still watching Kamen Rider Fourze(10 episodes left to go!) and I might also finally watch my first proper Ultraman show in Nexus, but after that it's back to doing daily updates to this thread again.

Or if there's no clear consensus maybe I'll just flip a coin. That works too.