[Fish Sandwich]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

It helps that this episode just looks gorgeous. There’s a great use of light through Tendou’s various scenes, keeping him illuminated to a degree that I don’t really doubt his divinity. He’s frequently bathed in light: the living room of his house has windows everywhere; the garage might as well be on the surface of the sun; and that Henshin scene is him practically enveloped in sunlight.

Yay, I get to have my very first post in the thread be pointing out that Hidenori Ishida directed an episode! I missed this!

Kabuto will be a really fun one for me, because it's long been my Least Favorite Heisei Rider Show By Default. It's not that I consider it the worst or anything, it just hasn't left a huge impact on me, despite the cool designs still being the talk of the town when I was getting into Rider, and very much up my alley as someone who loves both insect-themed Riders AND heroes that go real fast.

It's just some weird personal thing I can't explain logically, but what I remember the most about watching Kabuto was that I did it during Wizard in a period where I remember legitimately wondering if my recent interest in tokusatsu was starting to wane. Which is hilarious to think about in retrospect, when I later decided Wizard was my favorite Rider show and am still so into this franchise years later I've written tens of thousands of words about why Kuuga is the bomb – but at that moment, coming off of a year of constant excitement with Fourze and the shows I was catching up on then, I just wasn't feeling Rider as much in that weird little window of time, and Kabuto has always stayed a show I don't feel super passionate about one way or the other.

It's something I'd love to watch again and reevaluate one of these days, now that I put way more thought into these things, but unless something in here seriously spurs me to watch along, I don't think I'll be doing that quite yet. Unless I decide to. Ah man, now I'm already considering it...

Well, however that works out, I'll be looking forward to your insight as always, Die!

Also, I love that we only get chonky Kabuto in the premiere; Kabuto's gimmick is one of my favorite things about him, and if the show immediately conditioned us to think of it as just something Tendou needs to skip past to do any real fighting, there'd be no point to it. I think it was an odd choice on the surface, but a very smart one.