[Switchblade]

I'm trying to give Kai a reappraisal this time through, mostly because of Ultraman Orb. In the past I was always put off by his over-bearing goofiness, but it isn't bothering me as much this time. It's possible that some of the more contemporary comic relief has increased my tolerance, but so far I'm getting into him a lot more. The "what does my face look like" thing still gets kinda old, but I'm having more fun with viewing him as more of a puckish villain. I got a big charge out of him just randomly showing up while Ryotaro is just walking around. Also, I have to give him real props for having the cojones to say "Hey, this is a time travel show! Let's just kill Yuuto in the past to prove a point!"

It helps going back through the whole era, too, and realizing that it's been several shows now since we had a major villain that had a dynamic presence as a character. We've had characters that were dynamic but not threatening (Mishima), threatening but not dynamic (boss man from Blade), and enigmatic but not... anything (Hibiki). I'm down for having a villain who feels like he's engaged with the story again, even if the answer to "what is my face?" is usually "punchably obnoxious."