[Switchblade]

Whoa, this crept up on me. Honestly didn't expect this until next week. Glad I went ahead and downloaded the episodes in advance a few days ago. Haven't started the rewatch yet, so I'll likely have more to say tonight.

That said, let's start with my overall thoughts going back into this: I'm legitimately looking forward to it.

I got into Kamen Rider back in '09, while Decade was still airing, and I followed the same path you've been on for over a year now of going back through the whole Heisei era before watching Decade (Kinda. Kuuga hadn't been fansubbed yet, so I only watched a couple episodes of that before moving on to Agito). Back then, I remember that Kiva was THE, all-caps, SHIT. Everybody loved the show and even some of my friends who I didn't know watched these shows were raving about it. I didn't get around to it personally for months, but at the time I wasn't a fan. In fact, until Ghost this was the show that I always ranked as my least favorite. I had a lot of problems with it and I suspect I'll be revisiting them over the next couple months.

That said, I know I've also forgotten a lot of the show's specifics and I'm sure that there's going to be a lot of material that hits me differently, twelve years later. The big thing I'm going into this with is one thing I said back on TFW2005's old Rider Kick thread, which was basically that I disliked Kiva more, but I'd still rather watch it again than Faiz. Then last year I finally rewatched Faiz and fell back in love with it. I'm really, really curious to see what happens when I go back and give Kiva a second chance.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

I didn't really touch on it (maybe next time?), but I love this theme song and title sequence. Really fun to watch, and it's appropriately epic-feeling for the show about melodramatic multi-generational monster-detonation.

I generally talk a lot of shit about Kiva, but I will never say an unkind word about the opening. Break the Chains is a banger and the opening visuals are fantastic.