[Kamen Rider Lucha]

My initial reaction was "whoa, I hate these." And while I've warmed to them a little, I'm still not really feeling the designs, especially for Kamen Riders, and especially especially for updates of Black.

Part of what makes Black's design so compelling is its smooth, almost alien simplicity. It's elegant, slim, and maintains a very streamlined silhouette. It balances the darkness of the character's origin with the heroism of his mission, while still maintaining Ishinomori's funky, bubbly weirdness.

These are... alien in a different way. They're monstrous and grotesque, which is obviously the point, but I dunno. They could have done a better job of balancing the "hero" part of it instead of going full bore into the monster part. There isn't a hint of levity or irony in the designs, and without that, they feel a tad try-hard, and kind of tip over into edgelord nonsense.

Black looks... fine, I guess. I don't hate it. But Shadow Moon is far too overdone -- there's just way too much going on. My eye just doesn't know where to look. They're both... a lot... but Shadow Moon in particular is A LOT a lot.

Y'know, I think my main problem is that they're just... not very imaginative? Like, they're kind of bog standard "what if Kamen Rider was for grown ups" fan arts. They fit too well into the SIC and Another Rider design language to be particularly surprising.

I'm still looking forward to Black Sun, and I'm sure these suits will look better in motion... but right now these are not the tea for me.