[Daikaijuman54]

Ah yes, the Manhole Murder Incident.

I oddly enough liked this pair of episodes, even if it was split between Kiva and Ginga's arcs, I feel they pulled these off rather well. It's also funny how a lot of these Rider Tribute plots mirror some of the plot points of prior seasons, seeing as Sougo's in love here (Geiz's reaction was golden), there's a wedding, there's bloodshed, and a cool, shady stranger (I haven't watched Kiva, so I'm just spouting nonsense here). But then there's Ginga. My favorite Future Rider, though I guess he's more of a Space Rider in this case. I don't know why I love him as much as I do, or Woz Ginga Finally, for that matter, but there's just something about them that hits all the right marks, from the cosmic body, the UFO helmet, or the planet motif, it's just a really neat design. Do I think he could have worked better in his own arc? Of course! But his inclusion here was done alright in my opinion. (And yet nobody played a violin. Bad tribute!)

There's also something funny how the Time Jackers are forced to bow down to Another Kiva (I realize there might have been potential for Kivala this arc, but I'm not complaining), and they're all thinking, "looks like we screwed up." This feels close to what their goal of crowning another Rider Ruler (Kamen Ruler?), and it somehow feels worse than Oma Zi-O to them.

Now here I'm going to talk a bit about how Another Kiva is one of the best Another Rider designs, it's sleek, it's not too busy, but most importantly, it's got stained glass like a Fangire! Maybe it's most obvious to me here, or what, but I love how the design works in that regard as not only a monster version of Kiva but implements much of the monster designs from his respective season, which I figure is the whole point, given Kiva himself is a Fangire, but seeing it meshed into the design makes this one of my favorites of the seaason.

All in all, a nice pair of episodes, even with all the chaos they fit in, I still liked them. Again, the Kiva Armor Time is a nice design, but unlike some of the others, the visor doesn't look as good as some of the others, given the Katakana for Kiva is so short, and also worth mentioning is that the Katakana is yellow, similar to Decade where it was green, which is interesting how some of the Armor Times change Zi-O's eye color.