[DreamSword]

Now up through episode 33 of Gaim. It came with some ups and downs.

The downs are mostly minor stuff, but the biggest disappointment came in the form of the Showa vs Heisei movie.

It's basically a Superhero Taisen movie but with only Riders. The Showa Riders are written really out of character here, and the film even through out its own out of "We were only pretending to be assholes!" solely so more lackluster fights could happen.

But even worse than that, which is the aspect most people know by now, I just overall found the movie to be really boring, with the only fun bit being Baron bopping around Futo with Shotaro.

As for the ups, I had alot of fun with both the ToQger and Kikaider crossovers. Haven't seen ToQger, but the special was still filled with some high energy and my favorite comedic moment in the whole show. I have seen Kikaider Reboot, however, and despite knowing that there's no way in heck that this crossover can be considered canon, I still had alot of fun with it. That finisher Kikaider does with Kachidoki Arms is super smooth.

Something I've also began to wonder at this point in regards to fan reception: Do the people who complain about the Grongi speech in Kuuga also complain about the Overlord speech here in Gaim? Because they're basically the same spiel. The only real difference being that the Overlords don't spoil anything, whereas the Grongi do(whether one considers them minor spoilers or not).

Mai continues to be my favorite, by the way. Loved her slapping Mitchy ontop of her maturity in empathizing with Kota despite the awful situation surrounding Yuya. If we're talking Riders though, I gotta give it to Baron, in that the dude is so insanely dedicated to one single idea that it's actually kind of respectable ontop of being really funny at times. His own sense of honor has also been on display a couple times over the course of the show, which helps. Plus, ya know, Bananas ARE the best fruit.

And that's about all I got in terms of notes. The show continues to be fun, but I still don't see it as anything super stellar.