[Enchilada645]

Wasn't sure if I could fill everything out, but I somehow managed to do it. Yay!

Favorite New Show of 2024

Ohsama Sentai King-Ohger: Probably the most epic and fantastical we've seen a Sentai yet. There's a grand sense of scale and aside from technical hiccups, I think they manage to sell their epic narrative pretty nicely. It also has some fantastic anniversary related content within the series, somehow feeling like a true sequel to Kyoryuger than Donbrothers did to Zenkaiger.

Kamen Rider Gotchard: What? I'm not going to pick between my faves are you crazy? Gotchard's a comfy show with a pretty fluid system thanks to how the main plot is structured. It allows for a lot of fun character moments, and while there are flaws I'll always admit to, I still really enjoyed it.

Favorite New-to-You Show of 2024

Madan Senki Ryukendo: Wasn't sure what to expect with this one but I ended up enjoying my time greatly with it. Has one of my all time favorite Toku Episodes, and definitely is one of my favorites of the non-Toei/Tsupro Toku. It's a shame Takara Tomy only made three Henshin Hero styled Toku Shows, but that said I'm excited to eventually get to the Rescue Series.

Favorite Movie, Miniseries, or Special of 2024

Kamen Rider Gotchard The Future Daybreak: The minute the full trailer for this released I knew I was going to love it. It's been a while since I've outright loved a solo Rider flick, and this one definitely hits a lot of fun emotional beats. Plus it continues to show how magical girl-coded Gotchard is which something I'll always try and pedal!

Favorite Rewatch of 2024

Dogengers ~Nice Buddy~: I did rewatch Kamen Rider W, and while that was fulfilling... well, I ended up having too much of a wonderful time to not mention Dogengers in some way. It's just a really fun Local Hero Tokusatsu with a lot of heart and some wonderful comedy.

Favorite Male Lead Character

Houtaro Ichinose (Kamen Rider Gotchard): Yeah I've got to go with my boy on this one. Dude's so full of whimsy and excitement and so many times so many people wanted to beat him down but he kept going, he kept pushing. He's going to achieve his Gotcha no matter how long it takes and you're not going to stop him.

Favorite Female Lead Character

Rinne Kudoh (Kamen Rider Majade): Honestly a great co-star to Houtaro, with the two having real nice chemistry with each other. She's very subtle in her emotions and how she presents herself, and her story with Atropos was honestly a delight to see unfold. She's also pretty badass as Majade and her synergy with Gotchard on the field was always a delight to see.

Favorite Male Supporting Character

Shu Ishido (Ultraman Arc): It's been fascinating following Shu's character throughout the show, it's a lot of subtle shifts and changes, but it's incredible seeing the effect SKIP ends up having on him. He's also got some funny quirks what with his coffee, and yet that becomes extremely endearing, especially when it ties into the Blazar arc's start. I'd also like to give special mention to the dub voice actor, especially during episode 23 where he acted his heart out.

Favorite Female Supporting Character

Tamami Ichinose (Kamen Rider Gotchard): Just a mom who loves her son and tries to give him the best advice she can. She only shows up so often, but I always adored whatever scenes she had with Houtaro. That's especially true during the endgame, where she gets a really nice moment with Houtaro before the final fight with Glion.

Favorite Villain

Jack Moon (Ryukendo): I'm sorry, I know we've had a lot of villains this year but it had to be from the series I just discovered. The man is a demonic swordsman who wants to live and die by the sword, and aside from a few hiccups (that thankfully get rectified), he creates a wonderful rivalry with our titular hero which ends in a fantastic way.

Special shout outs to the Sanseaters though, love those Team Rocket-esque goofballs just oh so much.

Favorite Returning Past Character

Right Suzuki (Boonboomger): It's not the biggest cameo, and he could only be out of suit for a short scene, but it was still incredible to see him again. Akira was also a big highlight though when it came to cast interaction.

Favorite Actor

Taisei Sakai as Gira Husty: This man has his expressions down pat, and he really flexed that for those more subtle scenes in King-Ohger too. Also I just genuinely enjoyed the character he portrayed too.

Favorite Actress

Kanon Miyahara as Clotho: Not only can she act, but she can fight out of costume damn well too! She gets a lot of out of suit stunts in during Gotchard, and they even designed a power-up for her to use since she could actually keep toe to toe with the other stunt workers. I also recently saw Final Stage so getting to see that she got to go ham on there too was really cool.

Favorite Writer(s)

Keiichi Hasegawa, Hiroki Uchida, & Akiko Inoue: Yeah I'm just picking all of them because upon looking at each of their episode lists for Gotchard... they honestly wrote a lot of the ones I enjoyed! I may have some quibbles with Gotchard, but I cannot deny that these three put in some good work.

Favorite Director

Kazuya Kamihoriuchi: This man directed some good King-Ohger Episodes, especially the three final episodes which were a suspenseful epic end to the series itself.

Favorite Suit Design

The Hagane Armor: Talk about a glow-up that basically turned my entire view on the non-titled Knights around in an instant. Prior to this the armor was CG and was fairly basic, so much that it carried over to its other appearances in the franchise. So it getting the proper suit treatment with just enough detail but not enough to make it overcrowded? Honestly really great.

Favorite Weapon

Gavvgablade: Gavv has a unique arsenal, and a standard sword that can also send a scrimblo out on a tiny bike to maybe potentially help turn the tide of battle? Now that's pretty great.

Favorite Vehicle

Bundorio Bunderas: He can transform into a trailer, he counts! Especially because I need the favorite mecha spot free... Anyway, I'm always a fan of making your giant robot an actual character (see Zenkaiger) so Bundorio was always going to be a winner for me. He brings a level of fun to the atmosphere, has some neat backstory, and gets to take charge in the action once we hit the climax of the episode. Overall he's a pretty great transforming companion to have by your side.

Favorite Mecha

Givas: Listen after his debut episodes and reappearance he had to go here specifically. He's got beams, a grapple claw, and the way he booms out "GIVASSS" is great. But the story surrounding him was what shot Givas up on my list as one of my favorite mecha of all time.

Favorite Fight Scene

Ultraman Arc vs. Trigelos: It's been a while since we've had a Kaiju specifically bred and modified to kill an Ultra. Digelos was created to likely try and kill Rution after Monogelos' failure, but it failed because it went up against Ultraman Arc. So after a long time of allowing Arc to grow and basically peak... we bring in Trigelos. What we get is a fight scene in which Arc is barely keeping pace with the newly bred Kaiju, especially when it starts countering his armors and manages to gain the upper hand. It's an intense fight in which its ending feels more agonizing due to how long we'll be waiting on 24 to drop thanks to the holiday season.

Favorite Dramatic Scene

Gotchard vs. Hopper Malgam: If there's one reason I'm excited about Gozyuger, it's seeing if Akiko Inoue will pull out a gut punch like this again. The acting, the atmosphere, the way the rug's pulled out from under the viewer after they think things might end up alright. It's such an insane scene to end on, especially followed by one of my favorite Final Form Episode Previews of all time.

Favorite Comedic Scene

Blazar Punches Gento: It's a sudden beat, but it works because it's so sudden. Gento's just staring at the Blazar Stone and suddenly his alien buddy takes control of his fist and punches him in the face so he can get an actual nap in.

Biggest "WTF did I just watch?" Moment

The Preview for Arc Episode 22 "The Man in the White Mask": As someone who actually partakes in episode previews, this is one of the ones that make me glad I do. It's an insane departure from the usual ones, it having this eerie and odd tone as we're treated to snippets from an equally as eerie and wild episode in Ultras history.

Favorite Song(s)

Any Back-On Song in Gotchard: Back-On put out some bangers this year, especially after deciding they wanted to bring FLOW on to add to everything. The remixed CHEMYxSTORY, did THE SKY'S THE LIMIT with Beverly, The Future Daybreak with FLOW again, all great bangers.

Favorite Piece of Merchandise

Gotchardriver: Thanks to a friend I managed to get my hands on it for my birthday, and having bought a bunch of blind packs before, I ended up having a lot of fun with my Gotchardriver. There's something so satisfying about slotting in cards, pulling and pushing the levers. The sounds are loud and great. Honestly a really great toy.

Biggest Surprise of 2024

His name is Glion, not Geryon: Legitimately did not expect this and it still hits me to this day. But yeah, turns out in an interview that Hasegawa mentioned his name's derived from Greek Mythology too. But it's not Geryon, yeah no, the name is derived from the sculptor Pygmalion. Honestly real neat fun fact that still hits me.

Edit: Honorable Mention Because I Somehow Forgot...

Venommariner's suit being still intact, legit was not expecting that suit to make another appearance:



Biggest Disappointment of 2024

Generated Images in Kamen Rider Outsiders: I can excuse a lot of things about Outsiders if I'm being honest. The idea of companies using generated imagery to try and cut corners though? Nah, I don't like that. Especially when said images come when talking about societal and environmental problems, of which, AI Generated Slop and the like are one of the bigger issues when it comes to killing our environment nowadays.

The Onari Wildcard Segment in which I hijack what this really is for my own rambling 2024 Edition:

I ended up also watching Kuuga this year, and it was pretty good, but fairly overrated. I still enjoyed my time with it though. When it comes to what little shows I have left in terms of early Heisei, Ryuki's next on the chopping block as that got uploaded to Tokushoutsu's Youtube recently in full. It makes me curious if we'll get a new announcement from them or Team Rider anytime soon, but we'll see.

Speaking of hopes, what with Fuuto PI's revival via Portrait of Skull, I do hope we end up getting that released over here at some point. And I do hope that we'll eventually continue on to Season 2.

Most Anticipated Tokusatsu Project and/or Merch of 2025

I'm not really anticipating anything, but it's probably going to Gozyuger. If only because between that and Ultraman Omega, we know just a bit more about Gozyuger at the moment. The suits look cool, the premise is interesting, and Akiko Inoue is writing for it. It seems like it might end up being a fun time.