[GoldenXtreme]

Minor quibble to start with: I kind of assumed that TokuSHOUTsu would have like some kind of "episode starting in X minutes" countdown after the prior episode ended, that way each episode airing would start at every half hour on the dot. But they literally run back to back nonstop, so for someone trying to catch the new episode after the initial airing it's pretty much impossible to get on the stream at the right moment. I'll probably just try to jump on the premier next time, even if it is a little late for me.

Anyways, like a lot of people I had some apprehensions about Yuuya Takahashi, but honestly this premier was a lot of fun! The whole secret agent battle in Baku's dream at the beginning made me smile, it was just pure cheesy spy movie fun. In real life, Baku is an incredibly unlucky jobless adult who lives with his sister, like someone decided Ryotaro Nogami from Den-O should be played for drama. He's pretty instantly lovable between his loserish nature and genuine desire to help people. Certainly a vast improvement over Ace, who banked on nothing but mystique and coolness for almost the entire show. Some interesting elements also get teased, with the cops clearly aware of the existence of supernatural monsters. As some others here have said, the Rider fight was surprisingly low impact though (in spite of using the Physicam Impact form ). Still, it was a very fun episode that I don't have any big issues with. We will just have to see if Yuuya can keep up the quality over the long term, which is probably his biggest weakness.