[Fish Sandwich]

Die's distaste for the design of Cosmic States is practically one of the running gags of these threads, so now that we're here to specifically talk about Fourze, I gotta say, I really love Cosmic States. In fact, judging by the way he seems to think the suit itself is under-designed, based on the comparisons to cheap Halloween costumes and frozen treats, I even get to frame this in Die's favorite way -- by actively agreeing with the basic concept and then drawing a completely different conclusion.

To me, a lot of the beauty of Cosmic States is that they didn't overthink the look. The simple approach works as a contrast against how complex Fourze's other form changes were, making it stand out in a different way from usual, but the details that are there still give it that impression of being the most powerful, without having to make his shoulderpads too huge or anything. I forget if anyone in this thread ever brought up the well known anecdote about how Fourze's eyes deliberately lack the common teardrop lines meant to symbolize the sorrow of being Kamen Rider, but what's a lot less well known is the part two to that story, which is how the yellow lines of Cosmic States deliberately invoke that imagery to suggest how Gentarou is now sort of carrying with him all the feelings of the many people he's gotten to know so far in his quest to make friends with everyone. That's a pretty good suit in my book!

More than anything though, I was honestly just really happy they made it such a pretty shade of blue? Like, that was a first for a final form, and I've mentioned before how Fourze was the first Rider I was able to actively follow from the trademark being filed. I had literally never had the experience of wondering what the ultimate powerup for a Rider was going to look like before (I think I knew about PuToTyra by the time I was caught up enough to care with OOO?), so it turning out to be a fresh main color that was way up my alley felt like another in the long list of reasons it just kinda seemed like this show was made for me.

As such, actually getting to these episodes was an even greater joy than usual at the time. You've got Sakamoto directing, you've got that great cliffhanger with the hero dying, you've got a plot that makes room to focus on the secondary Rider just as much as the main hero (because it's a show about friendship!), heck, you've even got a new insert theme with May'n signing again. It's pretty much everything you could ask for out of this whole genre of Rider episode; a lot of things in these two are things I immediately think of when I think Fourze.