[chasesinister]

I haven't posted for a couple of months and in that time I've managed to finish Blade and Hibiki so I'll just post my thoughts about both of them now.

Blade. I loved the series. I liked the characters very much (except Amane. If I was her uncle I might have smacked her a long time ago.). It had great suit designs and Blade King Form looks so badass. I just rank it a bit lower than Ryuki because that ending was just bittersweet. It makes sense but I would have preferred the movie ending it was a bit more cheerful. Now about the characters.

Kenzaki was a good main rider. His desire to help people was genuine. And he acted like a real hero and his decision in the end kept with his character.

Tachibana was a solid second rider. I liked the ups and downs that his character experienced. Sucks that his gf had to die but he has principles and he stuck to it.

Hajime as an anti-hero worked too. I really liked that he was designed as an archer it looked really cool. And the revelation about what he is made the story more interesting.

Mutsuki got quite annoying in the middle part. The only saving grace was that the Tiger Undead kept hanging around him.

The suppoert characters were pretty good too. Hirose just replaced Sakurako as my favorite KR girl. She kept intel for Kenzaki and Tachibana and had a good story with her father. Kotarou as the comic relief was like a better version of Keitaro of Faiz. I just loved his obsession with milk. I loved that exchange between him and Hirose when she said he drinks so much milk he'll turn into a cow and his reply was that would be good so he can drink his own. I just found it funny.

Overall I really enjoyed Blade. Now Hibiki. I read up on Hibiki before I started watching it and I was intrigued when they said it was pretty different from the usual KR fare. And its notoriety because of what happened to the shows second half.

The first episode really disoriented me with all the noise and the weird camera angles. It took me a couple of days before I watched episode 2 and still I wasn't impressed. After a couple more episodes I thought this might not be for me. And I couldn't stand Asumu in those early eps. I was about to give it up when I thought I'll give it a couple more episode. Then Ibuki and Akira were introduced and I thought ok now its beginning to be good and when Todoroki and Zanki were introduced I was like now were talking. I just loved Todoroki's enthusiasm and Zanki was just badass. When I first saw him I thought this is a guy you don't wanna fuck with or he'll smash that guitar in your face. And I started to warm up to Asumu at that point.

Hibiki is the first KR series that I actually liked the secondary riders more than the main rider. Hibiki's fine and all but I just enjoyed Todoroki's wildness and craziness and Ibuki being the cool guy who while being cool wasn't cocky. And that he's just as bad as Todoroki is when he's around Kasumi.

And I might get my head bit of for saying this but I wasn't bothered by the second half of Hibiki. Sure the ending could have been better but I actually liked some of the episodes from the second half. Shuki's two parter, the Orochi forest and Zanki's death were pretty good. That scene where Zanki and Todoroki after beating a makamou and they just wailed on their guitars was just an epic and bittersweet scene. What I think it failed at was Kiriya. He was the jerkass character who was annoyin at best but never reached the level of douchy-ness level of Hojo from Agito or Kusaka of Faiz. In Agito I just wanted one of the Lords to just decapitate Hojo and in Faiz I enjoyed it when Yuji finally finished Kusaka off, but with Kiriya he was just an annoying brat you want to just smack around a bit.

And I tend to google what the cast are up to nowadays and I was saddened to find out that Hinaka's actress Miyuki Kanbe died 2 years after Hibiki due to sudden heart failure at such a young age. When I found that out I felt a pang of regret every time I saw her on the show since she portrayed such a happy person.

So this is how I rank the shows I've finished.
1. Ryuki
2. Blade
3. Hibiki
4. Kuuga
5. Agito
6. Faiz