[algo448]

Finished Blade, so possible WALL OF TEXT incoming and obviously beware of possible SPOILERS:

Blade was out of all the Rider shows, scratch that, out of all Toku shows the one I was more interested in, and it's not hard to see why: Excellent suit designs, a playing card motif, a balanced cast of riders, an interesting backstory with the Undead tournament and generally speaking a good reputation amongst toku fans. So how did it turn out?

Honestly it turned out quite different from what I was expecting, but in most cases it was for the best. Starting from the first few episodes Blade has different way to tell it's story compared to recent Rider shows, 2 episode arcs? nowhere to be seen, introductory episodes? not here, from the start this show wastes no time to introduce us to the plot and characters, and spends all it's episodes developing those aspects, at some points I would be screaming at my screen: Too much plot! Gimme Filler! (I know blasphemy)

I can fully understand why people felt that the show dragged to much at certain parts, the lack of those compressed arcs made it feel at points like nothing was happening, but that wasn't necesarily true, and honestly there were only a few thing I would change pacing wise. The show has a great story and it's always moving whether it's evident or not at first.

What can I say about the characters? I absolutely loved them
I'll speak about them in more detail once I watch Missing Ace (mostly to keep this post as short as possible) but generally speaking the chracters felt very well done, the actors performance was great, and the characters personalities were respected and developed in believable ways, like Matrix said "The characters felt like adults and acted as such" Overall an excellent cast.

But since nothing is perfect let's dive into my cons of Kamen Rider Blade:
-Kenzaki, felt too much like a supporting character at the beginning, don't misunderstand me I love Kenzaki he's a great Rider, and his interactions with the other characters gave him all the personality and development he needed, so when he fianlly takes the spotlight, he carries the show without problems, but at early stages Hajime and Tachibana were the ones that carried the story forward, he would have greatly benefited from some arcs of his own early on.
-Related to the above point the Shima/Jack form arc was too short and was done too close to the King one, this basically meant that Shima a wonderful character was sadly underused, likewise Blade's Jack Form was basically pointless since King was introduced soon after, if they had done it earlier Shima and Jack would have had more time to shine, and Kenzaki would have had a longer arc in the early episodes, doing this arc earlier would have also helped to tie up Spider's arc sooner, which is the next point.
-The Spider Undead arc GOD! the Spider Undead arc. It went nowhere for so long, had they finished it after Shima's arc I wouldn't have much of a problem with it, but man that thing just lasted too long, Mutsuki was an interesting character, I like Mutsuki, Spider? Not at all, he was boring forgettable and basically had no real personality, it could have been a strong arc and an interesting burden for Leangle had it been shorter.
-And last for not least: the Undead, with the exception of the high level Undead which assumed Human Form the rest of the undead were so forgettable, they never felt like a threat or even relevant, a undead would be detected roaming around, because for the biggest part they had no objectives, Kenzaki would folllow it, get beaten around and then in the last second win without much effort. The fights did gt better as the series went on, but the undead remained a tool for the sotry to move forward, they had no role of their own or interesting arcs, they were msotly fodder for the Rouze cards. Teh high-level however shined, and showed the potential the undead had as a whole specially since they weren't fighting for themselves but rather for their species.

But besides that I can't complain as I absolutely loved this series, the characters and story were memorable and thought-provoking, Blade is an excellent show overall.

As for Blade main thematic, I spent quite a while thinking about it, Kiva was about family, Decade about finding your place in the world (arguably), W about partners, OOO about desire and Fourze about friendship.
At first I was gonna say that Blade was about human nature, but that's both too large and too ambiguous.

So what's Blade about? In my opinion, about Kindness and Love, Hajime was driven by family love from the start, whereas Tachibana and Mutsuki love for their sentimental partners and friends lead them too suffering due to being unable to rely on others, as for Kenzaki he is the purest form of love, as he said himself: he loves Humans, for him that's the only logic way to do things, loving others more than you do yourself is natural for him, it's what drives him and gives sense to his life. The Riders interactions were defined by love and trust, and even in the villains you could see similar motives.

Finishing this stupidly large post, where does this show fits in my favorites list? High, way too high, ad far as other toku shows go, the only one that it can stand against is W, this is a battle of jokers. And like Kenzaki would have done, I'm not choosing either of them as my favorite, both of them are, I love them both for different reasons and I won't choose between them, this is the way I do things this is the way Blade does things.