[Powerman293]

Kiryu was an okay villain. He was more of an excuse to get Tachibana back in the action and show the true power of Leangle if he went completely evil.

Tachibana training Mutski is an interesting concept. We can he that Mutski's power comes from the dumb luck of the Spider Undead being really powerful rather then training. However, what's all that training going to do if Mutski's being controlled anyway, what? Beat up the other riders better?

And Hajime hates Leangle..... great now more loner Chalice moments...

The villians in episodes 20 and 21 were jokes. Capricorn Undead was your standard two parter villain with a hold Koutaro hostage scheme to stop Blade. (Also, a male Queen Undead? Toei, you've gotta be fucking kidding me if you couldn't find one more Japanese female actress that's in her 20's to play the part) And the Orchid Undead was generic female villain material. They were queens but the went down easily. Seriously, WTF? The last royal Undead, Peacock, was a bitch to defeat and took someone's death in order to provide the will for Tachibana to overcome him. Now, Capricorn went down in 2 episodes like a monster of the week.

But coming off of Peacock Undead to this huge drop off in story quality is really disappointing. The Peacock Undead manipulated the sides everyone was on in order to win, hell he even created a new belt ready to have a new Rider work for him once he got Blade, Garren and Chalice out of the picture. Along with all of that rage Tachibana had towards the Peacock Undead when he killed his girlfriend created a great story arc.

Hell, even the introduction of Mutski arc I loved due to Mutski being bonded to this belt and having conflicting desires to use it or not. All of this growth under the fact that the Spider Undead is his puppet and his eventual decision to use his powers for good and further them despite his situation.

I know it seems a bit odd to bash these 2 arcs over the past few episodes and be reviewing what has happened so far, but we're nearly halfway through Blade. If the actual villains can't support the show over the middle section after such a great story so far, my opinion of Blade will greatly diminish.