[Switchblade]

Quote:

Originally Posted by NGW

And I gotta say, what a twist! The entire time I was watching I was wondering how these two stories would meet up, how Yuuji was going to end up with the belt and become Faiz. He was built up so sympathetically, that introductory sequence after the opening, with the car wreck..damn. But yeah, I was fully expecting him to end up with the belt and..he ends up being one of the bad guys, did not see that coming at all. I'm sure if I had known ahead of time who actually was the rider, like I'm sure most people did when first watching the series, either back when it first aired or now, that I probably would have had a different reaction, but I really didn't know much of anything before jumping into the show so it was a total shock to me.

From what I've heard, Faiz tried to hide the identity of the Rider before it aired and most of the trailers had a part of the scene where Mari tried to transform in it. Still, if you know your early '00s main Rider hairstyles, it's pretty obvious who it's going to be.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Locke

Faiz dropping into enemy hands, quite literally - I'm pretty sure I also have already had this twist spoiled for me, when I looked up Faiz toys. Only Orphenoch's can use the belt, right?

Yep. It's getting kind of hard to avoid that reveal; if you've seen Decade you know it's coming, too.

Quote:

Plus the sort of back up story of Yuka and her sister falls flat, because Yuka's sister, and subsequently her parents, are such complete and utter bastards that it feels like we've fallen into cartoonworld and all the intended poignancy of the drama is lost.

That's always a thing that bugged me about Faiz's melodrama: it never knows when to dial things back to feel more realistic instead of lurching full on into crazytown.

Quote:

I'm actually not sure how I feel about the Orphenoch's any more either. I know it's only been four episodes and I was just praising them but I dunno when you see multiple Orphenoch's standing side by side, you start to realise how boring the all grey design is.

The designs are good, but so much of the detail gets buried by the lack of color.