[ryan]

Alright, some points of interest from the episodes of Kiva I watched tonight.

Episode 1:
Bach's Prelude and Fugue in D minor, most overused and cliche piece of organ music ever. But I love Bach's organ music, so this draws me in immediately.

Stained glass eyes effect is super awesome, when can I have my eyes permanently surgically altered to look like that?

The opening credits sequence for Kiva is amazing, I love the music, and the atmosphere of the shots.

Kiva is the best of all designs from all Rider shows. In fact, all the designs from Kiva are among the best.

Best music, too.

Kivat is awesome.

Not really a fan of hyper-allergic Wataru, rather glad they ditch that in the next episode or two.

Super-shy/withdrawn Wataru I do appreciate more, especially as he slowly grows out of that throughout the show.

Parallel time-line storytelling: interesting idea, but not always handled well. Occasionally handled amazing though. First episode, some of the transitions are done poorly, not waiting for a natural pause in the current story, just a sudden jump to the past.

Megumi is kind of a pushy jerk. but on the other hand, it's clearly something Wataru can benefit from. Also, I seem to recall that she gets beat up more often, and probably more badly, than any other character in the show.

I love how the Horse Fangire hits his arm to release glass shards, which form into a sword. Which idea we then never see again. But I love the idea of them breaking bits off themselves to form their weapons.

Kivat saves Wataru from being stabbed by catching the sword in his teeth.

Kivat is awesome.

Wake Up attack is awesome (the only one that's better is Wake Up Fever).

I remember my impressions the first time I saw this: Why is there a dragon castle thing? Why is it hiding in a building? Why does it eat the fangire's soul? Why do no humans notice this? Also, who cares, that was fucking awesome!

Again with the awesome organ music.


Episode 2:
I like that the fangires all have different styles of fangs.

Otoya has one hell of an ego, to assume that all the women love him. He's a womanizing prick, but essentially good at heart, deciding to fight fangires as soon as he sees one and what it does to humans. I like that while trying to seduce Yuri he also steals her whipsword, and then tries to fight the fangire. And he's pretty decent at it for his first try.

Have I mentioned that Kivat is awesome?

I love how the Wake Up attack leaves the Kiva logo impression on the ground.

Machine Kivaa is cool. Figuarts when? Probably before Figuarts Kiva. :/

In these first two episodes, everything works for me, from Wataru idolizing his father, contrasting to how we see the character as a somewhat irresponsible, womanizing jerk, to the hints of other interesting things to come, like the guys inside Castle Doran, and this Nago character who will try to kill Kiva.