[Tokumonkey]

Update: I watched episode 30 today, and it was heartbreaking. Partly, it was unexpected, since I'd mistakenly thought the production change didn't happen until episode 34.

It wasn't so much the loss of the natural setting that jarred me as it was the loss of what a lot of the character relationships meant. Asumu and Hibiki have a fairly honest, straightforward conversation at the beginning of episode, and that's just not something they do. Characterizations all around seemed more broad to me.

The actor who later played Den-O's Yuuto shows up and more or less dominates the episode. (I found this annoying, but also puzzling because I'm predisposed to like that actor.) The mystery inherent in the villains' scheming is just ripped away: "Yep, we're in a lab, makin' a makamou." Which just happens to be a standard-issue Rider kaijin to be fought in a city. I appreciated that they tried to make it marginally more interesting with the flaming hoop gimmick.

I read a bit about the production changes, so apparently, the show just outright drops two Riders at this point? One of the things I'd enjoyed about the show is how it casually introduced cameos of oni Riders many episodes before we'd learn anything substantial about them. We'd JUST learned about Eiki, and I seem to recall another oni a few episodes ago, and they were just... dropped?

I haven't experienced this form of disappointment before. This episode felt more like all the neo-Heisei series I've seen before. I like those shows, so it's not like I object to those tropes and characterizations on their merits. It's just that I was enjoying Kamen Rider Hibiki, and I'm technically still watching a show with that same name, cast, and (mostly) characters, but it's not the show I was enjoying. That show just ended with no fanfare.

I'm still pairing it with Magiranger, a series I enjoy far more than when it started. I still die a little inside every time Houka refers to herself in the third person, though.

RIP, the Hibiki ending that could have been. I'll watch the rest to see whether there's anything I'll enjoy, and so if I'm given reason to gripe, I can do it from an informed perspective.