[Fish Sandwich]

Quote:

Originally Posted by EpsilonX

I'll watch it someday, but I have much higher priorities right now. I have my eye on W, Wizard, Ryuki, Fourze, and Kiva. I've narrowed it mostly down to W or Fourze, but I just can't decide. And yes, I'm aware that Wizard and Kiva aren't very highly regarded, but I still have my reasons for wanting to watch them.

Well, Wizard is highly regarded by me, anyway. I've never seen someone try to say Kiva was really good though. I like it, but I think in any objective sense it's probably the worst Rider show ever. It's not bad, but you'd be better off watching pretty much anything else unless it really clicks with you.

Between W or Fourze, though, I don't think you can go wrong. Just pick whatever premise appeals to you more. Personally I like Fourze more, but I find W has something of a cool western comic-book superhero feel that no other Rider show really has. It puts emphasis on a hero with a secret identity who acts as the sworn protector of a city against similarly empowered criminals, which hits me right in the Spider-Man sweet spot.

--

Getting back to gushing about Wizard, since I'm in the mood, I actually just got done re-watching the Flame Dragon two-parter (8 & 9) to see if it was as awesome as I remember it. Spoiler alert: It's exactly as awesome as I remember it. Almost everything that makes me love Wizard is on display in those two episodes, and I could go on about it long enough and it's late enough that instead I'm just gonna do some bullet-points again:

- Amazing fight choreography! Wizard's swordplay is always something to behold.
- Phoenix is a great villain. His personality makes him simultaneously fun to watch and genuinely threatening.
- The use of Just The Beginning in the climax is one of the most memorable instances of an insert song in Rider to me. There's an extra layer of catharsis to it because of how poorly things had been going for Haruto up to that point.
- Having the obligatory victim of the week tie into Haruto's past is a thing the show did several times that really allowed them to build on Haruto's character. I find he's a way deeper protagonist than a lot of people give him credit for and these episodes are a great example of the kind of range he has emotionally.

Those are just a couple major thoughts but rest assured I could say more. If anyone is curious why I'm so infatuated with Wizard and has 44 minutes I really recommend giving these episodes a watch.

If you've seen it before and hated it maybe you can see it from a different perspective, and if you haven't, one of the upsides of not being super arc-based is that you can just jump in with no context and still get 90% of the story.