[Monsoon]

(as I've mentioned elsewhere, I'm a Kamen Rider scrub that's only seen OOO to completion)

I've been slowly making my way through Kamen Rider Fourze, Gaim, and Drive. I'm around 35 episodes into Fourze, and in the 15-18 range of Gaim and Drive. My Fourze-watching has stalled a bit because I prefer the other two in general, heh, but I like all three and I'll eventually finish them. All this Kamen Rider has slowed down my Sentai watching, too.

I also downloaded several other Kamen Rider shows, and watched the first two episodes of four of them. Some early impressions:

Kamen Rider Black: holy fuck what a great first episode. Starts with a chase scene, ends with a murder, and they give enough backstory and foreshadowing to be interesting and never boring. This show's great. The only other first episode of a tokusatsu show that compares is... maybe Liveman or Gokaiger? And the second episodes hardly slowed down. Anyway this show rules and I will definitely watch more later.

Kamen Rider Ryuki: I liked this one quite a bit! The way the mirror monsters murder civilians is almost out of a horror movie, and I thought the action was pretty solid. From what I understand of the plot, this show is basically Highlander, and has about as much Rider vs. Rider action as Rider vs. Monster action. Sounds dope. Kamen Rider Knight is basically Knight from the Grant Morrison JLA comics, which is definitely a good thing. Knight and Squire, two British acquaintances of Batman and Robin.

Kamen Rider Blade: I didn't like this show as much as the other three - I only watched the first episode. Since Blade has his powers from the get-go and we see the inner workings of a secret lab, almost immediately followed by a betrayal and the lab getting destroyed, it felt like the show started at episode 4 or 5 and not the first. There's also a lot of characters thrown at you right away, and I couldn't easily tell which ones would be important and which ones wouldn't. It wasn't a bad first episode, but I won't make this show a priority like Black.

Kamen Rider Den-O: Well damn. I was expecting this show to be slightly silly, and the first two episodes basically delivered on that front. I was pretty sure I'd hate the main character for being such a loser, but seeing him possessed by Momotaros (changing his hair and demeanor) made me like him a little more. If this actor successfully portrays five personalities well (I assume there are four Imagin, based on the OP and the buttons on his belt) then it'll be a pretty impressive performance. Anyhow, I like Den-O's premise and I didn't mind the silliness. I might go ahead with this one later, but I think I liked the first two episodes of Black or Ryuki more.

TL;DR I sampled some old Rider shows and thought Black was awesome, Ryuki was pretty cool, Blade wasn't as good as the others, and Den-O might have potential.