[Fish Sandwich]

Oh man, I have some more notable gripes than usual but I super enjoyed this one. One of the best episodes yet. Also, I'm probably going to forget a million little things I wanna mention because I always do:

- An insert theme?! Come on Ex-Aid, don't toy with my emotions like this. You kill off everybody's favorite character on Christmas and then give me a belated present? It's like, should I be even angrier, or just happy? The only problem here is its use felt really misplaced. It's not really a particularly triumphant moment, when you think about it (once again, Emu basically lucks his way into good things happening), and the episode just stops a minute later anyway. It seems like they should've held off on it until next episode, which promises to have a big dramatic scene where Ex-Aid and Ex-Aid have to learn to work together.

- This was a particularly good episode for Hiiro, showing he isn't just a jerk for the sake of it, and that his attitude does have its merits, but once again, the show is really blowing off Graphite's entire existence like it was nothing. I took some potshots at the TV-Nihon forum a couple weeks ago, but truthfully, I echo quite a few of their sentiments to a lesser extent, and this is one of the big things. This is so easy, Ex-Aid. While he's chowing down on that cake, have him realize, just for a second even, how its sort of ironic for him to call Emu out on prioritizing revenge over the patient, and THEN have the monster show up to fight him. If you don't have the runtime for important drama like this, freakin' MAKE the runtime. This was one of my problems with Ghost too (yes, I have problems with Ghost. I don't believe it either), but Ex-Aid's actual human drama scenes feel really cramped, short, and less in focus than they ought to be. And in this case, literally not there at all. This stuff is the reason I'm still hoping we'll eventually get another early Heisei styled show.

- I'm digging this Mighty Brothers XX stuff so far, though. I'm still bummed they're ditching the neon pink so early, but as long as Level 2 (and I guess 3 and 5 by extension) don't get phased out of the show to Ghost levels it won't be a problem. I look forward to seeing what kind of crazy action scenes we get out of this, let alone crazy plot stuff.

- And hey, they're also doing stuff with Snipe. Easy there, pal, make sure you don't solve that mystery before the audience does, or Toei/Genm might kill you off next! Jokes aside, It's good to see that both our other side Riders are getting some focus literally right after Lazer made his exit. It seems like the show understands they need to be able to pull some more weight without Kiriya around.

EDIT: Hey, what do you know? I forgot to mention some things:

- I like how they pulled a Kuuga and just gave up on keeping the constant monster attacks under wraps. Although I have to wonder what people's reactions to this stuff were like. I've thought Ex-Aid's use of the word was hilarious from the start, but thinking about it, if I was at a hospital and the doctor "operated" on me by turning into a cute mascot character and fighting a CG poop monster (or evidently, just a normal monster. What's a "Level 1"?), I'd be seriously questioning where my life has taken me.

- Also, I should probably speculate more on what this whole Kamen Rider Chronicle business is about, but I tend to just let mysteries in shows come at me as they do. I do wonder if the show is willing to truly carry on in Gaim's legacy and do something crazy like "Dan literally turns the world into a game", however.