[Fish Sandwich]

Well with all three episodes now out I decided to just watch this whole thing in one sitting. It works better as a movie anyway, so I'm glad I waited. But first things first:



Toei, we've gotta talk. What do you have against Emu? The man is nothing short of a saint, the perfect role-model for all the children in the audience, and you just won't leave him alone. When he isn't in his own show, having his entire life manipulated by the main bad guy, having his friends die, being treated like a nuiscance by his friends who aren't dead, or failing to save the people he sets out to help, he's in spin-off projects getting his face shoved into used syringes, beaten with a metal pipe, stabbed, and, and this rate, probably getting gunned down in the street in the summer movie or something. What did he do to deserve any of this? Are the writers over there taking bets as to who can put Emu through the most s***? Because that's just messed up. You people make me sick.

ANYWAY, with that (largely facetious!) rant out of the way, I'd just like to say that this series was massively better than it had any right to be. Being a random spin-off coming from a writer who's not only never touched any of these characters, but is also the guy behind Ninninger (and yes I know I like Ninninger, shut up), I was not expecting anything this actually interesting.

It's not the greatest thing in the world, but this was honestly pretty good. Kento Shimoyama has a surprisingly good grasp on the whole cast. He gets that Emu needs to suffer horribly at all times (and even makes him bleeding profusely a plot point), he gets that Dan is nutso, he gets that Kiriya is the man, he gets that Kenzaki is REALLY the man, and most impressively Kaito felt more or less like Kaito, and he's a character writers who aren't Urobuchi tend not to get the subtleties of. Youko's maybe a little bubbly, but she was also barely a character to begin with, so I can't be too angry.

The plot is a remarkably engaging Twilight Zone style mystery, too. It caught me off-guard way more than I expected. There were some great twists and making a major point out of Kenzaki not actually being dead was some stellar writing. You totally could've glossed over that as an excuse to bring Blade back and no one would've cared. But they went the extra mile and both played on the viewer's inherent trust of a returning face AND let said returning face get to be the key player in saving the day at the end. As a huge Blade fan I couldn't be much happier.

As for the actual Go-Rider part of Go-Rider, it sure was a thing. It's almost whiplash inducing when those cards abruptly show up, but the fight scene itself is goofy fun, and if that's the price we have to pay to get this cool story, so be it.

Overall this was one of the stronger spin-offs we've gotten. Basically taking the potential from stuff like Kamen Rider 4 and really doing something with it. I'm really pleasantly surprised by Go-Rider. Good stuff all around.

Oh, and back when Gaim was airing I was pretty certain Kaito would eventually lead a Sentai team while doing goofy poses.