[ShyGuy]

It wasn't bad, but definitely a step down after last week's great premier. Pacing was a little weird at times in this one and a lot of the stuff that happened felt like they're just trying to hurry up and get a lot of the intro stuff out of the way. For example, the way the reporter discovered Build's identity was weak and felt very forced, like they just wanted to immediately establish that relationship and didn't care about setting it up in any kind of really believable way.

I'm also really not a fan of the overly used and just generally not interesting "dead girlfriend as motivation" trope. The girlfriend isn't really a character in her own right, just a tool to give Ryuga something to drive him now. It makes it impossible to actually feel any emotional connection to what's happening because it's so artificial, and having it all rushed through one episode doesn't help (But on the other hand, at least it won't be wasting more screen time from this point on). Ryuga already had a good background story and motivation with his status as a criminal on the run framed for murder, this was just not necessary. Hopefully it ends here, because the last thing we need is Gills 2.0 and all the over-the-top melodrama that comes with that.

On the plus side though I'm still really liking Sento as a lead character, his more sarcastic and cocky personality is a welcome change from the last few Riders. I also like Soichi and Misora, they're continuing to be intersting supporting characters and this episode established there's definitely something up with them, as many people initially suspected. I'm looking forward to learning more about that.

This episode might have been a lot weaker than the first, but overall I still think the show is headed in a positive direction. I'm liking the early Heisei vibe, the characters, and the action is fun. In the long term I'm fine with some rushed and less-than-stellar early episodes if it means they're just speeding through the intro stuff to hurry and get to some real story development. The same thing happened with Gaim and Ex-Aid, and if Build ends up being even half as good as those two, I'll be very happy.