[Fish Sandwich]

Went ahead and gave both the premiere (wanted to see what TV-N did with it/seriously though, it was a fantastic debut) and this (wanted to see if it felt less crazy) another go around.

This episode did indeed feel less crazy the second time. Now my problem is less it being a single episode and more just it literally being the second episode. Having tons of drama is great but "filler" has its place too, despite what people will tell you. Just a single episode between the premiere and this to let things settle in probably would've worked wonders for this episode's impact.

There's also some miscellaneous thoughts I have that I didn't mention in my first post:

- Not specifically related to this week, but I have to say, the music isn't leaving an impression on me at all so far. It's strange because I love Kenji Kawai, and I like what I heard, but having watched two episode two times each now I can barely remember any of it.

- The opening on the other hand, while not top tier or anything, both with the song and the visuals, is pretty good. Totally something I can roll with for a year. And we finally got the cold opens back... sort of! It's just a recap at the start, but I'll take it.

- Speaking of the recap, at first I didn't pick up on the fact that Sento and Ryuuga were a straight up comedy duo that hate each other almost as much as they like each other. That's actually kind of inspired. I don't think Rider has ever done something quite like that before.

- Sento is endearing himself to me very quickly. His particular brand of egotism is, again, a unique flavor of protagonist, the way he uses his brain in fights is nice to see, and his characterization when it comes to actually being heroic is a lot more nuanced than constantly talking about wanting to make people smile or whatever. Very little out of his mouth (at least until next week) would really give you the impression him being Build was anything more than his way of figuring out the mystery of his amnesia. But actions speak louder than words, and it doesn't get much louder than going out of your way to let your new convict pal say goodbye to his girlfriend. Pretty refreshing stuff.

- That being said, Sento might be the world's most stupid genius, considering he acts surprised the Gorilla and Diamond Bottles are a Best Match when the labels on the caps say what Bottles go with each other.

- I've fallen in love with the Drill Crusher very quickly. Maybe part of it is just that it reminds me of Megaranger, but it's a neat weapon that goes well with Build's base form. The yellow bits also match the belt nicely. Of course, it'd be nice to get a Kamen Rider that doesn't have a sword once in a while, but this barely qualifies as one to begin with, and Sento definitely seems like the type who'd prefer a weapon (especially a multipurpose one) to his bare hands. I just hope this isn't like Ghost and Ex-Aid, and he ends up with a second, way less cool sword, color matched to a specific form yet still used by all the other ones anyway. It's like, why do they even go through the trouble of designing all these nice, well thought out base form/bike/weapon combos every year if they're just going to forget about all three by halfway through the series, you know?