[Kamen Rider Die]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fish Sandwich

Blade's helmet has always been one of my favorites, naturally. It meshes the spade shape with the beetle horn so smoothly, and the overall shapes, despite the complicated patterns on the silver bits, are very simple and classic Rider. In particular, Blade's face has extremely pronounced tears, something used all the way back on Rider 1 to emphasize the sorrow of his character, and which has always been my single favorite element of that design. Any time they pay tribute to it is great to me, but I mean, it's probably not going to hold much appeal to someone who doesn't truck with Showa.

Still, I love that helmet, and it pains me that Toei has never fixed the problem it developed in Blade's post-series appearances where the clear part on the front makes everything look gold for some reason.

I'm not sure there's anything more subjective in this fandom than discussing costumes. I totally get what the helmet is trying to do as a design (well, not the tears), but it's still something that just, like, from the first second I didn't dig.

I'm glad that people like it, though! I think how it folds in all of those various motifs is pretty clever and unobtrusive. Just, pinhead, you know? Pinhead.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fish Sandwich

As functional as it is, an approach where the first episode is just someone walking Kenzaki through the BOARD offices and dryling telling him things sounds significantly less entertaining.

I definitely would not want that! I'd be hoping for more scenes between the characters at BOARD, not just more information about BOARD. This episode is lousy with information, it's light on character moments that ground that information in emotions, in memorable dialogue. There's a great bit with Kenzaki and Tachibana where Kenzaki makes a dumb joke at Tachibana's But Why Heroism. I want, like, at least two more scenes like that. And then a scene like that with the girl at the end who's injured, a scene like that with CHAIRMAN of the BOARD, etc. I wanted to spend more time with those characters, not just have them fill in backstory for me.