[Kurona]

I really like all the Blade designs, and from the first few episodes alone I really grew to appreciate the simple things about them. I like how they all have their icon three times in a vertical center line (on the face; on the chest; on their belt), I love how said face icon always has the animal cleverly woven in in some way. I love the weird bolt ring things the non-Chalice riders have on their legs; and I love how they've all got the 'sad' Showa eyes instead of the 'angry' Heisei eyes! There's just some very fun aesthetic stuff going on here. And then something fun with Leangle specifically? I like that the Club rider, whose weapon is not a Club, still uses his weapon like a Club. That's great. That's awesome.



And then I really really like how... Chalice is the very different one. Usually if a show has a lot of Riders, traditionally the one that'll look very different is the one introduced around episode 15-20; the 'secondary' belt. Think how Gaim's Energy Riders clearly have different things going on to the Sengoku Riders; how Necrom's undersuit is very different to Ghost and Specter's; how Woz and Thouser and anyone using the Sclash Driver is different from the primary belt users.

All that combined with a certain thing in Decade lead me to think for a good long while that Chalice was going to fill that role, and that we'd be starting off with Blade, Garren and Leangle. That he'd be the subversion to those guys' traditional. But no! He's right there from the start, and we got another 'traditional' rider as the new guy introduced a little later on. It's a wonderful little twist on the formula, and... it's also clearly used to great effect. No-one questions why Woz or Meteor or Ixa are very different, of course they are; they're the new guys introduced later. But because they put Chalice in this situation, his differences from the other Riders with it not being highlighted or treated as a special New Guy thing is all you think about. There's clearly something to it and it's a super good, subtle way of furthering the mystery around him.