[Kamen Rider Die]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Switchblade

I knew you'd enjoy seeing Ozawa again. Last major returning Agito actor for now, but not the last one ever. You'll have to wait a few seasons for that, though.

I think I saw somewhere (the Wiki, I'd assume) that Mana has the Poppy part on Den-O? I think that's fun, when an actor isn't just brought back a year or two later, when they're fresh in the minds of viewers; but six or so years later, when they might as well be brand-new to the audience watching. It's like Tachibana showing up as the Principal on Fourze, or how Ankh played every single role on Ex-Aid (citation needed).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Switchblade

So, in addition to advancing Mutsuki's plot and starting to get more into Hajime's origins, this episode also marks a big milestone: this is the first episode of Blade written by Sho Aikawa. Not a name that has gotten tossed out much before, but he's really important to Blade. Blade is the first Heisei era Rider show that had a major change in the writing staff. Shoji Imai was the show's original writer, but he'll be leaving for good in about 5-6 episodes. Aikawa then takes over as the head writer for the rest of the series. Of the three shows with major writing disruption, I've always felt that Blade is the one that suffers the least (if at all). There are some things that I'll talk about as we get more into Aikawa's tenure, but the show never feels like it gets drastically overhauled or that the plot starts going in radically different directions (and I don't pretend those episodes don't exist, like I'll go into in the next Kamen Rider Die watches... thread). In many ways, I think the show actually gets even better once Aikawa fully takes the helm. That's a ways off, still, but it all starts here.

Interesting! I'm not sure I'd've caught the difference in styles. It'll be neat to see what the 30s and 40s of this show look like under a different hand.

Why was Aikawa brought on? Did the other guy quit, or get fired?