[Switchblade]

So, final thoughts on Kamen Rider Caoimhe.

This was the show I was most looking forward to revisiting from the back half of Phase 1. Before Ghost took its spot, I had been very vocal about Kiva being my least favorite Rider series. But last year's Faiz rewatch really made me re-evaluate that series and gain a much stronger appreciation for it. I was curious to see if Kiva would go through a similar upgrade in opinion and I would say that it did. -ish.

I still don't love Kiva and I still think it's definitely the weakest show of Phase 1 for me, subjectively speaking. I've seen enough of Inoue's other shows to recognize that Kiva was made up of a lot of recycled material and between that and the hilarious apathy towards promoting the merchandise, I really get the sense that his heart wasn't in this one. I don't think the story is bad, per se, but it can be a little disjointed in places and the split timelines lead to some real pacing issues near the end.

As I've probably indicated several times now, I enjoyed the '86 side of the story far more than the '08 one. I love the energy that Otoya brings to the show and I like watching him develop into someone who's still pretty awful but also a hero by the end. Yuri is also great, if too often on the receiving end of the show's more frustrating plot developments. For the '08 side... well, I like Megumi a lot more than I did the first time through. She's delightful and easily the highlight of that part of the show. I still find Nago to be generally unlikable and Wataru's slow progress with repeated backsliding still frustrates me. The extreme focus on the Wataru/Taiga/Mio triangle in the final quarter of the show - to the expense of not only the other '08 characters but the entire '86 story - really tried my patience a lot as we closed in on the end.

All that being said, I still had some real fun with the show, sometimes in really unexpected places. I liked the movie (which was new to me) a whole hell of a lot more than I thought I would. I definitely gained new appreciation for some of the side characters like Kengo, Megumi, and the coffee shop owner (I'm sure he has a name, but I am completely blanking on it). Going into the show knowing how it worked also made me find all of the inexplicable toy promos way more amusing this time through. I've criticized Kiva a lot for an unwillingness to explain a lot of what happens on screen, but I'm finding that to be more of a charming quirk than an annoyance now.

I don't know if I have any big final thoughts to wrap this up with. I don't love Kiva. I don't even like Kiva sometimes. End of the day, though, I can easily think of several Rider shows that I would happily choose Kiva over if I wanted a quick KR fix and had limited options to choose from.