[GoldenXtreme]

I've been rewatching Ryuki with the official subs and I have to say the massive boost in translation quality is genuinely increasing my opinion of a show that I previously only thought of as "pretty okay". I've seen 19 episodes with the Shout subs so far, and everything is just CONVEYED so much better than the TV-Nihon subs I used years ago. Characters have distinctive manners of speech! I feel like Ren actually makes *sense* as a character! I can actually decipher the show's overarching themes about human desire! Basically everything comes across better! I don't think they will fix some of the more general issues I have with Ryuki, like the fact that a lot of plot points and character motivations are very stupid when you stop to think about them or the wildly inconsistent writing and characterization that can occur, but if I continue to enjoy my rewatch this much I'll probably start considering Ryuki a must-watch show when suggesting toku to other people.

I'm a little curious if some of the other shows I watched with terrible old TV-Nihon subs are actually secretly awesome. Is the first half of Hibiki more than just "cool in concept, but not for me"? Is Den-O actually funny? Is Kiva... actually no, never mind.