[GoldenXtreme]

Cool to see that Shouts subs for Zero-One are high quality, even if good subs already exist for the show. If nothing else, I'm excited to compare it to the Over-Time subs once my Blu-ray comes in and see whose subs I prefer, since I've really enjoyed both styles in the past. That one mistake you mentioned does seem quite unfortunate, but gaffs like that do slip through sometimes.

Anyways, I'm continuing on with my rewatch of Ryuki, and am through 38 episodes now. I said it before, and I'll say it again, the better subs have definitely improved my opinion on the show. I still think Ren is far more coherent a character than I ever realized before this, even if I don't think he is the best or anything. Generally I just get the whole angle of how desperate / psychotic the kinds of people fighting as Riders are way better because the dialogue communicates it so well. However... the show really does get dicier in the second half. I remember reading on Japanese Wikipedia at one point that one of the big appeals of Ryuki in Japan is the sense of "dissonance" in the story. I get where they are coming from, but at the same time after the third of so story tug-o-war between Kobayashi and Inoue plus both writers dropping a few cruddy episodes, I just start to think that the people who worked on the show simply didn't think the story and character arcs through in advance. There are a lot of parts where things simply happen... for no real reason. Asakura isn't feeding humans to his starving contract monsters even though it is briefly mentioned as a possibility in said episode? No real reason given, just there to fuel drama about Asakura possibly being a nice guy deep down. Random girl who wants to marry Kitaoka from an Inoue episode somehow becomes a major character who works at Ore Journal, a fact I completely forgot about because it causes me too much mental damage to process. The show reminds me a lot of Kabuto in that way, where things just happen because it is dramatic/funny, but I feel like Kabuto was a bit more... self-aware about its own absurdity? Ryuki tries to be so dramatic even when it is doing the silliest stuff sometimes, and it only occasionally gives the viewer that knowing wink that they are in on the joke too.

I'm really not sure how much of an improvement from my initial watch I'll find this show in the end, since I know there's some very dumb stuff upcoming that the subs almost certainly can't salvage. I miiiight like Ryuki better than Gaim at least? I'll have to think it over as I go along.