[DreamSword]

Having only seen a few episodes of Kiva, I can't speak as to whether or not the Kiva elements were done well or not in these two episodes.

What I can say though is that yes, these two episodes were very Inoue in that he almost had me, until he made a massive screwup at the end which soured practically the entire thing for me and has me come out it saying I wasn't much of a fan.

And that screw up was Another Kiva. The tale of someone screwed over by the legal system and actually being an innocent out for revenge was a great hook for an Another Rider, only for the story at the last minute going "Haha just kidding, she's actually crazy and the legal system has no flaws."

Took me completely out of it and soured the entire experience.

Add onto that how Another Kiva can just summon the retainers for no reason and Wolf Boy doesn't really give much of a reason for fighting Sogo, and then just peaces out once giving Sogo the Ridewatch, thus implying the whole conflict was pointless anyway, and I didn't get really much of anything out of these outside of the manhole cover scenes, which were funny.

I do wish Ginga had had his own two-parter too, since a villainous Future Rider is in itself an interesting premise that unfortunately has nothing behind it. Heck, as much crap as I gave Hiryu, he atleast had a reason for existing and being around outside of just handing out a new toy.

In the end, pretty much no appeal for me when it came to these two episodes.