[DreamSword]

This was a case of too little too late for me with Heure. The foundation for him being the one decent Time Jacker who could change and develop was laid out during the Kikai arc... only for them to do absolutely nothing with it all the way until now, which ends up just feeling as though they just needed a way to get the villains out of the way. In the end the only thing I felt was disappointment.

Know what was almost never disappointing though? The case of Kamen Rider W!

In what might be my last entry on the bit I've been doing all throughout the thread, I actually had to think pretty hard on this one, since I like alot of the W cast pretty much equally. After alot of consideration though, I came to a conclusion that kinda surprised even me:

Yeah, didn't think I would at first, but I've decided that Shotaro Hidari is my favorite of the season.

What ended up being the deciding factor is that, well, as "simple" as Shotaro's' character is in comparison to others such as Philip and Terui, it also never got messed up in any way for me? And yes, I preface all this with these interpretations being very much a "me" thing.

I really dug Terui's' tale about revenge and his dynamic with the cast as a whole, and for a majority of the show I saw him as great Asexual representation, but then the "romance" with Akiko got pulled out of nowhere and killed that entire vibe right off.

Meanwhile with Philip, he was always fun to watch and the way in which he slowly became the main character over the course of the show was really cool to me, and I felt his arc was fully realized perfectly with the penultimate episode. And then that got yanked away immediately.

But Shotaro? From start to finish I never once felt he was annoying, or out of character, or that his potential or arc was wasted. He was always fun to watch, had a great balance of strengths and weaknesses, and his relationship with Philip, whether one decides to interpret it as romantic or platonic, was always done wonderfully.

In short, the phrase "beauty in simplicity" exists for a reason, and it's something I wish Zi-O had kinda kept in mind over the course of its run.