[Enchilada645]

So the mention of the Job Arc and like... it's probably not bad when your binging it?

But it's one of those things where, and I have to stress this to everyone who watches this, you need to imagine watching this for a few months straight. It is like 13 or so episodes of similar monotony to a disheartening degree. It's to the point where I lost all motivation to write a Rider fanfic I was working on before nearly just quitting writing altogether (thankfully I have not if you notice my signature), and also just for the first time in my life, dropping a show entirely as it was airing.

But like I've always been like a fan of a lot of small moments in this arc. There's a Fuwa and Aruto conversation during the Lion Raider Lawyer two-parter that I really enjoyed.

But the problem when wanting to tell stories and not being able to fit/want to fit in the toys they're trying to tell, in this day and age, is sloppy even if it is commendable. With how many toys Bandai wants to shove, you need to do a good job at selling something. And the problem with Thouser, as cool as a concept as he is, is bogged down by the monotony of it all.

There's a point where I was rolling my eyes in where after getting Metal Cluster, and the sword that can clearly reverse Humagears being transformed into Magia, Aruto for some reason defaults to Freezing Bear? Just so Gai can get the Freezing Bear data and that is like... really lazy.

There's also just the general neutering of both Assault Forms/Shining nearly immediately after they've been introduced just to show off Thouser, and it makes for a frustrating arc to sit through watching live that really soured me to Gai on a whole. Especially with how the show feels its need to force itself to warp around Gai just so he gets wins.

I've been complaining for a lot of time even though I was mostly trying to agree that there's actual fun writing stuff in here... was not actually intending to do that tbh.

But I stand by my point, most episodes do have fun bits of writing. It's just the overall structure of the arc doesn't do it any favors. Even if that monotony did get us to what I consider one of the best Secondary Rider Power Ups of all time in both form and debut. Little victories I suppose.

I guess that's why (Despite many people not liking the repeated bashing of Gai Episode 30 onwards) I enjoyed when we just went for a full 8 episode stretch of Gai getting beat the hell and back. It was very much a good catharsis for having to sit through so many weeks of Competition Arc stuff.