[Mesnick]

Watched Outsiders. What can I say? It wasn't terrible, but still far from good. I'll start with the positives. I like that the show plays with the idea that trying to stop the Apocalypse leads to it. Not new, but better than Endgame MCU, where morality forces the heroes to confront the main villain, and the writers do not dare to voice a single argument against his completely idiotic plan. They also correctly showed the role of AI as a tool. Garen and Yuto decided to deliberately destroy people long before Zein was included, so it’s not “artificial intelligence has gone crazy,” but people did another deadly thing against their own kind. Also Sakurai Yuto. When I hear Den-O described as a "light-hearted, comedy show," I always have two thoughts:
1) You didn't watch the original show, but only the post-content focused on the Imagins;
2) You don’t give a damn about the secondary rider and the main character’s sister. At least.
That is, Den-O is a story where the villain destroyed the world before the show even started. Therefore, I am glad that I am not the only one who remembers/notices its tragedy and that it was remembered in such an unusual project.
Also it was great to see riders opting out of Desire Royale. Lots of different characters interacting with each other. Kuroto in All Mighty X was very funny. The musical theme is amazing, I listen to it all the time when away from the show.
And now about the cons. The main one is, of course, the lengthiness. The show ran for more than two years and the final battle scene, for all its diversity and uniqueness, was clearly not worth such a long wait. Next comes the moral. At the end, we were told in plain text that evil saved the world from a perverted sense of justice. The plot doesn't exactly work for that.
That is, the use of evil riders would be justified if Zein took away the powers of the good ones and hunted the villains. But in the show itself, he comes for George, who is a positive character, and Gai, who uses a destructive AI that takes control of him to save the world. That is, it does the same thing as Zein carriers! And only then do the rest appear, more suitable as enemies, the Outsiders. As a result, at the end of the show, the revival of Orphenoch and Asakura will continue their bloodbath, and Tenjuro Banno turned into a disembodied computer ghost who clearly won’t give up trying to find a body. And this is in the best case, if the crooked path does not lead the other characters in the wrong direction again.
Plus, I know that there are many who love the idea that the fanatical desire to bring justice is worse than true evil. But this is not true. You can talk as much as you like about the dangers of prejudice, but fairy tales teach us good and evil from childhood. And when someone commits crimes for a good purpose, most often there is still a very obvious selfish motive behind it. Not a single revolutionary, overthrowing a corrupt government, intends to go to prison under the new government. But the persistence with which the topic of “harmful justice” is promoted in the media is alarming. Again, in the ending, Tsumuri, Ziin and Beroba literally praise evil. Once again, just in case: I’m not saying that the desire to punish scoundrels cannot lead to sad consequences, but the percentage of crimes committed because of it is negligible compared to other motives. But the attention is unjustifiably great.
I also think it should be taken into account that The Outsiders is a Takahashi fanfic that is heavily based on three of his shows: Ex-Yid, Zero-One, and Geats. From all the others, he borrows characters, which he uses with varying degrees of success. And if Asakura and Desast turned out to be bright and colorful, then the role and motives of Tachibana raise nothing but questions.
That is, it seems that the only thing taken from the character is that he is a suspicious guy, capable of doing things for which he will later repent. The screenwriter somehow didn’t think about the fact that 20 years have passed since the time of Blade and Garen should become wiser (which happened to him already in the second third of the original show). Also, Evolt is just a deception, because here it is a clone performed by another actor. Which is justified, because there is no place for the original version in the local plot.
Other disadvantages: Beroba is alive, which means the only result of all Geats is the acquisition of divinity by Eis. They forgot about Banno. Also in this show there are characters Zein and Ziin. Maybe it's a small thing, but it annoyed me.
Overall, the completed project is watchable and, in its own way, interesting.
But, first of all, this is an adaptation of fan fiction based on the KR franchise, so be prepared for a lot of fan service and a plot that you shouldn’t think too deeply about. Then you can enjoy it.