[Locke]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Switchblade

Oh man, the episodes with the tiniest shorts in the history of Japan. I remember that one.

I dunno what was more disturbing, that kids hotpant puffer jacket combo or the hideous abortion that was the Mutants shrunken head.

Quote:

Originally Posted by uchihabro77

To me I loved how Tendou was like that, it showed he was chill and thought it through, he also didnt give a crap about anything much until the last few episodes and we find the truth about Hiryori.

I find a character without weakness boring as fuck and impossible to engage with.

[uchihabro77]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Switchblade

Daisuke's actor got really busy with his idol work and couldn't commit to the series completely. Same thing that's happened with Koyomi on Wizard.

That sucks, I didnt care for him at first, but near the end I kinda liked him. Why do my favorites wanna leave? First Hana now Daisuke?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Locke

I find a character without weakness boring as fuck and impossible to engage with.

Thats why I loved Kagami, the show was about half Tendou and half Kagami, both were great characters but I feel Kagami had more growth and such.

[Locke]

I guess I could start the show again, and stick around until is it episode nine Kagami gets his first power set? So there.

[algo448]

Finished Blade, so possible WALL OF TEXT incoming and obviously beware of possible SPOILERS:

Blade was out of all the Rider shows, scratch that, out of all Toku shows the one I was more interested in, and it's not hard to see why: Excellent suit designs, a playing card motif, a balanced cast of riders, an interesting backstory with the Undead tournament and generally speaking a good reputation amongst toku fans. So how did it turn out?

Honestly it turned out quite different from what I was expecting, but in most cases it was for the best. Starting from the first few episodes Blade has different way to tell it's story compared to recent Rider shows, 2 episode arcs? nowhere to be seen, introductory episodes? not here, from the start this show wastes no time to introduce us to the plot and characters, and spends all it's episodes developing those aspects, at some points I would be screaming at my screen: Too much plot! Gimme Filler! (I know blasphemy)

I can fully understand why people felt that the show dragged to much at certain parts, the lack of those compressed arcs made it feel at points like nothing was happening, but that wasn't necesarily true, and honestly there were only a few thing I would change pacing wise. The show has a great story and it's always moving whether it's evident or not at first.

What can I say about the characters? I absolutely loved them
I'll speak about them in more detail once I watch Missing Ace (mostly to keep this post as short as possible) but generally speaking the chracters felt very well done, the actors performance was great, and the characters personalities were respected and developed in believable ways, like Matrix said "The characters felt like adults and acted as such" Overall an excellent cast.

But since nothing is perfect let's dive into my cons of Kamen Rider Blade:
-Kenzaki, felt too much like a supporting character at the beginning, don't misunderstand me I love Kenzaki he's a great Rider, and his interactions with the other characters gave him all the personality and development he needed, so when he fianlly takes the spotlight, he carries the show without problems, but at early stages Hajime and Tachibana were the ones that carried the story forward, he would have greatly benefited from some arcs of his own early on.
-Related to the above point the Shima/Jack form arc was too short and was done too close to the King one, this basically meant that Shima a wonderful character was sadly underused, likewise Blade's Jack Form was basically pointless since King was introduced soon after, if they had done it earlier Shima and Jack would have had more time to shine, and Kenzaki would have had a longer arc in the early episodes, doing this arc earlier would have also helped to tie up Spider's arc sooner, which is the next point.
-The Spider Undead arc GOD! the Spider Undead arc. It went nowhere for so long, had they finished it after Shima's arc I wouldn't have much of a problem with it, but man that thing just lasted too long, Mutsuki was an interesting character, I like Mutsuki, Spider? Not at all, he was boring forgettable and basically had no real personality, it could have been a strong arc and an interesting burden for Leangle had it been shorter.
-And last for not least: the Undead, with the exception of the high level Undead which assumed Human Form the rest of the undead were so forgettable, they never felt like a threat or even relevant, a undead would be detected roaming around, because for the biggest part they had no objectives, Kenzaki would folllow it, get beaten around and then in the last second win without much effort. The fights did gt better as the series went on, but the undead remained a tool for the sotry to move forward, they had no role of their own or interesting arcs, they were msotly fodder for the Rouze cards. Teh high-level however shined, and showed the potential the undead had as a whole specially since they weren't fighting for themselves but rather for their species.

But besides that I can't complain as I absolutely loved this series, the characters and story were memorable and thought-provoking, Blade is an excellent show overall.

As for Blade main thematic, I spent quite a while thinking about it, Kiva was about family, Decade about finding your place in the world (arguably), W about partners, OOO about desire and Fourze about friendship.
At first I was gonna say that Blade was about human nature, but that's both too large and too ambiguous.

So what's Blade about? In my opinion, about Kindness and Love, Hajime was driven by family love from the start, whereas Tachibana and Mutsuki love for their sentimental partners and friends lead them too suffering due to being unable to rely on others, as for Kenzaki he is the purest form of love, as he said himself: he loves Humans, for him that's the only logic way to do things, loving others more than you do yourself is natural for him, it's what drives him and gives sense to his life. The Riders interactions were defined by love and trust, and even in the villains you could see similar motives.

Finishing this stupidly large post, where does this show fits in my favorites list? High, way too high, ad far as other toku shows go, the only one that it can stand against is W, this is a battle of jokers. And like Kenzaki would have done, I'm not choosing either of them as my favorite, both of them are, I love them both for different reasons and I won't choose between them, this is the way I do things this is the way Blade does things.

[Matrixbeast]

I'm glad to see you enjoyed Blade.

Also, I told you the Spider Undead/Mutsuki arc took too long. It felt like it was 10 episodes longer than it needed to have been
Shima was probably the one thing I didn't like how Blade handled. He shows up for 3 episodes, dies, then comes back 15 episodes later to help free Mutsuki and that's that. It really peeved me how they treated him, considering he was one of the better characters. Though, it was rather endearing during the end, when Mutsuki was told to use Remote and unseal an Undead and stop the Darkroaches, he chose the Tarantula Undead, Shima, over the Tiger Undead.

Anyway, I'm not going to dissect your post since 90% of it will be me nodding in agreement, but I'm curious, how did you feel about the ending?

[Switchblade]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Matrixbeast

I'm glad to see you enjoyed Blade.

Also, I told you the Spider Undead/Mutsuki arc took too long. It felt like it was 10 episodes longer than it needed to have been
Shima was probably the one thing I didn't like how Blade handled. He shows up for 3 episodes, dies, then comes back 15 episodes later to help free Mutsuki and that's that. It really peeved me how they treated him, considering he was one of the better characters. Though, it was rather endearing during the end, when Mutsuki was told to use Remote and unseal an Undead and stop the Darkroaches, he chose the Tarantula Undead, Shima, over the Tiger Undead.

I always felt that Mutsuki was the one casualty of the writer change. It seems like the new writers just had no idea what to do with him, so they kept going with the Spider storyline.

[Matrixbeast]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Switchblade

I always felt that Mutsuki was the one casualty of the writer change. It seems like the new writers just had no idea what to do with him, so they kept going with the Spider storyline.

It wouldn't surprise me if that's what happened, honestly. It felt like they were going somewhere with Mutsuki's story, then just stopped it and put it on repeat until the final 5 episodes.

[SideswipePrime]

Decade 18:

Didn't the guy who played Zanki in this also play Zanki in Hibiki? I thought it was supposed to be an AR world. It was...ok...I guess. I find Tsukasa an inconsistent character. It seems like at the beginning of a new world he'll be all cocky, then by the end it's gone, or at least he'll talk up other riders more than himself (which he does at the beginning of each world). Also, DiEnd's powers. I thought he just summoned the powers of the Riders, ala Basco from Gokaiger, but that was clearly Momotaros. Can somebody please explain?

[KRX]

Quote:

Originally Posted by SideswipePrime

Decade 18:

Didn't the guy who played Zanki in this also play Zanki in Hibiki? I thought it was supposed to be an AR world. It was...ok...I guess. I find Tsukasa an inconsistent character. It seems like at the beginning of a new world he'll be all cocky, then by the end it's gone, or at least he'll talk up other riders more than himself (which he does at the beginning of each world). Also, DiEnd's powers. I thought he just summoned the powers of the Riders, ala Basco from Gokaiger, but that was clearly Momotaros. Can somebody please explain?

Momo transcends everything.

[chasesinister]

Kabuto 13. This was a pretty loaded episode. At the start of the episode I thought Kageyama would probably be the next The Bee because he gets a lot of screen time to be a minor character and sure enough he did henshin into The Bee. Now whether that's for good or for the mean time... and he sure got cocky quickly.

I thought for sure the Yaguruma that came back was a Worm and its killing off former shadow members. Could still be a Worm though.

It seems Tadokoro knows that Kagami know who Kabuto is. And what is that weapon supposed to be? It seems to contain beetles.

So ZECT now suspects Kagami to be a traitor. And that ZECT guy with glasses, I think that's Gorou from Ryuki though I'm not sure.

It seems that Juka's whole existence is to eat. Except for that one episode where Tendou was in the hospital all her appearances has her eating or about to eat.

Now I can say that I find Misaki pretty. Still hasn't dislodge Hirose as my favorite KR Babe but pretty close.

My only complaint this episode was there wasn't enough Daisuke and Gon. I just find Gon adorable how she completes Daisukes sentences. By the way why is Daisuke's make up tools inside a guitar case? Was it ever explained or is it something you just roll with?

And Hiyori finally finding out that Tendou is Kabuto and accusing him of killing her parents? Wow. Like I said loaded episode.