I should be sleeping but instead I'm looking for our posts about Ghost before its debut!
At first, we got a rumor about a fashion based Rider, and then...
Then we got a tease, a Meteor photoshop being a Ghost "leak", and when we finally saw the costume, Panda expressed an horrible opinion about Spiderman costumes and we got a synopsis.
After the press conference:
At this point I got too tired to continue, but we were seriously believing Takeru was going to travel around the world searching for the Eyecons OTL
We finally saw the cast (and kinda disliked it), Kishidan (loved it), got bored of Ninnin and hype for Drive finale (and movie, since there were wild spoilers out there), eventually complained about Decade and Wizard again. The rumors and general speculation about a lot of forms right at the start plus the costume having some sort of clothing were spot on. The rest... kinda mixed. MHWilliams and sprsk speculated Ryoma was going to be the mid season upgrade and nobody got the female heroic spirit right.
Each form uses the power of a different type of Waifu.
Still no female primary/secondary rider, of course.
EDIT: And just as I posted, I remember that Akibaranger S2 did that already.
Zyuohger 09
Well, that's a way of recycling footage. I feel the animal power ups are so random, compared to most previous seasons. They just... pretty much show up.
Ratman had a smartphone hero (or was it a villain?). His powers were touchscreen apps - he would touch the wing app to fly, for instance. Cool concept.
And not that different from Decade/Cosmic States hehehe
Why is the action so good this season? Best it's been since Kyoryuger.
Poor Sela, and Amu, the homesickness is real. Mario purposely avoiding the subject of Yamato's parents indicates something horrid happened to them. Maybe a friend betrayed them by turning into a horrid monster and impaling them with vine tentacles? Oh wait that was a different animal show...
Looking at next week
Perhaps the theory of the Dethgaliens only being the first threat has some weight if Genis is already going to attack
Zyuoh 9
That instrumental version of the main theme is so nice. I'm ok with Mole being conveniently in the same place as the Bulb, but I'm expecting a damn good explanation as to why there are so many Cube Animals around Earth and nobody noticed.
This goofy ass gorilla pyramid finisher is so old school it hurts. Love it. On the other hand, Mole's finisher is trash.
I was going to mention how chill Genis is, and how the heroes are in a hurry compared to the villains, but then the preview happened.
Seems like shit is getting serious next episode. The teaser at the end made it look like Specter is coming back next week, and while i'm not completely sold on Alain being a good guy, i expect him to turn against Takeru in the last couple of episodes, he's becoming my favorite character in Ghost.
I had a hard time getting through Amazons. Too quiet, too much screaming and writhing about. It's also kinda lower budget than the Sunday shows but in a different kind of way. It's so grimdark it hurts.
I had a hard time getting through Amazons. Too quiet, too much screaming and writhing about. It's also kinda lower budget than the Sunday shows but in a different kind of way. It's so grimdark it hurts.
Amazons seems pretty rad so far. It's my first time really watching a "dark" Rider show, and the contrast with the likes of Ghost makes a nice change of pace. Also, theme song is on point.
Fun episode, but I'm really looking forward to next week where the heroes are introduced to villains proper. Genis is pretty chill so far. I remember Ninninger had a pretty weak showing of the main villain early on and the cool one got killed.
Ghost
Two weeks to Deep Spectre? We're inching closer to triple henshin sequence and it's always a treat to see. I still can't really care where the story is taking us, though.
Amazons
Nobody is ever happy in this show. The atmosphere can be very grim like early Heisei show, but those had a cheery and likeable protagonist (or a butt monkey sidekick, in case protagonist is Inui Takumi). The two protagonists in this show is anything but likeable. I hate comparing this to a very different show, but I'm watching this parallel to Daredevil. It has a very grim atmosphere, but there's an air of optimism surrounding the main character struggle against all the problems. Amazons feels like we're slowly watching a tragedy unfolds.
But again, I'm willing to swallow this whole because it's been *long* since we have a Kamen Rider that strays from the formula we had for almost two decades.
Also it felt like design team didn't communicate with the story team, lol. Amazon Omega is a very mechanical suit yet he's still feral and biting things, making it jarring.
I like the turn the story is taking. The grimdark tone and the "everyone is miserable" thing fit well with the series theme.
The progression is a bit slow, but eh, that's ok. Can't say I care too much about Omega but at least his action sequences were good. Alpha is ok-ish, I guess? The soldier group is fine.
The fights on this are exactly what I would expect of a modern day Amazon. They are fun to watch and kinda brutal.
And yeah, the way the Amazons act, it feels like their armors should be switched between them.
So I like the basic construction of the show, which feel like it's trying to hit that Keita Amemiya vibe without falling to his excesses. The team is fine and seeing how they worked in the first episode was great; they sold me on the idea of mercenaries hunting these monsters.
The Amazons themselves are a bit rougher, in that we know almost nothing about either. That's the main problem with the show. There's no hat to hang your head on. Imagine Kabuto without Kagami as your point of view, and you have something like this. They need one character - it doesn't have to be the Amazons - for you to really empathize with and get behind.
Given what we have here, I probably would've made it
Blue Buster's Ryuusuke. Reveal the Armlet to the audience, but not the team. Run out his clock a bit. That would've given you a solid view into the team as a family unit. You also get a bit of conflict in Ryuusuke hiding his lineage from the rest, which feels like an emotional betrayal, and the potential hope that maybe he could beat the setup like the Amazons do.
But that's spitballing a different show and has little to do with what we have here. Honestly, I'm enjoying the experiment and I hope Amazon is up for doing the same with other Riders in the future.
I like the turn the story is taking. The grimdark tone and the "everyone is miserable" thing fit well with the series theme.
The progression is a bit slow, but eh, that's ok. Can't say I care too much about Omega but at least his action sequences were good. Alpha is ok-ish, I guess? The soldier group is fine.
The fights on this are exactly what I would expect of a modern day Amazon. They are fun to watch and kinda brutal.
And yeah, the way the Amazons act, it feels like their armors should be switched between them.
Feral looking Amazon Alpha acting cool and composed works--it shows how the owner is in complete control. But mech-looking Omega acting feral is harder--especially how he bit someone with a non existent mouth and activated a finisher on his belt.
Feral looking Amazon Alpha acting cool and composed works--it shows how the owner is in complete control. But mech-looking Omega acting feral is harder--especially how he bit someone with a non existent mouth and activated a finisher on his belt.
Yeah, the best I could think is something like he already passed his feral phase, and those are marks from this time. Or maybe to symbolise the hunter-like personality he has, dunno.
Well, no use speculating that now, maybe the show will explain that, maybe not.
I should be sleeping but instead I'm looking for our posts about Ghost before its debut!
At first, we got a rumor about a fashion based Rider, and then...
Then we got a tease, a Meteor photoshop being a Ghost "leak", and when we finally saw the costume, Panda expressed an horrible opinion about Spiderman costumes and we got a synopsis.
After the press conference:
At this point I got too tired to continue, but we were seriously believing Takeru was going to travel around the world searching for the Eyecons OTL
We finally saw the cast (and kinda disliked it), Kishidan (loved it), got bored of Ninnin and hype for Drive finale (and movie, since there were wild spoilers out there), eventually complained about Decade and Wizard again. The rumors and general speculation about a lot of forms right at the start plus the costume having some sort of clothing were spot on. The rest... kinda mixed. MHWilliams and sprsk speculated Ryoma was going to be the mid season upgrade and nobody got the female heroic spirit right.
Uses a phone for his driver and takes on beings who are born in cyberspace from software that eats their soul that possess people and turn them into monsters OOO's style. Uses apps for his powers, and gets collectibles and drops from the enemies he defeats Puzzle and Dragons style. Tries to use these drops to find and hatch new powers. He can either defeat so many monsters to gain enough power to win or achieve new app forms or he can buy power by selling parts of his soul (emotions, memories, lifespan etc) to the being in his cel phone for power but doing so makes him less human and eventually could turn him into an app monsters like those he is fighting to stop.
Does he sacrifice himself to save everyone? Does he earn his own strength?
Secondary Rider is stealing their power with a jailbreak system they've created and they are using everyone else's souls to gain their power. Kamen Rider Breaker.
Neat thing is they can sell celphone cases to make phones look like the Cel Driver. Sell people a belt and a celphone case for various phones. Then sell apps. Its a Rider whose theme is designed to net Toei microtransactions and save on manufacturing/distribution cost of merch. Caters to celphone culture of japan.
Late to the latest Rider episodes, but I've been busy.
Ghost 26
So Alain finally "trusts" Takeru. Now the plot can get moving.
Looks like Makoto finally comes back next week.
I'm leaning towards Sage/Eadith being the final villain at this point.
Amazons 2
There's the dark depressing stuff. Bit more gore this episode too. I wish the blood was red though, this isn't a kid's show you can get away with that.
The contrast between Alpha and Omega's fighting styles is interesting to see. Alpha is very subdued and confident, while Omega is very much a feral beast. I suspect Omega's style will change as he gets used to the new form.
4000 Amazons out there. They've got their work cut out. Though it looks like a lot of them are just foot soldiers going by the preview.
Took quite some time to watch it, or at least it feels like that.
It's... different. There are a lot of things I like in it - the characters, the atmosphere, the theme and the whole world building. The weirdness, oh god how I loved the weirdness. The problem with this series is the execution. I'm ok with the slower pace and the laid back nature of the series, it was part of its charm.
But sometimes, it felt the plot progressed one step forward and two backwards. Asumu was the biggest example of this, some of his development in early and mid series was pretty much forgotten a few episodes after they happened.
The retool was... well, the series kept a lot of what was cool in it, but it dropped some characters (Asumu's mom role was reduced, and there was one boy who I guess was supposed to be Asumu's rival, but was forgotten after Kiriya was introduced). It took its time, but it gave Asumu the growth he should had episodes earlier. It gave some characters their own story arcs, most of the times more interesting than Asumu's story. Akira's conflict arc was good. Zanki and Todoroki were good too.
The ending was kinda... abrupt? Well, it focused a lot more on the people than on the conflict. I'm ok with that, but I guess it could be done better. A lot of things would be better if they explained some things earlier , some things were less dragged, and some things less rushed near the ending. I liked it anyway, it was... kinda what I expected, and I'm ok with that.
In the end, it was a mid-tier series thanks to the execution, but it had a lot of potential. I kinda like it more than I should, probably, but I can see why it's not well liked by some people.
Wish it had more musical numbers after episode 10+
I'm fresh off the heels of watching anime from the 60's through early 80's so I'm cool with whatever time period the shows from. Tone-wise, I came into this thread wanting something hot-blooded, but if there are slower, more bleak stuff I'm cool with that. If it's more focused on romance I'll take that too.
I'm fresh off the heels of watching anime from the 60's through early 80's so I'm cool with whatever time period the shows from. Tone-wise, I came into this thread wanting something hot-blooded, but if there are slower, more bleak stuff I'm cool with that. If it's more focused on romance I'll take that too.
You could try Kamen Rider Black or Stronger if you want shows that follow the 80's tone. For Sentai there are shows Liveman, Maskman, Bioman, Flashman, and Jetman.
Not sure if the space sheriff are finished, if they are, look up Gavan, Sharivan and Shaider for more 80's.
For late 90's-early 2000 shows, you can look for Kamen Rider Kuuga and its sequel Agito, and Blade.
You could try Kamen Rider Black or Stronger if you want shows that follow the 80's tone. For Sentai there are shows Liveman, Maskman, Bioman, Flashman, and Jetman.
Not sure if the space sheriff are finished, if they are, look up Gavan, Sharivan and Shaider for more 80's.
For late 90's-early 2000 shows, you can look for Kamen Rider Kuuga and its sequel Agito, and Blade.
