I'm just happy Toei allowed Shout! to license Episode Final. While the 13 Riders special and the Agito thing would have been cool, I can deal without them.
Just finished Kamen Rider Black RX. Well, that was certainly a way to force an eco-friendly message into the end. Also, did Kotaro commit total genocide? There were good people living in the demon world. Was the Crisis Empire actually good but going about things in a really bad way? It all left me so confused. Anyway, watching Kamen Rider Black Sun now. I knew this was supposed to be a more adult take on Kamen Rider but I don’t think I was expecting this bloody and dark. I’m really enjoying the effects and visuals and the unfolding mystery of it all. Black Sun! Shadow Moon!
Word of warning: Black Sun has absolutely nothing to do with Kamen Rider black. It simply uses a lot of the names, but for totally unrelated characters and concepts and a completely unrelated story. Just don't go in expecting an adaptation of Black like I was. It is entirely divorced from Black and RX.
I knew that going in. I still wanted to see what was done with it. And the little nods to the original show have been great. I really enjoyed when Kotaro first transforms into his full Kamen Rider form against Bilgenia. Full Rider Henshin pose and everything.
Especially since the rebel unit led by Joe the Haze’s friend was on the planet when it blew up. One of the first things I thought after finishing RX was “Man, Kotaro and Joe are going to have a very awkward chat later on.” Do you plan to watch the Decade 2-parter that centers around Black and Black RX? It’s one of the better storyarcs in that show and they got Tetsuo Kurata to come back for both roles.
My plan right now is to watch a few of the early Heisei series and eventually watch Decade. I’ve never seen any of the Heisei Kamen Riders that came out before Decade and there are a few in there that I’m interested in watching. I just started Kuuga last night. There’s something odd with Kuuga’s camera work. The whole thing makes me feel like I’m watching a soap opera for some reason with the way it was shot.
Kuuga is a visually and narratively distinctive Kamen Rider show that is completely unlike anything that aired before or after it. (It also has one of the highest civilian death tolls that I can think of. By the end of the show, I’d long since lost count.)
That's because Kuuga through Blade were shot digitally using soap opera-like methods since that is how Japan was shooting their dramas at the time. I think it gave the franchise a sense of identity and made it more special compared to things like Sentai and Ultraman, which were shot in the normal method. Kuuga was written more like a police drama with a Kamen Rider in it. Agito was written like a supernatural crime thriller, while Ryuki through Blade also had their own distinctive styles. Blade's cinematography is simply unmatched in the Kamen Rider world as far as I'm concerned. Outside of Hibiki, which was sabotaged in its second half, the early Heisei years were simply the finest shows Kamen Rider endured.
On a whim, I decided to get back to the Kamen Rider side of things for a bit by starting on watching Kamen Rider Fourze.
I'm now up to episode 24 of Kamen Rider Fourze. After this, I will officially be halfway through this series. I even watched the Movie War Mega Max, which serves as a crossover between Fourze and OOO, again in between albeit in the Director's Cut version this time. I can definitely see why, like W and OOO, Fourze is considered a very excellent gateway series for people who wanted to get into the Kamen Rider franchise for the first time.
I finished Fourze's summer movie not too long ago and started watching its Hyper Battle Video that also serves as minor crossover between Fourze and Amazon, mostly for shits and giggles, and that special is so freaking hilarious. I also should be able to finish this Kamen Rider series very soon.
