#its hard to talk about it though w/o coming off as salty or just jealous. after all it is so cool when you're that close to them

[hopecel]

so call me a prude or whatever but imo this should not be the norm

[venus-says]

Kamen Rider OOO Episodes 01-16

I never expected a show aimed at boys would have THIS many scenes centered around male underwear.

The second series on my "watch all of kamen rider" madness! Yay!

The first word that comes to my mind when it comes to OOO is: weird. But it's not weird in a bad way, for the most of it anyway. I'll try best to not make many comparisons to either W or Zero-One, but just as a point of reference for this first statement, I'll mention them for a minute. W and Zero-One touch bases that I'm familiar with (detective stories, futuristic settings, etc.) while OOO is somewhat completely new to me so most of the time I wasn't ready for some of the things that were happening. But like I said, this is a good thing. I really enjoyed watching this first part, it had a few stumbles, but overall it was a great experience. To bring the comparison again, I didn't enjoy it as much as W's first part but I enjoyed it more than I'm enjoying this first third of Zero-One.

The plot of this season is quite interesting, it reminds me of Doki Doki Precure at some points (you can really draw the parallel of selfishness and altruism in both shows), though I wish some things had been established sooner and I feel like the thing with the core medals is a bit confusing, the plot is very engaging. They took a page from W's book, and most of the "weekly cases" are dealt in two episodes, but they also improve in this formula because even in the MOTW plots we can see the overall arc being formed and no episode was left without a hook for the next what makes the whole experience way better and more interesting to follow. If I was watching this weekly this structure would definitely make me excited to always get back to this season, and watching it now after the show is over makes me want to binge-watch everything in one sitting even though that's impossible. So, great stuff.

If there are things I don't like about the plot and the structure it would be, the weird commercial breaks, some of the weekly stories have characters that make them very weak, the many antagonist forces that make things feel overcrowded at times, and a problem I have with most shows when a new hero is about to come in that is when the show makes the protagonists weaker/less effective just to highlight how good the new member of the cast is. But that aside, I pretty much like everything. The comedy, the absurdness, the drama, and the action have had a very good balance so far so OOOs hold many positive points to its name.

Talking about characters, our main protagonist this time, Eiji, while not as charismatic as I would like is still a sweetheart. His lifestyle is a bit questionable, and he has a bit of the Aida Mana syndrome where he gives himself way too much sometimes, also the show doesn't make a good job on keeping his clothes on brand - I mean the dude apparently has only two underwear and one pair of pants but somehow he has many top options and we never know where he keeps all those shirts and tunics - but I really like him. I think what I like the most about him is that at first glance he could seem like the standard "dumb protagonist" but he's actually pretty smart and his smartness doesn't affect his emotional drive which is great.

Sadly his partners on the good side aren't as good. Ankh has a very difficult personality which makes him VERY hard to like, every time he opens up his mouth to babble about his medals I just wanna shove 30 popsicles on his mouth to make him shut up. My biggest problem with him is that we haven't seen him change not even for a bit in all of these episodes and I'm afraid that when they decide to make an emotional climax with him it won't work as well and it'll just ruin what could be a strong moment. Though I love how Eiji knows exactly how to keep him in check, that's another sign of how great Eiji is. Accompanying Ankh we have Hina who's just boring as hell, I don't know if this is a problem of the character or the actress but she really bores me to death, not even her quirk of being insanely strong that could be very fun works with me, which's a shame. And the last character of this group is the owner of Cous Coussier that is a very good minor character that helps to make Ankh and Hina bearable sometimes.

Moving to the antagonists, the GREED are the typical villainous team so I don't have a lot to say about them, their designs are cool and I like that each one has a very strong personality trait and their greediness makes for a very interesting plot point when Kazari decides to betray them. The MOTW are weird as hell, I'm very grossed out every time that coin slot appear on people, but I like that there are different types of them each one works on a different way and it is quite interesting to see how each type feeds on the desires of the population, my favorites are the parasite type and the Mezools' ones. It makes me sad that apparently Mezool and Gamel were the first ones to be defeated because they're my favorites, I think the group has lost a lot from their defeat.

The next antagonists are the Kougami Foundation, and I really love them. Kousei is just as charismatic (or maybe even more) charismatic as Ryuubei was and watching him is a true joy. Maybe it's just my love for baking that draws me to him, but I really think he's a great bad guy. Another great asset Kougami has is the secretary, I don't remember her name but the fact she seems completely apathetic to everything that goes on in that company to me is just hilarious, I'd love to be her friend (I'm sure she's amazing at throwing shade). The weakest link of this company is without a doubt Gotou, he severely lacks in personality and his turmoil of not thinking Eiji is suitable to be Os just because he's jealous since he wants to be the savior of the world makes him sound like an immature kid rather than an interesting character.

Coming as the (unnecessary) third antagonist we have Professor Maki who just makes me want to bang my head against a concrete wall. Like, I really don't know WHY they had to make him a villain, he makes me have war flashbacks of W when they changed the role of final villains from the Sonozaki family to that very boring, soulless guy from Foundation X. And it makes me even madder that they did this change WHEN THEY HAVE A PERFECT SET OF VILLAINS ALREADY IN GREED AND KOUGAMI. All this guy has going for him is that creepy ass doll that will definitely give me nightmares, but other than that he's just completely uninteresting.

Talking about riders, when I saw it on W's movie I really wasn't into Os design, but now I've grown used to it. The medals gimmick is also pretty fun and it gives a good variety of forms the main rider can have, though I think this thing of each Greed having 9 core medals is more complicated than it needed to be, and I really dislike how arbitrary the system of getting core medals from the Greed/O's seem to be, it's also very hard to keep track of who has each medal with how easy the lose and get new ones. I really like the gadgets from this season, I love the idea of everything being on a vending machine, the bike looks really cool, and I LOVE the candroids to death, I'd love to buy a few of them if I wasn't so broke. XD On the other hand, the transformation belt I horrendous, and not even the "sixth ranger" could save it this time because that gashapon belt is just hilarious and I can't take it seriously.

And speaking of said "sixth ranger" here's probably the element I hated the most from these sixteen episodes. Much likely Doki Doki precure, they pulled a Regina/Cure Ace thing where they build-up for Gotou to be the new rider, but comes episode 16 and Kamen Rider Birth is actually A DIFFERENT COMPLETELY NEW GUY. Do I like Gotou or his "arc" that would lead to his possible transformation? Absolutely no. But having that would've been way better than seeing an unknown guy, who came out of the ether, become the new rider. I REALLY hate new members who come out of nowhere, and to top it off the milkshake of hate they made this new guy steal that spotlight of a guy they had been building up for at least 4 episodes prior.

I usually ended these with specific points of specific episodes, but I really covered everything I had to say and If I went on each episode it would be to just point out a few unnecessary nitpicks, so I'll skip doing it this time. I hate to end on such a salty note, especially considering that I genuinely like this show so far, but there was no way to escape from it, I'll try to watch fewer videos of the NerdECrafter before I write next week's post to see if I come here with less salt in my veins, I promise. XD

And these were my first impressions of OOO, thanks for sticking with me for another week and I'll hopefully see you, folks, very soon. Bye bye~.