#kamen rinder ex-aid

[lunar-gl1tch]

tall secondaries club

[reversemoon255]

Another year, another time, another Rider, and once more a king.

I was hesitant going into Zi-O. I'm not a fan of Legacy Rider content, finding most of it to be boring and repetitive, with only a few cases standing out as merely ok, so to go into a full season of a show like that was not something I was looking forward to. But my first season was Decade, a show with a similar premise, and I enjoyed that, so to not at least give this show a try would be against the spirit that drove me to this show in the first place.

The Good: And it was handled ok. The show felt like it got better as it went on, especially when Riders started giving up their powers rather than their memories. Agito was probably my personal favorite set of episodes, even if the series itself wasn't my favorite. It was also cool to see some Riders and stories from the (theoretical) future, including the return of Aqua, which is pretty important for a time travel series.

The effects were also pretty good, a few projectile angles and an un-feathered T-Rex not withstanding. Zi-O certainly gave Ex-Aid a run for its money with how much of an SFX-fest it got to being at times. You also have to remember that a lot of their CG backlog probably needed a bit of polishing, and older material probably needed to be remade from scratch, not to mention all the impressive one-time use ones. There was a lot of effort, love, and time put into this series which shows how important it is.

Onto the show itself, I enjoyed it. Looked forward to each week. Sougo isn't my favorite Rider, but he's not bad, and his somewhat laissez faire attitude played well off a few of the returning veterans. Geiz played the role of the secondary Rider well, being both a good antagonist and ally, even if his character felt like it lacked depth. I had ideas about what Tsukiyomi's role would be in the story would be. I guessed correctly that she'd be connected to the Time Jackers, though I thought she would end up being Sougo's daughter rather than unrelated (and thought that revelation would be revealed during the Kiva arc, because theming). Still, when she got to play it more fun and smiley she was good and when she was dour and serious she was kind of boring. It was also cool that she got to be a Kamen Rider at the end, even if her suit was only on screen for a minute total.

It’s 2:00 on the moon

Woz was above and beyond my favorite character, and I was happy when he fully allied himself with the team since it meant more screen time and interaction with other characters for him. He was always happy, snarky, and boisterous, and put life into the other characters on more than one occasion. I found I really like Heure. I think that was because he was totally crushing on Ora and every time he tried to do something for her it backfired tremendously. Speaking of Ora, she was ok, mostly again because of Heure. She certainly had a few good moments, but most of her acting was very droll. And lastly, Schwartz, went from being a mysterious villain to full blown crazy very quickly.

Also enjoyed Shinobi and Brain (the one and only true first Reiwa Rinder!). They were neat bonus content.

The Bad: While the pacing was mostly good, since everything was done in 2-episode chunks there was occasionally a bit of rushing, though it was only a real issue during the opening when they were trying to cram a lot down your throat. The stuff with Chase at the very end was a little confusing, feeling mostly like they just wanted to get one Drive character in there before it was over, and whether his appearance gave Sougo full access to the Drive Watch was glossed over. Also, no one explained Ginga Finally and I'm still confused as to how that form works.

Honestly, the only consistent issue I had was the acting. Don't get me wrong, everyone was alright, but as I may have mentioned I felt the characters were at their best when they got to be fun and be put in weird situations and actually smile. Smiling is important. When everyone was all end of the world, frowny frown, evil plots, I felt much less invested in the characters and what was going on. It's probably why I like Woz so much, as he was the only main character who had that attitude the majority of the time.

Time Mazine 2020: And we stand on the horizons of Zero-One. I think it looks neat, I think the premise is cool, I don't mind our protagonist being an unfunny comedian, we get a female Rider out the gate. Everything seems good. My only issue is Ryusoulger and Star Twinkle. I'm enjoying both those series now, but they had rocky starts. They were so dedicated to starting their seasons action packed that it took them about three months each to start actually developing their characters, like they’re more interested in episodic fun than anything else. It's not a terrible style, but I'd really like it if Zero-One didn't fall into that hole.

Overall, Ghost is still worst... I'm kidding. Not about Ghost, about Zi-O. Ghost is terrible and still the worst season of Kamen Rider.

I think I enjoyed this more than other people whose opinion's I've read, but it's just a solid 3/5 for me. Some good moments and episodes, but hard to get invested in when it counts. Still, as I've seen almost every Heisei series, it was a nice trip down memory lane. And hopefully... in another 10 years... We do not recycle this plot again.