Loved the hell out of Den-O.
I wasn't expecting to like it, and Ryoutarou annoyed the pants off me when I started watching it; I ended up picking it up again well after the show ended and was pleasantly surprised at how
good it turned out to be.
I could go on and on about how much I loved the characters, the music, the movie, but
Iga's end of series review sums up almost everything I have to say about them, so I'll just link it here (though I'll mention that, unlike Iga, I didn't mind Airi and Owner early on).
And I'll point out that the humor was genuinely funny. Den-O's humor had three essential things going for it: good dialogue, good comedic timing, and likeable characters. You'd think these things would be more common, but they're not. Kabuto's humor fell flat on its face because it lacked all three. Go-onger fared even worse; not only did the humor lack all three essential components, but the (poorly-done) humor was the only thing the show had to offer. Kudos to Den-O for being a genuinely funny series in an environment filled with shows that don't know how to do humor (and I'll point out that Kabuto is my all-time least-favorite Rider series, and Go-onger is my all-time least favorite Sentai series).
In the end? Den-O is my third-favorite Heisei Rider series after Agito and Kuuga (both tough acts to beat), and
Ore, Tanjou! is by far and above my favorite Rider movie. Further, Den-O cemented Yasuko Kobayashi as my single favorite currently-active toku writer. No wonder I'm enjoying the hell out of Shinkenger (and it remains to be seen whether or not Shinkenger will beat Kobayashi's Timeranger as my favorite Sentai of the 2000s).
