The only character that I can name who has "crappy character development" is...oh no one. Let me pick up better subs and watch it before I answer that question. Wasn't there some Leangle love? I mean, I think I remember people saying they love Leangle. Thinking about it, doesn't Leangle's design looks evil-ish?
Kamen Rider Blade - Talk Up!
- Thread starter UkiyaSeed
- Start date
Igadevil
Mr. Kamen Rider
I liked pretty much everybody in Blade, but then it sticks to the "Riders = Good" thing, so I would (let's just overlook Missing Ace for the moment.) Even though everybody gets a chance to play "bad guy" at least once (Crazy King Form Blade, Untrustworthy early Garren and Chalice, Leangle for most of the series) in the end everyone's ultimately a hero, if plagued with issues. Kenzaki's the most reliable, trustworthy of the four and even he gets called into question at times during the show. But I never for a moment questioned why the show is called "Kamen Rider Blade", either. Like Agito, it's a multi-Rider show that did a good job balancing out the Riders, but reminding you why it's named after just one of 'em.
I cut Mutsuki a lot of slack because he's a combination of two admittedly tough tropes to work with: the whiny, impulsive new guy who thinks he's the best thing ever, and eeeeeeeeevil possession that makes you dress in black. He spends most of the show as one or the other, and they play into each other. He starts as the clueless average joe who's secretly the most powerful Rider of all*, so Tachibana takes him under his wing. Tachibana himself is a bit of a screw-up though, so of course it goes all wrong, and the evil Spider Undead influence takes over again.
*I know, not really, but this is standard-issue STRONGEST RIDER EVER!1!!™ logic here.
I'm still not sure how that whole Shima/Tarantula Undead thing works out, since it always appeared to me that it failed and resulted in black-dressing, card-playing, nightclub-lounging, Joker-assaulting, cop-beating-upping emo Mutsuki. But since we do get the eventual payoff, I tend to chalk it up as a long-term plan. I'm not sure, but I'd like to think that Imai intentionally left it hanging at Aikawa's request to get back to it later once the Tiger Undead thing had been played out, but I dunno.
All that said, I liked how he turned out. It helped that I liked the final result (a humbler Mutsuki just trying to do the right thing when everything is going to hell around him) and that Leangle was pretty cool. And after all the ID-switching business of Faiz, the one time they did the "another guy becomes the Rider!" thing, it was awesome. Crazy as hell, but that's Inoue for you. Electric robot arm indeed. (Those episodes are another time where you can see my "Being Unsealed Makes You Crazy For A While" theory in action, IIRC.)
Blade's a really hard show for me to find fault with. I remember that in 2004 the early signs made it feel like a "Greatest Hits" of Heisei Kamen Rider thus far. Another ancient race wakes up to kill people yet again, and they also happen to be more of the unliving. Yet more card-wielding Riders fight them, and once again we've got more than one (this is back in the days when everybody secretly sort of thought we'd return to a single Rider series eventually.) There's a bunch of other superficial complaints offhand I can't remember.
Of course all that's true to an extent, but I think Blade actually took some of those ideas and improved on them. The Undead are a big one, scoring high in my book for three main reasons: 1) the excellent designs that cleverly nod to the past whilst still feeling original, 2) a meaty, high-concept idea and diverse motivations that still sort of weave together, and 3) Isaka. Dear God, Isaka. I don't think Kamen Rider has had as good a villain since him, apart from Tendô. Oh relax, I kid, I kid. I mean apart from Apollo Geist, and he's basically just the Shôwa version airlifted in to give Decade some real menace since Narutaki failed on all counts there. Of course he'd be awesome. Alright, alright, Kiva's main villains were cool and Mick makes Double worth getting up for. But seriously? Isaka's the man. He did something which blew me away in 2004 and still blows me away today.
His evil plan actually worked! Admittedly, not in the way he intended, but if you think about it, Leangle is his doing. As much as Leangle is the Spider Undead joyriding around to wreak havoc, it's also almost Isaka's sort-of revenge from beyond the grave (or card.) I love the early Blade episodes and the whole arc of Isaka culminating in Leangle is one of my favorite parts of the show. Let's not forget he killed off a kinda-big supporting character as well. It seems that lately the death toll only rises near the end, aside from villains/pseudo-villains. Can you imagine if the next Double ended with Watcherman being force-blasted to death? (Okay, bad example, but you know what I mean.)
And there's the Trials. I love them. One reason I think the Undead worked is that there was a set number of them from the start, and we don't even see all of them over the course of the series. As a result, they just seemed a bit better characterized than the monsters of the week in some other shows, because there was a real effort to make them distinct. They're true old-school baddies, a throwback to the days when Kamen Rider episode titles were named after the villains. I can tell you what Locust and Moth Undead were like; what they did, which Riders fought them and why. The only thing I remember about Barnacle Orphenoch is that Takumi turned into Delta to kill him. And he had a ball.
So the Trials could have been a big disaster. Adding in more Undead, and phony-baloney ones at that? But they rocked! It helped that they're actually tougher than the real ones, necessitating King Form and Wild Chalice action, but in a way also weaker, since they actually die. They're getting back to the "science run amok" thing Blade had going early on. Sure, it's the science of fantasy ("I took this DNA from you Tachibana and made... that guy! He's got a green Faiz's sword, see?") but that feels right. They also have some of the best designs out of an already well-designed group of villains. I just wonder what happened to A & C... Decade missed a trick there, methinks.
Moving on to the cards, which I think were done better here than in any show before or since. The Advent cards are cool, but they're just one of the crazy ideas thrown into the Ryuki blender. They're just there as a neat way to summon the weapons/powers, but they could have just had everyone using pocket mirrors to accomplish the same thing, and that would have made more sense. Or heck, just be like "Gimme mah sword" and there it is.
Pretty much the same thing with Decade, though those cards had the added features a little thing I like to call "in-show branding", wherein you put words and icons within the show without actually having (or requiring) an explanation. Like, why does Ichimonji's Henshin Belt have the Tachibana Racing Club logo on it? Who knows, who cares, it looks awesome! We never get Tsukasa stopping and going "Wait, why is the green Kuuga called Pegasus Form?" He doesn't, and we don't question it because we know that's what it is anyways.
With Blade though, they went a few extra miles, weaving the cards in and out of everything, from the Rider's motifs and civilian clothes (the jewelry, which is brilliant in its subtlety.) They pulled from not just one deck of cards for inspiration, going into the tarot as well. I love that. If you really try to examine it, no, it makes no sense why the ancient battle for domination of the Earth would result in the world's most dangerous trump. But it's a great idea. I also like the way the powers of the cards worked, in that they managed to keep them all internalized. Only when upgrading to a new form do we get physical changes to the Rider/Weapons. Sure, Bandai made a couple bucks off "pre-Rider Kick" variants where Blade's Spade-face is painted red, but hey.
I could go on about this show forever. It's one of my all-time favorites, and that's some pretty tough competition these days.
I cut Mutsuki a lot of slack because he's a combination of two admittedly tough tropes to work with: the whiny, impulsive new guy who thinks he's the best thing ever, and eeeeeeeeevil possession that makes you dress in black. He spends most of the show as one or the other, and they play into each other. He starts as the clueless average joe who's secretly the most powerful Rider of all*, so Tachibana takes him under his wing. Tachibana himself is a bit of a screw-up though, so of course it goes all wrong, and the evil Spider Undead influence takes over again.
*I know, not really, but this is standard-issue STRONGEST RIDER EVER!1!!™ logic here.
I'm still not sure how that whole Shima/Tarantula Undead thing works out, since it always appeared to me that it failed and resulted in black-dressing, card-playing, nightclub-lounging, Joker-assaulting, cop-beating-upping emo Mutsuki. But since we do get the eventual payoff, I tend to chalk it up as a long-term plan. I'm not sure, but I'd like to think that Imai intentionally left it hanging at Aikawa's request to get back to it later once the Tiger Undead thing had been played out, but I dunno.
All that said, I liked how he turned out. It helped that I liked the final result (a humbler Mutsuki just trying to do the right thing when everything is going to hell around him) and that Leangle was pretty cool. And after all the ID-switching business of Faiz, the one time they did the "another guy becomes the Rider!" thing, it was awesome. Crazy as hell, but that's Inoue for you. Electric robot arm indeed. (Those episodes are another time where you can see my "Being Unsealed Makes You Crazy For A While" theory in action, IIRC.)
Blade's a really hard show for me to find fault with. I remember that in 2004 the early signs made it feel like a "Greatest Hits" of Heisei Kamen Rider thus far. Another ancient race wakes up to kill people yet again, and they also happen to be more of the unliving. Yet more card-wielding Riders fight them, and once again we've got more than one (this is back in the days when everybody secretly sort of thought we'd return to a single Rider series eventually.) There's a bunch of other superficial complaints offhand I can't remember.
Of course all that's true to an extent, but I think Blade actually took some of those ideas and improved on them. The Undead are a big one, scoring high in my book for three main reasons: 1) the excellent designs that cleverly nod to the past whilst still feeling original, 2) a meaty, high-concept idea and diverse motivations that still sort of weave together, and 3) Isaka. Dear God, Isaka. I don't think Kamen Rider has had as good a villain since him, apart from Tendô. Oh relax, I kid, I kid. I mean apart from Apollo Geist, and he's basically just the Shôwa version airlifted in to give Decade some real menace since Narutaki failed on all counts there. Of course he'd be awesome. Alright, alright, Kiva's main villains were cool and Mick makes Double worth getting up for. But seriously? Isaka's the man. He did something which blew me away in 2004 and still blows me away today.
His evil plan actually worked! Admittedly, not in the way he intended, but if you think about it, Leangle is his doing. As much as Leangle is the Spider Undead joyriding around to wreak havoc, it's also almost Isaka's sort-of revenge from beyond the grave (or card.) I love the early Blade episodes and the whole arc of Isaka culminating in Leangle is one of my favorite parts of the show. Let's not forget he killed off a kinda-big supporting character as well. It seems that lately the death toll only rises near the end, aside from villains/pseudo-villains. Can you imagine if the next Double ended with Watcherman being force-blasted to death? (Okay, bad example, but you know what I mean.)
And there's the Trials. I love them. One reason I think the Undead worked is that there was a set number of them from the start, and we don't even see all of them over the course of the series. As a result, they just seemed a bit better characterized than the monsters of the week in some other shows, because there was a real effort to make them distinct. They're true old-school baddies, a throwback to the days when Kamen Rider episode titles were named after the villains. I can tell you what Locust and Moth Undead were like; what they did, which Riders fought them and why. The only thing I remember about Barnacle Orphenoch is that Takumi turned into Delta to kill him. And he had a ball.
So the Trials could have been a big disaster. Adding in more Undead, and phony-baloney ones at that? But they rocked! It helped that they're actually tougher than the real ones, necessitating King Form and Wild Chalice action, but in a way also weaker, since they actually die. They're getting back to the "science run amok" thing Blade had going early on. Sure, it's the science of fantasy ("I took this DNA from you Tachibana and made... that guy! He's got a green Faiz's sword, see?") but that feels right. They also have some of the best designs out of an already well-designed group of villains. I just wonder what happened to A & C... Decade missed a trick there, methinks.
Moving on to the cards, which I think were done better here than in any show before or since. The Advent cards are cool, but they're just one of the crazy ideas thrown into the Ryuki blender. They're just there as a neat way to summon the weapons/powers, but they could have just had everyone using pocket mirrors to accomplish the same thing, and that would have made more sense. Or heck, just be like "Gimme mah sword" and there it is.
Pretty much the same thing with Decade, though those cards had the added features a little thing I like to call "in-show branding", wherein you put words and icons within the show without actually having (or requiring) an explanation. Like, why does Ichimonji's Henshin Belt have the Tachibana Racing Club logo on it? Who knows, who cares, it looks awesome! We never get Tsukasa stopping and going "Wait, why is the green Kuuga called Pegasus Form?" He doesn't, and we don't question it because we know that's what it is anyways.
With Blade though, they went a few extra miles, weaving the cards in and out of everything, from the Rider's motifs and civilian clothes (the jewelry, which is brilliant in its subtlety.) They pulled from not just one deck of cards for inspiration, going into the tarot as well. I love that. If you really try to examine it, no, it makes no sense why the ancient battle for domination of the Earth would result in the world's most dangerous trump. But it's a great idea. I also like the way the powers of the cards worked, in that they managed to keep them all internalized. Only when upgrading to a new form do we get physical changes to the Rider/Weapons. Sure, Bandai made a couple bucks off "pre-Rider Kick" variants where Blade's Spade-face is painted red, but hey.
I could go on about this show forever. It's one of my all-time favorites, and that's some pretty tough competition these days.
I say the same. Wasn't Mutsuki in his emo-mode always had been that Spider Undead taking control? I don't remember him resisting? Wait, wasn't he enjoying it? D= Just a reminder, I'd watched in HK sub, where Kenzaki was called "Supermanbladekenzaki"(I'm not exaggerating either >_<). It took me to finish the whole series to finally found out Garren's personal's real name's Tachibana. .-.
kibapower
Lurker
A good amount of the main characters.
Mutsuki spent most of the series possessed so we don't get to know him that well, with him switching personalities so you didn't know who was in control. Series end it was late to do much more.
Tachibana is too secretive, spends most of the series not telling others of his doing just cause. It also seems he switched sides a lot based on Kenzaki's actions. A bit better with his early freak out at least.
Kenzaki had the "being the hero's more then just a job" but it felt so vague throughout the entire series as if nothing else is developing for him.
Hirose and Kotaro both felt useless for character development, Faiz did it better involving the support characters (even not a great there)
The only one I felt for was Hajime, he had something going for him the entire series that was most obvious.. However these were my opinions then, now it seems that Blade had a lot more going for it so it's due for a re-watch to confirm my opinions.
Scissors
Member
In all honesty. The show was ABOUT Hajime.
Through most of the episodes, Kenzaki was basically just there to provide Rider action and give us explanations for the other characters' doings.
He first got to shine through and become part of the plot during the Trial/King Form episodes - something that should have happened a lot earlier.
Tachibana was an interesting character, but his constant personality switches got annoying pretty quick.
"I will kill you!... On a second thought, I won't... But then again, I feel I need to stop you... but oh... I don't really want to... nah, I will fight you anyway!"
Then again, it shows that Tachibana was desperately trying to live up to his senior-role, when in reality he was as much of a newbie as Kenzaki was, and he could not act straight without someone giving him orders.
The little speech he gives the Giraffe Undead before making his self-sacrifice, still gives me goose bumps. I love that scene!
Through most of the episodes, Kenzaki was basically just there to provide Rider action and give us explanations for the other characters' doings.
He first got to shine through and become part of the plot during the Trial/King Form episodes - something that should have happened a lot earlier.
Tachibana was an interesting character, but his constant personality switches got annoying pretty quick.
"I will kill you!... On a second thought, I won't... But then again, I feel I need to stop you... but oh... I don't really want to... nah, I will fight you anyway!"
Then again, it shows that Tachibana was desperately trying to live up to his senior-role, when in reality he was as much of a newbie as Kenzaki was, and he could not act straight without someone giving him orders.
The little speech he gives the Giraffe Undead before making his self-sacrifice, still gives me goose bumps. I love that scene!
Nanami Tenkawa
優しさの大人少女
gotta love that series especially Aikawa, Hajime!
garfield15
Kamen Rider Meta
Yeah, I love Blade. I'd do a thing of my own but Iga is too busy writing essays that would sound better than mine.
Oh, no...no I'm sorry. No, that's...that must have been sad for you guys actually. Those must have been hard times. (Even after Ryuki, there was hope for that?)
But hey, I've been there. I for one every year think "This year, they are totally going to make that new Digimon series" but that day never comes.....
HAHAHAHAHA!!!
Oh, no...no I'm sorry. No, that's...that must have been sad for you guys actually. Those must have been hard times. (Even after Ryuki, there was hope for that?)
But hey, I've been there. I for one every year think "This year, they are totally going to make that new Digimon series" but that day never comes.....
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