Eh. When you do the math, a pretty heavy percentage of the Heisei riders aren't human. What's one more?
Anyway
Checked out ep 4. Better than 1 and 2, not as good as 3. Some really good character development for Ankh, less good but still interesting development for Eiji. I think we've pretty much got the base for their relationship down. Especially here, why is Ankh with Eiji, because he needs help and at least Eiji he can trust to be honest about what he's doing and why. And the addition of the "Humans: Control yay or nay" and how Ankh treats it like a competition, :castlerock::buttrock::castlerock:. Eiji had a bit more added to him. He's very VERY slowly building into someone interesting, although I still think the opener really made him seem flat, so we're two episodes out in regards of where his character should be. But nice here. Again, these two need each other, but they are diametrically opposed. I liked Kazari, the little foot swing he did, and nice to see he's willing to work the system himself. But I'm curious as to where they're going with this. If the core medals are the key, does this mean we are never going to see the complete forms outside flashbacks or the intro, as OOOs will be powering up by stealing them???
Outside those three...eh. With the exception of Hina (maybe) every secondary character feels like a caricature, which ALWAYS bugs me. I really think the music ruined the Kazari fight for me as well, it works for the comedic Neko fight, Kazari's needed a proper battle theme, or just the serious music we hear for the Greeed would have done. The plot was also fairly flat and FAR too much of the episode was taken up with advertising the iphone. Seriously. Product placement, it happens, but don't ram this thing down our throats. Especially since I don't think children should be encouraged to buy an iphone anyway (neither should adults but who can stop them?).
The plot ultimately fell flat. The fights weren't great. I think it's going to be how you relate to the relationship between Eiji and Ankh that'll decide if this show is a winner or not.
