Visiting Hibiki

[Scissors]

I'll take that as you finding the 2nd half to be crap. XD

Not all of it was crap. I think Zanki's character was handled well, as well as Todoroki.
I just kept feeling that the show was being stripped from all the things that made the concept work.
It started to feel like what the original writers tried to avoid: A bunch of characters from another show placed in a Kamen Rider world. It just didn't work.

The second part of the show also dropped the social commentary that was going on in the first half, and the ending went against the whole moral that the first half was building up to.

 

[NeonZ]

The second part of the show also dropped the social commentary that was going on in the first half, and the ending went against the whole moral that the first half was building up to.

The ending didn't go "against the moral" of the show, but it just recycles an event from an earlier episode. A very similar conversation to the one Hibiki and Asumu have in the final episode had already happened much earlier during the first half of the show. The "resolution" was basically the series the series spinning in a circle and going nowhere.

 

[Scissors]

The first idea of the show was to tell people that "You can make your dreams come true. You don't always have to go with the flow"
Hibiki himself was always like "School? Grades? Why are those so important anyway?"
This is not something you will normally hear in a japanese show, from a character who is supposed to be a role-model for the kiddies.
I loved that. It was interesting to see.

The original ending for Asumu would have been a lot more fitting than the ending we actually got.
[HIDE]By making him decide to become a doctor, they pretty much took him back to point 0. The dreams of becoming an instrument player and an Oni? Forget those! You have to do what is expected of you and get a well-paid job.[/HIDE]

 

[Aoi Kurenai]

I actually think that bit of the series works nicely. Asumu only really wants to become a doctor because that dying child that he met. So I always figured the message was Asumu stepping aside from what he's always known to be a hero after being inspired by a young child.

 

[NeonZ]

The first idea of the show was to tell people that "You can make your dreams come true. You don't always have to go with the flow"
Hibiki himself was always like "School? Grades? Why are those so important anyway?"
This is not something you will normally hear in a japanese show, from a character who is supposed to be a role-model for the kiddies.
I loved that. It was interesting to see.

The actual ending of the show did try to keep that message though. The execution was pretty bad and it was clear that they didn't know how to go somewhere with it, but that was the message they tried to give in the ending of the show.

Spoiler

Becoming a doctor was supposed to be what Asumu truly wanted after all, according to the ending. The problem wasn't in Asumu choosing what he wanted to do, the problem was that the ending didn't give any evidence that he truly wanted to do that.

The ending comes off as Asumu just choosing the path where he was praised by the others with less challenges and problems, not something that comes from Asumu himself. That's why the last few episode make becoming an oni a arduous labor, in order to make that what the others expect out of him, rather than what he wants and justify the choice of moving away from that.

However, the way everyone suddenly likes him for what he finds at the ending just makes him look weak willed, influenced by others like usual, and doesn't really make it seem like anything was resolved. Like I said before, Asumu and Hibiki's converation in the final scene was almost entirely reused from an earlier episode, which clearly didn't really resolve anything.

 

[Oblivion]

If the whole message of the show was about living your dreams no matter the hardships, I wish they stop dedicating all the screen time that Asumu has to be shared with Kiriya just for Asumu to get insulted and kicked down. That's totally against the whole flow of the show. Am I the only one who hates the fact that the kanji words popping up scenes were altogether removed?

It was awesome to see Akira Fuse's cameo though, especially with him singing and all. I can't help but to find the buttsmacking very Inoue-ish, but the character I actually liked, the super strict type of guy. Too bad near the end he was pretty much boasting and ****, completely different from Zanki's description of him. It's like one second they wanted him to be as strict mentor authority type and the next second a authority crazy mentor. Kiriya's still as annoying since his introduction episode, I really feel that he doesn't belong at all in the show.

Not to mention, Isn't Hibiki supposed to be bad with modern tech and good with delicacies such as carving a drum stick and beating a taiko drum? Why the hell can't he competently sort some freaking dumplings? I am going to call that out of character. The rest seems sorta okay I guess. I just watched Armored Hibiki's debut, can't help but to find it a bit of a lackluster, the fight ended in a mere second. I do agree that Zanki and Todoroki so far seems to be in-character.

I also realized that I haven't seen Akira or Mochida since Inoue took over, both which could had taken Kiriya's place of a character pushing Asumu to improve (if Kiriya was ever supposed to be such a character.). The show as a whole didn't change too drastically, but perhaps it's my dislike for Inoue for Kiva, Decade and the ending of Faiz that made me unable to like these episodes.

 

[Scissors]

The character of Kiriya (or "Kusaka junior") could have been made more interesting if they had actually given him a reason to act like he did.
They could have shown his parents acting super strict to him, demanding that he always had to be at the top of everything to secure the honor and reputation of the family, or something like that.

Instead, it seemed like he wanted to get better at everything because..... he wanted to show off.
He had no reason to act like a dick all the time, and at some point it almost seemed like an obsession for him to kick Asumu in the balls.
The worst thing is that he never even redeemed himself (at least not as far as I remember)
Did he actually ever apologize to Asumu?

Inoue has a weird habit of creating characters that act like dicks towards the main character for the whole show, and then in the end we are suddenly supposed to accept them as cool and heroic.
It was the same thing in Faiz, where Takumi mourned the death of Kusaka, who had been trying to kill him countless of times through the whole damn show!
I understand if he wanted to pay his respect for a dead person, but considering how much he hated the guy, it seemed a bit weird

 

[Oblivion]

Agreed, If Kusaka Junior actually had a reason it would had been more tolerable, or at least it could had played in with the theme of the show. Motivating and mentoring sort of thing. Maybe we can watch him change together with Asumu. But nope, Inoue here makes him a total dick for no reason other than him having a gigantic ego, oh and make him stalk Akira too. I can't stand even 1 second of his screen time. What makes things worse for me is that his facial features actually resembles the face of someone I knew.

I think he did apologized to Asumu, yeah, the second episode since his appearance, but meh. That's bullshit. It's like, the previous writers made an inspiration and motivational piece of work while keeping it a good blend between dark and happy, then Inoue comes his jolly way and say "Trolololololol let's make this all gloom and dark!11"

Kinda makes me wonder if Inoue can even write anything that's not depressing or tries too hard to be dark, or if he had some serious **** happened to him as a kid.

The love letter arc was amazingly hard to sit through I might add. The Shuki arc wasn't so bad, but...where the hell has Katsumi's father been? Did the actor get sick or something? I kinda miss him, ever since Inoue came by he's been sitting at the bench.

Then again, I'm at episode 38 right now, and I did laugh a tiny bit when Kusaka Junior ran away shivering. I'll never be able to live with him being an Oni instead of Asumu.

 

[musashi03]

Sucks that they had to make Asumu relateable to children by making him sacrifice being a fantasy hero to becoming a real world hero.

 

[Nnnkingston]

Hibiki is the Rider series that I had "force myself to suffer through." The initial style just didn't jive with me. However, eventually I found myself liking it's cute charm, and then the post-29 episodes happened. Honestly, they aren't bad, but throwing so much development, plot, and emotion out the window this late in the game just left a bad taste in my mouth.

Also, the ending itself was incredibly lackluster and didn't feel special at all... like an ending should. I believe that a bad story can be made better by a fantastic ending, however this was a good story turned bad and capped off with a below average ending.