Beast Morphers: "Hangar Heist" is episode 6, and it's a pretty close adaptation of the plot and character arcs of Go-Busters episode 6, with the main addition of the model-rocket subplot to set up the Devon/Ravi tension and give Ben & Betty something silly to do, plus the location change to a remote hangar and the involvement of all three main villains. It works pretty well; even though the Red/Blue conflict is adapted from GB, it fits Devon's and Ravi's established characters perfectly.
The robot head Scrozzle stole is the partial head of Beet J. Stag, the BuddyRoid partner of the fourth Go-Buster and himself the fifth Go-Buster. Looks like they're going to introduce his counterpart as an evil robot before he switches sides, even though the original character was not introduced as an adversary.
Zi-O: Wow, this was a superlative episode. The character interplay was terrific, with Sougo, Geiz, and the two Wozes coming to a new understanding. I love seeing Sougo being so cheerfully encouraging toward his enemy -- he's a weird guy with his eternal optimism, but he kind of reminds me of Gentaro/Fourze and his desire to befriend everyone, especially his foes. Nice visual composition of the scene between Sougo and White Woz on the steps, too.
It's also a nice idea to bring final closure to the unresolved status quo at the end of Blade -- to finally avert the Undead apocalypse instead of just putting it eternally on hold. They also finally resolved Amane's pathetic little-girl obsession with Hajime and let her grow up enough to pursue her own life, which was nice to see.
Although this show does have a tendency to gloss over the worldbuilding elements that make it hard to reconcile the Phase I series into a common universe. Back in the Faiz tribute episode, they managed to bring back Takumi and Masato and their mutual hatred without saying one single word about Orphenochs, whose emerging existence and its likely transformation of the future of humanity was a driving factor in that season but immensely hard to reconcile with later seasons. Here, they do acknowledge the Jokers, mention the "Battle Fight" (yes, they actually called it that), and depict the Stone of Sealing, but they never mention the larger Blade mythology that those connect to, the battle of the Undead monsters for control of the Earth by the species they represent, and the previous battle that the Human Undead won 10,000 years ago.
By contrast, it looks like the next episode will be mentioning some of the larger Agito mythology at least peripherally. That's another season about a whole new race of humans emerging, the Agitos, which also makes it hard to reconcile with other seasons. I wonder how they'll deal with the Worms when they get to Kabuto, or the Fangires when they get to Kiva. An integrated Kamen Rider continuity would be littered with multiple nonhuman races living among us.
The CGI recreation of the Stone of Sealing wasn't quite right. In Blade, it appeared as a flat slab that was twisted smoothly around its center, one continuous piece, and it sometimes straightened out into a flat slab like the 2001 Monolith when it was activated. In this version, there's a sharp discontinuity between the flat portions and the twisted center.
So there are six remaining powers -- Agito, Hibiki, Kabuto, Den-O, Kiva, and Drive (with the Ridewatches highlighted in chronological order). I guess that means they're counting the acquisition of the Kuuga and W Ridewatches in the movie, although we've only seen Sougo use the latter in the show. But Geiz already has the Drive Ridewatch, which he stole from Oma Zi-O along with the Ghost Ridewatch before the series began. Still, I'd be glad to see a Drive reunion episode, especially if they get Shinnosuke/Drive himself to appear. Ryoma Takeuchi was one of my favorite KR lead actors.
Interesting that Hibiki through Kiva are consecutive, the 6th-9th Heisei seasons. I wonder why they left that block alone until so late. Agito was the 2nd and Drive the 16th. So far, the order of the revisits has been: 20 (Zi-O itself), 19, 18, 13, 4, 14, 12, 15, 17, 10, 3, and 5, with 1 & 11 only touched on in the movie.
Oh, I see what you mean. Yeah, it's a similar approach with the "faces" on the shoulders and chest actually seeming to have lives of their own.
Ryuusoulger: A pretty good one, with some fun character work and effective humor. I loved the "duel" between Red and Green, and the way they figured out the monster's psychology and how to use that to fight it. Tying the monsters in to human drives adds a nice new element (although, again, it's one often seen in Kamen Rider). The bit where Kureon (Creon?) figures out how to use Red & Green's competition against them is nice too.
Still not crazy about the LEGO-style RyuuseiOh variations. "I've got a green tiger's hindquarters dangling off my arm! Fear my power!" Plus, why do they insist on lumping Pleistocene mammals in with dinosaurs in these things?
The robot head Scrozzle stole is the partial head of Beet J. Stag, the BuddyRoid partner of the fourth Go-Buster and himself the fifth Go-Buster. Looks like they're going to introduce his counterpart as an evil robot before he switches sides, even though the original character was not introduced as an adversary.
Zi-O: Wow, this was a superlative episode. The character interplay was terrific, with Sougo, Geiz, and the two Wozes coming to a new understanding. I love seeing Sougo being so cheerfully encouraging toward his enemy -- he's a weird guy with his eternal optimism, but he kind of reminds me of Gentaro/Fourze and his desire to befriend everyone, especially his foes. Nice visual composition of the scene between Sougo and White Woz on the steps, too.
It's also a nice idea to bring final closure to the unresolved status quo at the end of Blade -- to finally avert the Undead apocalypse instead of just putting it eternally on hold. They also finally resolved Amane's pathetic little-girl obsession with Hajime and let her grow up enough to pursue her own life, which was nice to see.
Although this show does have a tendency to gloss over the worldbuilding elements that make it hard to reconcile the Phase I series into a common universe. Back in the Faiz tribute episode, they managed to bring back Takumi and Masato and their mutual hatred without saying one single word about Orphenochs, whose emerging existence and its likely transformation of the future of humanity was a driving factor in that season but immensely hard to reconcile with later seasons. Here, they do acknowledge the Jokers, mention the "Battle Fight" (yes, they actually called it that), and depict the Stone of Sealing, but they never mention the larger Blade mythology that those connect to, the battle of the Undead monsters for control of the Earth by the species they represent, and the previous battle that the Human Undead won 10,000 years ago.
By contrast, it looks like the next episode will be mentioning some of the larger Agito mythology at least peripherally. That's another season about a whole new race of humans emerging, the Agitos, which also makes it hard to reconcile with other seasons. I wonder how they'll deal with the Worms when they get to Kabuto, or the Fangires when they get to Kiva. An integrated Kamen Rider continuity would be littered with multiple nonhuman races living among us.
The CGI recreation of the Stone of Sealing wasn't quite right. In Blade, it appeared as a flat slab that was twisted smoothly around its center, one continuous piece, and it sometimes straightened out into a flat slab like the 2001 Monolith when it was activated. In this version, there's a sharp discontinuity between the flat portions and the twisted center.
So there are six remaining powers -- Agito, Hibiki, Kabuto, Den-O, Kiva, and Drive (with the Ridewatches highlighted in chronological order). I guess that means they're counting the acquisition of the Kuuga and W Ridewatches in the movie, although we've only seen Sougo use the latter in the show. But Geiz already has the Drive Ridewatch, which he stole from Oma Zi-O along with the Ghost Ridewatch before the series began. Still, I'd be glad to see a Drive reunion episode, especially if they get Shinnosuke/Drive himself to appear. Ryoma Takeuchi was one of my favorite KR lead actors.
Interesting that Hibiki through Kiva are consecutive, the 6th-9th Heisei seasons. I wonder why they left that block alone until so late. Agito was the 2nd and Drive the 16th. So far, the order of the revisits has been: 20 (Zi-O itself), 19, 18, 13, 4, 14, 12, 15, 17, 10, 3, and 5, with 1 & 11 only touched on in the movie.
Oh, I see what you mean. Yeah, it's a similar approach with the "faces" on the shoulders and chest actually seeming to have lives of their own.
Ryuusoulger: A pretty good one, with some fun character work and effective humor. I loved the "duel" between Red and Green, and the way they figured out the monster's psychology and how to use that to fight it. Tying the monsters in to human drives adds a nice new element (although, again, it's one often seen in Kamen Rider). The bit where Kureon (Creon?) figures out how to use Red & Green's competition against them is nice too.
Still not crazy about the LEGO-style RyuuseiOh variations. "I've got a green tiger's hindquarters dangling off my arm! Fear my power!" Plus, why do they insist on lumping Pleistocene mammals in with dinosaurs in these things?
