kamen rider of your choice!!
okay, since I’ve just finished Double (re-watch) and Blade (w/ you!) i’ll go for both of them
Double: okay first of all i LOVE the bodyshare concept. i love how many comedic nuggets they mine from the concept, from Philip keeling over in the most inconvenient places to Akiko diving for the wrong body and crowing happily when she catches the right one
i also really love Terui Ryuu’s arc? went from “DON’T TALK TO ME I LIVE FOR REVENGE” to “i won’t live on hate anymore; these people are my new family, i’ll protect and love them and that’s my strength” (and, as sudden as it was, i actually really like Terui with Akiko? idk i just really like hat he keeps calling her ‘Chief’ after they get together)
also Akiko is also a national treasure!! i know she’s like, comic relief for the most part, but a) thank god we get a female comic relief character that isn’t afraid to get as silly as the male counterparts, and b) she always gets to the heart of the problem, and isn’t afraid to call out the other characters’ bullshit. i adore her relationships with the rest of the cast
upon re-watching, i realized that my views on Saeko’s arc has changed somewhat? like, i still think she and Wakana were under-utilized, but I kinda like that despite her status as the ‘black widow femme fatale’, her final arc is about her relationship to Wakana and not with men
and finally, FINALLY, we get to Philip and Shoutaro. good dudes, best partners, i love them and their goodbye scene in ep 48 still makes me cry even though i’ve watched it like, 3 times (or more) already. they’re devoted to the city, and to each other, and seeing them grow and develop and care so much about the other’s welfare is a joy. the tension between the stoic “hardboiled” archetype that Shou wants to emulate and his own emotional nature is usually played off as comedic, but that contrast made the goodbye really heckin’ emotional...
there’s lots more i could gush over about Double, but we’ll be here all day so i’ll cut it off here
Blade: THANK YOU FOR SHOWING BLADE TO ME! what a wild frickin’ ride...
like bro... there’s so much heated drama and they literally went full throttle starting from ep 1... seeing the premiere and feeling like you’ve walked into the mid-season finale of a long-running show... that absolute killer of an ending... so much emotional devastation but like. in a good way??? Blade really said “i’ll prance into your house and rip your heart out, and you’ll be thanking me for it” and they delivered!
have you ever saw a nondescript, unattended bench on your way home and the next thing u know you’re crying? only Blade
[ask me to talk about something i like]
