Let's discuss Kamen Rider Gaim (Part 3).

(Cross-Up is on hiatus, sort of, but not really!  I’m going to try and take it easy over the next few weeks, because it’s the winter holiday season and I half-expect nobody to be around on the internet.  Things will get back in gear sometime in January, but until then?  If you ARE here, then enjoy a handful of high-quality filler posts.  It’ll be fun, presumably!)

Like I’ve said before, Gaim has been on my mind for a good while now -- even before I started working on these posts.  It’s not even close to my favorite Kamen Rider installment (that honor goes to OOO, the first one I watched to completion), but if things had gone differently Gaim would have taken the top spot.  And I’m all right with that; part of the reason I check out other KR installments is because I’m waiting for the series that boots OOO from the throne -- the one show that lets me say “I don’t just like OOO because it was my first.” 

That’ll happen eventually, I hope.  But it hasn’t yet.  That’s not to devalue Gaim, because even if I can point to problems I had with it -- and let’s be real, there ARE problems -- I can still enjoy it as a whole.  There are just things that any given viewer needs to consider.

And the one thing I kept considering from the show’s start to its finish is this: We Madoka now.

Let me say this to start:

I am fairly filling this post with SPOILERS!  So…you know, be wary of those.  It’ll help you in the long run, I imagine.

…

…DENEB!

Let’s discuss Kamen Rider Gaim (Part 2).

(Cross-Up is on hiatus, sort of, but not really!  I’m going to try and take it easy over the next few weeks, because it’s the winter holiday season and I half-expect nobody to be around on the internet.  Things will get back in gear sometime in January, but until then?  If you ARE here, then enjoy a handful of high-quality filler posts.  It’ll be fun, presumably!)

Before I get started, let’s play a game. 

I want you to think of a villain -- your favorite villain, from any story, from any medium, from any time.  Take as much time as you need before going on.  Then, once you have that villain in mind, think for a minute about why that villain means so much to you.  (In the event that the villain is more of a concept/conflict than someone the hero can punch in the face, substitute that instead.)  Don’t worry about forcing yourself to articulate it, or even mentioning it here in a comment.  Just keep your answers fresh on your mind, okay?

Good.  Great.  Remember those answers, because I’m going to come back to them later.  But for now?  Open your eyes for the next Faiz.

…Crap, wrong Rider.

My SPOILERS will make you cry.

Wipe your tears with this.  *tosses printed copy of the last two Gaim posts*

…That is also the wrong Rider.  Man, I’m really bad at this.

Kamen Rider Gaim: A Super Holiday Suplex Post

(Cross-Up is on hiatus, sort of, but not really!  I’m going to try and take it easy over the next few weeks, because it’s the winter holiday season and I half-expect nobody to be around on the internet.  Things will get back in gear sometime in January, but until then?  If you ARE here, then enjoy a handful of high-quality filler posts.  It’ll be fun, presumably!)

Oh man, please tell me I’m the first person on the internet to make this joke.  It would make me so very, very happy.

Well, if nothing else, I’m the first person to ever make the joke on this blog.  THAT MEANS I’VE WON!

All right, I’m about to unload a fruit basket’s worth of SPOILERS on you guys, so if you want a no-spoiler version of what I think about this show (and by extension, a trim primer on Gaim), then you’d better go read this post instead…or first.  Or you can read this one if you have no interest in ever watching it.

That would kind of make this post a moot point -- if not for the stuff I’m about to discuss.  Are you ready?  Here we gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

RE: Kamen Rider Gaim

(Cross-Up ison hiatus, sort of, but not really!  I’m going to try and take it easy over the next few weeks, because it’s the winter holiday season and I half-expect nobody to be around on the internet.  Things will get back in gear sometime in January, but until then?  If you ARE here, then enjoy a handful of high-quality filler posts.  It’ll be fun, presumably!)

I don’t do this very often -- or at all -- but I’m going to have to put a little strain on the rules.

What I post here tends to NOT be a straight-up review -- of TV shows, games, movies, or anything that pops up.  I’m more concerned with determining why something is good or bad instead of just outright saying “this is good” or “this is bad”.  There’s some overlap, sure, but as I’ve said in the past, this isn’t the place to go if you’re looking for a score on the latest game, or any sort of ranking system.

That in mind, I have to make an exception just this once for Kamen Rider Gaim.  Two reasons for that: first, I’d vastly prefer talking about it if I can point someone toward watching it -- but seeing as how that’d demand a fifty-ish episode marathon run, I think it’d be best if I at least put the suggestion in a reader’s head.  More importantly, Gaim is the sort of show that’s hard to talk about without tripping all over spoilers -- SO, I’m going to use THIS post as a sort of all-purpose primer.  It’ll superficially tell you what’s good and what isn’t (even if that means hinting towards spoilers); in the posts to follow, we’ll go into full-on discussion mode so I can talk about the good and the bad.  Watching Gaim in its entirety won’t be required, though, so you can rest easy.  Just read what I’ve got so you can walk away with a fresh perspective.

Okay?  Okay.  Let’s get started then.  First…