Let's admit it.
The show was lame, but Kiva had one of the sickest designs ever.
>>14089250
It's hardly alone in that. Kabuto has great designs too. As does Wizard (though I hate the material they make the outfits from). I think Kiva has one of the best first episode's and settings in Kamen Rider too, with Kabuto being highly placed in my mind too.
If anything, I think that's what makes it worse that such god-tier designs were wasted in such an awful show
>>14089260
Agreed.
It's like they weren't even trying to sell their toys or something.
>>14089254
I thought Kabuto was pretty decent. Tons of bad choices, but no where near Kiva and Wizard.
>>14089250
Great costume and the only "powered up" form I can think of that actually improves the base form.
>>14089250
I hate how much my opinion of the show can affect how I feel about the costume to an extent. Sometimes it's nice when it makes me come around a bit to a costume, but other times it's just annoying I can't look at Kiva's design the way I did when the show started out.
It doesn't completely dictate it, like I won't go from thinking Kiva looks amazing to thinking it looks awful because the show was. But it does lessen my appreciation of it.
It had Otoya, therefore who cares about anything else.
I loved the designs and. . . I'm embarrassed to say. . . I enjoyed the show.
Roast me.
>>14089250
Don't forget best music.
>>14090057
It's alright to "enjoy" it anon. Everybody loved Otoya and I thought Rook was really fun while he was around. It's not like the show was completely without merit.
But how it was overall... ugh.
>>14089271
Kabuto is literally perfect compared to Kiva, Wizard, and the likes of Faiz.
>>14089250
I would kill to see a Saga/Femme teamup, the two designs just fit so perfectly together.
Maybe we'll get another Decade-style show eventually, they can crack more of these crossover jokes. Like Ghost meeting Skull, or W getting a Drive memory and his belt calling "DRIVE! MAXIMUM DRIVE!"
>>14089271
Don't get me wrong, I really like Kabuto. It was my first Rider show and I still love it. I just wouldn't say it's good and any recommendation I'd give would have a list of provisos as long as my arm. It has a really good start and seems like it'll be a good sci-fi show, and then after about 10 episodes it has thrown that out the window and become primarily a comedy show. It's a good comedy show in my opinion, but it's not what the show advertised itself as really.
I think Kagami's arc loses steam once he becomes a Rider about episode 22 too. And he's really the only one to have a strong arc in the show. The Rider forms are the only good designs too. The armored forms are all pretty awful and completely useless, since they're objectively worse than the Rider forms in every way. I'd prefer if they'd been better defensively or something. They were just there for the second "Henshin" of cast-off though.
>>14090119
>Rook
I miss "Dai-chan"
Dark Kiva looked cool in a suitably edgy way too.
As far as Kiva in general goes, Otoya's parts were absolutely fantastic. We're probably never going to get that sort of character as a Kamen Rider MC ever again.
>>14089271
Having seen Kuuga, Agito, Faiz, Kabuto, Den-O, Decade and everything afterward, I can safely say that Kabuto is the second-worst Rider show I've ever watched, losing out only to Wizard, and there's a massive gulf in quality between Kabuto and every other show on that list. And Kabuto was my first Rider at /m/'s recommendation, so nostalgia should really be working in its favor, but its writing is just so bad on so many levels that I cringe when people recommend it nowadays.
>>14090283
>>14091054
Does anyone even recommend Kabuto at a first series anymore?
I know it was the case years ago, but that was because fansubs were limited back then.
>>14091066
I've seen people recommend it as a first series as recently as last month. It still gets traction, possibly through sheer inertia as for a long time it was the go-to recommendation. I distinctly recall being told "don't watch W first, we'll never get a show that's anything close to this good again and it'll ruin everything else for you". 2010 was seriously a dark time for Rider.
>>14091066
It wasn't recommended so much becuase of a lack of subs as because there wasn't nearly as much choice. All the recent shows like W, Fourze, Drive are seen as good starting shows. Den-O, Kiva, Ryuki, Blade and so on weren't.
>>14091066
I have literally recommended Kabuto to a friend within the past few days, albeit I also recommended all of the Megamax series and Drive as alternative starting points.
It's not without its problems, definitely, but the fantastic action and generally entertaining and solid characters (other than some slipups, e.g. near the end with Tendou) can still make up for what is admittedly one of the weaker or even weakest overarching plots in Rider in my opinion. You also get a good taste of both serious and silly parts of Rider in the same show.
>>14089250
It was a terrible show but the gothic rider designs were the goddamn most stylish things
I hear the IXA cut of the series is superior.
>>14091296
I doubt it, since it must by necessity cut out a shit load of the connecting scenes that make the whole thing make sense and monsters will just come and go with no resolution.
