TV-Nihon

The backstory flashbacks, condensed as they were, actually do manage to explain something really important about Ryuuga: It's no wonder he's got the personality of a brick half the time, if he was living on an island training to be a knight for most of his adolescent life. If I spent ten years learning to fight with only a robot dog and Burai as my only company, I'd have no idea how to act around people either.

okay, i don't have a problem with the cgi forest. but why would you waste your budget on something like that in a recap epsidoe?
also, NOOOOOO! LAGOOOO! He was such a well-developed character!

After watching it a second time around I just noticed something funny in 10:21-10:22. So Ryuuga was being chased by the police and jumps right off a window... but wait, on 10:21 it seems like he jumped too short but from the outside view at 10:22 there seems to be no obstruction. :p

But anyways, I find this episode pretty good specially to viewers like me who just started watching the series recently. A little background check on their past helps us learn more about them.

We usually get a recap episode roughly halfway through. I definitely remember in the 1st season, not sure about the 2nd.

Ryuuga questioning if Sonshi was a Madou Horror. Of course you idiot.

Aaaaaah this keeps feeling like the Ryuuga and Rian show. Takeru and Aguri are really getting shafted and I hate it. I don't care about either Rian or Ryuuga as much as I do the two others, and we don't even know that much about them. Aha... I'm sticking with this season, because I want to know where the story goes, but so far I don't really see the point of Takeru and Aguri being Knights as well.

RIP Lago
15:59-17:05

Thanks for the episode and nice work as usual!.

Waste episode in my opinion and could be a lot better.

We got a summary episode and a very lame flashback about how Ryuuga got the armor.

Looks like the armor was already mess up and abandoned when he got it also looks like Burai told him to get the sword but never expected him to succeed however we still don't know why Ryuuga began training in the first place and what happened to his mother. They confirm that cutting Madou Horrors cause pain to him and in some way restore the armor original state but also disable the armor at the same time (not sure about the last one).

Too many questions and not answers yet

1) Why was the Garo armor available or abandoned in the first place?
2) Kouga is dead?
3) Kaoru is Ryuuga's mother?
4) Where was Zaruba? He was able to get the armor without a contract unlike Kouga and looks like the armor choose him.

Getting tired of recap episodes and I'm not in favor of this one too. Didn't like the obvious green screen forest they were in and was hoping for something more exciting. Did like how we got some more backstory on Ryuuga especially with his dog. Makes sense as to why he's not happy with Burai. That was an interesting dog design too. And it does look like they are setting up a romance between Ryuuga and Rian.

Catastrophe wrote:We usually get a recap episode roughly halfway through. I definitely remember in the 1st season, not sure about the 2nd.

Ryuuga questioning if Sonshi was a Madou Horror. Of course you idiot.

He could be something worse, a gate-spawned Apostle-class horror like Gannon; or a part of or temporary host for Zedom.

Alessar wrote:

Catastrophe wrote:We usually get a recap episode roughly halfway through. I definitely remember in the 1st season, not sure about the 2nd.

Ryuuga questioning if Sonshi was a Madou Horror. Of course you idiot.

He could be something worse, a gate-spawned Apostle-class horror like Gannon; or a part of or temporary host for Zedom.

Gold waves came out of him when Ryuga cut him. He's a madou horror, Nuff' said.

DereklBarona wrote:The backstory flashbacks, condensed as they were, actually do manage to explain something really important about Ryuuga: It's no wonder he's got the personality of a brick half the time, if he was living on an island training to be a knight for most of his adolescent life. If I spent ten years learning to fight with only a robot dog and Burai as my only company, I'd have no idea how to act around people either.

Yeah, and being played by an actor that has a grand total of 2 facial expressions (smiling and not smiling) supported by terrible lines doesn't help.

The common background for each makai knight in the whole series is like that or even worse (look at Kouga), yet each single one was written and played way better.

Darkwings wrote: Yeah, and being played by an actor that has a grand total of 2 facial expressions (smiling and not smiling)

wrong! He has frowned, smiled, cried, lost his temper, expressionless at times and appear shocked, that's at least 6 expressions.

Seriously, if people want to complain, at least have some substance to your argument.

6 expressions is still far too few.

Also, if you're talking about the crying in this episode, that hardly counts, he was unsmiling and it was obvious that they just used eyedroppers for that scene.

Still, 6 expressions is more than 2, so that still contradicts Darkwings' argument.

And I have watched those scenes with Kuriyama crying carefully, especially those in ep 13, and they looked like genuine tears to me. If they were really only using eye droppers, then by all means they ALL were using eyedroppers, including Ikeda Shunya with his exaggerated crying.
And why does it not count? Simply because Kuriyama wasn't smiling? Well in that case, with this kind of argument, it's basically implying that we ALL only have 2 expressions; we either smile or we don't.

You're arguing details, but the general overall observation is that he has limited facial expression, which is not good for an actor, particularly if he's playing the lead role.

Now I'll grant you that Kouga had limited facial expression in the first two series, but it never felt like he didn't know how to act, it was just how his character was. Ryuuga doesn't really have the same excuse, he's a much more emotional character, but we don't get that when he has issues trying to get across his feelings.