TV-Nihon

Kuroto is starting to remind me of Brain from Drive. Hated at first, but slowly becoming comically stoopid.

Wow, this feels like a breath of fresh air after binging Kyuuranger. Kuruto's eventual teamup with Emu and semi-redemption were both strong and believable, and Poppy's interaction with Genm was also quite well done. My only big question is why the Continue function wasn't in the later versions of the Gashats; perhaps it has some price they'll get to later? In any case, it gets a 5 from me.

Maybe continue is a confusing term for it. My guess is that since it's an alpha, Kuroto probably built in a developer's debug backdoors to test it out. God mode, no clip, infinite lives, all useful when working on debugging a game. Obviously for game balance reasons, these things are removed in the final build that's released to the public. Well, that's the answer I BSed up, lol.

takenoko wrote:Maybe continue is a confusing term for it. My guess is that since it's an alpha, Kuroto probably built in a developer's debug backdoors to test it out. God mode, no clip, infinite lives, all useful when working on debugging a game. Obviously for game balance reasons, these things are removed in the final build that's released to the public. Well, that's the answer I BSed up, lol.

That makes perfect sense. I've read a bunch of stuff other the years talking about how developers had to use infinite health or something to beat a boss so they ended up changing certain parameters in a fight to make it fair. etc. etc.

To be honest i was beggining to think that i have grown out of Tokusatsu since last series while entertaining did not really catched me, but ex-aid has proven me that it was the series that were not mediocre, I'm enjoying this last episodes a lot.

It was good to see Dan beoming a caring father or should i say...benevolent god? and the two mighty X's fighting together.

Good episode 5 starts.

By the way was it just my imagination but in the scene between Poppy and Dan, did Ruka looked quite nervous?

takenoko wrote: -Cool shot of Hiiro walking through the flowers.

Yeah, was thinking the same, Wish i had a program to make it a gif.

Fool, such utterances are dangerous around one such as me!

How did Hiro get the trophy? I thought they only appear when a Ride Player beats the bugster?

Did he weaken it enough that one could finish it off and steal it afterwards?

Catastrophe wrote:How did Hiro get the trophy? I thought they only appear when a Ride Player beats the bugster?

Did he weaken it enough that one could finish it off and steal it afterwards?

That was the "operation" he left to perform. He found Motors and surgically removed him from existence.

I still wish we got a better explanation for Dan's resurrection gambit here - i.e. how did he know it would work - but overall I can't pick at this episode too much. It's highly entertaining in both drama and action, and that's what I tune in for week after week. By virtue of having a continuous story line, I'm genuinely eager to see what's going to happen each week.

Anyhow, I was afraid that Dan's character would be diminished after going out on top when he died, but this episode has thankfully proven that fear unfounded. He's still the same megalomaniac as before, though not without his boundaries and limits.

The interesting thing is that by any reasonable standard, Genm is a boring Rider design. He's an Ex-Aid recolor, which is a very lazy thing to do. How many times have we bemoaned stupid recolors or other minor alterations in other Rider shows? However to the credit of the show's writers, they make this work not because of the suit, but because of the characters inside of those suits. Emu and Dan have a very distinct yin-yang thing going on, highlighted by their color scheme. Emu is the traditional heroic Rider, while Dan is now (barely) the anti-hero, who's doing the right thing for purely selfish reasons because he's been wronged. It's been done before, of course, but it's being done oh so well here.

I do feel like it was a bit of a stretch though to have Genm be any kind of offensive threat to Paradox in the co-op fight. He's level 0, so he should continue to get curbstomped (or have his attacks bounce off like shooting Superman) at all times. But it made for a fun fight - one with excellent use of wire-fu for Paradox's exaggerated jumps, I should add - so I suppose I can't complain too much.

Meanwhile, I wonder if there's any significance to the fact that Genm 0's character select wheel has himself and the 4 proto versions of the riders on it. You'd think he'd be the only character on it, since it was the first Gashat created... (Though this is probably just a CG error, it's interesting to note that MMX's character select wheel still has Mighty Bros as a hidden character). Also, nice touch on the Game & Watch style text effects for Genm 0!

Also, does anyone else find it a bit odd that Paradox apparently can't easily use the Dangerous Zombie Gashat for an attack? I find it interesting that the writers took the time to make sure he was shown to be struggling with it, as that's not what you'd expect for a level 99 character.

Oh, and after asking for it last week, we get another Nico fight this week! Except all she does is Rider Punch Charlie and he's done for... I was hoping for a slightly more serious fight, akin to her first fight, to see how she's taking down these mid-level Bugsters as a Ride Player. To sell the idea that while the Ride Players are purposely outgunned, they are capable of fighting with a skilled gamer behind them. Calling out a Rider Punch doesn't showcase that skill.

Finally, the elephant in the room: man, Poppy and Dan now have a really screwed up relationship. Poppy is Dan's virtual daughter in his mother's body (BTW, yay, it wasn't his sister!). Meanwhile Dan is Poppy's son and her daddy. Freud would have a field day with this one. Though it's good to see that even though he never drops his bravado, Poppy is one of the few things Dan actually does care about, even if it's just because he created her. Which is going to be important going down the line, as Parado has now demonstrated multiple times that he considers Poppy a traitor and will eliminate her if given the chance.

eijiman wrote:By the way was it just my imagination but in the scene between Poppy and Dan, did Ruka looked quite nervous?

No, it's not your imagination. I'm not beyond assuming that she was just damn cold, but it definitely felt a bit weird. Though given the in-universe screwed up relationship between the two, maybe the whole thing was intentional?

Draccy wrote:

Catastrophe wrote:How did Hiro get the trophy? I thought they only appear when a Ride Player beats the bugster?

Did he weaken it enough that one could finish it off and steal it afterwards?

That was the "operation" he left to perform. He found Motors and surgically removed him from existence.

A perfect answer if there ever was one.

takenoko wrote:<Previous Ep
Last week's poll rating: 4.85 / 5 (27 votes)

LOL, last week 26 five stars, and 1 one star.

Since then a couple of more votes have come in, including a 4. At this point I think someone is just trolling us here by voting a 1 on Ex-Aid every week. Still, even without throwing out the troll vote, I'm pretty sure that 4.84 (4.97 minus the troll) now counts as the highest ranked KR episode since you guys started running weekly polls. We're subject to fan inflation around here, but still, that's a really impressive point for this show to hit. It's a shame you weren't doing polls for Gaim, as I feel like the sentiment around here for Ex-Aid is even more consistently positive than it was for Gaim.

Oh, I dunno. I think Gaim would be pretty unbeatable personally, but yeah, I would have enjoyed seeing the week to week reactions to Gaim.

Another awesome episode of Ex-Aid. Though it is kind of a messy relationship Dan and Poppy have now that I think about it.
But Dan overall isn't just an excellent villain, but an excellent character who's a blast to witness. And it's also great to see hie chemistry with Emu too.

That was the "operation" he left to perform. He found Motors and surgically removed him from existence.

But they already showed that when the Riders kill them, they respawn and don't drop the trophy.

It's a shame you weren't doing polls for Gaim, as I feel like the sentiment around here for Ex-Aid is even more consistently positive than it was for Gaim.

Nah. Gaim was in peak form from pretty much start to finish and I imagine that it would have been 4-5 the whole way through. People are liking Ex-Aid now, but the first 1/3rd was kind of average.

ViRGE wrote:I still wish we got a better explanation for Dan's resurrection gambit here - i.e. how did he know it would work

I just went with he pulled an Ocelot, because he is the game master and all.

I'm not seeing the nervousness of Ruka Matsuda. What scenes in particular are you guys talking about?

Revorse wrote:I'm not seeing the nervousness of Ruka Matsuda. What scenes in particular are you guys talking about?

Yea, I don't see it either.