TV-Nihon

I just started watching Hibiki and I sorta like it. It's different from what I'm used to watching, but it is great. Asumu has a great character development.

Give Hibiki a try, if your already have watched a bunch of other Rider Shows, If your just getting into KR then watch a different series cause Hibiki is very different from the average Rider Series.

Just completed the series. It does start out slow, far slower than Blade(which started to pick up around ep 10). But Hibiki's honestly(at least pre ep30, DAMNED DIRECTORS) my favourite series atm. As a character, Hibiki is really likeable, together with the other secondary Riders. Just the usual complains of overusing his ultimate form personally. In fact, i only remember seeing his 2nd form for 5 episodes + or so. Did they ever release the original plot for Hibiki, and the 2nd final episode? I heard they modified the the final episode on the filming day itself. But the way the series ended was a serious WTF for me.

Dunno if this was mentioned before, but apparently Hibiki wasn't originally a Rider series. The original idea for Hibiki was done with Ishinomori back in the late 90s, but because of his death, the show never materialized. Then, apparently midway during Blade, the writers decided to revise Ishinomori's Hibiki project and slap the Kamen Rider name to it.

I guess you can say that this is why Hibiki was a lot different from other series. Examples are the monster Rider designs, the lack of using belts, the lack of using the term HENSHIN to transform, the use of a middle-aged actor as the main rider, the kanji that appears in the screen for the first half of the series, and the lack of a first opening with actual lyrics rather than an instrumental tune. Hibiki also had an ending theme, which was different because no other Heisei Rider series, besides Kuuga, has an ending theme.

But overall, I must say that Hibiki isn't the worst, but it was very slow for me; I felt that Asumu never had much development with his apprenticeship with Hibiki-san until Kyosuke came in and started a rivalry with Asumu. There was also a lot of side characters that really did not have much establishment with the plot.