“A new Hero, A new Legend” indeed. Kuuga is a fantastic season to kick off the Heisei era of Kamen Rider. I’ve always heard good things about it, but I was still surprised at just how much I enjoyed this. I give it a solid thumbs up for a good job on entertaining me. For context, I am marathoning the entire franchise, so I am fresh off of finishing up the Showa era of Rider. Kuuga is a massive step up from most of these old shows in many ways. For starters, and probably most important, Yusuke Godai and Kaoru Ichijo and the ensemble cast that support them are all phenomenally fun to follow characters that form the beating heart of the show. The villains of Kuuga are surprisingly bloodthirsty, and the scope of their terror is honestly hard to fathom relative to the Showa entries of the franchise. The death counts are honestly crazy for a children's show. I found their human designs to be fairly entertaining (god bless the 2000s fashion trends) and their monster designs to be interesting enough. I prefer bulky beasts compared to slimmer monsters like these, but there are plenty of creatures in this show that I enjoyed. Their hierarchy and the mysteries of their entire shtick are fun to unravel over the course of the show. It’s also fun seeing the police force rise to the occasion and develop countermeasures and competent strategies against them, I honestly wasn’t expecting the police to be anything but a thorn in Kuuga’s side. Loved to be wrong though. I could gush about most of this show, but it’s not perfect. The pacing is very deliberate, with 1-2 punch episodes to introduce and resolve issues. While consistency is nice and this format enables plotlines to have room to breathe, I also found it would make some mini arcs feel laborious, and the transition between many of them to feel a bit awkward in terms of pacing. I also found the ending to be on the weaker side, although the build up to it is done fantastically. The first couple episodes have some weaker special effects work and choreography relative to later in the season. Also for the toyetic stuff, I found the belt and Kuuga’s various forms and tools to be a little underwhelming. I know this stuff goes into overdrive over the next couple of seasons as they begin to bring in more Riders and that I should appreciate the calm before the storm. Still, if you’re going to have your show structured partially around marketing form changes, weapons, and vehicles, you better make me like them. The base (red) and final form of Kuuga are probably my favorites of the bunch. Really the toy I want the most from this season is not Kuuga, but a figure of Ichijo with a rifle. This is before the era of constant specials, spinoffs, and movies, so there wasn’t a ton of supplementary screen material to take in. I really enjoyed the noncanon “episode 50”, and would recommend it for anyone else finishing Kuuga. Kuuga is placed firmly at the top of my Rider list so far, and I have a hard time seeing it slip too far down the totem pole as I watch more of the franchise. I’m taking a quick break from my Rider marathon to finish up Jetman before I continue onward to Agito. While I have heard endless praise for Kuuga, I’ve heard basically nothing at all about Agito, so I am looking forward to it.