Kamen Rider Hibiki, Episode 1
Don't expect much in the way of coherency here, I'll probably spend the first few episodes struggling to figure out everyone's names. This is also kind of tiring so I probably won't do it with every episode.
The opening of Hibiki is instrumental, which is a bit of an anomaly but nice. From the opening, there seem to be a lot of female members in the cast?
It has an opening musical number. Is this for serious Kamen Rider? Am I watching the right show? I'm liking this, if so, but that was really random. Also, if this kid is our protagonist, then Fourze wasn't the first to have a school-age main character.
Conversation I didn't really follow...does the kid want to be in the orchestra? (As you can see, I don't know his name yet.)
Why are they on a boat now?
Dolphins! Also mysterious person with super athletic Skillz and therefore guaranteed to be significant.
...misty cutscene with mysterious people...
Boat arrives at the island it was headed for (still don't know why they were going there)...M.P. makes a phone call and more characters are introduced one of whom is M.P.'s little sister I think.
...more mist...what's up with this place?
Oh okay, here we go with the monsters.
MP has some kind of tuning-device thing that summons a hawk creature. Does he know where the monsters are?
Looks like the kid was going to some kind of family reunion or something. Also, his name is Asamu (I think). He and some girl (who I don't think has been introduced yet) get bored of the grownups and go exploring the island. It's very pretty, props to whoever set up the location shooting.
...and now they're in the misty place. I think that might be bad.
...yup, creepy monster people watching. Also, I think they went and got themselves lost. Asamu stepped in what looked like spiderwebs and there was a Significant Sound Effect.
Here's MP again! Finally introduces himself; his name is apparently Hibiki. Well, that's not significant at all... (/sarcasm)
The monsters pounce on the girl and Hibiki goes to get them, leaving Asamu in a support role. Action scene ahoy!
Interesting henshin...really liking the music motifs in the series. I wish the light wasn't so dim in this forest, it makes it hard to tell what's going on. I like all the running and jumping around the branches, though. Not a whole lot of Kamen Rider fights take place in forests, and those that do usually stay on the ground.
Asamu saw the last bit of that fight and appears freaked out, which is perfectly understandable.
It has an actual ending song! That doesn't happen very often. I mean, there are songs that are called ending songs, but those (get this) don't usually come at the end of the episode. What's up with that?
This is a really good song.
...and there's the end of the episode. Well, that was interesting. I think I like this show. However, it takes a long time to recap it so I won't do this for more than a few episodes. It's interesting for me to see my Japanese-show-watching thought process though.