仮面ライダー Agito

My favorite tokusatsu entry as of today

Agito might be my favorite Tokusatsu so far. That's a strong thing to say, but after finishing it in four or five days straight, it gotta be my most fun tokusatsu experience so far. A big part of why it works so well is Shouichi, the main character. He's this cheerful, almost ridiculously easygoing guy, and there's something genuinely refreshing about a protagonist who isn't brooding or tragic. He's just... a silly, happy boy. And you like him immediately for it. But Kamen Rider: Agito doesn't make the mistake of making this a one-man show; the series juggles a surprisingly large cast of main characters and somehow gives all of them real development. That's harder to pull off than it sounds, and Agito earns it. And then there's Gills. Poor Gills. If the show has a punching bag, it's him. The universe seems to have it out for this guy in a very personal way. He goes through personal trauma, people he cares about end up dead, and what makes it even funnier, there are parts of the story where Shouichi and Hikawa are off somewhere playing tennis with a frying pan, genuinely having a blast, while Gills is simultaneously in the middle of some fresh hell. Life isn't fair to everyone, and Agito displays that with a straight face. As for the monster-of-the-week structure: it's technically there, but it almost doesn't feel like it. Agito fights something almost every episode, sure, but the fights never felt like the point. They were more like background noise while the actual story kept moving forward. The mystery deepens, characters evolve, and the monsters just sort of happen in the margins. That mystery-thriller backbone is what really kept me glued to it. I genuinely couldn't stop watching. Four or five days, start to finish. Highly recommend.