Well as someone who loves Kamen Rider but wasn't to enthralled with the sentai vibe Den-Oh dealt out last year I was kinda skeptical about Kamen Rider Kiva. Mainly because after each sneak image I was thinking to myself, "It's Kamen Rider Spawn!"

Still I you can't really judge many things by preview images. After I saw the first episode of KIVA (which aired in Japan yesterday morning) I was very impressed. It had the classic first episode Spider villain and a vicious Rider Kick. But above all that was how much I enjoyed watching the main character Wataru (played entertainingly by Koji Seto). He's eccentric in that odd Steve Ditko version of The Question (hard to explain but you got to see it).

Anyway below is the opening of the show. I plan on talking about it more as the series goes on. Hopefully it'll be one great year (filled with great merchandise!)