The Kamen Rider Blade novel has been completely translated now.
Here’s some of my spoiler-free thoughts on it now that it’s been finished:
– The first few chapters were pretty cool, since they did a great job painting the picture of how the world had changed since the TV show’s ending.
– Some of the characterization is weird, like certain character or story elements would be built up only to end abruptly.
– The insight into Kenzaki’s past towards the end was really fascinating, but that’s pretty much the only thing I enjoyed about it. I can’t help but feel like 75% of the content prior to the ending was filler, since it barely mattered by the end of the story.
So yeah, I at least somewhat enjoyed the novel, but it was overall kinda disappointing.
I’ll be translating the Kabuto novel next, but only a partial translation. This is because the majority of the novel is just a retelling of the TV show, so it’s not really worth the effort. Instead, I’ll be translating the prologue and the after story. The prologue goes into more detail about Tendou’s life before he met Hiyori, and it shows some pretty interesting characterization and vulnerabilities that the TV show never got to demonstrate. The after story is about Kagami, and it takes place after the TV show. I haven’t read it completely yet, but from what I’ve heard, it’s dubious whether or not it’s canon with the TV show, since there are plot contradictions here and there.
I’m skipping the Hibiki novel for now since it takes place in the Edo period, and I feel like that would make it more annoying to translate.
Anyway, thanks for sticking along.
Kamen Rider Novel Translations 