[Kamen Rider Die]

MASKED RIDER RYUKI EPISODE 19



Rider Fest! Six Riders! No Waiting! Cool Dialogue! Awesome Action! Yui's Plot Is Both Depressing And Infuriating! RIDER FEST!

Woof, this episode. It's a tense, hilarious culmination of the last few episodes worth of storytelling. It's nearly perfect. But, man, the Yui stuff. Kind-of this show's achilles heel right now.

All of the main storyline kills, though. Shibaura's manipulation to get all six Riders in one place to fight, it's incredibly exciting. Shinji gets a bunch of big ol' hero moments (he's holding that kid's hand after they've both been knocked out!!!), Asakura luxuriates in his menace, Kitaoka gets to confront Asakura while a billion cameras watch, Tezuka shows his dedication to changing Ren's fate, Ren risks it all to save a friend, and Shibaura gets the Rider Battle of his dreams. It's a terrific intertwining of all of these characters and all of their goals.

The Ren/Tezuka stuff, there's a thing I'm really liking that I hadn't even noticed until this episode. (Or maybe I did and I forgot?) We've still got no real clue about what Ren's feeling, what he's planning. There's a mystery to Ren's motivation at this point, and I think that adds a ton of drama to a plot that's maybe dragged on a bit long. (How long has he been brooding in that park, a century?) I like the uncertainty of what exactly Ren's going to do next, besides claim he'll kill Riders. He's a gigantic question mark, and I think that's a smart move.

Everyone else, all the other Riders, pretty much do what they do best. Everyone's in-character in this one, and while nothing was surprising, every action the other Riders took made sense. I got why they were involving themselves, what they hoped to achieve. That's tough to do with six Riders, and it's laudable that eighteen episodes got us to such a rich cast.

Shame about Yui, though.

So, first, I do not at all understand what was going on with Yui being held hostage or whatever. Shibaura goes to the tea shop and sees Yui. The next scene is Shibaura alone at the tea shop, taunting Ren and Tezuka with Yui's apron. Shibaura leaves, Ren and Tezuka meet him at the venue. While Ren and Shibaura fight, Tezuka goes inside and finds Yui... standing around? What was she doing there? How did she get there? Tezuka just walks up to her, so it's not like she's locked away or guarded. Did she get dragged there by Shibaura, and then he went back to the tea shop before the other two got there? Why didn't she just leave? Literally nothing about Shibaura using Yui as leverage makes any sense to me.

(She's just standing against a wall with her arms folded when Tezuka runs up, like she's waiting for a table at a busy restaurant. She looks mildly inconvenienced by her circumstances. I don't understand what she's doing there.)

And, that's frustrating, an illogical plot point. It's one thing, and if that was all that bothered me about Yui, whatever. I'll live. But, man, I'm real bored whenever Yui shows up these days. This show gives her nothing interesting to do. She's just holding down the fort at the cafe, or worrying about the boys. All of the Shiro stuff, it's just the same beat of plaintive whining, drippy nonsense where she's begging a mirror ghost for answers. There're steps in the right direction, where Yui's being more active in getting answers by investigating(-ish) the Secret Science Society, but in this episode she's worthless. She's a victim, in basically every scene. It's weird to me that, on a show with so many nuanced, compelling characters, Yui is sincerely getting less watchable with every episode.

And that's not even the biggest bummer of this episode! Shibaura might've added one too many Riders to Rider Fest, and gotten Final Vented into being a monster's lunch. It's not certain yet, but it ain't looking good. Just in case I never get another chance, Shibaura, play us out.