[Kamen Rider Die]

MASKED RIDER RYUKI EPISODE 22



This is another one where I pretty much just want to talk about the direction. The story's solid, there's some good and some bad, but there's some incredibly dynamic compositions that I think are worth discussing.

Other than the direction:

-There's a What Everyone's Fighting For thing, the people in their lives that drive them and they want to protect, that whole thing is a huge part of the episode. We get Goro/Kitaoka, Reiko/Shinji, Yui/Ren, and Yuichi/Tezuka. That element, it gives a nice thread to tie in all of the various Riders' fears, how the Battles have collateral damage, how they mitigate that with heroism or with isolation. Thematically, it's a little downbeat (everyone's got something to lose/have lost), but it's a nice change from the last few episodes of Being Worried About Ren. This one spreads out the impact, making it feel more like an ensemble. It's a good change of pace.

-I'm that guy, I guess! Boy, Tezuka has just completely hijacked Yui's plot, hasn't he? All we get with her in this one is everyone declaring the need to keep her out of everything, and her insisting that she wants to stay in. Just... they are just giving her nothing...

But! The direction! It's so good. There're several scenes and shots that delivered something special, made the story pop.



Everything in the Tezuka/Shiro confrontation... oh, man. Every single shot leveraged the mirror setup to make things alternately infinite and enclosed. There's an endless array of Shiros and Tezukas, but there's also frames keeping them locked in place. It's not only a very fun way to have a largely repetitive dialogue scene (Why Are You Doing This Shiro straight into Fight Or Die) but it's a great way to enforce the stakes and rewards of the Rider Battles. You can have anything you want, but you've got no choice other than fighting. The direction is doing all of the heavy lifting in that scene.



Yui's dreams, with the melting/burning film, really interesting montage. I especially liked how the next Tezuka fortune-telling scene was with a match, linking together those visuals. Clever!



I didn't love the content of the Yui/Ren night time talk. It's Ren telling Yui to leave it alone, to leave it to the Riders. Yui's only real push back is a vague But I Can't. If ever there was a point for Yui to reassert her importance to the story, to be more than a damsel, this was it. She doesn't, and it's another missed opportunity for the character to feel vital. But! That whole scene is shot gorgeously, with the cool blue of the moonlight soaking the room, letting the emotions feel suffused, enveloped by stillness. The whole scene happens like a secret, with Ren's newfound peace feeling like an olive branch to Yui's desperation, a small moment where the two of them feel like close friends again. I hated what they were saying, but I loved how they said it.





This pullback, when Tezuka says that he's the next Rider fated to die! So great. A lot of the episode is built around Tezuka, his backstory, his motivation. It's a good time for it, with him being the hero Rider we know the least about. Ren's pretty much sorted, at least for now, so it's good to drill into Tezuka's story a bit. The big pullback shot, it's a nice touch, in that it uses the melodramatic language of Tezuka's story. He's... stoically theatrical, if that makes any sense. He's a very Big Concepts kind of guy. Capital letter feelings and ideas. Like, not fate, but Fate. If Shinji's hard rock, and Ren is metal (or, really, emo), then Tezuka is opera. Tezuka's the guy that is fighting the inevitability of fate. That's not a small thing to try and do! So, yeah, his story needs these big camera moves, the really stylish stuff. It's useful in giving his scenes an identity.



This last one, it's a little thing, but I really liked it. There's a point in the Goro/Asakura sidewalk standoff where a train passes by. It's all over a couple of shots, whizzing by over Goro's shoulder, in a reflection, shading Asakura. For a frozen moment, there's this motion, right in the buildup to a fight. It's all implied energy. It's a dynamic addition to that faceoff.

This whole episode, man, it's full of smart touches. Really had a good time just watching this one.