Most fans assume that the movie and special are previous timelines before time was rewound and reset, which honestly does make sense. The series is the final time the events of the Rider War player out, but there have been many previous attempts to get to whatever the bad guy is trying to achieve, and this is one of those failed timelines.

But there's no official confirmation this is the case at all. In any case, these specials can be watched without giving away anything.

I'm glad we were all so careful not to spoil anything

Thanks for playing along cat.

He already finished the episode with the time reset. Which is the only reason I mentioned it.

MASKED RIDER RYUKI SPECIAL: 13 RIDERS

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/ryuki/13ridersa.png
https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/ryuki/13ridersb.png

I like alternate universe stories. I think they're fun. It's a chance to explore characters in new, unique ways. You can be more brutal, surprise the audience, make huge changes that'd never work in a regular setting. It's a chance to try new things, and I'm all about that.

So what a goddamn bummer it is for this special's huge swing to be What If Masked Rider Ryuki Wasn't Really About Anything. Like, it's a surprise, I'll give them that!

I'm only 2/3rds of the way done with Ryuki, and even that much of the show couldn't get crammed into what's basically a two-episode story. Trying to do an entire season's worth of plot was out the window, I get that. Stuff was going to have to get cut to make room. Dropping the whole idea of the Contract Monsters, it's not a huge loss. It's a level of complexity that you need to strip out to keep this story humming. Card Decks That Give Magic Powers is, like, it's fine. It's enough of the core concept to make an hour-long story still feel like Ryuki.

Stripping down the Ren/Shinji relationship to just a couple beats, that's harder to forgive. The Ren/Shinji frenemy thing, it's maybe the best part of Ryuki, and reducing that to the most basic We Aren't Friends/You're Too Naive/I'm Weak/Avenge Me arc for Ren... it's the most boring way you could approach their story. I mean, at least Ren gets an arc, it's more than you could say for anyone else, but it's still a shitty arc. There's no room to let the performance help out the dialogue, so it plays pretty unconvincing to me. I've spent 30-odd episodes watching Ren start to believe in Shinji, and for Shinji to start to understand Ren, but I didn't buy their decisions in this one at all. It's all echoes of more interesting stuff from Ryuki, but without the valuable connective tissue of why the characters make these decisions. Here, it's just hitting marks. Dull. Predictable.

But, man, the greatest sin of this thing is taking the entrenched ambiguity of Ryuki and making it Good Guy Versus Bad Guys. That's... ugh. You've got all these different motivations and goals and schemes in Ryuki, and you just have Shinji plus Ren versus Everyone Else. Why? When you have a blank canvas to paint on, why do a monochrome version of a rainbow? It's literally the thing that makes Ryuki special. It's not the Rider Battle, it's the why of the Rider Battle. With this, you just get a bunch of Riders fighting, and I could not have cared less about it.

There's a few interesting changes to the plotting, though. Nothing that makes up for what was taken out, but I did enjoy Kamen Rider Geico and his insane finishing move. (Being swung like a pendulum by his monster, and then doing a spinning piledriver? Amazing! And the legs of his victim sticking up out of frame is the cherry on top.) It's fun to have a successful businessman as a Rider, a dude who feels like his business accomplishments mean nothing next to the visceral thrill of proving his dominance in combat. That's clever, and I hope he shows up in the main series. Also, hey, nice to see Tezuka and Shibaura, even under diluted circumstances. (The changes to Tezuka's character... why?! Why rip away his interesting motivation to give him a thinner version of Ren's?)

This whole thing just felt like a fool's errand to me. In order to tell a semi-coherent version of Ryuki's story in under an hour, you've got to strip out all of the nuance, all of the ambiguity, all of the interesting moral dilemmas and hard-earned warmth and questions and grit... so that all you're left with is a lot of suits and a lot of fighting. I... I don't want that to be what Kamen Rider is? I want someone to use masked superheroes and rubber monsters to say something worth hearing. With this, it didn't feel like anything I hadn't heard a better version of before. This was like a bar band cover song of Ryuki.

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/ryuki/13ridersc.png

... there's a reason he's so prominent here. Let's leave it at that.

He's the best part! By far!

...

I mean, there's also the part where Shibaura kicks Shinji in the butt while a bunch of kids laugh.

...

He's one of the best parts! By far!

For me it was just super funny seeing Scissors once again take Shinji for the exact same trip. ... you know, there isn't even anything that special about it; I just really like Scissors.

Literally the only thing I know much about in Ryuki is the designs, and Verde is a great one. Bright green chameleon? Sign me up.

Yeah, 13 Riders is very much the... theme park version? I guess (your metaphor works too!), of Ryuki. Easy to digest, in exchange for a complete lack of depth. Which isn't a great match for a series that otherwise prides itself on portraying its story in a complex manner.

It was basically a publicity stunt to get people hyped for a) the movie that would be out around the same time, b)the series in general with the whole vote on the ending gimmick, and c)Ryuki Survive merch, although you're better off pretending you didn't see it here first with how pointless its cameo is.

I used to be tempted to blame Inoue for the subpar story, but recently I've come to think nobody could've done a particularly great job with the idea of "Ryuki, but in less than an hour". I've always had a real soft spot for it because of course I do, but I've never, ever thought it was any good.

They actually got me for a minute, where I thought maybe Scissors was an honest cop? I'd've been into that idea, Scissors as, like, Hikawa from Agito. Super square-jawed Kamen Rider policeman. But, no, he's one more villain in a special full of Kamen Rider villains. Wasteful!

So, uh, funny story: my version didn't have any endings? I guess? It's just the villains surrounding Shinji in Knight Survive form, and then Shiro's like "Maybe this was a bad ending?" And then there's something about "the other half of the tale," and I thought he meant the TV show? Did... did I somehow see none of the endings for this special?!

Right you got ending 1 there one more ending for the special I'm pretty sure your supposed to go chapter selection on your video player and you should find it.

"Choose Your Own Endings" in Kamen Rider can go one of two ways: the difference is meaningless, or the difference is maddening. Really embraces the concept that way.

Okay, I grabbed a different copy off of TV-Nihon. This one had both endings. I watched 'em both, now.

(Also, I forgot to mention it before, but I really liked that Shinji does Ren's Henshin when he uses Ren's Deck to become Knight. A great touch.)

It's an interesting idea, to have two endings. I don't think either one of them are very good, in that they're both open-ended and fatalist. Either Shinji's detonated by 11 Final Vents or he's driven mad by the inevitability of Rider Battle. Awesome choices! Do I want Shinji to die screaming, or die screaming?

What kind-of blows me away is that, of the two options Ryuki fans were given, Continue Fighting in the Rider Battles or Stop Fighting in the Rider Battles, they chose Continue Fighting. The whole premise of the show seems to be that fighting in the Rider Battles is a terrible idea. I seem to recall an episode that ended with a child that was overcome with terror at the hideous weight of being a Rider on Ryuki.

Well HOLY SHIT is Ryuki not getting its point across, because about 60% of viewers/fans voted FIGHT OR DIE. That... that would maybe worry me, if I was producing Masked Rider Ryuki! If the beating heart of my show was a man desperate to end the Rider Battles, and viewers were like Rider Battles Ad Infinitum, uh...

https://media1.giphy.com/media/WRMq4MMApzBeg/source.gif

(In fairness, superhero fans will usually vote for the more violent ending when given the option. Just ask Jason Todd! That said, Jason Todd got killed by a very slim margin, while this split was a more troubling 58/42. Definitely feels like viewers didn't get the Rider Battles Are Bad memo!)

I'm pretty sure the fans understood the whole thing with the Rider War was bad but like you said they most likely wanted to see the more sadistic choice play out. It far more intreasting there even a comic adaptation of this special which expands upon the Fight ending. With Knight Survive winning but he lost he sanity in giving up his ideals and killing about 10 people so that he no longers remember if he's really Shinji or if he actually the real Ren. Some more food for thought on the Fight Ending

Good lord, that is bleak.

Probably dropping the Contract Monsters idea is the thing that made Ryuki safe at the end when Odin crushes his Deck (it's explicitly shown otherwise for Scissors in the series)? Other than that yeah, this feels like a "prologue" to watch for Ryuki that it crams various plot points from the series into just 1 hour; like:

• Shinji (still) living at ORE Journal and wacky antics of him (especially the soccer part) with Okubo, Reiko, and Shimada (who imitates a treatment to computer to teach others about taking care of their computers).
• Shinji inheriting Ryuki Deck from Sakakibara (who becomes an actual Rider, another heroic one), meeting Yui (who for some reason is made hostile here) and Ren, later gaining some explanation for Mirror World.
• Kitaoka keeping an eye on Asakura on prison who eventually escapes.
• Kitaoka being sick and has Goro drive him.
• Riders mindset of ditching humanity, one done by Shibaura who plays ordinary games (Soulcalibur) and mocks Shinji for it while Tezuka voices his disapprovement of Rider War.
• Ren working at Atori.
• Sudo exploiting Shinji's gullibility.
• Ren's inability to kill and subsequent breakdown (done by having him fell from his bike).
• Asakura's hatred of cops, extending to even Sudo.
• Mirror World time limit to save Riders.
• Ren and Shinji growing closer.
• Both ending shows how impossible the Rider War situation is.

But that's it (and Shiro is only the narrator). It makes sense that it debuted between ep. 33 & 34, it only tells about 2/3rds of Ryuki actually. Tiger and Imperer doesn't even get an identity here, and because you watched it now, I can't talk further about it other than the 13 Riders version of them may have different identity from the main series one. And for important note; this is probably how the Rider War goes if Shiro just sends a Mirror Monster to the biggest obstacle in Rider War, Shinji, before he becomes a Rider, but as seen here, Shinji still becomes Ryuki.

I agree here, Ren and Shinji has a bunch of episodes to build their relationship in the main series, but here the buildup is also crammed into only 1 hour. T̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶m̶e̶a̶n̶s̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶R̶e̶n̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶S̶h̶i̶n̶j̶i̶ ̶a̶r̶e̶ ̶c̶l̶o̶s̶e̶r̶ ̶h̶e̶r̶e̶ ̶b̶e̶c̶a̶u̶s̶e̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶y̶ ̶g̶e̶t̶ ̶a̶l̶o̶n̶g̶ ̶m̶u̶c̶h̶ ̶q̶u̶i̶c̶k̶e̶r̶ Shinji here is merely an extension for the other characters, he just continues the wishes of killed people; first Sakakibara's to stop the Rider War, and then Ren's to save Eri, where the ending is the conflict between the 2. Shinji using Ren's henshin pose is also probably a little nuance that he's an extension of him; and also that Riders' henshin pose are determined not by the human form, but the Rider type.

Just like Asakura being the 1st antithesis of Shinji in the main series, the scene of their faceoff with their Contract Monsters possibly empashizing it, Takamizawa (main antagonist here) is like the 2nd antithesis of Shinji. The plot is mainly Shinji and Takamizawa faceoff. While Shinji works to persuade other people to stop the Rider War (though in this special, he does it mainly by looking for partners) and fight for justice, Takamizawa (with Shibaura as main partner) works to persuade other people to bring their worst side and ditch humanity as Riders, and fight those against that. Takamizawa wins easily by being much more charismatic, and just that most other Riders appeal more to evil with their selfish desires. By that Takamizawa succeeded to persuade every Rider to gang up on Shinji, and eventually Ren when he also still has his humanity, before they continue their battle to the death. I also have to note that Takamizawa likely doesn't underestimate Shinji, that he primarily focuses to remove him because he may deny everyone their wishes by stopping the war, and persuades other Riders to do the same.

Verde (spanish for green) is one of the most unique Riders here, having some traits not other Riders have like Clear Vent, and that his Final Vent is a wrestling move. Also his business accomplishments obviously mean nothing; his wish for winning is to rule the world after all. As for Tezuka, I think it's just Inoue stuff ._. (Inoue writes this special), where you gotta add love triangles everywhere. At the very least Tezuka still has his sense of justice, that he thinks killing others to gain your wish is wrong. Tezuka here is still much better than what Rider Time Ryuki (also by Inoue) does. The other change here is that Tezuka is Ren's best friend (and calls him "Ren"), and he dies in Ren's arms instead of Shinji's. Ren also denies that Tezuka was his friend, but he still clearly considers him such, with his visceral rage towards Takamizawa and eventually being the one to finish him off. Verde also has an ironic death, in a totally cool way where Knight immediately getting up after being Final Vented and Final Vents him back, ironically makes him the first victim of his master plan, which was to team up with other Riders and kill Ren and Shinji so that the Rider War can continue.

Unfortunately there are probably some who dislikes the "boring" drama of philosophy clashes between the characters, moral dilemmas, etc. and wants to follow Ryuki only for the battle royale part (it's like... those that only care about the action part but also with the added nuance of heavy fan of battle royale games like Shibaura), to watch Riders ganging up, fighting and killing each other, and is probably disappointed that the main series isn't into that much and treating 13 Riders as jumping straight into the point for Ryuki premise. Probably also the reason fans voted for a more violent ending.

This was a thing that sort-of bugged me. I don't want to nitpick the changes this story makes to the rules of Rider Battle, but the more I think about it, the more the Card Decks being the root of all powers... it's a dumb loophole that breaks the Rider Battles? Like, in the main series, if you take out a Rider, you take out a Rider. Once they've made a contract with a monster, you can't reuse their Deck. That thing gets broken or they get killed, it's over for them. That reduces the number of Riders (assuming Shiro isn't just being a dick and handing out Decks like they're packets of tissues) and brings the contest closer to completion. Right? But in this one, Shinji gets a Deck from a dying Ryuki... which keeps Ryuki in play, despite Ryuki dying. Now, killing the Rider doesn't necessarily mean there's one less player, so killing a Rider is way less important than destroying a Deck. Why didn't Kitaoka just break Asakura's Deck when he had it? It'd mean for sure that there'd be one less opponent, no matter if Asakura got free or not.

Yeah, the No Contract Monster thing, it maybe breaks the concept of Rider Battles?

They just do it in real boring ways, I thought. There's no nuance. I like the gimmick of Kamen Rider Geico, his whole thing, but his pitch in this one is just generic villain bullshit, same as Shinji's generic hero bullshit.

A lot of what works well in the series is how, give or take an Asakura, there's equal weight given to everyone's outlook. Most of Shinji's character growth comes from trying to understand the other Riders, figure out what's driving them. In this, it's just All Of The Bad Guys fighting Shinji, and eventually Ren. No one's got a great argument, nothing that's really capable of getting you to think. It's barely even an argument, beyond Stopping Evil or Being Evil. I don't know, there wasn't a compelling anything to the viewpoints in this one for me.

I would legit love to hear from someone who preferred 13 Riders to the Ryuki series. I would love to hear why they felt that way. Gotta be someone, and I hope they're on these boards.

You want to hear from someone who preferred the special? That’s my cue to enter then.

I’m more fond of what this special does to characterise the two leads than the series itself, namely because it ignores ALL the problems I had with their in-series characterisations. I also love seeing Shinji trying desperately to hang on to his innocence during all this, namely because I’m trying to do the same thing in real life.

And also, when people talk about all the casting and character milestones concerning the Riders in this show, they overlook one in this special. The guy playing Verde was not only the first non-Japanese actor to play a rider (half-American) but was also at the time the oldest actor to play a Rider at 38 (the current record holder is Kamen Rider Jun, at age 60).

And the original Ryuki manages to make an impression on me, purely for the casting joke he entails. (For an explanation, he was the Red warrior in a past Super Sentai show, who had this (the first in the video) as his main mecha https://youtu.be/nOZfBmR546s

What do you mean that "you can't reuse their Deck"? Anyone can henshin with the Deck, not just the owner, just that it's not performed by anyone else at the moment in the main series. Ryuki is the first series that introduces henshin device that can be brought anywhere, pocketed. If you talk about how anyone who contracts can't go back and must keep fighting, it means that your Contract Monsters should be constantly fed by fighting other monsters or that you'll be eaten, changing your life completely. But it doesn't refer to the Decks. For breaking Decks, no, the wish is created from the lives of the other 12 Riders, so they have to tatakae and die.

All Of The Bad Guys are fighting Shinji happens because Takamizawa perceives Shinji just like Tezuka (who says he's unpredictable and thinks he's the most suitable to stop the war) regarding him and the war, both knows that Shinji is a big threat to the war (ep. 28 also elaborates on that). But obviously because he's a selfish bad guy, where if Shinji went haywire, he can stop the war and deny Takamizawa his wish, he instead dedicates himself to defeat Shinji, and plants this mindset to the other selfish Riders, making them also know and realize that Shinji is a big threat to the war and can potentially deny their wish, which leads to all the other like-minded Riders forming a temporary truce and alliance to remove the war's obstacle before resuming fighting each other (after killing Shinji and Ren, ofc). All the other Riders are villanious, but Takamizawa is the main antagonist here, and his businessman charisma is his actual strength here. Ren is turning into Shinji's ally so I guess he's just lumped together with him as he's risky too, can potentially help Shinji doing his thing.

Neat! Thanks for sharing that! There's definitely more of an emphasis on Shinji's motivation not wavering in this one, so I can see that being an advantage to some fans. It's a much more clear-cut Good vs Bad dynamic, which makes Shinji's goals more directly heroic.

Unless I've forgotten something from the show, once you form a contract and get a logo on your Card Deck, it's your Card Deck. No one else can use it. Hell, they can't even use the cards in another Deck, normally. With this one, people are tossing Decks around and swiping each other's cards. It feels like it changes the stakes of battle, if you can have multiple Ryukis and Knights. That's definitely not how it's worked on the series thus far.

Far as I recall, the things they have hard established are that if you die, that deck is gone. If your deck is gone, you die. So yeah, 13 Riders operates weirdly no matter how you look at it.

Anyhow, I would have voted that Jason Todd lives to end the Rider War. (Well okay, he'd go Red Hood on the competition but whatever.)

It hasn't been done yet, but yeah Advent Decks can be used by anyone. You'll see later in the series. As for the "they can't even use the cards in another Deck", it ties not into who's the human form of Rider (Shinji, Asakura, etc.) but on which Kamen Rider (Raia, Zolda, etc.). Advent Cards of certain Contract Monster, no matter who scans the card, the Contract Monster will only give the weapons into the type of Rider it contracts to, but it doesn't take into the account on who uses that Rider Deck (Darkwing will only give weapons to any Knight, whenever it's Shinji or Ren or anyone transforming into Knight).

The Ryuki & Zolda scene at ep. 26 means that Magnugiga's Advent Cards will only give weapons to anyone becoming Zolda, not necessarily Kitaoka.

Are you talking about the part when Scissors' Deck breaks?

Spoilers...

That and some other stuff, yeah.

Yeah, I...

I'm watching this thing and talking about it episode by episode. I'm going to say stuff that gets clarified later in the show, and I'm going to guess stuff that might be hilariously wrong. If I'm wrong because of something that gets revealed later, please don't tell me! Just let me be wrong! If I make some joke about Shinji being vegan, but there's a bit in a later episode where he kills, cooks and eats Ren, don't correct me, please. Let me have that surprise. You can have the knowledge that I'm going to be proven wrong later by the TV show, which is hopefully a delightful consolation prize.

Most of my concern, in approaching these shows, is dealing with the text of the show as aired by that point. There's definitely going to be stuff from later in the show that recontextualizes elements of the story, or outright retcons things. When I'm talking about it, I kind-of don't care yet about what hasn't happened, because people watching the show as it aired didn't have that knowledge. If it's been in the current episode, or any previous episode, it's a fact and it's valid. If it's something from a later episode, or some piece of supporting media, I'd rather not know about it.

I hope this isn't a big deal for folks! Thanks!

I bet you can't wait for the episode where Shinji finally takes out Asakura by bonding with him over their shared love of cannibalism as they roast lawyer-man over a fire.

I just watched an episode where Asakura drank four raw eggs, so I don't think there's a culinary thing this show can do that'd be worse than that.

MASKED RIDER RYUKI EPISODE 34

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/ryuki/ryuki34a.png

It's rare to get an escalation episode like this one, where it feels like multiple storylines reach a crescendo. To move one group of characters into a do-or-die situation is rare, but two sets? Pretty amazing.

Obviously, this is an episode built around Ouja vs Zolda, and later Knight vs Ryuki. Those are great stories, with excellent fight scenes, and we'll get to those. One of the things that impressed me about this episode, though, was that the way in to those two fights was through non-combatants.

There's a bunch of time spent with Goro and Yui in this one, specifically about how powerless they feel to save the people they care about. They feel the weight of Rider Battles, but they can't really help the people in their lives who've signed up to Fight Or Die. It's a tough tone to make work in a series like this, to have someone who's all Please Don't Fight, no matter how realistic that plea would be. We need to see fights, or there's no catharsis. Having someone who's all broken up about that constantly, it's a great way to make the audience more bloodthirsty, not less. Here, the show balances it well, with Goro trying to minimize Kitaoka's exposure to Asakura, and Yui (and Auntie) just losing her shit at how childish Ren and Shinji are being lately. Both actions set down stakes for the relationships, and do a great job at keeping the character relationships central in the discussion. It's not some blanket I Wish The Fighting Would Stop, it's Goro fearing for Kitaoka's safety, and Yui needing the men in her life to stop falling apart for five goddamn seconds. It feels personal, and that makes it mean more when the fights end up happening anyway.

We'll start with Ouja vs Zolda. When their fight starts, something struck me that I'm not sure the show has covered. They jump into a car's window to enter Mirror World. When their time is up, they'll have to leave through the same surface. What if Goro drives the car away? Does the car move in Mirror World? What would that even look like to Zolda and Ouja? We never see moving cars in Mirror World normally, so maybe it doesn't move in Mirror World, but it does in the real world? So they leave through the same spot, but come out miles away? Weird. Lot of questions came up for me about Mirror World travel.

Anyway, yeah, let's start with Asakura and Kitaoka. While multiple other characters are given gifts or threats from Shiro to get them back in Rider Battles, I like how Asakura must've just looked at his Days Since A Fight calendar and went Time To Make The Donuts. Everyone else feels the tightening noose of Shiro's manipulations, but for Asakura, it was Tuesday. He's so uncomplicated, at least in this one, you know? For Kitaoka, it feels like he's made peace with what he has to do. He's no longer that interested in trying to kill other Riders, but he's not going to run from a fight, either. (At least with Riders. He will 100% run from fights with non-Riders.) There's just this feeling of, like, inevitability to this fight. Asakura does it because it's like breathing to him, but Kitaoka seems to do it out of obligation. It's a good fight, with a nice jump to the Final Vents, but there's an almost melancholy to it, a sadness.

But, man, it's nothing compared to the sick self-negation and frustration at the heart of the Ryuki vs Knight battle. It's taken plenty of episodes to get back to this point, to have Ren challenge Shinji again. The show has drawn the two of them closer together, before having Eri's perpetually-imminent-but-now-really-imminent demise pull them apart again. A nice day at the amusement park can't last, and Ren needs to start killing if Eri's going to ever start living. He forces Shinji to fight him, not with threats or insults, but with a heartfelt request from a friend. So Shinji suits up, to face him in one-on-one combat.

I love the Ryuki vs Knight scenes in this episode, and I presume I'm not alone. It's the two major characters, fighting in a battle that neither of them really wants to fight. It's not rage or hope that drives this conflict, but sadness. Appropriately, the score drops out for a bunch of this, making the fight seem hopeless and raw, and there's plenty of long, slow shots of each fighter. All of Ryuki's body language when the fight starts is haunting. He looks utterly defeated just as he's about to start fighting. Much like the ugly humidity of the park (I lived in Florida as a kid and you never forget the kind of humidity where it's like the rain forms on you), there's a heaviness to the fight, with Shinji playing defense and feeling cornered by Ren's demands. Ren keeps pushing, and Shinji keeps retreating, until it's clear that Shinji's going to have to fight back. Luckily, he got a shiny new Survive card from Shiro.

(I want to say it's a promo card, for attending Shiro's "Fight Or Dine” Rider Battle tournaments each Friday at the local diner. I'm pretty sure they established that in episode 28 or 29. It's mostly Sealed Card Deck stuff, to make it easier on newbie Riders, but those Survive promo cards are all foil, and it's 10% off on cheese sticks. Not a bad way to spend a Friday night.)

I like that the power-up is called Survive, incidentally. I think that's clever. For a tournament like this, the most incredible thing you can do is just survive, to stay in the fight the longest, so it makes sense that that's what the power-up would be called. It has the double-edged thing of feeling powerful, but also reminding you of the stakes. Like I said, clever.

With the Survive card, Ryuki gets a power level to match Knight, and the fight reaches a new stage. But, not because of the power, but because of the resolve of the fighters. Ren can't keep putting off these fights if he's going to save Eri, and Shinji can't just lay down and die. If that's where they left it, I'd still really like this episode, but they give it just a little bit more juice at the end with Shinji's vow to defeat Ren in order to save Ren. If Ren kills Shinji, if he takes a life, then there's no redeeming Ren ever. So Shinji has to save himself in order to keep Ren from destroying himself. It's a hell of a motivation, for a hell of an episode. These Rider Battles are pretty great! Shiro was right!

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/ryuki/ryuki34b.png

Shinji shows his "growth" in this one, he gotta stop being a doormat to Ren now, he now refuses to obey what Ren tells and actually escalates the fight. And he addresses Ren's communication problem, constantly shutting them both and acting cool (so a chraracter flaw not a writing flaw). Bold for Yui to literally throw a bucket of water to them (oh wait that's less severe than smashing a public window that kickstarts debt gag) to mediate those 2, what if those 2 accidentally instinctively attacks her due to no control over rage? This makes them leave her later to do their big fight to prevent this happening again (also to spare her feelings). A̶n̶d̶ ̶Y̶u̶i̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶a̶l̶s̶o̶ ̶c̶h̶i̶l̶d̶i̶s̶h̶ ̶a̶s̶ ̶S̶h̶i̶n̶j̶i̶ ̶a̶t̶t̶e̶s̶t̶s̶,̶ ̶l̶a̶t̶e̶r̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶a̶m̶u̶s̶e̶m̶e̶n̶t̶ ̶p̶a̶r̶k̶.̶ Sanako loses her shit on Yui herself too... her own relative, that she kicks her out too just like the 2 strangers at her house, balanced treatment much?

Mirror World is literally mirror image as a functionable world, so it works just like how mirror image works in real life and Mirror World follows everything happens to the mirror image. So yeah the car moves? The reflection on its windows change when the car moves so it affects what happened in Mirror World too. Besides ep. 3 has the store window broken too when the irl version of it is broken. Or when Dragreder attacks in ep. 1 and blows the newspaper covering a mirror.

Shiro doesn't need to manipulate Asakura, he'll fight no matter what because it's his whole life (and disappointed if other Riders don't give him fights). Not others who have their own activity, they have to be dragged back to the fight personally. Also out of all Riders, Kitaoka is the one Asakura hates the most (and Kitaoka too), they're arch-enemies. Even without running, Kitaoka hesitates to get into hand-to-hand combat and Zolda is a long range Rider. And Kitaoka/Goro did not... lock the house that Asakura can enter and ransack it?

Other than that, the conflict for Ren is that he has to choose between Eri, or his friends, brooding by looking at his Deck while watching his friends have fun, Shiro's doing this on purpose (with the smirk image of him you posted)! Like mysteriously threatening Eri by unknown ways before. Ren now has gotten close to friends and this is the consequence. Before that can we talk about an embarassing reveal of those 2? Even if those 2 has fought monsters... Also GDI Shinji, you're a total hypocrite in dealing with your friends! Apart from calling Yui childish above, he also teases Ren for being afraid of dog even if he's blatantly more afraid of it!
https://media.discordapp.net/attachm...112/phobia.jpg
A̶n̶d̶ ̶G̶D̶I̶ ̶Y̶u̶i̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶'̶s̶ ̶a̶ ̶s̶t̶r̶a̶n̶g̶e̶r̶'̶s̶ ̶d̶o̶g̶.̶I'd say they cool off rather quickly (possibly even instantly they got kicked out), even Ren only taps Shinji when he hypocritically teases him.

Shinji has to become strong enough so that Ren can't kill him, because stronger fighter (Survive vs Survive) evens out the fight and makes killing Shinji more of a difficult task. Can we talk about Shiro suddenly giving him Survive card? It's one of the complaints of Ryuki where Shinji's final form feels unearned for some. Also this shot, the most iconic, and it also shows that Ryuki's Survive upgrade cannot be interrupted as the flames surrounding him protects him too. Plus Revolution (the song) plays for the first time.
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/p...h_fuck_yes.PNG

I am shaking with excitement just thinking about the end of episode 34. First time I saw it, I only barely grasped the story stuff, but the sight of Ryuki and Knight facing off with flames all around them before Ryuki used Survive left a permenant image in my mind.

Watching it again later, I realised it really is just a perfect scene that I think encapsulates all of Shinji's best traits. His dramatic (downright heroic) declaration that he simply will not die, and telling Ren there's no going back once you've taken a life, it's like... If I didn't quite get his character before, I definitely got it at this moment. He'll see all these fights to the end, no matter what, for himself and for Ren...

That he says all this while Revolution plays for the first time just makes it especially amazing. For a long time, I forgot Ryuki had insert songs other than that one!

Wow, let's all give our thanks to Kanzaki Shiro for bringing us the medium for all this drama. Maybe I will vote for 'FIGHT' if another poll comes up.

Yui's being just as mopey at breakfast as the other two, so she deserves being scolded as much as them. Auntie's got it right in this one!

But I'm pretty sure we've never seen empty vehicles moving around in Mirror World, have we?

We can, and I don't get those complaints. It's maybe "unearned", but it's still pretty interesting to me because him getting the card is a curse. This isn't some helpful bonus, this a thing that makes fights last longer and creates more conflict. It is a bad thing that Shinji got that card, at least in that it's more likely Ren could be killed. (That's not to say I think Shinji would try to kill Ren, but when both sides have stronger weapons, it's more likely someone dies.) If people are like, "he didn't earn it", I mean... no shit! He's being manipulated by a bloodthirsty gamemaster into potentially killing his best friend! He did not get a gift!

That Revolution song is really good. I'm shit with calling out the music in these shows, for the most part. I definitely can't speak too critically about them, beyond "I liked it" or "Was there a song playing".

It's a pretty climactic part of the story for Ren and Shinji. This fight needed to feel inescapable, necessary. If it was just Okay Fine Let's Fight Again, it'd feel too perfunctory, like the hand of the writer. Instead, it's got this pull to it, like this was the only thing that could happen next. And it's the best kind of Hero Fight, where I'm not really rooting for anyone in it. They're both in an impossible position, narratively, and it makes the conclusion of the episode, the cliffhanger of Ryuki Survive vs Knight Survive, epic.

Her actual name's finally mentioned now in this episode. Why mopey folks should be scolded? Afterwards do you feel like the amusement park scene (a staple for various tokus!) are filler, or it's just a set up for character spotlight as per Kobayashi's sthick? I still want to talk about Ren and Shinji being afraid of dogs.

Probably because the vehicles don't move at all in real world either.

I'll borrow and use your explanation for those complaints. Though with Survive fights only last longer against like, other Survives, standard "evening the playing field". If both sides have stronger weapons actually it's even. Riders are even against other Riders, Survives are even against other Survives (uhh you seem to contradict yourself; Survive makes fights last longer, but you say with stronger weapons, more likely someone dies, which sounds like the fight is concluding faster with the death of someone). Against other regular Riders, Survive will make the fights significantly shorter (to survive is to win, getting rid of your threats like other Riders more quickly). Other than Shinji, Ren is also manipulated by the bloodthirsty gamemaster.

Other than that, Ren's conflict as I explained above, Ren is also forced to choose between Eri or his friends, he can't have both, all with Shiro smirking on the background.

For Auntie scolding a mopey Yui, it reads like tough love to me from a relative who recognizes when someone's punishing themselves. She wants these three kids to get out of their own heads for an afternoon.

Oh, I really enjoy amusement park scenes. I think it's a way to inject some levity during a series... despite the fact that it seems like only terrible things happen when Riders go to an amusement park. Kobayashi, yeah, there's some pretty memorable PuToTyra stuff in OOO from an amusement park episode. One of my favorite Kamen Rider side-stories is that Gorider thing, and that's all at the amusement park. I think it's a pretty neat location to shoot at.

The dogs thing... it's cute? It's a cute little scene. It was a way to puncture the tension in the scene, and it's funny to see those characters get scared of a Very Good Boy, but otherwise I guess it didn't make that much of an impression on me.

But, like, vehicles do move in the real world. Even if it's not a car they were in or a bike they were on, we've never seen real world moving vehicles that are occupied be Mirror World moving vehicles that are empty. And they're in a major city where there should be the occasional motorist. So, do vehicles not move in Mirror World?

If two people are in a fight with fists, someone's going to get hurt. If two people are in a fight with guns, someone's going to get killed. A level playing field doesn't always mean relative safety.

So, the thing about them both being stronger, is that they can last longer in a fight. The longer the fight goes on, the more brutal it's likely to get, the more desperate it's likely to get, and the more someone's going to push past Ending The Fight and accidentally end a life. I think that's the whole reason Shiro's handing out Survives, to take a dangerous situation and make it even more dangerous. It's what I like about how the Survive card is presented. It seems like a lifeline, but it's an incitement to greater violence.

Also what about Kitaoka and Goro, they left the house without locking it that Asakura can get in and ransack his house? There's a lot I want to talk about for this episode. And besides that, are there actually any deeper reasons for Kitaoka forbidding Goro ramming Asakura?

So you think that being mopey is punishing themselves. And the question involved Ren and Shinji too (no relative relation), hence "folks". Amusement park becomes big irony for Riders as it's more of a toll park to them. Someone teach future Riders to avoid them! Also forgot to mention this but not only Shinji teasing Ren's dog fear and Yui's childish, damn Yui too for teasing Shinji as slow yet asks him to wait (where when she catches up potentially him treated as slow again).

Dunno if I missed your point but probably it's just a coincidence that most Mirror World fight scenes happen in a place where vehicles are all parked, won't be moved by anyone.

Fair enough.

I just had a thought about this and there's no better place to ask I think? So, while this isn't related to Ryuki specifically...

Die, from crossover movies like Den-O x OOO or the various Super Hero Taisens or anything else, what's your impression of certain Heisei 1 riders before you get to them?

I think it has to do with what he tells Goro just afterwards, that he knows Goro wants to protect him, but Asakura is something only Kitaoka can deal with. To me, he sees the fear and anger that Goro's struggling with, and wants to take that off of his plate. Like, it's sweet that Goro is going to try to run Asakura over, but Kitaoka will take it from here.

It's really hard for me to form an opinion on them, because they're almost always presented in a Your Favorites Are Finally Back way, and I'm missing a year's worth of crucial context for their reappearance. Like, Faiz (I think?) has a whole subplot in one movie with X (I think?) but it's all about how Faiz was left after his show ended, and, like, I got no feelings about that? Even when Legacy Riders have a few scenes, I don't get a lot more from it than when it's just the suits showing up for a big brawl.

I'm actually sort-of looking forward to eventually rewatching all of those movies, to finally get the in-jokes and references and resolutions that went over my head before. Especially Sangou. I can't wait to watch his show and then get his whole thing. I don't normally truck with Showa, but that dude must've had an awesome TV series.

I just know you'll love Fifteen's show when you get to it. One of my favourites even if it was weird how they spoiled their next decade's worth of ideas.

Y'all are sleeping on the real movie Rider, G-Den-O, a lad true.

Uh, excuse me. This conversation isn't *about* movie exclusive Riders. We're talking about returning Legend characters who went on to appear in movies later.

Personally, I can't wait for Die to see the original Go-Rider. Again, Die's not known to truck with Showa, but I mean, Go-Rider, that series was a real trailblazer that still totally holds up. I'm really surprised it didn't become its own franchise. It's probably the single greatest series Toei has ever made, if I'm being honest. :p

G-Den-O is an important character throughout all of the Heisei era, don't be saying things like that to me. Ever since his debut in Kamen Rider Run all over the world, he's been an integral part of the franchise.