And Tezuka has actual fighting skills, at least better than those Ren picked a fight with, managing to block his punch! B̶u̶t̶ ̶w̶h̶y̶ ̶T̶e̶z̶u̶k̶a̶ ̶d̶i̶d̶n̶'̶t̶ ̶h̶e̶l̶p̶ ̶R̶e̶n̶'̶s̶ ̶v̶i̶c̶t̶i̶m̶s̶, or he did but the scene got skipped. Also for bolded one: https://oi1301.photobucket.com/album...pspcpf6mkz.png

Now (I admit this is what I'm talking about for Ren previously) as he hardens himself because of Rider stuff, I wonder what makes him that way before he becomes a Rider, as his flashbacks with Eri showed. Also payback time for Shinji where Ren is the one breaking the dish in contrast to his waiter skills (Tezuka's fault!). Another trait or Ren's character is that he always runs away from his problems in contrast to Shinji, like after that moment, pretending to not have them, which extends to fighting and picking other people (what a thug) as coping mechanism to avoid his problems. This is a recurring trait of him too.

Works in the same field as Ren? I mean like every Rider, good neutral or evil, all kill monsters because to feed their contract monsters. Well, a forceful insistence is actually Tezuka's thing regarding Ren. Shinji is more easily frustrated to Ren and gives up more quickly. Yui brings his better side and quells his bad deeds but this good change is temporary (like when being around her only) as his mask isn't touched. Tezuka breaks his mask by keep bringing up things he wants to be secretive of, talking about his flaws, etc. He even c̶o̶m̶e̶s̶ ̶o̶f̶f̶ ̶a̶s̶ ̶a̶ ̶s̶t̶a̶l̶k̶e̶r̶ knows that Ren resides in Atori and he arrived there just to keep pushing Ren. Also have to say that Tezuka (well probably because he has some unarmed fighting skills) is brave enough to try to humanize a thug by constantly pushing his buttons, actually getting under Ren's skin (to an even worse degree than Shinji) and not caring about how angry Ren can get as long as he completes his objectives, risking out a big fight (and may actually happen in this episode with Ren grabbing his collar before Shinji and Yui arrive). In short Tezuka breaks his mask because he IS forceful.

I mean apart from Rider War, it's just that tournaments/competitions work...like that, competitors beating one after another until there's last man standing. Though Gai/Shibaura DID base his game on Rider War, so it being "This Is Just Like What’s Happening With The Masked Riders" is not a coincidence. I have to say this is one of the few non-monster related threats in the story, and the only way to stop this is to stop Shibaura, the Rider behind that. Wow the investigation for Matrix resolves much more quickly than the actual Rider War one, Shibaura being spotted at the end.

Ryuki does his biggest mistake here by drawing his card and not using it (because hesitation). It leads into Gai taking his Dragreder card, and that would lead into even worse stuffs next. Also scanning Final Vent card like Gai did , makes a very practical move with Metalgelas freeing his master (did you notice Metalgelas' horn snaps when ramming the monster?) and then performing Final Vent, performing both Advent and Final Vent at once, and makes me wonder WHY Zolda needs to use Advent card before scanning his Final Vent card in ep. 10, it makes his long start-up of his Final Vent even worse. And Gai having his card slot in his shoulder also makes one of the most practical one, Ryuki's one disables his left arm, and those with weapons have a good advantage with being armed before scanning cards, but they can be disarmed.

For minor one I have to wonder why did Shimada get jealous at Yui?
S̶h̶i̶n̶j̶i̶ ̶s̶h̶o̶u̶l̶d̶ ̶b̶e̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶o̶n̶e̶ ̶j̶e̶a̶l̶o̶u̶s̶ ̶b̶e̶c̶a̶u̶s̶e̶ ̶Y̶u̶i̶ ̶o̶v̶e̶r̶s̶h̶a̶d̶o̶w̶s̶ ̶h̶i̶m̶ ̶a̶t̶ ̶w̶o̶r̶k̶,̶ ̶h̶e̶ ̶g̶o̶t̶t̶a̶ ̶r̶e̶g̶r̶e̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶h̶e̶ ̶a̶s̶k̶e̶d̶ ̶h̶e̶r̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶h̶e̶l̶p̶.̶ Also damn Reiko, having a lunch tray even more luxurious surprassing Okubo's?! And finally Shinji and Tezuka meet here, obviously Shinji being thrilled because meeting a Rider that is like him. They really should meet ASAP for a rare companion of each other. I wonder what Ren feels inside Atori, there's now 2 of them, do-gooder Riders.

Like you said there above for Ren, Kitaoka's also like him, trying so hard to be a friendless bad-ass, turn off the part of his brain that wants to be kind, that wants to have friends, to isolate and push himself into becoming the person who can kill other Riders. As Ren tried to push that mindset into Shinji, Kitaoka also tried to push this mindset into Ren in ep. 10 (who already has this mindset, but Kitaoka wants him to push him deeper into this, that he's presumed to be friends with Shinji). He has to harden himself like that to become stronger by being selfish (like Ren to can kill people), in order to win the Rider War and saves his life (immortal), continuting to enjoy himself as Super Lawyer (what coping mechanism? he has no bad experiences in life and that's what he plans to continue after winning the War). I still think that for "a bunch of people are judging him", it probably only applies to Reiko, as he's genuinely in love with her.

I mean, I think a lot of it is self-punishment. There's a self-flagellating aspect to Ren's Punching Random People In The Street, or shoving Shinji, where he wants people to fight back, to punch him, to punish him. He feels guilty for wanting happiness, he feels undeserving, so he acts out. He wants a fight to happen, to lash out and be lashed out against. The Rider fights make sense to him in the same way. It's different ways of him expressing one psychic wound.

Just a joke.

I don't really think of Tezuka's appeals to Ren as forceful, or at least not in Kamen Rider terms. I mean, Tezuka hasn't grabbed Ren by the lapels and screamed Morals in his face, so by that standard Tezuka's mostly been empathetic and present. What I like best about Tezuka's approach is how therapeutic it is, how much he keeps asking the same questions, or steering Ren's answers towards something honest. I would absolutely watch a Net Movie spinoff where Tezuka psychoanalyzes secondary Riders. I would watch the hell out of that.


Yeah, but, there's a difference between I Got It and I Liked It. I got what the show was doing, but I didn't really care about it. If it was innocent people being menaced, I'd be more invested. If it's a bunch of college dorks getting too wrapped up in a video game, I don't care that much. There's nothing structurally wrong with the plot, I just didn't care about it.

MASKED RIDER RYUKI EPISODE 16

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/ryuki/ryuki16a.png

Well, that was pretty much completely insane. Some solid work done on the Tezuka/Ren plot, deep interrogation on Ren's character and the psychology he thinks is necessary to save the people he cares about, but most of this one is just deliciously bonkers. God bless how tonally extreme Kamen Rider can get in one episode.

We'll start, as per usual, with the Tezuka/Ren stuff. It's incremental, not revelatory, as Tezuka gets to push back more and more on Ren's bullshit, and Ren seems both more insistent about his I Didn't Come Here To Make Friends nonsense, while feeling more uncertain that it's true. There's just so much to Ren's character that this Tezuka plot has excavated. He's a guy who pushes people away, but only to keep them safe. He's a guy who tells people he doesn't care about them, because he cares so much it could get them both killed. He wants things, and he hates himself for wanting things because he doesn't believe he deserves them. And, Jesus, he's so transparent. It's awesome how quickly and how thoroughly Tezuka has Ren's number. Tezuka takes all of Ren's subtext and tells the audience, Hey, you were totally right to see that in Ren. There's not really much in this episode that's new, nothing we hadn't already figured out, but I could stand to watch a few more scenes of Tezuka trying to heal Ren's spirit. That's... it's nice that the show made room for that part of the story.

Which somehow sits just fine beside a story about a teenage hacker making the staff of Ore Journal his servants, and Ryuki being held at bay by a teenage bully with a lighter. It's nuts, this one. It's childish, and I maybe mean that as a complement? It's a very heightened comedy, with the absurdity of a college student (who looks like he's about 14) extorting a group of adults into cleaning the office, taking embarrassing staff photos (THAT MONTAGE), and generally behaving like this humiliation is a totally logical storyline. I laughed a bunch at it, it definitely worked as comedy, but it's a pretty big suspension of disbelief to hear this one out.

(The bit where Shibaura keeps threatening to burn up the Dragreder card, tough call on that one. On the one hand, funny. So funny, every single time. Shinji's so impotent in this one, more or less useless to every plot, and his rage is really entertaining. But, man, why doesn't he just punch that kid in the face and take back his card? I don't think Shibaura has any real-world fighting skills, so one quick jab to the face pretty much ends that plotline. Which, I get it, that's why Shinji doesn't punch him, but there are at least two points where someone could've decked Shibaura and at least ended his leverage over Shinji. You could argue Shinji doesn't because maybe Ore would get hurt by it, but I don't think Ren would care a lick about that. Minor quibble, I laughed a bunch, it's hilarious to see a superhero menaced by a child in an ill-fitting suit.)

It's the Rider stuff that comes out the best this episode, though. I don't know if that's unusual? I feel like it might not be an every episode thing. I might be misremembering it, though. (With the world the way it is right now, I couldn't even say how long I've been watching Ryuki. A year? A million years?) Or maybe it's that this one felt like it extra came together at the end. I'm not sure if More Riders = Better Episode is a strictly true formula, but it feels like a reliable one for this show. All of the participants in this episode's climax, Ryuki and Knight and Quarter and Poor Man's Genm (I can't believe the Rhino Rider doesn't have an in-show name yet), their reasons for fighting or not fighting are so clearly delineated. Shibaura fights to feel in control, to watch inferior minds fall to his chaos. Ren fights to give order and context to his pain, to feel like he's getting closer to peace and atonement. Shinji and Tezuka, they both want to stop Riders from fighting, but they go about it in different ways. Shinji only wants to fight monsters. Tezuka only (seemingly?) wants to keep Riders from fighting. Their need to insert themselves into conflicts, it takes different shapes. Shinji wants them all to focus on the threat to innocents, while Tezuka wants them to see the pointlessness of conflict. It's... it makes all of the fighting so much more interesting to me, to have all of the fighters feel this three-dimensional, to have something like Fight Or Die (not to be confused with Fighter Die, my screen name on the MMA boards) feel this nuanced, this personal.

Also, I totally don't think Ren's going to kill Shibaura. I don't think he's that guy. I guess I'll find out next!

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/ryuki/ryuki16b.png

These things tend to happen when you get Toshiki Inoue to write a two-parter for you.

Not that it's a bad pair of episodes, mind you. It has its weaker elements, for sure, but I really do think it's commendable how much Inoue nails Tezuka's character, and the dynamic he has going with Ren from his first couple of episodes. The way the show plays with Ren's stock character archetype of "cool bad boy" by gradually revealing him to be a self-destructive, extremely unhealthy mess of a human being is fascinating.

Plus, that moment in 16 where Shinji grabs Tezuka's hand *right* as the insert theme kicks in is awesome. It makes the whole episode worth it all by itself. :lol

I think it's exciting, how the show peels back Ren's layers specifically to say This Guy Is A Psychological Wreck. It's, like, a repudiation of the way fans idolize Dark Heroes. There's a way of doing that where it might feel off-putting, as a viewer, to have a show deconstruct a main character in that manner. I think the choice to have the critique come from Tezuka, and through his empathy, that saves it. If it was just Shinji and Yui feeling frustrated with Ren's acting out, that'd wear thin. By having it come from someone who, like, is ignoring the actions to examine the cause, that feels way more kind to Ren's character.

I’ve been waiting for you to get to these two episodes, purely so I can bring up two pieces of useless trivia.

The punks Shibaura has fighting in episode 15 are wearing masks left over from the henchmen of Jikuu Senshi Spielban (which I’ve recently taken up watching.) (picture for reference here https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/...20150724142501)

And second, Not-Genm’s contract monster has a port on the action figure that allows Quarter’s monster to connect to it. And there’s still one port left over.

This isn't relevant to discussion but man I wish I could follow these threads better they seem to have a lot of insight on the part of everyone here.

Oh, ha ha, neat! That's great, that the Mortal Kombat fight club reused old toku masks. Stuff like is a great reference for hardcore fans, without being distracting for younger viewers. It's the best way to do it.

And a Contract Monster combiner?! Super cool!

Folks got a lot of interesting thoughts on Ryuki! It's been a blast, getting to talk about it. It definitely is making self-isolation a little easier, getting to keep discussing Kamen Rider on the boards, just thinking about superheroes and monsters and problematic Japanese men. Hopefully it's an escape for others!

Shibaura's such an ass, I almost hate him more than any of the more threating dark Riders in the series. He's so obnoxious. Tezuka and Ren definitely have some fantastic interactions. Tezuka is probably the most well rounded guy in a series filled with some pretty crazy people. He's not only a good person, but he's a lot smarter about it than Shinji

I have one interesting thought on Ryuki and it's that all* the designs are cool.

*Most of the designs.