Damn it! FOILED AGAIN!!!

RIDER TIME: RYUKI EPISODE 1 - “ADVENT AGAIN”

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/zio/ryuki1a.png

It wouldn’t be a year-long tribute to Heisei Rider without a celebration of the most Phase 1 thing imaginable: Inoue Summer Movies!

This was a stunningly accurate recreation of the entertaining-but-inessential Inoue movie versions of various non-Inoue series, or at least the first twenty minutes of one of those movies. It’s the general premise of Ryuki, but with an emphasis on fight scenes and betrayals, rather than anything more decompressed and nuanced. TATAKAE, right from the jump.

On that level, it’s pretty fun. We saw more Riders here than we did in the entire Ryuki TV series, and a bunch of ‘em got to do cool stuff. Unlike Shinobi’s smaller and newer cast, we’ve got a ton of big-name actors here, including the returns of Shinji, Ren, Tezuka, Asakura, and GODDAMN GORO-CHAN. Just a stupid amount of fan service in this first episode.

(Real quick: boy has it been seventeen years. I was constantly flipping over to the Wiki to see if the characters were being played by the same actors, because it’s really hard to tell on some of them. I’d just seen Shinji on Zi-O, and Asakura ALWAYS looks like Asakura, so those were easy. Goro’d turned up in Kabuto, so he was an instant pop for me. Ren, for all the world, looks like Geiz’z dad, or at least how I'd imagine Geiz’z dad would look like. Put him in a big collar and you’d think you were looking at Future Geiz. But Tezuka! Tezuka don’t look so great! Would not have known it was the same guy without the Wiki.)

It’s a good thing they stuffed this first episode full of so much fan service, though, because there ain’t a lot more to talk about. Inoue opts to give almost everyone amnesia (without even throwing them in a river first!), so there’s very little explicit continuity with the TV series. It’s Shinji, for sure, but none of his previous relationships have carried over. It’s a reboot, which isn’t as much fun.

There’s echoes of the past, though. There’s a man that Shinji needs to see, and it might be Ren. Goro’s possibly confused Asakura with Kitaoka. (I think he’s scamming Asakura until he can take him out.) We’ll get back to where we left these characters in 2003, I think.

It’s just… I wanted this story to have the weight of history behind it. If you’re going to drag Shinji and Ren and Goro and Tezuka back into the Mirror World to TATAKAE, let it feel like they’re revisiting Hell. Ryuki was a series that talked about how individual choice and societal good intersected, so it’s weird for this reunion special to rob these characters of their bonds and their decisions. There should be an additional weight to these interactions, but there isn’t. It’s fun for the audience to catch these echoes, but the characters themselves are just going through familiar motions.

It’s not bad, though. Shinji, Ren, and Asakura all act like themselves, which is great. (There's an incredibly funny bit where Shinji discovers that no one in his group considers him the leader, and it's perfect.) There's a ton of action, and the premise is crystal clear. But it's not really saying anything, and it doesn't feel like it's built to, either. It’s the standard Inoue Summer Movie: bigger and faster, but rarely better.

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/zio/ryuki1b.png

also literally the first thing tezuka does is flip a quarter, validating "kamen rider quarters", and i have never loved inoue more

I've read - and this is from a wiki, mind you, so grain of salt - that they wanted to get Miho/Femme back for this, too. The actress had just given birth, though, so she wasn't able to participate. My understanding is that this is why Abyss was included and Femme wasn't.

It would've been great! As it is, I think it's hilarious that Abyss is included, because it makes this another Zi-O thing that Decade has his fingerprints on.

Still... Tezuka and Goro? I'm happy!

Special Time: Survive Edition! (Part 1)

-Recently, an acquaintance of a friend just finished up Ryuki, and seeing them post their reactions caused me to rewatch an episode or two. Most notably, the finale. It reminded of why I intentionally skipped RTR in the first place: Does a story like this even need a major follow-up, especially one that brings back the Rider War? I didn't think so, so I didn't touch it. I still kinda feel this way, and I even mulled just skipping it again when the thread came to it. But why not? Let's see if I was actually justifed skipping it or not......

-What can I say? This really feels like a Phase 2-flavored Battle Royale to me more than anything? Not just how it looks, but the writing too? (Although I am a loss at explaining why it feels that way...) I was really surprised that it felt like that to me, since Toshiki Inoue hasn't written much for Phase 2.

-Shinji feels like Shinji, but like, less in a "hotblooded puppy" way and more "your funny uncle everyone gets along with" kind of way?

-Goro......The implication that Kitaoka scuumbed to his illness and is dead in the present, it's so sad. I'd be willing to wager Goro's going through the same thing Shinji is in half-remembering Kitaoka, but since Goro's memories of him in the Rider War often involved Asakura, he'd seem to have scrambled the two up....?

-Tezuka.....? Idk what the guy's doing, i just hope his heelturn is better explained than "lmao imagine the shock value of one of the most pacifist Riders from Ryuki as evil!".

-Imperer, Verde, Abyss, Scissors, and Tiger have completely new users, which is....interesting. And hey, isn't that Mr. Heisei Rider himself I spy, making a cameo amongst the crowd? Love when suit actors make little cameos.

-As always, it's time for the "returning character with new look" list, From best to worst:

-Asakura(God his hair here is such a glowup to whatever they were doing in Ex-Aid, he looks damn good!)
-Ren (exactly the look you'd expect from a older Ren! Very stylish, very mature!)
-Goro (Nice and simple! Never change, Goro!)
-Jun (have no real opinions on it, it's ok?)
-Shinji(Same thoughts as last time + ah, they stuffed him into a blue jacket to emulate his iconic aqua one....I honestly prefer his look in the Another Ryuga arc.)
Tezuka(I can't describe why, it's just my least favorite look? I don't like it)

-Was geniunely surprised to see the Zi-O kids here, I forgot they didn't get a Ridewatch when they fought Another Ryuga. I guess they'll be investigating Tatakae Lady while the oldheads duke it out.

I'm more okay with revisiting Ryuki's premise than I am a lot of other shows. Between the rebooted reality of the finale, and the tantalizing of premise of Why Would These Guys Choose To Fight Again, I was looking forward to seeing the old (and older) gang again.

But they made one pretty fatal flaw: No one chose to be there. That's huge! That's a huge part of the Ryuki premise! It wasn't about shoving people into a death match, it was about exploring why people value things more than their own lives, or if we should look at sacrifice as a different kind of murder. To have people abducted and told to TATAKAE... it's not really the same thing?

Yeah, Shinji's whole Enthusiastic Dimwit act plays a lot differently when he's approaching 40. Still funny, but a little sadder?

Not just a petrified-looking Takaiwa; Abyss's blink-and-you'll-miss-him human host was Kuuga's suit actor, Kenji Tominaga!

I remember Shirakura joked that Taikawa’s character was the new Femme.

Anyway, for spoiler reasons, I’ll be doing my response to this in two parts. First up, is the Ridewatch Playlist, then the compare and contrast, and finally some other miscellany.

So without further ado, let’s return at last to…

Ridewatch Playlist: Remade by the Guys Who Bought You the Sequel to Guyver Mix

https://youtube.com/watch?v=oHgpXr8RZv8

“A rider battle in a world of mirrors. The red dragon Rider is… Ryuki”

Here, I went with the obvious choice of Alive a Life, much as I don’t like it https://youtube.com/watch?v=yJ2cONTUtGw

“Reborn to stop the battle, the red Dragon Knight, Ryuki Survive”

And here, I went for a song I have a lot more love for, Revolution https://youtube.com/watch?v=Dih0vokuZXY

“The blue-armoured bat Rider is Knight”

And for this, I went with Ryuki’s default insert, Hatenaki Inochi https://youtube.com/watch?v=lkLpAfn9yi8

“The Knight who evolves to survive, Knight Survive”

And from here on out, I had to dig deep into the soundtrack to find songs, starting with Final Edition Dragranzer - Darkraider https://youtube.com/watch?v=Ti5z0vF6D3g

“Simultaneous Shooting! Fighting with various weapons, the green rider is Zolda”

Turns out Kitaoka had a dedicated song, Dear Friend https://youtube.com/watch?v=c1ni-5VJbtw

“So, this is where the party is? The vicious evil Rider is… Ouja”

As did Asakura, Spinnin’ Around https://youtube.com/watch?v=44KDMBmYgkM

“Contracting with Volcancer, the shifty rider is… Scissors”

And for Another Ryuki, I went with the Japanese theme song for Ryuki’s US remake Kamen Rider Dragon Knight: Dive Into The Mirror https://youtube.com/watch?v=r1huGz0Sm4Q

And now, for something we haven’t seen for a while, the list of the unreleased. This time, Ouja and Scissors were winners in that competition.
Kamen Rider Ryuki (Blank Form)
Kamen Rider Raia
Kamen Rider Gai
Kamen Rider Ouja (Blank Form)
Kamen Rider Tiger
Kamen Rider Imperer
Kamen Rider Verde
Kamen Rider Femme
Kamen Rider Ryuga
Kamen Rider Odin

I think this was one of the first things I learned about Scissors? I remember watching Scissors' debut on Ryuki, and going EVERYBODY NEEDS TO KNOW ABOUT SCISSORS, and everybody telling me that I was about seventeen years late to break the Scissors news. Him winning a Ridewatch contest was, like, a wake-up call!

RIDER TIME: RYUKI EPISODE 2 - “ANOTHER ALTERNATIVE”

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/zio/ryuki2a.png

Hey, we’ve got (I think) our first-ever canonically reciprocal queer romance in Kamen Rider! That’s great!

Everything else is not great!

It’s miserable, is what it is. It’s got that dumb Amazons thing, where it mistakes Brutality for Maturity. We’re not really exploring ideas with greater sensitivity or subtlety, we’re just watching folks get randomly stabbed to death. Characters don’t exhibit hidden depths or additional facets, they just pontificate briefly before dying stupidly. It’s actually more childish than the children’s show it’s celebrating.

Nothing in here makes a great case for reuniting so many original actors. It continues to miss out on the big, important part of Ryuki – that you have to opt into the Rider War – which makes everything a super-generic Last Man Standing battle royale. There’s no sense of a greater mission to anyone in the contest (Ren, in particular, seems bizarrely undermotivated), it’s all just basic survival. Characterization is incredibly weird, with characters switching allegiances so often that it’s barely worth considering why they’ve picked who they’ve picked to partner up with. It’s weird, how haphazard this all is.

And it’s… god, it’s so hamstrung by an entire episode of You Look Familiar amnesia garbage. There’re a couple good jokes (mostly Shinji realizing much too late that he’s the only good guy in a cast of homicidal weirdos), but it keeps this story from saying absolutely anything new. There are no new ideas in this episode. Tezuka’s romance with Jun is too undercooked to be anything more Laudable Representation, and it doesn’t really square with Tezuka’s character from the TV show. (I don’t recall him being an untrustworthy knife-enthusiast?) Asakura knows what everyone’s deal is, but he’s the one character in the story who doesn’t care what everyone’s deal is. It’s an entire episode of people trying to get back to square one with their relationships, and it’s not super fun.

Whole episode’s “not super fun”, really. By the time Tezuka and Jun were stabbing Third Guy to death for no clear reason (other than TATAKAE, I guess), I basically lost all of my investment in this mini-series. Outside of pure nostalgia (including Shinji pulling out a flawless TEZUKA!!!), there’s so little in this episode to latch onto. The action’s greatly diminished. The direction is okay, but not memorable. Sara dressing up as the Woman of the Beginning is cute, but she’s about as helpful in her explanations and strategies as Mai was on Gaim.

There’s pleasure to be had in this series, mostly from Ren and Shinji being back, but it’s hardly worth all of this joyless brutality.

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/zio/ryuki2b.png

Can you pass the pepper?

Tezuka and Jun banging was the last thing I expected to see in just about anything, let alone this.

And ya know, sorry in advance if this comes across as insensitive(which hey, if it is, feel free to yell at me!), but I actually found them hooking up to be super gross. Not only due to it coming across more as lust rather than anything romantic at best(and reaching for brownie points at worst), but also because of the implication it ends up giving to Tezuka's' entire backstory in Ryuki: That he didn't actually think of Yuichi as a close friend, but was infact in love with him the entire time and thus was his primary motivator. As someone who's a big supporter of platonic love, well, didn't appreciate that!

Could say more, but there's one more part to go, so I'll save that for next time.

Special Time! Survive Edition! (Part 2)

-Ren hearing (persumably) past Shinji's voice to stop the battle, I might weep. But also like. Kinda cheap not to have your own motivation, isn't it. Even a "I killed a guy last episode, And I'd Rather Not Do That Again!" for Ren would've succiffed.

-Is it bad I don't really care about Tatakae Lady and Another Ryuki's deal? Like I know they're trying to reflect Kanzaki and Yui's whole deal, but we already went through a similar plot in the Fourze/Faiz arc?

-Not to be that guy, but like. If this takes places *after* Another Ryuga, but before Episode 29, what's stopping Sougo from whacking Another Ryuki to pieces using Zi-O II, like he did with Ryuga?

-Vaguely heard Tezuka was canon gay when I watched Ryuki for the first time, and assumed something like, "Ah they must've impiled Tezuka's piano friend was more than a friend somewhere, that's some neat rep for me." But...Tezuka and Jun? It's very odd pairing, esp considering how bizzare Tezuka's character is in this one? (I can totally buy Jun being an absolute weirdo in any romantic relationship he'd persue tho.)

-Like 13 Riders and Zi-O were all very "No matter what Time Nonsense goes on, these people will always be the same kind of people they always are! :-)" So I don't really get the reason for Tezuka's heelturn in the first place? And then they switch him back right before he dies, so like what's the point?

Tangent: A lot of the props/suits look really nice, surprisingly a lot better than some returning suits that came after Ryuki (Accel in that one special...Oof.) I wonder how much of it had to be remade, and how much seemed good to go after pulling it out of storage? (I'm like half sure Gai was remade completely, it's so shiny.)

Too soon!

I didn't read that much into it, really. With all of the amnesia running around in this story, I'm not sure you can pin a lot on past actions. It's also been sixteen years; I think it's reasonable for one relationship to be platonic, and another to be romantic.

For this one, I think Tezuka is in love, but Jun's just doing the shitposting version of a hookup. There's maybe a thematically appropriate to story to tell in there, about how motivations get misinterpreted and true understanding is obscured by different levels of interest, but this plot gets, like, two scenes. There isn't much there to unpack.

Still! I'm not inclined to push back on anyone who found something they didn't like in this episode. (Except Ren spraying Shinji with beer. That was perfect.)

It's a concept I half-like -- Ren is a changed man after Shinji's sacrifice! -- that falls apart once Ren can't give any intensity to his goal due to his amnesia. This was a dude who was defined by his intensity in the original Ryuki series, but here's it's just like Sougo's first episode King stuff: I Vaguely Want This Thing But I Don't Know Why. Way less fun!

Yeah, Tezuka's various betrayals don't make any sense to me. Can't even squint and see why he'd do these things.

Well, it’s time for part 2 of my comment, with the “compare and contrast”

Whereas Shinji is a man who is against killing no matter what and was the only person not drafted into the Rider Battle, Tatsuya is someone conducting a murder game for the sake of a loved one, and is explicitly under the control of someone else.

And now I’ll reveal why I went with Dive Into the Mirror for Another Ryuki. Specifically, Tatsuya is a homage to Adam, the doppelganger to the hero Kit from Dragon Knight, who like Tatsuya, was drawn into murdering people for the main villain, in exchange for his girlfriend’s safety. For bonus points, both girlfriends are named “Sara”.

For the fighting part, I'd say it's done well, with a new and more advanced special effects. KR still has never perfected special effects though. The one gripe I had on the special effects here was how Ryuki's Dragon Rider Kick has Ryuki's foot burning on flames already before Dragreder shoots fireballs on him, kinda invalidates the teamwork aspects on the Final Vents. Final Vents also seem less deadly here, it's the Riders get de-henshined and then dissolved into Mirror World, while in original Ryuki, they exploded and got engulfed in the flames, leaving no body behind, or at best broken deck. Though I'd say Ouja's Veno Crash seems to be done better than the original series, the venom that enhances his kick is made more clear here and his movement isn't as silly looking as the one on Ryuki. Other than the special effects there's also some neat fighting moves on the Riders as well, like Ryuki/Raia's (ugh) Strike + Copy Vent combo, where Tiger and Gai simultaneously countered with Freeze and Confine Vent respectively, to disperse Raia's fireball and negate Ryuki's weapon.

Reminder that the other Ryuki spin-off that also jumps right into TATAKAE and has more Riders seen than on the TV Shows was that 13 Riders. So it'd be kinda expected to have a Ryuki spin-off here that also focuses on fan service and also not focusing on the weight of history, and 13 Riders also had the same writer. I'd acknowledge too that Shinji, Ren, and Asakura all act like themselves which is nice and that Shinji's relationships with the newcomers Ishida/Imperer, and Kimura/Verde. There's also even some logic behind Riders that don't participate here other than Femme being pregnant, which I'll get likely later.

But I gotta be honest here that I'm way more vocal towards butchered adaptations, compared to 'bad choices' in storytelling of which it can have some interpretation and perspectives, and I won't let that go unchecked here, I've given credits above first, and sorry but it's also something expected from Inoue (like Kiba in the last part of Faiz). Regarding, y'know, Tsukuyomi in the last 4 episodes before, here it happened in a much worse fashion for Tezuka. In Ryuki, he was the only other straight up heroic Rider than Shinji, and he has been tested too, he won't be tempted by Shiro, with him giving the Survive Shippu Card (to get revenge on Asakura) into Ren. Here, Tezuka is someone straight up evil, not done by desperation either, not even having apparent humanity in his actions, and he had committed atrocity on the same level as the worst Riders on the original series (Scissors and Ouja); feeding someone into his contract monster. I know Riders on Ryuki are expected to be evil, but then just use any other existing evil Rider that Ryuki provided instead of turning the only other beacon of morality into 1. I also don't buy the amnesia excuse, I don't think that sense of justice or such is a part of memory, if he didn't have a sense of justice he can do differently in Yuichi's death. I also don't know why Goro-chan here gets immediately assumed as someone who'd be undercover on Asakura here, but not for Sougo in ep. 9-10 before (a̶n̶d̶ ̶i̶t̶'̶s̶ ̶a̶l̶s̶o̶ ̶s̶h̶o̶w̶n̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶S̶o̶u̶g̶o̶ ̶d̶i̶d̶ ̶l̶e̶t̶ ̶G̶e̶i̶z̶ ̶f̶i̶g̶h̶t̶ ̶h̶i̶m̶ ̶a̶s̶ ̶w̶e̶l̶l̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶i̶r̶ ̶s̶t̶r̶a̶t̶e̶g̶y̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶Q̶u̶i̶z̶).

It's not just you.

While it's not as exciting and personal, I think it makes sense in continuity with the TV ending, where the Rider War was reset and everybody lost their memories. So Shinji's and Ren's vague familiarity and camaraderie with each other is the result of their memories from different timelines blending together in an abstract way. Actually, I think that's the main appeal of this spin-off for me, that it's an epilogue to the show in the same way that Kamen Rider 4 was to Faiz. And I think Ryuki needed that the most.

Too late for approaching. He's literally 40 here, since he was 23 at the start of Kamen Rider Ryuki and it's been 17 years. He and Ren are still looking pretty good though.

Nice observation! That makes Femme and Abyss my favorite nobodies in this spin-off.

I love this one as well.

I couldn't even tell you the difference between Imperer and Verde. Any Rider who wasn't in the show is just a nobody whose purpose is to get killed. It does diminish the novelty of the Rider War being a competition between people with strong personalities when only half of them are worth emotionally investing in. However, I'd say the worst of Rider Time Ryuki is in the second part, if that's any consolation.

I recall most people thought it was poorly executed and devoid of romance, myself included. It doesn't help that Tezuka is not remotely his usual self here, so it's hard to care about how these two unsympathetic murderers feel about each other. However, I don't think there's any need to retroactively perceive Tezuka's relationship with Yuichi as romantic. I mean, people can if they want to, but it's totally plausible for two potentially bi/homosexual dudes to love each other in a platonic way as well, the same way a hetero dude and girl can also be just friends.

Bi, actually. Remember that Tezuka had a crush on Eri in the 13 Riders special. Unfortunately, him falling for a homicidal psychopath like Jun was not his best choice. The fortune teller is surprisingly lacking in foresight in this spin-off.

What about guys like Sento and Tsukasa, whose sense of justice is the result of losing their memory? I don't think this is the case for Tezuka specifically, but in theory, it could be possible for the reverse to happen where someone gains a sense of justice through character development and then memory loss reverts them to their formerly evil self.

I would just like to point out Jiro Okamoto playing the suit actor for Ouja.
It's really funny to see the disconnect between Asakura looking a little malnourished then transforming to Ouja and now he's become a little thicker.

Also, boy, did the stunt Ryuki suit not age well

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/M22DDTs0Yws/maxresdefault.jpg

Ha ha, neat!

Mostly because Sougo was still being developed then, and we've got an entire series worth of Goro's actions to point to for evidence. Goro's actions are so weird and out-of-character that even Asakura's like Dude WTF.

That's fair. It's still a pretty sizable restriction to telling a big reunion story, though, which is maybe why the Build New World movie in early 2019 IMMEDIATELY had everyone get their memories back so you can, y'know, enjoy the camaraderie you spent a year totally invested in. (The Build/Zi-O movie did the same thing! It sucks to have characters show up, but not have their history!)

It's all because of Goto's great cooking! This isn't an Asakura who's eating rats in an abandoned warehouse; this is an Asakura who is eating multi-course meals, prepared by a world-class cook!

Absolutely! If it seemed as though I was trying to say otherwise, then I apologize, as that is very much not what I was getting at. I just feel that, for this particular instance, things don't work out at all optimally.

Again, I'll say more once the thread reaches the final part, since my full thoughts tie into my feelings on this entire special as a whole.

I'm back I'm back sorry for always procrastinating on this lol. But anyways the start of Episode 21 I love that event hough his actor wasn't in this arc Tsukasa still played a major role for both Sougo and Shinji development here. Another Ryuga is straight up my favorite Another Rider for his story as the dark reflection of Shinji and the to circumvent that Ryuki already dosen't exist that all of the cast including the Time Jacker can't exactly go around which is what makes their plan here really smart,his powers and overall look appeals to me so so much. Also Ore Journal closing down was such a oh yeah moment largely becuase of how it shows times changing and also acool momtage of locations from Ryuki. And I always do incorprate the lore of others Riders shows a bit more even if newer fans might get confuse since after all every show is somebodies first. As we've proven with Decade remember.

And finally Mirror Sougo is such a cool thing first of all that gag about Sougo assuming he's the future version like in the Gaim arc, his disbelief over getting punched and how cool the Mirror ZI-O Ridewatch is! That darker jingle and on the actual toy the secondary annoucnement is done by Sougo actor.

I gotta be honest, I spent a few sentences being like Wait Which One Was Episode 21. When I'm watching six of these a week, I forget details very quickly. Comments on earlier episodes are always welcome, but I might not have the memory to provide much feedback. Sorry!

I know that ORE Journal going out of business bummed people out maybe a little too much, but I liked its inclusion. This was a story that felt very much About time passing, and how very specific midlife regrets were creating a schism in Shinji's sense of self. You couldn't do the same type of story with, like, Fourze, so there's no need for that kind of bleak detail. Here, you need to feel like it's been almost two decades since Shinji was in his prime. I don't know, it worked for me.

Well, actually it'd be something good to have Asakura acting WTF, it'd mean Goro's OOC is acknowledged in universe. Unlike the Tezuka one.

Because for sure, give something much brutality, and it'd be deemed as not appropriate for children, thus "maturity"! And the ratings for it would be something far above all-ages or something. Otherwise, there's actually a plausible reason of why Ren seems undermotivated, but it'd be in the next episode. Ren here has the same goal as Shinji to stop the Rider War, he's just having different goal to the main series, albeit he's still a jerk. Again, it'd be something in the next episode. I don't know who else switched alignments though, it's just Tezuka, actually Tojo wearing Raia's suit, thus both sides (Shinji and Jun's) got hit by his treachery. Seems that the extra Riders like Scissors, Abyss, Verde, Imperer are just fodders for more major Riders here.... and the end was about Shinji as Ryuga so of course he'd beat the shit out of other Riders, though a deserving one in Gai that time.

̶The thing that's unchanged for Sara dressing as "Woman of the Beginning" seems to be her footwear. M̶a̶i̶'̶s̶ ̶e̶x̶p̶l̶a̶i̶n̶a̶t̶i̶o̶n̶s̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶G̶a̶i̶m̶ ̶w̶a̶s̶ ̶e̶x̶p̶l̶a̶i̶n̶e̶d̶ ̶t̶h̶o̶u̶g̶h̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶t̶i̶m̶e̶s̶t̶r̶e̶a̶m̶ ̶m̶a̶d̶e̶ ̶h̶e̶r̶ ̶w̶a̶r̶n̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶n̶o̶t̶ ̶w̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶s̶h̶e̶ ̶w̶a̶n̶t̶s̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶s̶a̶y̶,̶ ̶p̶u̶r̶p̶o̶s̶e̶l̶y̶ ̶b̶e̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶m̶a̶d̶e̶ ̶v̶a̶g̶u̶e̶. Unfortunately, RT Ryuki quite shows the true Inoue, or more of what he actually does, outside of supervision, which is about both the 'brutality for maturity', and characters being handled like what happened in Tezuka here, and likely Jun too. There's only 1 explanation for Tezuka stabbing Ishihashi/Scissors, he's portrayed as nothing like Tezuka in the original series as I've said before, he's just another Ryuki Evil Rider (because Riders in Ryuki are expected to be evil) using Tezuka's name and suit.

C'mon it's just obvious it doesn't square with Tezuka, if he did something that worst Riders did before, feeding someone into his contract monster, that's something unrepentant monsters like Scissors and Ouja did! Tezuka would not be corrupted in original Ryuki, already tested with him won't be tempted by Shiro, with him giving the Survive Shippu Card (to get revenge on Asakura) into Ren. Even for the flashback to 'redeem' Tezuka, it's about him being 'friends with Shinji'... like, why he was friends with Shinji at the first place? That got dumped. The only thing that can seem amusing is that, Jun is unknowingly become accurate to his Rider name Gai, that he's now.. gay.

I guess to make myself more clear, about Tezuka there's another stuff I added above regarding him 'turning back' here. But I also think that Ryuki does establish Tezuka as incorruptible anyway, but even if he does get tempted, what he did was the same as the most depraved Riders did in Ryuki, the likes of Scissors and Ouja! And iirc I thought Sento and Katsuragi was about personality split (and when they reunited again it's about them clashing through different personality), and I don't recall Tsukasa intentionally destroying the world, Destroyer of the World can be about his power system that caused that. Narutaki is all spiteful towards Decade, but Zi-O got Hiryu taking that role.

You always have some good insightful details so don't sweat it.
Episode 22 is just So Okuno(Sougo actor) acting his heart out. Playing a more vulnerable Sougo and a much more twisted one. The entire crux of using mirrors to reflect the true self while different from how Ryuki handled it still rings true thematically. Leading to the debut of ZI-O II which has one of the best usage of an Insert Song in years let me tell yeah hearing Toki No Ouja outside of it's debut was so unepexted because how they've been handling these things have been so dissapointing Ex-Aid.

Also can we talk about Geiz plan for a minute them bringing up the stats and official lore of the tech is so unepexcted because those are usually just flavor text that add nothing to actual show the only other time I rember this was back in Build with the crystal on his forehead.

And finally Shinji and Editor in Chief has such a heartwarming scene that shows that even though something bad happened to Ore Journal they can still bounce back and start anew and to see the growth and maturity of the two in the 16 years since we last saw them this is the type Legend Rider content I'm looking for.

I don't feel like there's actually that big of an audience for Ryuki But Cruel? I can't imagine who was clamoring for a Ryuki continuation this thematically bereft and narratively thin.

It's really the best. A ton of what I remember from the end of Shinji's story in Ryuki was Okubo giving Shinji the lesson the series was trying to impart -- never stop asking questions -- and letting the end of this Zi-O Ai-O story reunite them was pretty great.

RIDER TIME: RYUKI EPISODE 3 - “ALIVE A LIFE”

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/zio/ryuki3a.png

D’you wanna hear something really funny? Inoue wrote my favorite Kamen Rider Ryuki episodes.

I’m sure that’s sacrilegious to some/most folks, but I swear it’s true. Ryuki was never a hundred percent my show (Agito and Faiz were way more my speed), but I liked certain characters; certain arcs. Kitaoka was my favorite guy, though, and Inoue did some of the bigger Zolda stories. But the couple that he did that I loved the most were two screwball comedy episodes, 29 and 30.

They’re fantastic comedy episodes, but what I liked the best were that they never stopped being Ryuki episodes. They were still concerned with investigation, empathy, self-discovery, and compromise. They had an abundance of warmth, while never feeling frivolous. It was all the themes of Ryuki, but shot through with an absurdity that only served to highlight the enormity of its goals: to understand another person.

So it breaks my heart to see him also do the worst Ryuki episodes I’ve ever seen.

The only part of this episode that’s even worth talking about is in the final few minutes. It’s just the Ren and Shinji stuff, Ren’s death scene and the aftermath. Everything else is terrible, just terrible. Sara’s abilities never make any sense, nor does her plan. (Why doesn’t she just get Shinji to fight Tatsuya immediately? Why kill twelve other people? Why give any of them amnesia, but not all of them? Why drag back some Riders from the original battle, but not all of them? Why wait until she's completely dead to end the fight, when she could’ve just instituted a shorter deadline at the beginning?) Tatsuya never really comes across as anything other than Ren’s Themes, which is obvious and boring. The reveal that Goro has been waiting to betray Asakura is both inevitable and completely stupid. (Why wait until now, when he didn’t even manage to kill Asakura?) Revisiting Goro’s need to avenge Kitaoka is one more Sure I Guess moment of pointless nostalgia. Odin is an almost hilarious non-entity; you never even see his face! How he’s doing anything, or what he’s doing it for, is never discussed. The whole plot of this three-episode series only exists to delay the one good thing about it, which is such a slap in the face to fans.

Because, man, Ren and Shinji! Why wouldn’t you just build the entire series around their reunion? I get wanting to make it a reward, but why would you make something so miserable that you’d need to reward the audience? Just make something sweet and poignant, like the last five minutes! But over a 90-minute project! As stupidly obvious as Ren Sacrifices Himself For Shinji is as a plotpoint (the main gear for this project was Stupidly Obvious), the actors sell the shit out of the aftermath. Both guys make you feel every second of the past sixteen years, and the missed opportunities that come along with them. If the Tezuka/Jun stuff felt like a hollow excuse for a relationship, these two manage to put onscreen the kind of bond that transcends time and space and life and death and even reality itself.

It’s a shame that those moments exist as the payoff to the most relentlessly mediocre Ryuki episodes I’ve ever seen. I couldn’t begin to guess why Inoue would make something so charmless and bleak, only to resolve it with something so humane and generous. My favorite moment in the whole series is Shinji leaving the big New Collectibles fight between Team Zi-O and Odin, to check in on Definitely Couldn’t Get Eri’s Actor Back So Here’s Eri’s Back. It’s the character realizing that these fights are hollow and pointless, so it’s better to spend your time helping people out, honoring their dreams. Odin’s dumb, and the show seems to realize that. But we still get the fight scene, an obligatory and heartless bit of business. That’s sort of the whole series of Rider Time: Ryuki. There’re moments that say that Inoue has as tight a grip on what Kobayashi was trying to accomplish as he ever did guesting on the TV series, but they’re tiny specks in a tapestry of meaningless fights that the script can’t bring itself to try and justify.

This wasn’t very good.

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/zio/ryuki3b.png

Special Time! Survive Edition! (Part 3)

-......Yeah, past me was 1000% correct in skipping this. If i could jump into a Time Mazine and stop myself from hitting the play button on Episode 1, I would've.

-Like. I know there's only so much you can do with roughly an hour and half, but like? What even is the point of this special, what it is trying to do/say, other than speedrunning Ryuki beats with a dash of fanservice and making sure Sougo gets the Ryuki Ridewatch? Both Episode Final and (especially) 13 Riders were also more or less speedruns, but at least that had something interesting to say/think about. A Rider War without any weight to its deaths, without conflicting struggles to fight for: it's just a bunch of dudes fighting and dying and not much else. And if I wanted to watch a bunch of dudes fighting and dying and not much else, I wouldn't be watching Ryuki?

-Like yeah I totally get "Ryuki's Riders don't exist without the Rider War, so let's throw one to pop one out real quick", but Like. What was Tatakae Lady going to do if the Rider that won was anyone but Shinji??? Especially someone like Asakura or Jun??

-Odin Sure Did Appear In This Special. I like the idea of Odin being this entity that exists eternally to oversee a potenial Rider War, but implying it to maybe being Kanzaki (esp when already know all Odin doesn't even need him, he's got like 4 different users in the original show!) just sours it for me.

-I'll give it up, the Ren/Shinji death scene did get me. Shinji trying to fight back tears as they swear to meet again someday, it's damn good. Knowing this is the 3rd time one of them has died in the other's arms, and it almost gives the feeling of the two being star-crossed. In another time, another place, I hope these guys are bickering to their heart's content.

Ren appearing in Geiz's outfit for the briefest second made me laugh out loud. There's a full-body shot of Ren's actor wearing the outfit somewhere to dipsute this, but something about the angle makes it look like they photoshopped Ren's head onto Geiz's body, and that was hysterical to me.

Edit: Almost forgot to ask, but since I dont think I saw anyone bring it up, what does everyone think of Alive A Life Neo? I think it's a fun enough spin on the original, but I still prefer the original.

It's so good! Everything else is garbage! But the Shinji/Ren stuff was so good!

If the Ryuki arc in Zi-O proper was operating on the basis of Ryuki's' TV ending being the canon they were going with, then this entire mini-series already makes no sense right off the bat, so it's already got something working against it.

But throughout this, I think the main thing that got me hating these episodes so much was that there is a ton of missed potential, any way that I try to slice it.

Like, if I am to give this special my absolute most charitable interpretation, this is a tale about how memories are important, and are what ultimately make us who we are as people and help to shape the bonds we create. This premise in and of itself is something that I could easily see Ryuki proper doing. Heck, it kinda already had, but still, I could see it working out.

The execution of that idea, however, is awful, because it really feels like this special tried to have its cake and eat it too.

See, everyone having amnesia seems to be the justification used for why so many of the cast are out of character: Tezuka being a backstabbing murderer being the biggest and most obvious example. And here's the thing, I actually would've been okay with that idea had they actually gone all the way with it rather than only go halfway, thus undermining the entire idea. Shinji and Ren still act like hollow versions of themselves, Asakura and Goro don't get memory wiped, Abyss is still an absolutely nothing character, Tezuka still does fortune telling, etc.

Again, feeling charitable here, it feels like the idea was to show "another side" of alot of the characters via them acting different, but unfortunately the short run time and way it's handled instead makes everything come across as incredibly mean spirited. Going back to Tezuka, we're never given any sort of motive for his actions other than simple lust, which not only makes what should be an otherwise nice moment for the franchise into a total farce, but also makes it seem as though that were the primary motivation for Tezuka all throughout Ryuki proper to begin with. I don't care if it's realistic; It's annoying at best and renders alot of Tezuka's' character throughout the show in a bad light at worst.

There's also a ton of aspects of the plot that make no sense(why is Kanzaki acting as Odin directly when he can possess whoever -- hell, how is he even still alive?), but that really isn't the important part to me. What is most important is that, ultimately, it feels like alot more emphasis was put into getting the actors back rather than the characters, and that goes against the entire point of reunions like this, I think.

I can't believe I'm about to say this, but really, the Decade two-parter felt alot more in line with Ryuki than what this special did, and I didn't even like those episodes! Atleast there I could clearly determine the themes and ideas they were gunning for in regards to Ryuki proper.

This... this was some of the worst tribute episodes, heck, some of the worst Kamen Rider I've seen in awhile. And I know I have a small reference pool compared to most of you, but as of this writing... yeah, yeah, fuck this entire thing. Complete waste of time. There was so much potential that was absolutely wasted.

Yeah, that's the whole thing. We got all of these people to come back, but then the story decides to separate the main partnership for an episode, give everyone amnesia so they can't directly comment on the reunion aspect (I don't think this special ever tries to explain why some people have amnesia? It doesn't really matter to Sara's plan at all?), and then have one of the more popular characters from the original series come back as a duplicitous murderer.

It's very weird! All of this seems like a bad idea from the start, and then the series never really tries to redeem its choices.

To make it clearer, not talking specifically about Ryuki there, but Brutality for Maturity view can happen in anything, and it can be done on medias that are deemed to childish by adding more gratituous violence, etc. so that it can be seen as more "mature" and appeal to them.

For those folks who think that's sacrilegious, they're probably using up this part of Inoue, what's pulled on RT Ryuki but particularly Tezuka stuff (and to a lesser extent Jun). Obviously that can never be brought up yet due to Zi-O not being talked about yet all this time. But it's not only RT Ryuki that has these kind of parts, Inoue is a writer that has to be kept on the leash on the TV, and his sub-writing part in some series like Ryuki here wasn't something that is used to criticize him, so liking these kind of episodes shouldn't be the "sacrilegious" part. Just that the part of being kept on leash should be acknowledged too, to really get into how the "sacrilegious" view happened regarding him, his more independent writings like Ryuki or Faiz novel, he's on his own that means he has no leash, thus something like RT Ryuki's Tezuka and Jun would be expected more there. And I feel that RT Ryuki for some reason has less leash for Inoue, leading for something he pulled on the side-medias to surface here (unfortunately, the "true Inoue" as it's he himself without production team) like the Gai Couple. Not something so insolent but Inoue did write 13 Riders too before.

I think the other part worth talking (well I'd prefer if talk to anything is open) to some is probably Ouja, regarding watching his fight and brutality as usual, with him being implacable, the Riders' extra resistance to Final Vents here gave them some room to still live before finally dying, of which was used to, ugh, Tezuka before to convey his message to Shinji, then to Asakura here to cause some more shit-stirring after Knight Final Vents him, to continue fighting Goro as primary Zolda, of which Ouja still charges through his Shoot Vent explosion and finish off Goro. Though I'm not into Ouja wank here, he's strong but still an ordinary Riders unlike some make him out to be. The question should be why wasn't Asakura dead yet after Final Vent here not Goro not killing him. And about Goro avenging Kitaoka, well it does confirm that your theory was correct, about Goro playing undercover to Asakura. Kitaoka has died here due to his illness, which is why we never seen his face, Goro's the main Zolda.

Like Eri below, for Odin... Shiro's actor Kenzaburo Kikuchi also has retired (Iwae?), shortly after his role in Kabuto, so they'd obscure his look in this as likely they also can't get the actor back. As someone who also pulls a sacrilegious take in liking Odin's looks and fighting style more than the likes of Ouja, I also dislike his implementation in battle here, he got kinda a downgrade similar to Ultimate Kuuga's later appearence (though Ultimate Kuuga's far more broken). Here, he's portrayed as someone reliant on 3 Survive cards (when Ryuki Riders are broken among ordinary Riders with 1), and that his Final Vent, which was not shown in the actual series likely to keep the hype (not counting the Dragon Knight or video game ones), is shown in underwhelming way in Odin just sending flaming Goldphoenix to charge, without Odin participating, feels like Advent more too (again, like Ultimate Punch/Kick of later Ultimate Kuuga). The one saving grace was that he still makes use of his teleporting power often, unlike his Dragon Knight counterpart Wrath (just Odin but different name).

Otherwise, Tatsuya's the one who put a game kills 12 other people, the amnesia is probably the world's system, not Sara-induced, for the Riders there are some list below, but again I don't know if this is Sara-induced, this is Tatsuya's game. Not all the questions can be answered clearly, but I don't think I want for Sara to be viewed as scapegoat here which seems that you do here (and for her telling the deadline, it's unknown when the game started the Rider War is just much shorter and likely when Sara told them it's the start, not nearing the deadline, it's just short). And regarding Tatsuya, Odin's role was just to show that he's the actual mastermind or something, to manipulate Tatsuya into starting this murder game and gather all the lives he murdered into a mysterious crystal, of which Tatsuya is given false hope that it can be used to save Sara, while he was a pawn for Odin that the gathered life would be used by him, not Tatsuya, to revive his sister again (ignoring the final ending)...

I do feel that RT Ryuki does build the entire series around their reunion, and that Asakura was the other one that got the most focus in his bloodlust being highlighted. They were consistently great around all 3 episodes here which I agree. They're also better than the one in 13 Riders. The others? Meh who cares about them, but they're still obligatory to exist to do Ryuki Tribute. Still no excuse to make them OOC as much as you like, or actually put actual effort into them. It's the opposite actually, it's not that the show doesn't focus on Shinji and Ren, but they put no effort on the others just for obligatory Ryuki reunion. And regarding Shinji and Ren, one great thing is that, it has one of my favorite gags in the franchise (a̶n̶d̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶r̶e̶'̶s̶ ̶n̶o̶ ̶t̶o̶x̶i̶c̶i̶t̶y̶ ̶t̶o̶o̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶b̶r̶i̶l̶l̶i̶a̶n̶t̶ ̶g̶a̶g̶). Geiz is so identical to Ren, that the show acknowledges it!

https://media.discordapp.net/attachm...396&height=670

Ren with his d̶e̶s̶c̶e̶n̶d̶a̶n̶t̶ twin Geiz irl and Ren 'cosplaying' as Geiz (also in this episode):

https://media.discordapp.net/attachm...3498/twins.jpg

https://media.discordapp.net/attachm...82441/twin.png

Just too bad that Matsuda doesn't change back his hair to be like Ren's/Geiz's.

Actually the reason may be, sadly, this is probably Inoue's spite towards Kobayashi. But their conflict was caused by how Inoue?s father was a writer for Showa Kamen Rider. But Kobayashi hates the values Showa Rider, and most of Ishinomori?s work, help as Kobayashi pushes her own political views in her work. With Ryuki?s premise basically murdering what being a Rider meant by Showa standards, it caused the two to hate each other (s̶o̶ ̶h̶e̶ ̶a̶s̶k̶e̶d̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶t̶r̶u̶c̶k̶ ̶w̶i̶t̶h̶ ̶S̶h̶o̶w̶a̶!̶). Might by Ryuki's early infamy at release but very few staff and writers saw it as their favourite, but is still used as inspiration, because it had good ideas executed badly by how Kobayashi and Inoue didn?t like each other and had different concepts for how Ryuki should go.

Otherwise, this shows that Eri is fine, so that explains why Ren seems undermotivated before to fight and win, Ren has no need to win the war and save her via the wish, so what he did was also trying to stop the war like Shinji, albeit he's more of a jerk about it. And I think there's nothing wrong of obscuring Eri if the original actress Mahiru Tsubura can't be brought back, though she had more dialogue and voice than I expect. For other Riders' disappearence, there's some good in-universe logic behind them.

• Sudo/Scissors didn't participate because sooner or later, Sudo's crimes will be brought into light. He could have either fled from the country or was arrested, likely executed if he didn't end up like Ouja (though anyway his actor Takeshi Kimura also retired).
• Takamizawa/Verde could also have either been arrested by some certain law enforcers who caught wind of his shady business dealings or been bought out by major rival companies, considering in this world all Kamen Rider exists.
• Sano/Imperer got involved was to make money easily, but since his father's death wasn't caused by the Rider War, he still became the boss of his father's company and as a result he has no reason to participate since he already has everything he wants.
• Tojo/Tiger only got involved in the Rider War because Kagawa/Alternative Zero who by sheer chance had managed to read one of Shiro's research on the Mirror World and Tojo was his pupil. But here Kagawa would never have learned about that world and thus preventing Tojo from participating.

I mean, it's also just a weird thing to say in general, to suggest that the best episodes of a series were the ones written by a secondary writer. If someone told me their favorite episodes of Kiva were the two Yonemura did... like, those're good episodes, but I'd probably assume they were just goofing around to get a rise out of me.

I kind of want to walk back some of this Inoue bashing, because it's not like he wrote, directed, edited, scored, produced, and acted in these episodes all by himself. A bunch of people contributed to how dumb this project ended up being, up to and including whoever commissioned this project. I don't know if Inoue came in with this pitch, or Toei CEO Thomas Toei asked for this tone/approach specifically, but it's not like this was delivered fully-formed and Toei was helpless to stand against it. An entire company thought this thing was a good idea!

It's been a minute, but I seem to recall Asakura being similarly unstoppable in the TV series. My problem with his and Goro's fight isn't that ASakura survives, it's that Goro eats shit for two and a half episodes and STILL can't get over on Asakura. I'm not sure why Goro waited this long in the show to make such a pointless move, other than the show was about to end.

Man, this all sounds incredibly speculative to me. For one, I don't think any Kamen Rider writer is doing a ninety-minute special to intentionally ruin/refute someone else's project. Do I think Inoue and Kobayashi might not get along? Sure, maybe. I've disagreed with people I've worked with, and we haven't always been friends. But I've never spent months of my life, at the same company, creating something horrible so it would reflect poorly on them. That level of antagonism and disrespect... like, again, an entire company thought this thing was a good idea. To suggest this whole thing was an Inoue-driven hit-job... man, that is some personal bias and a ton of theorizing. I don't think there's any proof to any of that.

Kobayashi's vision for the finale of Kamen Rider Ryuki was for the Rider War to end with all the Riders dead after Ren used his wish to save Eri. Unfortunately, executives overruled her and forced the reset to happen, undoing an entire show's worth of character development. 17 years later, Inoue gives us Rider Time Ryuki, an epilogue that finally makes that vision come true! For that reason, I'm grateful that RT Ryuki exists, despite how messed up it is in the middle. It's worth all that mediocrity and absurdity just to see that emotional conclusion with Shinji and Ren, with Ren entrusting Eri to Shinji and Shinji becoming the only survivor of the Rider War, allowing him to carry the memories of his friends' sacrifices in to the future that Kanzaki tried to deny them. Despite their differences, I think Inoue and Kobayashi actually have a lot in common.

It's a shame that you didn't enjoy this, since that means this is the second Rider Time series that disappointed you. Hopefully Decade VS Zi-O/Zi-O VS Decade will be more your thing.

Kanzaki never actually left his domain in the Mirror World, so nothing was stopping him from coming back whenever he wanted to. Since he reset the Rider War instead of taking responsibility for his actions, he couldn't properly atone. He was unsatisfied with the outcome, so he decided to make one last attempt to revive Yui. That's my take anyway.

For sure, Tezuka was totally OOC here. Him regaining his memory and feeling the guilt of his actions doesn't even try and explain why he became like that. Regarding Sento, World C did acknowledge him as a separate being from Katsuragi. But that was after all his friends and Evolt helped him to become a hero. That's why he continued to identify as Kiryu Sento even after regaining some of his old memories, as his strong belief in love and peace (and Satou Tarou's athletic body) allowed him to surpass the limits of Katsuragi's cynical personality and raise his Hazard Level even higher. Tsukasa may not have willingly become a destroyer, but he was aware of his actions as the leader of Dai Shocker, like severing Gackt-Riderman's arm and throwing Natsumi and Yuusuke out of his base.

I'm disappointed that Die didn't make this one of his screencaps. :lol

Let's hope! The little I know about it seems agreeably goofy. At the very least, I'm gonna watch Zi-O 29 in a few minutes, and I'm looking forward to that.

I've been saving my thoughts on Rider Time Ryuki because it's hard for me to really separate them from the ending.

I wanted to like this. Massive reunion of Ryuki characters, including most of the major Riders and that asshole who got punked by Asakura? That premise had a lot of potential. The result, though, was just so disappointing.

I don't necessarily mind that the tone was as dark as it is, in concept. Ryuki was a show that definitely had some bleak elements to it, and a lot of them were probably things that got accentuated when consigned to long-term memory, too. I can definitely see how Inoue, always a lover of intense pathos, would want to do something that really called back to the darker and more emotional moments of Ryuki. This is a miniseries that took Imperor's death as its tonal cornerstone, basically. And that's fair; probably more accurate than basing itself off of Kitaoka stealth-transforming in a canoe as far as memorable Ryuki moments go. It still doesn't feel very good, though.

My core problem with the miniseries is that it seems like the whole thing is predicated on taking Ryuki's sad, bittersweet ending and deciding that the characters forgetting everything - good and bad - wasn't miserable enough. So we get stuff like evil Tezuka, which is easily the most misguided take on a returning character that I've ever seen in this medium. And we get Ren turning his back on Eri, the love of his love and main motivation on the show, for 17 freaking years because he vaguely feels like something is missing (besides the original actress). And, of course, then everybody just fucking dies at the end. Again, but without the reset. It's just so relentlessly and needlessly bleak, even by Ryuki standards.

The fact that the show held off on Ren and Shinji's reunion so long, and then made it so short, also felt like a massive misjudgment. You get these two characters back and the audience is going to want to see them together. That's the highlight of the entire miniseries and the two reconnecting and remembering their time together or even becoming friends again under new circumstances would have been a much more enjoyable use of the show's time. The final moment itself was still good, but we could have had so much more of them together.

And that's Rider Time Ryuki for me: a lot of wasted potential that had a really bad read on what parts of the show really made it good.

If only Zi-O could find a way to take a show's original characters and use them in a manner that felt organic, true to the show's spirit, and like it really built off of the original story. That's something I would be much happier to Turn Up for.

(Fish Sandwich also watched Rider Time: Ryuki)

...And Fish Sandwich didn't like it, either! I mean, geez, I really tore into this thing to a level I sort of regret, so, starting off with one positive thing I can say about this mini-series -- it was one of the eight million motivations that lined up to make me do my whole Kobyashi-thon rewatch of Ryuki, Den-O, and OOO only a couple months after that. Naturally, I eventually got back to this series as part of that, where I gave it a much less scathing critique:

Although the thing is, I still kinda see where I'm coming from in both cases? As harsh as the first post is, I also wrote it shortly after watching this originally, and I can't blame myself for feeling more than a little burned. I wish I could find that thread I mentioned in there to quote that too, but Ryuki was a show I always felt closed the book on itself very thoroughly to the point that any kind of continuation would run into... well, a lot of the problems they ended up running into. How do you go about making something carrying on from the series' ending genuinely dramatically satisfying?

Probably not like this, unfortunately. I really hope Die wasn't counting on my usual reckless optimism about tokusatsu to pull through here, because I really don't have any particularly redemptive reading of Rider Time: Ryuki.

When I first watched it, I was legitimately a little heartbroken because of how much Ryuki means to me, which you can probably tell reading what I had to say about it at the time. Tezuka in particular, man, that guy is just so deep in my heart, and it was downright painful watching all of that thrown away, for what came off to me as shock value for shock value's sake. Inoue even wrote some of Tezuka's coolest moments in the series! He wrote Tezuka literally reaching out a hand to Shinji in episode 16! He knows these characters!

And it's in trying to understand why he'd write this anyway, that I still came to the conclusion there just isn't any thematic heft to this thing I really feel justifies all the off-putting choices it makes. Which is why even my nicer review is still distinctly lukewarm on the story. To be honest, the comparison Die drew to Amazons talking about the second episode really rubbed me the wrong way, even. Both seasons of that show, and to an extent, even the movie I know Die doesn't like, I can say without hesitation that they all gave me something to think about after. Three times in a row, I went in skeptical of the kind of edgy story they were trying to tell, and came out by the end feeling like there was some legitimate point or another being made, or an idea being explored in an interesting way. As sad as it is to say, I've just never felt the same way about this mini-series.

That scene with Ren and Shinji is pretty well done, though.

Is this also speculation? This is one of those things I think I've heard a few times, and I'd kind of like to know where people are getting that information.

It's the Reaper's Ga- I mean the Rider War! I've just got back from watching this, and...

Have to agree that this wasn't that good... Especially since Ryuki itself feels like everything wrapped up perfectly, moreso than other Rider shows that leave room for another adventure, Ryuki is the whole thing. End of story. So naturally, Rider Time Ryuki does indeed sour the whole thing.

Now even though my watch of Ryuki was somewhat recent (I say and that was actually more than a year ago), though admittedly some things slip my memory, I can say I could see what they might have been going for, but I doubt even by pulling them off better would have made any difference.

I get that the cast has amnesia, so maybe they wanted to try doing the characters from different angles, but to rather poor degree as they end up remembering anyway, which only leaves a bad taste in my mouth. It also clearly doesn't work as Shinji is still very much the same personality-wise, including a few of the others.

This even fails as a Zi-O Legend Rider tribute, as Ryuki's power is extremely disappointing (they should have just rigged that Ryuki Armor or something), and Shinji doesn't really interact with them all that much, though I do like how he thought Geiz was Ren for a moment.

For some positive notes: this has that Heisei Phase 1 vibe, and Ryuki's atmosphere down to the letter, with the soundtrack as a bonus. It is great to see returning faces, though unfortunately, a lot of them mean nothing in the end, which is a shame. And the fight choreography was pretty good, but the opening fight was definitely my favorite, next being Ryuki Vs Another Ryuki (who might I add love his design, especially how Another Ryuga and Ryuki are mirrored). There were a lot of nice Shinji and Ren (love how he called him "Ron") scenes, a glimpse of Eri, and seeing how Tatsuya's (funny how his name also has something to do with dragons) story is basically Ren's.

But once again, there's so much disappointment in this package, like Abyss appearing for a brief cameo before getting killed, same with Odin, who's fight felt more like a parody in the grand scheme of things, and that the whole Reunion Rider War felt pointless. Honestly, I have to take Shinobi as the best Rider Time Special, since while the recreation and Modern Ryuki vibes are something I loved, this special just doesn't work, because Ryuki wove something with a beginning, a middle, and an end, even the Ryuki specials had more purpose than this, which is a shame, since they pretty much brought back the whole cast with guests.

Honestly it would've been more hilarious if it was just the Riders trying to win over Femme in a Bachellorette Rider War.

This honestly would indeed be far better than what we ultimately got.

This is the part that bugged me the most. The actors can still make this insane relationship make sense, but the series goes for this Two Riders In The Night nonsense, where they still can't have a moment for their friendship. If anything, the ending would've hit even harder if we'd had two full episodes of Ren and Shinji's friendship, and THEN Ren sacrifices himself so Shinji can return to the world.

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I feel like my amount of distaste for Amazons might've been overstated? Or I might've used a comparison to Amazons in conjunction with something that eventually bore a much greater amount of vitriol?

I actually really like the first season of Amazons. Like, TAKAYAMA JIN. Maybe my favorite Secondary Rider of all time? I love that dude's arc in Season 1, and the actor is impossibly magnetic. And, yeah, I also found the show itself to be pretty fun. It was the second Kamen Rider thing I ever watched, after Ex-Aid, so I'm sure I'd find a lot more of value in it if I watched it today.

The second season... eh, I didn't love the back half.

That movie actually ruined my Christmas.

It's like a lot of things in this series, where you can squint to see what the production team might be going for -- how immutable some of these relationships are, how some people can be trapped in recurring destructive cycles, while other people fight for change -- until you remember how haphazardly the series sticks to its decisions. Everyone Has Amnesia Except For Asakura And Goto is a phenomenally stupid baseline for a story, especially when you never clarify why some people remember the Rider War and some don't.

KAMEN RIDER ZI-O EPISODE 29 - “BLADE JOKER 2019”

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I don’t know if it’s just the proximity to a Kamen Rider story I intensely disliked, but I thought this episode was just about perfect.

It’s exceptionally funny, which helps a lot. A delightful 20-odd minutes of tokusatsu. Some of it’s fun physical gags, like Sougo and Geiz realizing five seconds into their Henshin sequences that Kaitou has stolen all of their Ridewatches. Some of it’s the thinly-disguised passive-aggression bubbling up in the expanded Team Zi-O, like when Woz gently suggests that Sougo not attempt to puzzle out the proper temporal conjugation for Geiz and Woz’z backstory. But a lot of it is the almost Blade-like energy of this collection of well-meaning idiots, and how success is never that far from failure.

The minute I was like Oh Yeah Blade wasn’t when we saw Amane, which was great. It wasn’t when we saw Hajime, surrounded by photos in his wee little cabin, which was great. It wasn’t when we saw Actual Blade, Kenzaki himself, looking like he’d just had to tell Tachibana that the Puzzle Buffet was closed, which was great. (Not, uh, great for Kenzaki, obviously.) It was when Tsukuyomi asked Sougo what their plan was for finding Kamen Rider Blade, and Sougo realized he’d forgotten to think of one.

That’s the energy I think of when I think of Blade’s series: how continuously bad at this everyone but Hajime was. Sure, Tachibana was an insect-themed dumpster fire, but Kenzaki and Team Blade were never particularly great at their jobs, either. That was their charm, though. They came across as scrappy underdogs, a collection of survivors and good samaritans who made up for their lack of training with a need to do better than they did yesterday, to meet every setback as a learning experience.

The other big part of Blade is how proximity can forge bonds, even if you’d prefer they didn’t, and that’s where Team Zi-O finds itself in this episode. Woz and Geiz are already at each other’s throats, and it’s been maybe twelve hours. There’s plenty of history there (even if I’m certain we’ll discover that Woz didn’t purposefully get dozens of people murdered), and it’s hard for Geiz to let his anger go, because: Geiz. But there’s a point where Geiz brushes aside Diend’s claim that Geiz and Woz are friends by saying that, No, they’re roommates. It’s a tiny detail, and a funny comeback, but I think it gets to the weird sense of found family the best Kamen Rider shows have. It can sometimes be happenstance that puts people into each other’s orbits, and good things can develop from that. Weirdly, even found families sometimes don’t get to pick who’s in them.

This was a great episode for fleshing out the new dynamic of Team Zi-O, as well as Hat Woz’z more direct villainy, but it sure didn’t skimp on the Legend Rider requirements. Amane’s return, and how this episode centered its story on her connection with Hajime, is maybe my favorite Legend Rider decision this show has ever made. (I love her little Heart Playing Card necklace!) It’s sort of the flipside of how we can create bonds unknowingly: what happens when we have to leave those circumstances? Exploring what happened between Hajime and Amane in the years after Blade ended is, seriously, right up my alley.

Less up my alley is Kenzaki’s return, if only for how absolutely bonkers Kenzaki’s various post-Blade appearances have been. Hajime’s return is relatively clean, since the actor hasn’t (to my memory) returned to the character since Blade’s final episode. (He did play a tiny cop dad in a Den-O movie, though!) But Kenzaki’s popped up, like, a half-dozen times, and the Blade suit itself has appeared almost yearly in Phase 2 Heisei projects. I feel like Kenzaki can’t actually mean that he hasn’t used his powers since the end of the TV show, because that is empirically false. While some movies could be considered non-canonical (Heisei Generations Forever, give or take a W Ridewatch), he’s cropped up enough times to have at least one of them be canon, and that’s not even counting appearances in Gorider and Decade. I honestly hope that Episode 30 opens with Hajime immediately calling Kenzaki out on his bullshit.

Other than that, this was terrific. Diend’s doing his normal charming thievery and armchair analysis, as well as matching Tsukasa for post-series sartorial excellence. (That white coat over black outfit! So good!) We’re getting some backstory on Woz and Geiz, but not at the expense of modern-day interactions. The action’s shot beautifully, with the Geiz/Woz/Accel/Birth/Diend fight being especially gorgeous. (I did laugh when Diend’s like Let’s See How You Do Against These Speedy Riders, and he summoned Accel and Birth. Is… Birth considered particularly speedy? Was he thinking of Mach? Mach was pretty speedy!) I like divvying up the cast into Geiz/Woz, and Sougo/Tsukuyomi, since those pairings rarely occur on this show nowadays, if they ever did.

Whole thing was super rewarding. Funny, clever, exciting, and emotionally rich. Very excited for the conclusion!

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