Asakura is an incredible character. Absolutely despicable heartless person but an extremely entertaining villain. The relation between him and Kitaoka is one of the best parts of the series.

And it's fun, you know, to have a Pure Villain on a show that's a lot more subjective. Nothing about Asakura is defensible! His only defense in a criminal trial was that the victim pissed him off. (I don't know if the show has established what he's in for? Assault, I've got to assume, because I'm not sure even Kitaoka could get a murder charge with that defense knocked down to ten years.) It's good to have some unambiguous evil, to have someone even the villains are like, Yikes.

Yep, that was him. His actor is one of those guys who loved his time on the show and will come back any time he's given the chance.

That's definitely part of what makes Asakura so great. You can totally tell his actor loved playing the character.

Not only one person, but pretty much everyone else btw (dunno if a joke but drop the "white knight bs" there as I'm talking about everyone). Though I already explained, outright telling anyone Rider/Mirror stuff is not an easy task to do. No one will believe that (a cliche for unknown fantasy elements in a seemingly normal world), Yui's someone who gets labelled as a freak for telling people about the Mirror stuffs, other Riders likely wouldn't care, dunno for Shinji, Reiko has a freak experience with Shimada.

From what I get before, I'd say she didn't act pathetic, she's just compassionate, like in this current episode when she saw Eri being hospitalized (keep in mind she didn't know yet that she's Ren's gf and she left roses). I guess she's planned to carry the Ejima Laboratory photo she copied and ask others if they know anyone pictured in the photo and their contact/whereabouts. But Nakamura dead-set reveals that everyone else there is already dead leaving him the sole surviving member. Reiko herself also completed other ordinary topic investigations, but still didn't get anything yet regarding Mirror stuff (disappearences) so far other than it's something not logical.

Sure, probably yeah conflicts are more entertaining but for Ryuki case, getting along (and no it's obviously not everyone, I also don't want everyone to just strictly get along but here's only Shinji and Tezuka among Riders, not every Riders) is such a rarity I want that to be remembered. I also made a cover about interesting parts (to me) for Tezuka and Shinji's monster fight there before.

I mean that's already the policy of living in Atori established before to Shinji back then, you can live without paying, but you have to help out at the cafe's working time (Shinji's in evening). Tezuka as in the discussion before moves in there, so he "pays" by helping out there just like Shinji and Ren, especially that Shinji's at work and Ren and Yui are MIA. I'd like to see how Tezuka interacts with the customers there but we didn't get that.

Also finally Tezuka & Auntie interacts; "my prediction is always right" vs "my intiution is never wrong". Sadly Tezuka got owned this time....due to Shinji.

Shiro wants the Rider to kill each other, so Asakura is definitely one of the best people to pick. Shiro should look for more people like this. Oh wait that's pretty much everyone except Shinji and Tezuka, even Ren to him looks like someone that will act like that at first glance. And despite him being irredeemable, he didn't to something that Scissors or Gai do; feeding people to monsters (though murder is murder, either directly or by monsters) for the former and making snuff films for the latter. There's also something fishy about Shiro where he just glides and dodges a punch from Asakura. Asakura, Shibaura, and Sudo all didn't seem to have a wish though for now.

And now even Kitaoka gets a limit of douchery, he is sick of dealing with Shibaura, asking are there any decent people. Well yeah, if you don't treat people other than Shibaura like trash then you'll get your wish right there! And obviously Asakura. Asakura is an entertaning bastard, but he IS a bastard, so to me, it's actually satisfying to see him suffer; Kitaoka being uninterested to defend him in a court and calling him out, making Asakura livid of being denied getting what he wants (free from jail). IIRC Shibaura doesn't explicitly target Shinji or something, just to add more people in the Rider War and this new person doesn't seem disappointing like Shinji, Tezuka, and Ren for being an irredeemable bastard, Shibaura isn't disgusted at all by Asakura which means (more analysis below). Kitaoka is totally selfish but he's not an actual villain.

Shibaura's such an ungrateful bastard, telling Asakura that the person who just saved him from jail is a Rider to get him to fight. Reiko is a reporter, ORE Journal is a news publication, cases like this are a must to publish, and you should wait for others from ORE to arrive too, Shinji has in this episode but wait for Okubo and Shimada. And soon you'll see Shinji being a hero, without Rider form. Asakura being a nationwide fugitive (yeah Asakura IS an example of fugitive, not Kitaoka like you refer him earlier!). The polices are being too merciful by not shooting Asakura in place, he's a normal human outside Rider.

No Rider is not about killing monsters except Shinji and Tezuka tbh, but killing monster is necessary to feed their contract monster (and an easy show of Final Vent without immediately killing another Rider). He almost killed Ren in ep. 17. Shibaura is lowkey as irreedeemable as Asakura, but he's not a violent type of person, he only sees human lives as a stress toy for him to play. But how he runs the war is a reminiscent of video games (and the death games he created) being a gamer, to watch and participate in Battle Royale like playing irl Fortnite or something. Just as a note obviously Ryuki came much earlier and it's inspired by Highlander.

Yeah, he throws himself into it. It's cool that he had a good time, but I'm almost a little surprised? There's an intensity to his performance, that, like, I would be less surprised if someone said he was a classically-trained actor who hated his time working in the kids-show gutter. He's approaching his character... it's pitched between Dramatic Supervillain and Violent Animal. There's a space in there, and that space is, for me, Asakura. It's raw and real in a way that's totally distinct from the other actors on this show.

I don't know, I guess I feel like Reiko could handle it? Yui's experiences, aren't most of those when she's a little kid? At least, the ones that we've seen on the show so far have been. I'd hope Reiko would be a little more curious and understanding than a group of six-year olds?

No, yeah, it's nice to see Riders team-up, or at least find commonality. So much of the last two episodes has been the push-and-pull of Shinji and Tezuka trying to work together, and it's led to some rewarding scenes when they're able to fight together.

It's weird! It's a weird policy. I know that it's because Auntie's got a gut feeling on who's good or bad or whatever, but it's a weird way to run a business. I think that's fair to say! I think Auntie just likes having handsome young men around, if we're being honest.

Sure, Shibaura's a puppet-master. He's a game designer, and his main thing so far has been manipulating people into fighting to the death. He'll kill monsters to survive, but it's not really his thing. We all gotta eat to live, but I don't think I'd say that every human is about eating. There's what we do to survive, and what we do to get what we want. That's... that's sort-of one of the themes of Ryuki? Where those impulses overlap, or conflict? I don't know, just a thought.

I can see the Highlander influence, sure, but Ryuki came out just a few years after Battle Royale, which probably added to the DNA of this show. And since Fortnite was just ripping off PUBG which was ripping off Battle Royale...

I remember back in the days it was kind of a big deal when Asakura debuted. Not because we finally got a full-fledged maniacal kamen rider who is crazy, but the fact that an actor who played a playboy detective/goofball that can transform into a sparkly crystal-armored superhero in the obscure standalone Toei toku hero show Changerion came back to Toei studios at least 5~6 years later to play a full-fledged maniacal kamen rider who is crazy. Fun fact, one of his co-stars in Changerion is Atsushi Ogawa, aka the man who claims to be Tetsuya Sawaki in Agito, and Inoue was the main script writer for Changerion.

Neat! It's fun, the way some folks filter in and out of toku shows. (I'm pretty sure Kanon from Ghost is the new Pink Ranger?) I can't imagine what it would be like to have a comedy actor suddenly go all in as a terrifying villain, though. I wonder if that would blunt its impact? That disconnect, of looking at his face and thinking Comedy while he's holding a little girl hostage... weird.

I feel like I'm going to get a version of that when I watch Blade, and the first few times I see Garren it'll be impossible to take him seriously. He's the conniving principal from Fourze, not some hero! (I don't know anything about Garren, so maybe he's also a conniving principal? If so, please ignore this paragraph.)

The actor Kousei Amano(then Hironari Amano) who played that same principal in Fourze and Garren in Blade was also famous for playing Tuxedo Mask for a while in Sailor Moon musicals prior to Blade, and the same Tuxedo Mask role was also previously taken by Mr. Tyrannoranger himself Yuuta Mochizuki from Zyuranger and Kenji Urai aka N Daguva Zeba from Kuuga. Crazy, I know. :lolol

...

...

...they really only have about ten actors for all of these toku shows, don't they.