Definitely! It's not even that rare for Rider shows and the like to use flimsy excuses to get a villain just short of killing the hero (the perennial "tossed 'em in a river", for example), so for Ryuki to build that narrative shortcut right into the world, it makes it much more palatable to the audience. You're told upfront this will be happening, so it doesn't come off as cheap, even though when you think about it, it's not any less lazy in the long-term.

This is the same reason I have a soft spot for the Riders' abilities to outright detect monsters in Agito, and especially Ryuki, where it's employed to the exact opposite effect as the time limit. Need to break up a conversation in a hurry? Just say there's a monster nearby! Again, not flawless storytelling structure, but it's an efficient way to add justification to the heroes randomly stumbling upon bad guys to fight.

Combining it with the time limit, I think, gave Ryuki's episodes a ton of extra flexibility and breathing room in what they wanted to do, since those rules removed the need to sweat the "small" stuff every week.

Gosh, I wish he did that. Unlike the main villains, most of those poor Masquerade Dopants were never shown to be fine after exploding. I think Double and Accel combined probably mercilessly slaughtered like at least 50 of those guys throughout the series. :lol

Everything about Mirror Ghost Who Can't Be Hit And Hands Out Magical Card Decks says to me that dude has special powers. If he's just, like, a messenger, some lieutenant or mouthpiece, I never really considered it. I guess it's possible, though.

Yeah, this is another one where I just sort-of assumed they had to fight in Mirror World. I can't recall if we've seen anyone do Rider stuff in the real world. They usually just jump into a reflective surface and blow the environment to pieces. I just figured their powers only worked there.

Which, in a way, I really like it for how it contains the collateral damage and keeps the Rider Battles secret. There's a hidden war going on, just parallel to our world. Plus, you can mostly keep the cops out of it and just let Rider Justice take care of things, so, hooray!

I mean, yeah, maybe! That's a pretty good guess for what Kitaoka might be thinking. It's... he might be giving Goro way too much credit, if that's the case, though. Goro's great, but he's still just a man. Asakura's a violent lunatic AND a Kamen Rider. I can't imagine Kitaoka thinking Goro's going to get the better of him, considering he already got kidnapped.

So, I like the time limit, I like that there's a story justification for fights ending... but it's still pretty cheap. The time limit is of a narratively convenient length, so almost every time a villain/antagonist has a hero on the ropes OH NO TIME'S UP gosh I guess we'll have to try this again some other time. We're not even halfway through the series and they've hit that button kind-of a lot.

It's funny to me, to think of Accel being even-tempered and empathetic, mostly because the text 100% does not support that view. If anything, the gap between HEN and SHIN is probably him getting so excited about detonating a monster that he forgot to say the whole word.

MASKED RIDER RYUKI EPISODE 23

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/ryuki/ryuki23a.png

And that's it for Tezuka, now and forever Kamen Rider Quarter.

I wish this episode hit me harder. I liked it fine, but it wasn't one of my favorites. The beginning is FANTASTIC, with the Knight/Zolda fight. The whole Trick Vent versus Shoot Vent thing, where every blast from Zolda has another Knight duplicate running around, it's probably one of my favorite Ryuki fight concepts. I just dig the physicality of Trick Vent, that they just have another Knight costume and they throw it on a different stunt performer. I like that it's multiple physical Knights running around, flanking Zolda. This episode opens so strong.

Everything after that... it's like I was watching it, and understanding it, but I wasn't feeling it.

Tezuka's backstory is a neat twist on Ren's and Shinji's. Like Ren, he's working out his guilt and anger through being a Rider, and like Shinji he got into this not out of a personal wish but as a way of protecting people. He's a clever amalgam of the two of them, while still feeling like his own character. After Shinji's crisis with Ren, where he wants to try to keep his mind open about Rider Battles, Tezuka's pretty much on his own. He's the only one trying to keep Riders from fighting, and it's seeming ever more impossible.

I guess maybe that's it, why I didn't feel that shocked or angry or sad when Tezuka dies? I liked his character, but it seemed like he had a target on his back as The Pacifist Rider. And, to the show's credit, it doesn't really spend a lot of energy on trying to sell you on But Maybe Tezuka Will Fight. Shiro tries hard, telling Tezuka that Yuichi was totally all about killing Riders at the end, he wished he'd killed a ton of Riders, and he told Shiro to tell Tezuka that killing Riders is super great. It's a defining end for Tezuka, that he never really wavers on his principles. He doesn't fight Ouja, despite Asakura being the one who broke Yuichi's hands. (And that's probably 99% of the reason Asakura got a Card Deck, ‘cause Shiro hates a quitter.) He sacrifices himself to save Shinji, since it was Shinji who was fated to die and the world needs Shinji more than it needs him. So, yeah, a narratively appropriate ending, with Tezuka getting his wish of changing a Rider's fate, and of him both avenging and honoring Yuichi's death. It's well-written, and sort-of lovely at the end. There's a tranquility that's appropriate for Tezuka's final scene.

I just... I just didn't feel it, emotionally. Intellectually, I was very I Like What You're Doing There, but when Tezuka finished dying I was okay to move onto Knight's upgrade. (Knight gets the first upgrade?!) Quarter getting bumped off was no more or less interesting than a new coat of paint on Knight. I feel like it should mean more, should evoke... something, but it's just making me say Okay. Okay, Tezuka died. And maybe it's because of the neatness of it, the way it ties up his narrative so effectively, that it feels emotionally unfilling. As appropriate as a fated ending is for Tezuka, The Way It Was Always Going To End, it has a hollowness to it. (And, I know that he wasn't actually fated to die, that he changed his and Shinji's fate, but it's more that this feels like how his story had to end.) There's no gutpunch to Tezuka's sacrifice, and the show doesn't feel like it's going to be worse off for him not being around. He did the things he needed to do, we got his whole arc, and it's okay for him to be gone. I liked him, I liked his story, but I'm a little surprised I didn't care more about his ending.

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/ryuki/ryuki23b.png

What a surprisingly relevant and appropriate time for this tweet to have happened:

https://twitter.com/hasseijackson/st...31342318104576

Well, iirc, Ouja kicked the prison door in real world to escape so there for Rider stuff in real world. And oh yeah, the Rider Battles are kept being secret which makes civilians still know nothing about it, where ORE Journal is the only one following this dead topic.

The other "doom" Mirror World brings....you cannot receive a signal there when Reiko calls Shinji while he's fighting with Tezuka. Which would make Reiko go to Asakura by herself. Which would lead to bad things..

Trick Vent seems a powerful one because the clones are NOT super fragile where it can only be used as a distraction and an actual army. I probably want for it to be utilized fully like actually having the arsenals on each of the clones. So at the end Ren remarks that Kitaoka is weaker, essentially denying Kitaoka's praise to Ren? And also to clarify this; Kitaoka becomes a Rider to cure his illness but... inevitably, his illness will get on his way for this physical-activity. And Goro also actually knows himself that Kitaoka wouldn't come and isn't surprised by that. What if Kitaoka asks Goro to fight some fights for him? (but as ep. 19 shows, Goro isn't all into Kitaoka winning Rider War, just serving him)

So Tezuka lost a loved one (Yuichi for him, Eri for Ren) through a Mirror Monster and triggers him to become a Rider like Ren, but Tezuka wants to stop the Rider War with Rider powers instead like Shinji. The difference is also unlike Ren, Tezuka didn't contract the monster that caused him grief. Overall Tezuka is someone who wants to preserve Yuichi's righteous mindset of not wanting to kill for personal gain so it won't die in vain. And Tezuka confirms Yuichi's mindset will be cowardly to others, which is just like, Shiro. And who says Shinji's dilemma stops him from stopping the Rider War?

And Tezuka gave Survive card to Ren. So even when Raia had a crazed revenge to Guldthunder, he isn't tempted by Shiro to go get even at Asakura, the one harmed and indirectly killed Yuichi and the bigger problem overall.

Raia (yeah finally they mentioned his name here!) not only didn't fight back, he basically made himself a punching bag towards Ouja. Now he's the one breaking down to a catatonic state like a certain character before. And also his death is another one, ironic. Tezuka's predictions are always right, but he purposely made a wrong one by claiming that he'll die instead of Shinji and fulfills the wrong prophecy by sacrificing himself, to prove that fate can be changed a̶n̶d̶ ̶k̶e̶e̶p̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶1̶0̶0̶%̶ ̶t̶r̶a̶c̶k̶ ̶r̶e̶c̶o̶r̶d̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶r̶i̶g̶h̶t̶ ̶p̶r̶e̶d̶i̶c̶t̶i̶o̶n̶s̶. Tezuka feels that Shinji is more suitable for stopping the Rider War based on how unpredictable he is back in ep. 18 as one of the reasons, but Tezuka is also "inspirational character" (cliche is inspirational characters mostly die) to drive Shinji's character. Despite making most efforts to Ren (and the interactions you cover most), the big part is he actually influences Shinji, with the way how he tried to change Riders as people, and after that Shinji tried Tezuka's methods a bit.

I understand that Tezuka was too weak to tell anything at his death, but why he refused to tell anyone something before? For a minor thing, how did Shinji and Yui somehow can sense Mirror World stuff from very afar this one time and know where Tezuka is? Shiro's direct influence? Sure Shinji found Ren in Asakura episode before, but that's more of his journalist skills (his job is to find people and places). And reflections don't work like that!

You know there are already numerous secondary Riders who gets final upgrade first right? Like Cross-Z, G3-X, Deep Specter, etc. And I will also say that Knight Survive is my second most favorite design in this series. Ouja just lets Knight change into Knight Survive? Well I know he's someone who likes good fights so it makes sense a bit, and this episode didn't really portray it well but later part in the series will show why it makes sense not to attack upgrading Riders (this episode just has Knight turn to Knight Survive the same way a human turns into a Rider).

I liked Tezuka a lot and was so goddamn happy when he and Shinji took each other's hand. That right there was just my biggest "Yes, HELL YES!" moment; like the exact thing you know is gonna happen from the moment this character shows up and you're just waiting in sheer anticipation for it!

And then he dies :(

"Accessorizing with masks" isn't something I've ever had to think about as an American, but, uh... thinking about it a lot right now. I guess I'd probably buy a variety pack of Ryuki masks. I wonder if that's going to be way more of a thing, globally, going forward. I know that Asian countries have less of a stigma about masks in public, but maybe this'll be a turning point for America's acceptance of them?

I don't know. Still! Tezuka's a good choice to be the spokesperson for We Are Responsible For Each Other's Safety. Although, for the current Ryuki cast, no one practices social distancing, physical and emotional, like Ren.

Yeah, that's a very Ren move, to take a compliment and spin it back as an insult, to keep people at a distance, to be an asshole. If Kitaoka's going to praise Ren for being stronger, Ren's going to claim that he's the same, Kitaoka just got worse. He's such an asshole and I love it!

I feel like that's the moment when Tezuka knows he'll need to sacrifice himself, when he gives the card to Ren. He can't fight the other Riders, he can't stop the Rider Battles are Shiro, but maybe he can save Ren and Shinji, and maybe they can do what he couldn't. I think that card, giving it away, that was the moment for him.

I guess I wouldn't call it ironic, though. Shibaura's death is ironic. Tezuka's is definitely poetic. He achieves his goals at the cost of his own life. And, for me, that's maybe part of the problem with my emotional distance from it. There's... I can feel the hand of the writer, tying things up neatly and constructing a clever, complete end to Tezuka's story. But that, I think, robs it of some of the messiness that could surprise, or shock. Everything that happens to Tezuka makes sense, but it maybe makes too much sense?

The new Knight costume is neat, and the scene where it debuts is suitably intense (a pocket dimension just to show off form changes!), but Knight's the first Ryuki character to get an upgraded form, and that's weird to me. The examples you mentioned, they all got their upgrades after the title character did. Ryuki hasn't gotten an upgraded form yet, but now Knight's powered-up. I guess I can sort-of see why fans think this is more Knight's show than Ryuki's?

I feel like we got a whole story with Tezuka, though, you know? There's nothing I can see with Tezuka that went unexplored, or was left vague. He gets a complete arc, so maybe that can make things better?

Oh, I know! That wasn't a criticism it just made me very sad and I'm still sad about it months later :lol

Hey, I'm still sad about it years later! Tezuka is the s***! It's kind of a further punch to the gut how well Die is taking this, if I'm being honest. :lol

I'm not sure why I'm not more sad about it. It's a little confusing to me, in that I don't think the show had a misstep that would leave me cold. Intellectually, I'm like, This Is Sad. Emotionally, though... I'm going to quote Los Campesinos and say "I know it is and really that's what worries me / I feel like I should hurt."

I guess I'm just going to land on there being an inevitably, and a cleanliness to Tezuka's end, and that's keeping it all in the thoughts and none in the feelings.

Or I'm a bad human being. One or the other!