I think it's both? I think Ren's thing is very much You Need A Reason To Fight, that's something he tried to shake Shinji with. But Kitaoka knows Ren has a reason to fight, he just thinks it's childish and naive, when adults only should care about themselves. (As an adult, I think Kitaoka is on to something.)

I didn't mention it before, but I think it's great how Kitaoka, an actual terrible human being, completely sees through Ren's black leather jacket brooding bullshit for the empathetic, lonely boy he is. Kitaoka knows this dude for about eight seconds before he's like Ha Ha You Want To Be Friends With Shinji. Kitaoka! So great!


That is great, yes. I really like how volatile Shinji is as a protagonist. He burns hotter, you know? (Red suit! Dragon! Motifs!) After a bunch of chill dudes and sweet boys, I like that Shinji's kindness is balanced by getting in people's faces and telling them off.

The arm injury... it maybe bugged me a little bit? We knew Shimada bit her kidnapper's hand, we even see it again in the flashback, but she says she hurt his arm. They make it "arm" so we can have a brief moment of Shinji's Kamen Rider Scumbag-inflicted injury get mistaken for damning proof, okay, sure. It's just, Shimada has to remember it just wrong enough for the two to overlap. It seems a little belabored to me, is all. It's only for a one minute gag, it doesn't overstay its welcome, so I'm not too put out. Still, thought that bit didn't land.

I didn't have a good way to bring it up (who has time to talk about toku action when there's so much quality drama), so thanks for reminding me. It is an awesome Final Vent. I like that the show goes from Handgun, to Cannon, to Full Gundam. I can't even imagine what a late-series upgrade there could be for Kitaoka: Tactical nuke? Orbital Strike? Unicron?

That is exactly how I describe my introversion when I'm frustrated with family. I know that move, Yui!

It's been really interesting seeing how you've reacted to this four-part introduction arc for Kitaoka. This was Toshiki Inoue's first crack at writing Ryuki, so I guess it's only appropriate your opinions on it sound exactly like your opinions on a lot of Agito. Putting his work on Kuuga aside for a second, I think it becomes really apparent whenever you talk about him just how much his biggest strength and weakness as a writer are the same thing: how much he loves his extremes.

I guess I already talked about this a bit in the Agito thread too (double surgery!), but I feel like I'm starting to get a great grasp on why Inoue has the mixed reputation he does, and why I'm generally a bit more lenient on the guy than most. You know, it's like, Shinji being a complete buffoon or Yui getting constantly nagged by her aunt? Not the show's best material. Kitaoka being a comically huge jerk, and having the audacity to end the arc with him blowing everyone to bits, leaving Kobayashi to pick up the pieces the next week? There's just no way I can hate that.

There's another Inoue trademark in this story I forgot to mention: a general antipathy towards using monsters in a coherent or clever way. Like, the Zebra Monster from 7 and 8 comes out of nowhere, kills a few people we don't know, and then the Mirror Sense tingles and Riders show up to kill it. There's no investigation (even though it's happening in the exact same town as the dude Reiko and Shinji are profiling!), there's no sense of escalation, it's just nothing nothing nothing MONSTER DETONATION. (The Boar Monster from 9 and 10 has the same thing, but it interferes in the story, causing complications for Shinji. But, like, it's a total coincidence? I thought Kitaoka was setting Shinji up, but no, Boar Monster just happens to target that dude, no reason why. It's sloppy writing, for sure.) Agito had that a ton, where Inoue would put in monster fights the way a child cleans their room: grudgingly, letting you know what an unbelievable chore it is, but FINE look they're doing it are you happy now.

Thankfully, Ryuki feels like it's aching to leave monster fights behind for a more unique, compelling story of competing Riders, so Inoue's emphasis on broad characters and personal drama is actually a huge asset. Like, it's only a couple things (the monster stuff, the extinguisher stuff) that feel like it's of a lower quality than the first half-dozen episodes. I think he generally did a good job on this one!

For me the issue with Inoue isn't extremism. My problem has always been that, especially from Faiz onwards, Inoue loves melodrama. He thrives on cheap pathos and inter-character drama, but he's not very good at it. That's why you get the over-reliance on scumbag, sociopathic antiheroes and simple misunderstandings that spiral out of control because characters refuse to have conversations with each other.

I can't speak to the "from Faiz onwards" stuff, but he showed a pretty decent balance of character drama in the Team G3/Houjou stuff from Agito. They all feel real and vital. But then, yeah, Kino... And a lot of the second-to-last storyline...

INTERLUDE: KAMEN RIDER EX-AID EPISODE 1

Today's the two-year anniversary of when I started Kamen Rider shows. It's my Riderversary!

I don't know if that's a thing. I didn't do anything special about it last year, that I recall. I noticed it back when I started watching Agito, and I thought I'd try and do something to commemorate it this year. The timing worked out, anyway. I thought, "Oh, maybe I can rewatch the first-ever Kamen Rider thing I watched, and talk about that experience.” You know, see if I can find in it the thing that ignited my fandom for Kamen Rider.

(Is a Riderversary a thing? Do you remember the day you started Kamen Rider? Have you ever celebrated it?)

So, just for tonight, I'm going to delve back into the first episode of my first-ever Kamen Rider show, Kamen Rider Ex-Aid! I'm excited to revisit a story of--

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/...exaid2020a.png

Oh. OH. Oh...

Okay, look, I definitely didn't plan on watching such a, uh, fraught setting when I thought of rewatching this a few months ago. Obviously, it's not a topic most people want to see in their entertainment right now. You don't want the fears of a pandemic, the destabilizing effects of viral outbreak. You want escapism.

And, man, I assume I wanted escapism a couple years ago. I remember bits and pieces of my path to Ex-Aid. I've mentioned it before, on other threads, but I've been a pretty hardcore Transformers fan since 2011. (Another thing I got into later in life! The origin story on that one is its own thing.) I'd read the TFW2005 boards and articles pretty regularly, especially on breaks at work. Sometimes, when boredom would get the better of me, I'd tab over to the other fan pages on the network, HissTank, ToyArk, and TokuNation. I didn't know anything about toku stuff back then. I'm old enough that when Power Rangers hit the US I was pretty much too old to get into it. I was aware of it, but I never watched it or anything. Kamen Rider, I knew zero about that one. But I'd see these Figuarts reviews of Ex-Aid figures, stuff like Bang Bang Simulations, and I'd be mesmerized. I didn't know what the hell I was looking at. Reading the reviews, and following the links, I'd start to build a totally-wrong version of the show in my head (definitely thought it was post-apocalyptic, I remember that) that was intriguing to me. I don't quite remember what made me take the leap to TOTALLY LEGALLY downloading the season of Ex-Aid, but it was probably just eventually getting curious enough to try it.

So, yeah, all of that led to me watching the first episode of Ex-Aid two years ago today. Since then, I've watched all of Ex-Aid, and eleven other Kamen Riders besides. How does that first episode hold up now that I'm deep in the fandom? Does it still work? Can I say why it worked for me back then?

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/...exaid2020b.png

I... I think this might be the best first episode of Kamen Rider? I don't know. Nostalgia's a hell of a drug, but this thing moves at a brisk, thrilling clip. There's an appropriate amount of set-up for Emu, for CR, for the Bugster virus, and it's all wrapped up in an easy to understand The Hero Wants To Save A Young Boy story. The stakes are clear, and small enough to feel vital, immediate. The hero runs on a mix of My Duty As A Doctor and a personal connection, the need to be the example that another doctor set for him as a child. You instantly get who Emu is as a character, and Asuna gets to play a neat foil. She's harsh when she needs to be, and helpful when she can be. And, like halfway through the first episode, we get glorious technicolor Ex-Aid aesthetics.

I talk a lot nowadays about themes and character arcs and intricate storytelling and all of that. (I just did!) But the thing that captivated me back then, I'm pretty sure, is the second half of this episode. Shooting the Salty fight outside, in the daytime, on these rolling hills, it's beautiful. It's such a smart move, just bright and clear. The color of the Ex-Aid figures is what got me curious, and the back half of this one is reds and yellows and neon pinks and electric greens. It's huge HIT and LEVEL CLEAR and MIGHTY CRITICAL STRIKE callouts. It's a sweeping Henshin, one that I get chills rewatching, the promise that everything's about to change forever, that you'll never forget what comes next. It's a bulky comedy suit, a dopey gag of a cartoon, and it's unexpected in its piss-taking. All of it, it's about having fun, about the joy of games and the feeling of freedom that comes from them. That anything can happen, as long as it's fun.

This episode... god, it felt good to watch it again. It's not perfect, mind. There're things that don't work. (I never ever liked Hiiro's dad.) But they're things the show would lessen over time, the pratfalls and wacky disobedient children. The core of it, all of the stuff I love about Kamen Rider, it's all here in the first episode. A hero who wants to make children smile. A colorful world of bright costumes and exploding monsters. An epic landscape of heroes and villains. I'm glad I found it. I'm glad I've got so much more to go. Here's to another year of Kamen Rider!

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/...exaid2020c.png

Imagine if contracting Dragreder, Shinji contracted Mighty and he turned into Ex-Aid Level 1.

Also, I bet Genius Gamer M would have cleared the Rider Battle by now with no continues.

I started watching Kamen Rider in 2007, although that was still later than Sentai :lol I don't remember the day but it was sometime late 2007 I'd seen a bit of Den-O but not really got into it much then I saw episode 1 of Kabuto and I was hooked. I just love 2006 in Japan in general!

Either way, Shinji would still be stuck with numerous asshole Riders that he would try and failing most of the time to redeem. And had a big deja vu with Cronus.

A̶n̶d̶ ̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶f̶e̶m̶a̶l̶e̶ ̶p̶a̶r̶t̶n̶e̶r̶ ̶w̶o̶u̶l̶d̶n̶'̶t̶ ̶b̶e̶ ̶Y̶u̶i̶ ̶b̶u̶t̶ ̶h̶e̶r̶ ̶a̶d̶o̶p̶t̶i̶v̶e̶ ̶m̶o̶t̶h̶e̶r̶ ̶i̶n̶s̶t̶e̶a̶d̶.̶ (excuse my bad joke attempt)

So scumbag/sociopathic/antihero characters has its limits eh? KR Die was praising the hell out of them in few last posts. Plus "sociopathic" goes beyond antiheroic traits, they're too evil for anti-hero tbh.

And eventually Ren didn't say a word at all like the Atori group at episode 9 (they needed Kitaoka for Shinji so they can't talk back to him).

So my memory blows then. Shimada bite his hand, not his arm....

God, I can remember watching the first episode of Ex-Aid all the way back in my first year of uni. Holed up in that little room, wondering if my slightly waned interest was due to 'growing out of it' (it wasn't), or because it came right after Ghost (also no, turns out I was just very stressed by the sudden change). Anyway, Ex-Aid was great and the fact I'm still here should be enough to prove it meant something.

(But if we're gonna argue best first episodes, I raise you Build, once again good on almost every level.)

The entire thing that defines melodrama is a reliance on exaggerated, sensationalized stortytelling, so I'd say that falls under what I'm talking about. For me, though, I guess I just don't think he's necessarily that bad at it? Those absurdly overdone bits of drama and comedy definitely don't always land, but when they do, they can be genuinely impactful.

I will say he's at his best when he decides to balance all that out with a lighter touch here and there though.

Good to see you getting an early start on not being let down by Ex-Aid on a rewatch!

It's a strong premiere, to be sure. I wouldn't call it the best, thanks to stiff competition from, like, Fourze and Build and maybe Drive or Wizard or Black or-

Well, there are plenty of good first episodes of Kamen Rider is the point. But Ex-Aid, I maintain, has ridiculously great structure, and its premiere benefits from the show's usual lack of wasted space. Like you said, it fits pretty much everything you need, and little you don't.

A gigantic, roaring Mighty, a Level 1 suit as big as a building. A Sword Vent that's just, like, a ten-foot long Gashacon Breaker. A Final Vent where building-sized Mighty bounces on the monster's head, Mario-style.

Look, I am into this idea.

Wow, Kabuto! I don't usually hear folks bring that one up as a gateway drug. I'm looking forward to seeing what got you hooked!

Oh, man, that brings up something else that I thought worked great about the end of the first episode of Ex-Aid. I thought the roll out of the other Riders was awesome and immediately in character: Snipe mimes killing Emu, Brave dismisses Emu's existence, and Lazer is just completely doing his own hero detective thing. Like, that's the dynamic for pretty much the rest of the show! And they nailed it in episode one!

I can totally see Ex-Aid being, like, a port in the storm. There's something... soothing, maybe, about how Extra everything is. It's impossible not to smile watching the back half of that episode, anyway. I think my facial expression the first time I watched it was a stupid wide grin, and I couldn't stop shouting WHAAAAAAAT IS HAPPENING for ten straight minutes.

I'm being incredibly subjective about Rider premieres, I'll admit. Picking Ex-Aid as the best, you could for sure make a compelling counter-argument for another series. (I definitely remember OOO having a terrific debut.) But, and maybe it's from watching a few series where the fights are fewer and the drama is prioritized, I felt like this one balanced the exposition with a gigantic helping of action at the end. It's half the episode! That's... that is not how shows like Kuuga, Agito, or Ryuki pace things. Ex-Aid, in my mind, feels like a very full series. There're four hero Riders that all get complete stories, two villains that get the same, and a number of minor villains and sidekicks who get tons to do. It'd be easy for things to feel rushed, or overstuffed. Looking at this episode, nothing feels irrelevant or unnecessary, no one feels overshadowed or underutilized. It's a great unit of entertainment, and one that definitely gets you excited for more.

Episode 25 of Kabuto was the first episode of Kamen Rider I watched (as long as you don't count the Black RX footage from Saban's Masked Rider, or that clip I saw of X fighting Hitler Starfish). I didn't know what the hell was going on, but I knew I'd found something that was special. I'd been obsessed with Guyver from the age of 10 all the way into my late teens (which was tough, because very little in the way of merch for Guyver, which is a big way I enjoy a show/movie/comic, buying figures and playing video games related to said IP). After all the years of wishing there was more Guyver, it's like I'd found it's dad or something. Rider wasn't quite as brutal or violent, but it made up for it by being flashy and sometimes very funny. I was instantly hooked.

And, I assume, with having an endless amount of supporting merch. Do you ever wish you'd stuck to the largely-ignored Guyver? Probably would've been better financially!

Definitely would have been better for my wallet, there's no doubt about that. However, I wouldn't miss all the fun I've had with this series for anything. Between all the sweet figures, video games, wearing Rider belts to anime conventions and bumping into other fans, having seasons and seasons of shows to share with my friends, Kamen Rider is something I'm extremely glad I got into.

With Guyver, there were only unarticulated, glue-together vinyl models as far as merch, and once I was in my 20's and Max Factory finally made figures, they were super expensive and hard to get (P-Bandai stuff is more affordable and easier to get a hold of). I still love Guyver, but I find it very limited compared to Kamen Rider which has told so many different stories from 1971 to now.

Plus Rider is always on. Even if there's a season I'm not crazy about, there's always SOMETHING interesting about it, and it's a year tops before a whole new cast of characters gets introduced. There are few IP that can boast the same, and none that I can think of that brings such a consistent level of quality.

But do I wish I knew that Figuarts was going to be a thing when I was still busy hunting down all those Souchaku Henshin figures? Yes! Sooo many figures in storage due to updates. I've got Souchku Henshin Agito and Kabuto, as well as the first version of of their Figuarts in storage because....Shinkocchou Seihou. I'm not getting a 4th version in that scale unless the little fuckers actually henshin.

I think that's the best thing going for the Rider (and I guess, Sentai) franchise: one year and they move on. As someone who's been a fan of American superhero stories for decades, the fact that these Japanese ones end and move on... like, that is why I spend my work hours reading American superhero comics, and my free time watching Japanese superhero shows. They get to tell a whole story in one year. I love so many of the Rider shows, but I'd definitely be a little skeptical of, like, Build season 2. (Honestly, even when the series get a raft of follow-up films that are really fun, like Ex-Aid and Build, part of me whispers "Just leave it alone.")

I was literally just about to say that!! I love that a long-running franchise can just let stories happen and end. There's not even any worries about getting cancelled or cut short because they constantly have a tight schedule of "on for between 45-50 episodes" so it's fairly easy to plan around it.

There's always sequels and teamups and returns movies and such, but even those I feel don't take away from it -- when the series ends, that's the main story over. Anything after is just a look at what the characters are doing now or just a cool "I'm your senior rider, let's team up and beat the heck out of this god or whatever" moment. These stories are allowed to just end and that's so, so, so important to me.

So, I feel like I’ve talked about this ad nauseum, but I think there’s a difference between the classic Legend Rider stuff, like Shotaro and Kaito looking for a lost dog, or the bit where Gentaro calls Shotaro “sempai” and you can see Shotaro puff out his chest, or just anything ever with Shotaro he’s the best, and the newer follow-up films. For the former, it’s a fun cameo. For the latter, it’s like, I Guess Kuroto Has Another Scheme We Never Heard About?

I think a lot of it comes down to the negative side of the philosophy where these stories are allowed to end: they have to end. They’re, mostly, designed to tell one story, to defeat one enemy. They pretty much all do that at the end of the season. After that, we want to see them ride off into the sunset, right? They've won their fight. And the show’s built for them to do that. It’s built for there to be nothing left for them to do, no big villains left to fight. Continuations for Kamen Rider always feel like a retcon to me, something that wasn’t in the original story that now is, that we have to pretend isn’t some forced way to continue the adventures of characters we all love.

It’s, weirdly, like the opposite of a problem Doctor Who has, where the character/iteration seems built to run indefinitely, and anytime they try to treat an actor moving on as the end of a story, like it was always about one thing instead of a series of adventures, I don’t really buy it. That’s why I love that there are any number of audio adventures for older (or just old, I guess) Doctors, where they can have another go around with their companions.

I don’t know, maybe that seems hypocritical, getting angry at one franchise for adding on to their narrative when I praise another franchise for the same thing. It feels different to me, though. Kamen Rider series feel finite, and I like that. Doctor Who feels infinite, and I like that. When either of them tries it the other way, sequelizing Kamen Rider or finalizing a Doctor Who story, it feels wrong to me.

This is all probably very splitting hairs, but I do get these weird emotions about Kamen Rider. Surprise!

With all respect to Die, he's still a series away from meeting Kusaka.

I can see why you'd think of it that way, but for me it never really feels that way for one particular reason: like I said, the main story is over. But in-universe, that story is not all there is to the lives of our heroes and the machinations of our villains; and many Rider series leave it open that way.

W sees the main criminal organisation behind the Dopants brought down, but Gaia Memory salesmen and hence Dopant crimes are still out there. Ex-Aid may have brought down Masamune's schemes and redeemed Para-DX, but as Emu lays out in the ending they still have a lot of work to do in regards to restoring people within the game data; and who knows if Kuroto's really turned over a new leaf or if any more bugsters could end up happening. Agito's mostly tied up neatly, but there's so many people out there who could still become Agitos and would need help; and for all we know even though Spooky Man has been destroyed, other Unknown could have remained.

Nothing's ever completely resolved and there's always remnants hiding in the shadows. I can totally believe that there would be some threat out there after the end of any given Rider series that our heroes would have to fight against, and that doesn't invalidate their stories or the value of an ending; it's something we could easily have assumed without the need of a Returns movie fleshing out the idea or a teamup movie giving us new antagonists. Our heroes still saved lives, still developed as people, still formed bonds and had their journey together -- it's just that there's other things remaining.



There's a couple other things aside from that, too:-

- Many Kamen Rider series play with the idea of the heroes taking up the Rider mantle being a burden that they'll have to live with, and part of their development is realising the real stakes of that and deciding to live with it. That doesn't mean "oh I'll fight for a year and then chuck my belt away", that's about a life-long commitment to fighting evil. For some this is in much more direct Rider related ways -- W is still fighting off Dopants, Wizard it seems is still tracking down phantoms, and... well, I don't want to spoil other series for you. But even then despite my quip of 'chucking away the belt', there's still many Riders that continue their fight without their rider powers; like Drive still being a policeman or Kuuga travelling the world spreading good will. They get happy endings, sure, but they are no less the heroes they were in their respective series and will throw on a belt to save a kid from a kaijin at a moment's notice -- or, if none are around; will still put their all into giving a big hug and advice to those in need. So from a metatextual point of view, Returns movies in this sense are fine to me in continuing aspects of the story because it is just what these Riders would do - continue to help people and save lives.

- For returns movies specifically, they've got an interesting framing device to most of them: they always put a secondary rider in the spotlight. Now, I'm not saying that Chase or Hiiro weren't fully fleshed out riders who needed a movie to make them good characters; what I'm saying is that they were still secondary characters and hence while they had their own journeys, it was still Shinnosuke and Emu whose stories their series were about. So Returns movies can feel less like retreads in this sense because it's now positioning different people as the main characters.


... this is all in principle and theory, anyway. Another Ending: Brave & Snipe was a very dire movie that at best just retold the development of Hiiro and Taiga by regressing them and making pretty rubbish and dissatisfying choices, to the extent that I could barely tell you a thing about the movie other than remembering that one scene where Taiga became Chronus again. i don't even remember why he did.
But you know! It could have been good! It could have been a new story about these characters that put them in the spotlight and hence wouldn't feel like they were retconning or retelling their journeys! It could have been...

Throwing my hat into the disscusion of sequels and how it impacts the original show. I was never against any kind sequel it always down to execution. The Another Ending imo is good becuase I liked Kuroto Dan as a villain moreso than Masamune so to me going back to it felt right. Versus Build New World Cross-Z I feel tears down everything the finale of Build did. Everyone gets thier memories back, Evolt back, Sento and Banjo are no longer the Best Match,Pandora Box is still around, they might as well brought back the SkyWall by giving back the status que. I didn't enjoy it all tge retcons in that movie made no sense. Wheras the Another Ending retcons made more sense the fight in Snipe Episode Zero, Dr.Pacman having daugther, further exploration of the Dan Family. With Cross-Z we already retcon Evolt involvement in Be The One with the other members of the Blood Tribe but they continue butting with him being the one to kill Ryuga parents feels off.(Admittely not my strongest argument I was going to use Ryuki but I'm refraining to not want to accidently spoling something)

The way it bothers me most is in a thematic sense. The story that was designed around them, the villains they fought, the journey, that's over. If they fight another, bigger villain, if there's one more bigger crisis... it's like it cheapens the real ending of the story to me. (Controversial opinion: I maybe don't ever want Eiji to finish questing to bring back Ankh?) It's like in Ghost, when Takeru hugs Adel, that's the end of the story. That's everything the series was about, and it ended the story in the best way possible. Then Takeru detonates a giant monster. That extra, bigger boss, it makes me so mad because it takes a good ending and then puts another lesser ending after it. With a lot of the Another Ending movies, or New World movies, it's not they couldn't fight another monster, it's that narratively they shouldn't fight another monster.

To be my own Devil's Advocate, if movie sequels and follow-ups spotlight secondary Riders, I'm more than okay with it. I thought the Another Ending flicks were varying levels of quality (how could you forget the endless refrain of "Hiiro" from the Brave/Snipe movie, I wish I could), but I think the Lazer/Genm one was everything I'd've wanted from an Ex-Aid continuation. It took a plotline that maybe had a bit more juice in it, Kiriya V Kuroto, and gave it some space to find a sensible conclusion. (Like, obviously, giving Kiriya the spotlight is an easy way to elevate a film. That's a no-brainer.) That stuff, where it's a thread that needed a few more minutes, those are acceptable to me. But, like, then you get the Grease movie, which is about nothing new, it's all Greatest Hits, and it feels flimsy and poorly considered. It's a gamble to try to add more story, and I just don't think it's worth the risk.

You've got a point about the Another Endings getting a bit of a pass for bringing back Kuroto. He's so fun, he's so much better than his dad to me. It's just, this is another scheme built off of the back of all of his other schemes. There's an unfortunate sense of Here We Go Again, and I don't think that's where a production team wants its characters to be.

I think, if I may be so bold; this has essentially just led us to the conclusion that it's better for Returns movies to be more personal stories focused around secondary characters that don't feature bigger threats. I'd be down for that!

I would one-hundred percent be on board with that approach. Like, OOO story, for me, that's over. You want to do an Akira Date film, that dude's adventures? NO COMPLAINTS!

This is pretty much why the W Returns movies worked in that sense -- Eternal's was basically a flashback, and Accel's was just about some other criminal while W is barely involved!

Accel, though... his relationship with his wife is weird. It's so weird! It's maybe my least-favorite thing in W. That movie did my least-favorite thing no favors.

Overall, my distaste for follow-up films, even ones that I think do a good/fun job, it's mostly for what they could portend. If we're okay letting films like Grease and Cross-Z continue the story of Build, how long until we get a legit Build movie? I just, I wish that Legend Riders could just be a thing in other peoples' movies. An unbreakable law. I feel like we're slowly inching towards Movies Forever, and stories that never end, and eventually are designed to not end, neverending franchises. I don't want Kamen Rider to become that, I got enough of that shit in my life. I can get a little alarmist because of that. I think most of the follow-ups we've gotten, honestly, more good than bad. (BRAIN!) I just worry, is all.

Although some of the villain plots and so on can be bad in teamups generally it really annoys me if I never get to see what happens to the characters after the final episode! For some reason I feel like I almost care more about the characters and story than the actual fights, I don't know if that's odd but when Decade never attempted any kind of continuation for most of Kuuga-Kiva it genuinely ruined most of the show for me, that's why Zi-O annoyed me less! Maybe kids aren't put off if it's just the suit and a different voice actor in a teamup but for some reason it just feels pointless to me.

I mean, I get caring enough about the characters that you want to see them again. I'll never say no to a Legend Rider appearance. I don't want those characters to, like, disappear after their series end. I thought the Ex-Aid/Build movie was not that great/janky AF, but I damn near leapt off the couch when RoCkEt ON played out and Fourze hit the screen. And, you know, we got a little bit with Gentaro being a teacher, living his dream of befriending teenagers forever (uh), and that's usually all I want. A little check-in, a reminder of their well-earned happy ending. I care enough about them to want their stories to be over, if that makes sense.

Surely Kuroto might be the most memorable character (not Rider btw) in the entire franchise. But probably his dad looks worse than him because he has to going against Muteki where he looks like a complete chump in doing so? Personally I think it's one of the overlooked part of Ex-Aid, the villain not just straight overpowering the hero, but they need to use tactics to bring the heroes down.

While Kuroto had Genm Level Billion who can pull entire moon. I think that looks stronger than even his own kick attack.

Besides I'm glad that Kuroto stays as a villain. To me he never feels as someone who can turn into new leaf, like what evil deeds he's done before rivals Masamune's (like being apeshit over someone else creating Gashat??), and that he only sided with the heroes because they have mutual benefits and goals.

Well, but still there are characters who are on higher level on evil than Kusaka in franchise like Dr. Maki, Banno, Kuroto, Masamune, Evoltooooo, etc. And he'll see soon in Ryuki (Scissors may also qualify).

Probably it's made that way so people would continue to talk over about a series, to make a series remembered indefinitely, like how it goes during or after the ending. Other than that, after this, the only threat would be the regular Dopants/Bugsters/etc. so if the series continued it'll be purely MOTW format against regular monster type of the series? Because while the Dopants/Phantoms/etc. continue to exist, there are no major players behind them anymore.

I also want to know how will Parado act now tbh, he now isn't human's enemy anymore, but he cares about Bugsters like go apeshit on how Kuroto killed Burgmon, concerned over Salty being deleted by Cronus, etc.

Taiga has the most levels of Bugster virus in himself other than the Patient Zero (Emu/Masamune), which is one of the reasons he considers himself the only Kamen Rider needed. He's already shown to be able to become Cronus in main series, but using a Gamer Driver where he can't use it's full potential such as Pause. There his level of virus has risen where he can even use Bugvisor, turning the Pause time stop spamming into a good guy's hand.

Which makes me wonder, do Kamen Rider Chronicle play out like this; the player, other than completing the game, continually rise up their Bugster virus to the point that they can use Bugvisor without problem and bring out the best potential in Cronus, other than that, what's the purpose of Pause if Gamedeus is immune to it?

I think I also want to know when the "melodrama" is portrayed as an actual character's flaw, or just it being the writers not knowing to write well, especially with the differing opinions of the fandom.

Late about this but surely Ex-Aid captures the video game theme very well here, and even combining them with virus that doctors have to deal. It's suit design may not be for everyone but even that captures the retro gaming feels. I probably will reply on Die's review of Episode 1 Ex-Aid in the next few posts.

Yeah, but those guys aren't meant to be on the same side as the heroes.

I think Kuroto's a fun character because, like, he's sort-of bigger than the concept of hero and villain? He sees himself as a god given flesh, and as long as he gets to have his role as Greatest Game Designer Of All Time acknowledged, he could fight on the side of nearly anyone. If you were to make a list of Kuroto's top 10 attributes, one through nine would be "towering ego", and ten would be "slightly smaller towering ego". That's got shades to it, and it's always fun to watch.

MASKED RIDER RYUKI EPISODE 11

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/ryuki/ryuki11a.png

Jesus Christ, what even is normalcy anymore? We've got a pandemic putting the globe on lockdown, I've got no idea if I'm going to have a business next month, you can watch tons of old toku shows on streaming services, I'm thinking about turning on my Switch for the first time in a year (Animal Crossing!), we've spent the last few days of this Ryuki thread talking about Ex-Aid and sequel movies... it's insane out here. Hard to keep up.

So, hey, let's talk about an episode of Ryuki again, like old times.

I, uh... I wish it wasn't this episode we were talking about, though!

I mean, ignoring how much of this episode is clearly setup for the next episode, there's just so little here that kept my attention. Like, being the first episode in a while without Kitaoka, that's going to start you at a deficit. But, man, almost nothing worked for me with this one.

The big plot is that Ren has TV Show Amnesia, where he's conveniently forgotten that he's a superhero, and he's gruff(er than usual) with the other characters. It's all a way to explore Ren's backstory, which would normally be difficult/impossible with a brooding, taciturn hero. Here, he's going to retrace steps we've never seen, filling in blanks that should hopefully get us to care more about Ren, about his journey, about his goals.

It's just really dull to me in the moment. First, Yui gets dumped from this storyline pretty fast, despite her having one of the closest connections to Ren, so we don't at all get to see how this is affecting her. Second, Ren's not even really funny mean to Shinji, he's just a dick. Even in the first episode he was funny mean to Shinji. Here, their schtick, it feels hollow and dull. He doesn't even care enough about Shinji to belittle him, which, then why am I even watching this show. Finally, Ren's plan of, I guess, Wander Around Japan Until His Brain Works Right is so hard to get on board with. He should not be operating a motorcycle! That's stupid! Very, very stupid! And, I don't know, it's so vague of a plan that I couldn't really track it. He's literally just wandering around side streets for an episode. That's it. There's info we get from his neverending aneurysm (I assume), but it's at the very end of the episode. It's just generally not very fun to watch. Not an awesome way to pad out a two-parter.

That said, there is one legit solid gag in a very humor-light episode of Ryuki. (Holy shit, do I miss Kitaoka and Goro!) The idea of Ren having, like, forty nemeses in one neighborhood that he doesn't remember, that's good. That's a funny concept, and I'd've loved an episode built around that. Instead, it's two scenes and one laugh. Not... not worth all of that boredom.

Reiko and Yui's stories don't fare much better. It's all setup, all to link together Yui's brother, Ren's girlfriend (probably), and the mysterious survivor of the monster attack that Reiko's investigating. This whole episode, it's just table-setting. It's investigation, but in a way that only finishes asking a question. Not a lot here to get excited about.

(Also, what the hell is up with the insanely high body-count for this episode? Monster attacks on Ryuki are usually single victims, spaced out over days. Here, what, dozens of people at once? Multiple times a day? And, man, it's starting to bug how the monsters are once again just random attacks, showing up out of nowhere, then getting blown up. It's so boring, the monsters on this show! Not at all what's fun about watching Ryuki!)

A bummer, this one. The best you can say about it, besides one good Ren Makes A Lot Of Enemies gag, is that it doesn't destroy the concept of Masked Rider Ryuki. It's not good, and I've got to imagine anything we learned in this episode is going to get restated and expended upon in the next one, rendering this episode redundant, but it doesn't wreck the show. It's just, like, a bad episode of Ryuki. Not the end of the world, which, these days? I'll take it.

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/ryuki/ryuki11b.png

Yeah, the amnesia thing was odd. I never really enjoy that trope. The good thing I'll say is that the next episode that's being set up is a really good one if I remember correctly. Big plot stuff coming up! The monster of the week stuff never fully goes away, and never becomes very strong either, but as more and more Riders get introduced it becomes much more of a background thing, and the fantastic Rider vs Rider conflict becomes the core

It's a shit trope, and worse, they do nothing with it. Like, the whole point of that trope is to upend expectations, play with what we know about the characters. (Build did a great job when Takumi switched out for Sento, as an example of that trope being used well.) This one, we don't really even know the characters yet, so that doesn't work. (This is the origin of Ren, for Christ's sake.) But then, they split the whole cast up into three different threads, so almost no one gets to play off of Amnesia Ren. (HOW THE HELL DO YOU NOT PUT YUI IN THAT STORY!) And, like, Ren doesn't even change, except to get less interesting. It's a dumb idea to construct a story around, and nearly every narrative choice works against whatever benefits the trope provides. So frustrating.

I mean it's better than having a good old flashback. They would have to do an effort to search for their memories and realize what’s really important to them. It shows the character's self-exploration, it'll be important for Ren later, with what path he should take.

I mean isn't that obvious this affects her in the episode? She's having even more fears of how the battle will affect Shinji and Ren (first Ren got amnesia here, next...they face each other or worse, killed?) that she started to actually make a move and investigate Shiro (who is presumed behind all of this) by herself to try stopping the war? Besides Ren escaped (as he didn't know them) and I don't think Shinji's Honda Ruckus (his bike) can take another person as a ride.

You may feel that those "only finishes asking a question", but those will be much more important later.

As previous episode had Shinji friend's loyalty to him, it's time for Shinji to return the favor. Shinji's his main guide in this episode and he won't leave him alone no matter what. Like guiding him on where he's going and protecting him from his enemies.

The rule of his amnesia is that the only one erased is 1 year ago, so he still remembers his name and his origins. His only clue is the blurry flashbacks where indicates some places.

Probably because past episodes only show 1 victim at a monster's range (besides it's a variation where Zenobiter is the one monster with huge gluttony, variations existed in other monster types in other series). The reason that monsters attacks are random is because Ryuki's motif and concept is horror. As per horror it's meant to create fear and terror to the audience. This is how Mirror Monsters work, they stealthily work from reflective surfaces to snatch the victim, instead of directly appearing and attacking others (I mean that type of monster attacks seen in other series are also "random" right, they appear in certain place to wreck havoc). The horror part is exactly the random part, they can appear from any reflective surface; ranging from mirrors, windows, any body of water, computer screen, etc. while you're just doing your daily activities.

Other than that I have to talk about the fighting choreograph that interests me in this episode. Where Zenobiter utilizes his boomerang to negate any Vent cards a Rider use (knocks away Ryuki's Sword Vent), but later Shinji tricks him by summoning Strike Vent (where he knocks again) TO buy time to pick his Sword Vent. So Shinji's your usual dumb-at-daily-life-but-good-at-fighting MC.

At least a flashback would be able to get to the point! This episode's just so flabby and drawn-out. It's a lot of stalling until the final minute. I can't imagine a different way of telling this story would be as ineffective, dramatically.

I don't know that I'd count "my friend has a traumatic head injury and problems with his memory, I'll let the dude who's known him for three months take the lead on this, I have my brother's disappearance to (finally?) investigate" as showing how Yui cares about Ren, but, okay, sure. It's just, it feels yet again like Yui's being sidelined into a less-important part of the story, the kind with zero action. She just watches Shinji run after Ren, like she's been shackled to the tea shop, and then a few minutes later she just leaves anyway. Why is this show so mad at Yui?! Did the Shinji and Ren actors refuse to work with her for some reason?

But that's the problem with this episode. It's all This Will Be Important Later, and that makes for a boring Right Now. It's a whole episode for gathering ingredients, but you can't eat the cake until next week. Bad story construction!

You can have horror with a logic behind it. Even monster attacks need rules. Like, Agito, not that great with the monster plots, but there was a logic behind them. Same thing with Kuuga. This, it's just, Sometimes A Monster Pops Out. Okay? I guess that's a choice? Like, if there was some way the monsters hunted, or the type of prey they chose, or something. This, it feels like a bizarre escalation, that what few rules it seemed like existed have vanished. If the monsters can, at one time, kill somewhere between one and infinity people, I almost stop caring if the heroes can defeat them. It's too nebulous to care about, too fictional to invest in.

Credit where credit's due, yes, that is a cool part of the episode. It's a great point, when a Rider can outwit an enemy to gain an advantage. I just wish the monster meant more to me when Ryuki blew it up.

I think the point is not just merely exploring a character story, but also what're they doing, what will they take to achieve, etc. Maybe you feel it's drawn-out, but I think the story purposely wants to show their effort to search for their memories and realize what’s really important to them. With also Shinji returning the favor to Ren from last episode.

How searching for the truth of Shiro a less-important part of the story? Why did Ren got head injury in the first place? Why are people disappearing due to monsters? Why there are fighting among Riders (which gave Ren head injury)? etc.? Shiro is behind all of this. While Shinji tried to fix Ren's current condition, Yui tried to prevent this kind of moment or even worse escalating ones from happening again, as the aim for investigating him was to try to find a way to stop the war, so Ren and Shinji won't have to fight each other or another Rider (he got head injury due to fighting another Rider in the first place), going directly to the person who were behind all.

Besides how will she catch up to those 2. They were riding their bike and Ren already left (and with him forgetting her I doubt he'll let her ride on him), and Shinji's bike is only 1 seater.

This is probably the cons of mystery-type story Ryuki is also a motif for, you have to see the people searching for the truth which later they will find.

The way the monsters hunted are like I said before, instead of directly making an appearence to attack they attack in stealth mode where they appear from any reflective surface and pull them to the Mirror World (also notice that Riders here must enter the Mirror World to fight, including to other Riders), but they can be mitigated when you cover the reflective surface as with newspapers. The type of prey is just indiscriminate, but if they fail to get that particular person they'll keep chasing after them. The previous monsters eating only 1 person may only happen because there were only 1 person in that place. This case is probably when a Mirror Monster appears in a crowded place and left unchecked (no one's present to fight off the monster). Slowly all the people got eaten. I think you should remember that Volcancer also ate many humans before (aka everyone knows about Sudo's villainy).

The monsters would need to exist to feed their Contract Monsters. Like said there the monster of the week stuff never fully goes away, and more on the background the more Riders are introduced, but still needed.

And, y'know, sure, agree to disagree. If you see it as methodical and representative, that's great. I wish it worked that way for me. It really, really didn't, though.

If a friend gets in a car accident that has them acting unsafe and erratic, my time is probably not best spent investigating the guy at Toyota who designed the power steering. There're immediate concerns, and eventual concerns. Helping Ren is an immediate concern, while investigating Shiro and stopping the Rider conflict is an eventual concern. Sticking Yui with the plot that can't resolve for another few dozen episodes feels like a punishment to me.

And, it's not like there wasn't time for Yui to get involved with Shinji/Ren plot. Shinji takes the lead on that one, and she just acquiesces. It's a choice she makes.

Also, to the monster stuff, I think we're differing in opinions on that one, too. I don't know that anything in the show has explained enough about the non-contract monsters for me to get their deal. They just show up a random amount of times, attack a random amount of people, and then get exploded. It feels frustratingly undercooked to me. If you can see a logic there, and a way it works that makes you happy, I won't begrudge you that. For me, in the text of the show, I'm not seeing enough to be able to go with it.

There's literally only one thing that defines Mirror Monsters, contracted or otherwise: they want to eat. They're the giant CG spiders, we're the flies. Couldn't be more straightforward.

It's honestly been a bit of a bummer how much you've refused to play ball with these early Heisei monsters. As usual, I can't fault a thing about your logic, but sometimes I think you're being a bit too hard on them anyway? The Grongi and the Unknown are designed to get the viewer picking up subtle clues and making theories, and you go "nah". The Mirror Monsters are deliberately uncomplicated animals so as not to get in the way of the Rider on Rider drama (the lack of which in these episodes probably explaining why it becomes more grating), and you go "nah".

I don't know. I feel like there's merit in the approaches these shows are taking. In Ryuki's case, I think keeping it as simple as "monster = kill people = bad" was definitely to the series' benefit in the long run. We'll see how you feel by the end.