It's a long explanation, and I shouldn't have brought it up since it's not 100% relevant and it'd kind-of derail things. (I mean, What Is The Theme Of Kamen Rider is sort-of not this thread's mandate?) I've gotta think a bit more about it, and then it'll land in the General Thoughts thread for people to pick it apart.

Short version, I think the show has evolved out of Fighting Darkness With Darkness and more into trying to use the hero's darkness to say something about the universality of darkness, and how seeing that it in one another allows us to stop viewing other people as monsters and more as someone that can be reached with empathy.

This is just my take, though! Me talking about this in another thread will have a bunch of disclaimers to that effect!

I mean there's a very literal version of this in final fight with Emu and Parad's relationship and their final fight as enemies. Parad the entire series is shown to be unempathetic towards others. When Emu makes Parad confront his growing fear of death Parad learns to be empathetic and care about others. Emu in defeating Parad but saving him shows that he understands that people can be reached which is kind of a theme Ex-aid actually.

On a more thread related note, this thread just reminded me there was an RP Rider war but with MLP characters as inspiration for designs and character, and that sure was a thing.

There are definitely time limit for Kitaoka here, now Kitaoka has to dirty his hands more leaving his plan to let other Riders kill themselves first, obeying what Shiro told in couple episodes before. The only things that anger Yui are vile actions, and it comes full circle here when Shiro reveals himself here as an irredeemable bastard with god complex who is indifferent to all the victims. Here Shiro also exhibits abusive behavior by ordering and threatening her around. So now it's revealed someone aloof like Ren would only get close to someone for certain benefit (at first), but how Ren doesn't show any animosity to Yui? And also like Kitaoka, Ren's time is definitely limited too with Eri's deteriorating condition. About the new Rider, before I said Knight Survive is my second favorite design, and my first favorite is Odin right there.

This is already shown in previous episodes however. Riders in human forms fending off Mirror Monsters. Shinji too, dammit (and people i̶n̶c̶l̶u̶d̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶T̶a̶k̶u̶y̶a̶ keep calling Shinji weak?), and Kitaoka too in previous episode. Wish more people get Takuya treatment in this series to see that Riders and Mirror Monsters exist, where for a kid like him it's totally cool, and probably horrific but gives them preparation for regular people.

I think most of the "Rider" lesson of this episode is already covered by Fish Sandwich above, including how sometimes superhero shows skew the perception of a hero badly to children. so gotta talk about the others. Other than that, the most important thing, for Ryuki, as Shinji attests, is that being a Rider here is eternal, there are no "switch off", unlike typical Riders which you may quit, or probably for Takuya, give up when it's getting too scary, so there's a little difference for Ryuki. Ironically Shinji, the "fool naive newcomer" of Riders, acknowledges that burden as Rider and is the one to teach that to others, while he also learns to know deception (he was confused at first when Ren goes to fight) that Ren fights flashy, then purposely lose to scare Takuya. I feel that it's conveniently brutal for Takuya, Ren only planned to show how difficult it is to fight monsters, then the real horror of Rider Battle comes when Kitaoka and Asakura joins the fight, turning the planned monster struggle show into a survival of humans show.

Goro is... another "victim" here like Takuya? He too is traumatized seeing the Riders in action for the first time due to watching Kitaoka fight like that. Has Goro (an accomplished cook btw) gotten Shinji's gyoza lesson yet? If not then it's unfortunate all due to Takuya where someone has to look after when Shinji and Ren joins the fight. And congratulations for Ren to make Auntie warm up to him, now she thinks that Takuya may be his little brother or son instead of something bad in mind for Ren. And Shinji's debt to Ren is even growing...for petty reasons. He wasn't lying when he told Shinji his debt was 100k in ep. 10!

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...396960/fee.png

Yeah, I sort-of figured that Ren wouldn't care too much about Yui's feelings of responsibility. That whole exchange, it's what I wanted to see way back in the Ren Has Narratively Convenient Amnesia two-parter. For all of the ways that he's suffering to save Eri, he doesn't seem like a dude who plays the blame game. He knows it's Shiro's fault, so he's not going to let Yui throw herself under that bus. Ren... I'm really liking Ren in these few episodes, with him feeling like a more emotionally healthy member of the team.

I mean, there've been interactions, pushing and shoving and a kick or two, but that punch by Ren was epic. I've seen Rider Kicks that had less on them than that punch. Look at the speedlines in that first screencap!

It's a great running joke, and I'm so glad that Ren has an itemized bill for Shinji, instead of just making up higher and higher amounts. There's a dedication that Ren has to being an asshole to Shinji that is, to me, no less heroic than his actions as Kamen Rider Knight. These two torturing each other forever? I mean, that is some Relationship Goals right there.

MASKED RIDER RYUKI EPISODE 28

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/ryuki/ryuki28a.png

EPISODE 1

EPISODE 2

EPISODE 3

EPISODE 4

EPISODE 5

EPISODE 6

EPISODE 7

EPISODE 8

EPISODE 9

EPISODE 10

EPISODE 11

EPISODE 12

EPISODE 13

EPISODE 14

EPISODE 15

EPISODE 16

EPISODE 17

EPISODE 18

EPISODE 19

EPISODE 20

EPISODE 21

EPISODE 22

EPISODE 23

EPISODE 24

EPISODE 25

EPISODE 26

EPISODE 27

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/ryuki/ryuki28b.png

(Shiro made Shinji live the entire series over again so he could undo his fight with Yui, I guess. I super hated this episode. I wish it had just been a clip show. This was way more frustrating.)

For me the whole thing was worth it for Shinji "I dedicated so much time, effort and energy and went through so many possible odds PURELY SO I COULD PUNCH YOU IN THE FACE" Kido

I actually really like this episode it a clip show but it dosen't feel lazy to me. Our new Rider litterly have the power to bend time giving a really strong debut. Phus facilitating a in universe explanation for why where seeing all of this again. And Shinji response torwards all of this and actually landing a hit on the guy was pretty hype. (Then again I'm a sucker for time travel so lots of bias here)

Oh I don't know if this has been brought up before, but I like the fact that they split the classic rider helmet design elements between Ryuki, Knight, and Zolda. Ryuki gets the compound eyes, Knight gets the teeth, and Zolda the antenna.

I'm not particularly interested in disagreeing with you on episode 28, but I am sad you didn't end up liking it. It's always been a favorite of mine, and the whole "I became a Rider to protect people! And that means I can protect Riders too!!!" bit is like, the definitive Shinji quote. For what it's worth, here's my take on the episode.

I think the key difference might be that I'm looking at it as a clip-show that got clever, and not something trying to be clever that turned into a clip-show.

That was a good part (the bookend fight scenes are legitimately cool), but it felt so minor to what was a twenty-odd minute story. The payoff just wasn't worth it for me.

I really really really hated that all of this was something that wasn't about Shinji at all. The entire story is just so Yui won't hate Shiro, and that totally bugs me. It was a status quo they established in the previous episode. (I'm assuming that's what the ending is saying. If I'm wrong, then this clip show is doing even less work, and I'm probably madder at it.) This all feels like an unnecessarily long path to undo something that just happened.

Worse, it doesn't really do anything with Shinji reliving the timeline. He can't change anything, but he gets just enough flashes to try and change things, but he can't change anything. Past the first scene, for me, there's an enormous amount of frustration built into the premise. That's by design, but I hate that design. The frustration's there to validate the catharsis of Strike Vent To Impossible Opponent, but, again, I just didn't feel like that payoff was sufficient. I might've if the secret of why this all had to happen didn't completely suck (Shiro keeps using big moves to make Yui feel better, it's completely his thing, and I still hate it), but I think it did, so it wasn't working for me.

Like, at all.