So, uh, funny story: my version didn't have any endings? I guess? It's just the villains surrounding Shinji in Knight Survive form, and then Shiro's like "Maybe this was a bad ending?" And then there's something about "the other half of the tale," and I thought he meant the TV show? Did... did I somehow see none of the endings for this special?!

Right you got ending 1 there one more ending for the special I'm pretty sure your supposed to go chapter selection on your video player and you should find it.

"Choose Your Own Endings" in Kamen Rider can go one of two ways: the difference is meaningless, or the difference is maddening. Really embraces the concept that way.

Okay, I grabbed a different copy off of TV-Nihon. This one had both endings. I watched 'em both, now.

(Also, I forgot to mention it before, but I really liked that Shinji does Ren's Henshin when he uses Ren's Deck to become Knight. A great touch.)

It's an interesting idea, to have two endings. I don't think either one of them are very good, in that they're both open-ended and fatalist. Either Shinji's detonated by 11 Final Vents or he's driven mad by the inevitability of Rider Battle. Awesome choices! Do I want Shinji to die screaming, or die screaming?

What kind-of blows me away is that, of the two options Ryuki fans were given, Continue Fighting in the Rider Battles or Stop Fighting in the Rider Battles, they chose Continue Fighting. The whole premise of the show seems to be that fighting in the Rider Battles is a terrible idea. I seem to recall an episode that ended with a child that was overcome with terror at the hideous weight of being a Rider on Ryuki.

Well HOLY SHIT is Ryuki not getting its point across, because about 60% of viewers/fans voted FIGHT OR DIE. That... that would maybe worry me, if I was producing Masked Rider Ryuki! If the beating heart of my show was a man desperate to end the Rider Battles, and viewers were like Rider Battles Ad Infinitum, uh...

https://media1.giphy.com/media/WRMq4MMApzBeg/source.gif

(In fairness, superhero fans will usually vote for the more violent ending when given the option. Just ask Jason Todd! That said, Jason Todd got killed by a very slim margin, while this split was a more troubling 58/42. Definitely feels like viewers didn't get the Rider Battles Are Bad memo!)

I'm pretty sure the fans understood the whole thing with the Rider War was bad but like you said they most likely wanted to see the more sadistic choice play out. It far more intreasting there even a comic adaptation of this special which expands upon the Fight ending. With Knight Survive winning but he lost he sanity in giving up his ideals and killing about 10 people so that he no longers remember if he's really Shinji or if he actually the real Ren. Some more food for thought on the Fight Ending

Good lord, that is bleak.

Probably dropping the Contract Monsters idea is the thing that made Ryuki safe at the end when Odin crushes his Deck (it's explicitly shown otherwise for Scissors in the series)? Other than that yeah, this feels like a "prologue" to watch for Ryuki that it crams various plot points from the series into just 1 hour; like:

• Shinji (still) living at ORE Journal and wacky antics of him (especially the soccer part) with Okubo, Reiko, and Shimada (who imitates a treatment to computer to teach others about taking care of their computers).
• Shinji inheriting Ryuki Deck from Sakakibara (who becomes an actual Rider, another heroic one), meeting Yui (who for some reason is made hostile here) and Ren, later gaining some explanation for Mirror World.
• Kitaoka keeping an eye on Asakura on prison who eventually escapes.
• Kitaoka being sick and has Goro drive him.
• Riders mindset of ditching humanity, one done by Shibaura who plays ordinary games (Soulcalibur) and mocks Shinji for it while Tezuka voices his disapprovement of Rider War.
• Ren working at Atori.
• Sudo exploiting Shinji's gullibility.
• Ren's inability to kill and subsequent breakdown (done by having him fell from his bike).
• Asakura's hatred of cops, extending to even Sudo.
• Mirror World time limit to save Riders.
• Ren and Shinji growing closer.
• Both ending shows how impossible the Rider War situation is.

But that's it (and Shiro is only the narrator). It makes sense that it debuted between ep. 33 & 34, it only tells about 2/3rds of Ryuki actually. Tiger and Imperer doesn't even get an identity here, and because you watched it now, I can't talk further about it other than the 13 Riders version of them may have different identity from the main series one. And for important note; this is probably how the Rider War goes if Shiro just sends a Mirror Monster to the biggest obstacle in Rider War, Shinji, before he becomes a Rider, but as seen here, Shinji still becomes Ryuki.

I agree here, Ren and Shinji has a bunch of episodes to build their relationship in the main series, but here the buildup is also crammed into only 1 hour. T̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶m̶e̶a̶n̶s̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶R̶e̶n̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶S̶h̶i̶n̶j̶i̶ ̶a̶r̶e̶ ̶c̶l̶o̶s̶e̶r̶ ̶h̶e̶r̶e̶ ̶b̶e̶c̶a̶u̶s̶e̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶y̶ ̶g̶e̶t̶ ̶a̶l̶o̶n̶g̶ ̶m̶u̶c̶h̶ ̶q̶u̶i̶c̶k̶e̶r̶ Shinji here is merely an extension for the other characters, he just continues the wishes of killed people; first Sakakibara's to stop the Rider War, and then Ren's to save Eri, where the ending is the conflict between the 2. Shinji using Ren's henshin pose is also probably a little nuance that he's an extension of him; and also that Riders' henshin pose are determined not by the human form, but the Rider type.

Just like Asakura being the 1st antithesis of Shinji in the main series, the scene of their faceoff with their Contract Monsters possibly empashizing it, Takamizawa (main antagonist here) is like the 2nd antithesis of Shinji. The plot is mainly Shinji and Takamizawa faceoff. While Shinji works to persuade other people to stop the Rider War (though in this special, he does it mainly by looking for partners) and fight for justice, Takamizawa (with Shibaura as main partner) works to persuade other people to bring their worst side and ditch humanity as Riders, and fight those against that. Takamizawa wins easily by being much more charismatic, and just that most other Riders appeal more to evil with their selfish desires. By that Takamizawa succeeded to persuade every Rider to gang up on Shinji, and eventually Ren when he also still has his humanity, before they continue their battle to the death. I also have to note that Takamizawa likely doesn't underestimate Shinji, that he primarily focuses to remove him because he may deny everyone their wishes by stopping the war, and persuades other Riders to do the same.

Verde (spanish for green) is one of the most unique Riders here, having some traits not other Riders have like Clear Vent, and that his Final Vent is a wrestling move. Also his business accomplishments obviously mean nothing; his wish for winning is to rule the world after all. As for Tezuka, I think it's just Inoue stuff ._. (Inoue writes this special), where you gotta add love triangles everywhere. At the very least Tezuka still has his sense of justice, that he thinks killing others to gain your wish is wrong. Tezuka here is still much better than what Rider Time Ryuki (also by Inoue) does. The other change here is that Tezuka is Ren's best friend (and calls him "Ren"), and he dies in Ren's arms instead of Shinji's. Ren also denies that Tezuka was his friend, but he still clearly considers him such, with his visceral rage towards Takamizawa and eventually being the one to finish him off. Verde also has an ironic death, in a totally cool way where Knight immediately getting up after being Final Vented and Final Vents him back, ironically makes him the first victim of his master plan, which was to team up with other Riders and kill Ren and Shinji so that the Rider War can continue.

Unfortunately there are probably some who dislikes the "boring" drama of philosophy clashes between the characters, moral dilemmas, etc. and wants to follow Ryuki only for the battle royale part (it's like... those that only care about the action part but also with the added nuance of heavy fan of battle royale games like Shibaura), to watch Riders ganging up, fighting and killing each other, and is probably disappointed that the main series isn't into that much and treating 13 Riders as jumping straight into the point for Ryuki premise. Probably also the reason fans voted for a more violent ending.

This was a thing that sort-of bugged me. I don't want to nitpick the changes this story makes to the rules of Rider Battle, but the more I think about it, the more the Card Decks being the root of all powers... it's a dumb loophole that breaks the Rider Battles? Like, in the main series, if you take out a Rider, you take out a Rider. Once they've made a contract with a monster, you can't reuse their Deck. That thing gets broken or they get killed, it's over for them. That reduces the number of Riders (assuming Shiro isn't just being a dick and handing out Decks like they're packets of tissues) and brings the contest closer to completion. Right? But in this one, Shinji gets a Deck from a dying Ryuki... which keeps Ryuki in play, despite Ryuki dying. Now, killing the Rider doesn't necessarily mean there's one less player, so killing a Rider is way less important than destroying a Deck. Why didn't Kitaoka just break Asakura's Deck when he had it? It'd mean for sure that there'd be one less opponent, no matter if Asakura got free or not.

Yeah, the No Contract Monster thing, it maybe breaks the concept of Rider Battles?

They just do it in real boring ways, I thought. There's no nuance. I like the gimmick of Kamen Rider Geico, his whole thing, but his pitch in this one is just generic villain bullshit, same as Shinji's generic hero bullshit.

A lot of what works well in the series is how, give or take an Asakura, there's equal weight given to everyone's outlook. Most of Shinji's character growth comes from trying to understand the other Riders, figure out what's driving them. In this, it's just All Of The Bad Guys fighting Shinji, and eventually Ren. No one's got a great argument, nothing that's really capable of getting you to think. It's barely even an argument, beyond Stopping Evil or Being Evil. I don't know, there wasn't a compelling anything to the viewpoints in this one for me.

I would legit love to hear from someone who preferred 13 Riders to the Ryuki series. I would love to hear why they felt that way. Gotta be someone, and I hope they're on these boards.

You want to hear from someone who preferred the special? That’s my cue to enter then.

I’m more fond of what this special does to characterise the two leads than the series itself, namely because it ignores ALL the problems I had with their in-series characterisations. I also love seeing Shinji trying desperately to hang on to his innocence during all this, namely because I’m trying to do the same thing in real life.

And also, when people talk about all the casting and character milestones concerning the Riders in this show, they overlook one in this special. The guy playing Verde was not only the first non-Japanese actor to play a rider (half-American) but was also at the time the oldest actor to play a Rider at 38 (the current record holder is Kamen Rider Jun, at age 60).

And the original Ryuki manages to make an impression on me, purely for the casting joke he entails. (For an explanation, he was the Red warrior in a past Super Sentai show, who had this (the first in the video) as his main mecha https://youtu.be/nOZfBmR546s

What do you mean that "you can't reuse their Deck"? Anyone can henshin with the Deck, not just the owner, just that it's not performed by anyone else at the moment in the main series. Ryuki is the first series that introduces henshin device that can be brought anywhere, pocketed. If you talk about how anyone who contracts can't go back and must keep fighting, it means that your Contract Monsters should be constantly fed by fighting other monsters or that you'll be eaten, changing your life completely. But it doesn't refer to the Decks. For breaking Decks, no, the wish is created from the lives of the other 12 Riders, so they have to tatakae and die.

All Of The Bad Guys are fighting Shinji happens because Takamizawa perceives Shinji just like Tezuka (who says he's unpredictable and thinks he's the most suitable to stop the war) regarding him and the war, both knows that Shinji is a big threat to the war (ep. 28 also elaborates on that). But obviously because he's a selfish bad guy, where if Shinji went haywire, he can stop the war and deny Takamizawa his wish, he instead dedicates himself to defeat Shinji, and plants this mindset to the other selfish Riders, making them also know and realize that Shinji is a big threat to the war and can potentially deny their wish, which leads to all the other like-minded Riders forming a temporary truce and alliance to remove the war's obstacle before resuming fighting each other (after killing Shinji and Ren, ofc). All the other Riders are villanious, but Takamizawa is the main antagonist here, and his businessman charisma is his actual strength here. Ren is turning into Shinji's ally so I guess he's just lumped together with him as he's risky too, can potentially help Shinji doing his thing.