This time it's explained outright. It was obvious that when you lose you get eaten, but this sort of laid it all out what the contract is for, not just the terms of termination. It's so that the monsters can feed off dead monsters energy and grow in power.

It's interesting how the MM sort of get treated like the attack dogs when they're really calling the shots. Like how Zolda and his monster faked his death, or how Ryuki stopped Dragredder from taking a monster's energy once.

Gotta say, though, that was a fumbled plot. Ryuki gets all down because he kills Zolda and it's treated all serious, but then when he finds out he didn't he grovels and then it goes into bumbling comedy. Uh...

BTW, I think it's really weird how the aesthetics of monsters clash. There's no reason given for why monsters under contract look clean and cool wheras the rogue ones look like, well, regular Toku villains. Kind of shoddy, really. Not a single monster they've fought has actually looked like a contract beast, yet supposedly Dragredder and Darkwing were once contractless rogues.

I don't know what you're talking about.

Ah, alright then.

And I guess that they don't expand enough on the Mirror Monsters and the contract aspect enough, when 9 times out of 10 you'll see a monster like Darkwing or Magnugiga only ever show up just for finishers.

And plots involving Kitaoka and Shinji do feel more comedy, it's odd when Kitaoka is generally more of a serious character when in a scene with literally any other character.

Yeah, Zolda himself is serious, but well-rounded and sort of endearing as a villain. It's really his world and we're all just living in it. But stuff around him feels... at odds.

Still, he's such a jerkhead, but he's not always smugging and mugging. Stuff can get to him, and that really helps him avoid the trap of just being unlikable.

So, episode 15: This is Gai, huh? He's uh, lame as hell?

Seriously, the design I thought was okay, but the suit is ridiculous. And seriously, who's in charge of casting who's in the suit, buecause when I look at Gai I do not think "scrawny punk bitch" on the inside. At least Knight is tall, dark and brooding to fit his suit. Kamen Rider has the nasty habbit of putting people in the suits who look nothing like the character present in the design itself. Everytime Gai speaks it sounds like a gag dub. I'm reminded on Den-O and Ryuutaros. Such a dark, almost threatening design made into a child. It like there's no communication between designs and writers.

Also, big rhino contract beast... not so big here. In fact he's kind of hilariously undersized compared to, say, whatever Zolda's monster is.

Kamen Rider Ryuki is starting to sound a lot like Puella Magi Madoka Magica, a dark and unintentionally subversive take on the magical girl genre in anime. What with all this talk about contracts, battling in pocket dimensions and characters dying if they don't fight and being killed by the very thing that gave them their powers... funny world isn't it?

Magnugiga is the most beastly of beasts for contract monsters.

You know what's not funny?

Cards. Riders that depend on a piece of freaking paper for their powers. I knew this would happen sooner or later. Ryuki lost his contract because Gai took his card.

Okay, this is beyond stupid in many colourful ways.

One, it's heavily implied that once you make a contract, that's it. You and that monster are bonded for life. So, what's to stop a rider from just tossing away their advent card to break the contract?

Two, he only has one? wait, I thought the deck had MULTIPLE copies? It's seriously five cards? What happens to the cards once used, how do you choose which ones you want when you draw them? How are they reused? Can you only use them once a fight? (I assume the deck "resets" after every transformation)

Three, he seriously can just take it? Dragredder doesn't, like, have a problem with that? The last episode very firmly established the monsters are the boss. Now, I know they can't speak, but doesn't Dragredder know Gai already has a contract? What, are he and the rhino gonna split Gai if he dies?

Four IT'S PAPER. God, I was kind of okay with it because the decks DIDN'T appear to be one set of cards, but this is just dumb. Why make these incredible abilities into cards? This is dumb, even dumber than when the Cockroach dopant stole W's memories. See, the W driver is a very experimental device, and W himself is pretty quick. Plus, the Roach dopant had super speed. This is just... why did Ryuki even hesitate? He was using his ADVENT, not his Final Vent. Dragredder wouldn't have killed Gai, just fought the rhino.

I'm not buying Zolda until I can afford him and Magnugiga.

Madoka Magica isn't intentionally dark though, the creator said that they just wanted to make a good story with interesting characters.

Whoops, I meant to say unintentionally. That was a typo, my bad. :lol

I have a question: Is Raia genuine in his want to stop the fighting, or just another fuckhead messing with people?