Well, to be fair, at the start of the episode, Ren opening his eyes and pounding impotently on the ground happens exactly after Shinji says he was wrong about him. The way the scene is edited together, with the timing of the music and everything, points to Shinji's approval being the thing that pushes Ren that extra bit over the edge, while the way it's acted, with Ren not actually looking at Shinji or anything, points to him not even listening at all, and it just being dramatically convenient timing.

There's definitely room to interpret it either way.

"I'd love to get out of this bed, Shinji, but my predictions are always right."

"That's only because you won't get up!!!"

"Exactly. There's nothing that can be done."

"Tezuka, why are you playing my Switch? I thought you said 'My fate is to sleep late today, and also your fate is to make me breakfast'."

"I, uh... I CHANGED MY FATE! MY DEDICATION AND HEROISM HAVE BEEN REWARDED!"

"That's... pretty convenient."

"Tragically, I was unable to alter your fate. I'll take my breakfast in front of the Switch."

This thread is now full-time posts about Tezuka being a shitty roommate and friend, no more Ryuki reviews, not sorry.

Tezuka commits Tax Fraud because it was fated to be

MASKED RIDER RYUKI EPISODE 18

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/ryuki/ryuki18a.png

There's an... immediacy, I guess, that I really liked about this episode. It's paced real well. There's an emphasis on a core cast and a single plot, and pretty much anyone who doesn't help further that one plot gets a token scene. Ren's still hiding from himself in the park, Yui's (eternally?) questioning what Shiro's up to, and Tezuka works at the tea shop now. (To that last one, shit, why not. Auntie will put an apron on any handsome boy who wanders in, and Tezuka is there all the time anyway. It's random, but nearly everything about how the tea shop is run is random.)

There's really only five people who are well-served by this one. Shinji, Reiko, Kitaoka, Shibaura, and Asakura, our brand-new Rider.

Asakura, Kamen Rider Snake Motif, he's a neat addition. He's utterly remorseless, completely ruthless, and shockingly cruel. While characters like Kitaoka and Shibaura are villainous in their drive to win, and Scissors was an amateur killer hoping to go pro, Asakura is a cold-blooded (Snake Motif!) psychopath. When he isn't killing someone, he's asking, "Why aren't I killing someone?” He's easily the worst person yet to get a Card Deck, which is why he's an awesome person to get a Card Deck.

We've been getting a steady escalation of villainous Riders since Scissors, since Shinji saw a Rider die. Kitaoka is an asshole, and would love to see other Riders get bumped off, but he's not super into trying to do it with his own two hands. Shibaura, he'll definitely try to get a Rider killed, but he's okay (and maybe a little happier) maneuvering Riders into killing each other. (He's so excited about Asakura killing Shinji! It's like he asked Santa to have one of his rivals kill the other, and now it's Christmas morning. His enthusiasm is so infectious, I kind-of want Asakura to murder Shinji.) With Asakura, we get an unrepentant killer, one who'd hold a child at gunpoint. There's nothing redeemable about Asakura. Even if you lock him up, he'll get out and kill again. He's a fascinating test of Shinji's convictions, and a great addition to a cast of warring Riders.

The supporting cast for Asakura's story, though, that's what makes this one really work. Asakura's a threat, a weapon, and the real fun is in who wields him, and against whom. Kitaoka's not much more than a target in this one (he's only normal-human-being levels of smarmy in this one, which, boooooo), but he's once again in the cross-hairs of clients, with both Asakura AND Shibaura wanting him dead. (I kind-of love how Shibaura totally looks up to the charmingly amoral Kitaoka, right up until he finds out he's a Rider. Then it's like, Oh You're Cool But You're Dead. Not a second of hesitation from Shibaura. Kid's got focus!) Reiko throws herself completely into the story, chasing after an escaped homicidal lunatic armed with nothing more than a white pantsuit and a Smart car. (The pantsuit might be more resilient than that car, weapon-wise.) Shinji's his most energetic self, trying to prove himself to Reiko, but he's stymied by the demands of being a superhero --- oh, man, she IS Lois Lane, isn't she --- and forced to stop chasing Asakura to detonate a monster. (Great monster fight, incidentally. The use of different levels was clever, and the new fight song sounded great. Short fight, but a really good one.)

If there's an MVP for this one, though... it hurts a little bit to say this, because I hate him so much, but it's Shibaura. Using his weird game-designer combination of Need For Chaos and Follow The Rules, they've solidified him as more than just a Poor Man's Genm, he's levelled-up (in my eyes) to being Kamen Rider Shitstirrer. He's not about killing monsters, or killing people with monsters. He's not even really about killing other Riders, at least not directly. He's, like, the opposite of Tezuka: he only wants Riders to fight. He's personally offended by Shinji and Tezuka, for deciding not to fight other Riders. He doesn't even really care if Asakura kills Shinji or Kitaoka, just so long as Riders fight Riders. It's honestly pretty great, as far as motivations on this show go. I like how meta it is, how he's very into the core concept of this show and is going to do whatever it takes to keep things on brand. It makes all of his irritating mannerisms more palatable, because he wants the things you want as a viewer. He's a Kamen Rider fan, and he wants to see Riders fight. It... I don't know if I'm supposed to see myself in Shibaura, but I sort-of do now.

Oh, no.

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/ryuki/ryuki18b.png

*A few hours later*

FATE HAS BEEN CHANGED ONCE AGAIN!

Yeah, don't get too attached to that song. They GET AND GO right back to the old one after this.

Anyway, now that the cast of Riders is getting so bloated, I'm really starting to appreciate just how much Ryuki is scratching that Ex-Aid itch for you. Those aren't two shows I would immediately think of as being similar, but yeah, lovable self-absorbed Riders who are all huge jerks and hate each other. Definitely a recipe for an entertaining series.

Yeah, the rivalries echo Ex-Aid a bit, but I think the two shows do different enough things that I'm not feeling the parallels that much. Ex-Aid was a show about four men fighting to throw themselves on one grenade. Ryuki's a show about thirteen grenades fighting to throw themselves on each other.

With Ex-Aid, so much of the storytelling boiled down to Let Me Heroically Kick Your Ass So That I Can Make This Valiant Sacrifice. Most of Ryuki, it's just variations of I'm Not Sure If I Should Murder You (Yet).

I believe it was this episode we also found out that Shibaura was a rich kid whose dad would buy him out of any legal trouble, wasn't it? God it makes him so much easier to hate.

Also, uh, yeah, Asakura. His type of villainy is honestly on a whole other level compared to most in the franchise -- he'd frankly be at home in Amazons! Pair that with a sexy as hell rider design and you've got the recipe for a more than memorable villain. Have fun with this one.

This is a really great description of Ex-aid

And this made me laugh aloud.

Ex-aid is a wonderful series and I hope we get a thread for it one day so I can talk about it with you all.

I'm 99% sure I saw Asakura (Ouja?) before in an Ex-Aid spin-off. That Brave one, where he fights a bunch of animal-themed Rider clones? I want to say Asakura was the legacy Rider who was the main(-ish) boss. Feel like I'm right on that one.

But, yeah, he's very extreme. I'm always weirded out when villains use guns on Kamen Rider, because that would never ever fly on an American superhero show for kids. (Limitless guns in the real world, zero guns on a TV show: AMERICA!) It's jarring, to see Asakura point a gun at a little girl's head. Just, overall, his whole demeanor is way more brutal and violent than the rest of the show around him. (I mean, last episode, you knew Ren was almost killed by Shibaura because he had a tiny scrape on his cheek. How terrifying!)

Also, of course Shibaura has a rich, powerful dad who's shielded him from consequences his entire life. Of course.

Thanks! I sincerely love Ex-Aid because of, not in spite of, the fact that its four main heroes have varying levels of god complexes. They all think they're the star of the show, and they all act like it. I mean, imagine four Shinjis in this show, constantly trying to be the bravest, most heroic one. It'd be insane, and, like, that's the starting point for Ex-Aid. It's so great.

It is! I don't know if it's something I'll ever do a thread for. Maybe? I've got another year, year and a half before I watch the rest of Heisei and whatever gets produced for Reiwa. After that... man, I don't know. I want to do a Sentai, just to try it. Go-Busters, likely. Nothing else seems like I'd dig it, honestly. (Please repost this quote five years from now when I'm repping hard for Sentai, ten series deep.) I don't know if rewatching stuff, knowing where it all goes... I don't know if I'm as into talking about that stuff? I like this, this whole thing, to help process what a show is doing for me. Rewatching... I don't know. Maybe. It might be fun for, like, completion's sake. I did a bunch of those Ex-Aid movies, and that was fun. (Kamen Rider Deadbeat Dad, I liked talking about you despite maybe slightly hating your story.) I don't know. Long way to go yet. But, man, I do like Ex-Aid...

Asakura is an incredible character. Absolutely despicable heartless person but an extremely entertaining villain. The relation between him and Kitaoka is one of the best parts of the series.

And it's fun, you know, to have a Pure Villain on a show that's a lot more subjective. Nothing about Asakura is defensible! His only defense in a criminal trial was that the victim pissed him off. (I don't know if the show has established what he's in for? Assault, I've got to assume, because I'm not sure even Kitaoka could get a murder charge with that defense knocked down to ten years.) It's good to have some unambiguous evil, to have someone even the villains are like, Yikes.

Yep, that was him. His actor is one of those guys who loved his time on the show and will come back any time he's given the chance.

That's definitely part of what makes Asakura so great. You can totally tell his actor loved playing the character.

Not only one person, but pretty much everyone else btw (dunno if a joke but drop the "white knight bs" there as I'm talking about everyone). Though I already explained, outright telling anyone Rider/Mirror stuff is not an easy task to do. No one will believe that (a cliche for unknown fantasy elements in a seemingly normal world), Yui's someone who gets labelled as a freak for telling people about the Mirror stuffs, other Riders likely wouldn't care, dunno for Shinji, Reiko has a freak experience with Shimada.

From what I get before, I'd say she didn't act pathetic, she's just compassionate, like in this current episode when she saw Eri being hospitalized (keep in mind she didn't know yet that she's Ren's gf and she left roses). I guess she's planned to carry the Ejima Laboratory photo she copied and ask others if they know anyone pictured in the photo and their contact/whereabouts. But Nakamura dead-set reveals that everyone else there is already dead leaving him the sole surviving member. Reiko herself also completed other ordinary topic investigations, but still didn't get anything yet regarding Mirror stuff (disappearences) so far other than it's something not logical.

Sure, probably yeah conflicts are more entertaining but for Ryuki case, getting along (and no it's obviously not everyone, I also don't want everyone to just strictly get along but here's only Shinji and Tezuka among Riders, not every Riders) is such a rarity I want that to be remembered. I also made a cover about interesting parts (to me) for Tezuka and Shinji's monster fight there before.

I mean that's already the policy of living in Atori established before to Shinji back then, you can live without paying, but you have to help out at the cafe's working time (Shinji's in evening). Tezuka as in the discussion before moves in there, so he "pays" by helping out there just like Shinji and Ren, especially that Shinji's at work and Ren and Yui are MIA. I'd like to see how Tezuka interacts with the customers there but we didn't get that.

Also finally Tezuka & Auntie interacts; "my prediction is always right" vs "my intiution is never wrong". Sadly Tezuka got owned this time....due to Shinji.

Shiro wants the Rider to kill each other, so Asakura is definitely one of the best people to pick. Shiro should look for more people like this. Oh wait that's pretty much everyone except Shinji and Tezuka, even Ren to him looks like someone that will act like that at first glance. And despite him being irredeemable, he didn't to something that Scissors or Gai do; feeding people to monsters (though murder is murder, either directly or by monsters) for the former and making snuff films for the latter. There's also something fishy about Shiro where he just glides and dodges a punch from Asakura. Asakura, Shibaura, and Sudo all didn't seem to have a wish though for now.

And now even Kitaoka gets a limit of douchery, he is sick of dealing with Shibaura, asking are there any decent people. Well yeah, if you don't treat people other than Shibaura like trash then you'll get your wish right there! And obviously Asakura. Asakura is an entertaning bastard, but he IS a bastard, so to me, it's actually satisfying to see him suffer; Kitaoka being uninterested to defend him in a court and calling him out, making Asakura livid of being denied getting what he wants (free from jail). IIRC Shibaura doesn't explicitly target Shinji or something, just to add more people in the Rider War and this new person doesn't seem disappointing like Shinji, Tezuka, and Ren for being an irredeemable bastard, Shibaura isn't disgusted at all by Asakura which means (more analysis below). Kitaoka is totally selfish but he's not an actual villain.

Shibaura's such an ungrateful bastard, telling Asakura that the person who just saved him from jail is a Rider to get him to fight. Reiko is a reporter, ORE Journal is a news publication, cases like this are a must to publish, and you should wait for others from ORE to arrive too, Shinji has in this episode but wait for Okubo and Shimada. And soon you'll see Shinji being a hero, without Rider form. Asakura being a nationwide fugitive (yeah Asakura IS an example of fugitive, not Kitaoka like you refer him earlier!). The polices are being too merciful by not shooting Asakura in place, he's a normal human outside Rider.

No Rider is not about killing monsters except Shinji and Tezuka tbh, but killing monster is necessary to feed their contract monster (and an easy show of Final Vent without immediately killing another Rider). He almost killed Ren in ep. 17. Shibaura is lowkey as irreedeemable as Asakura, but he's not a violent type of person, he only sees human lives as a stress toy for him to play. But how he runs the war is a reminiscent of video games (and the death games he created) being a gamer, to watch and participate in Battle Royale like playing irl Fortnite or something. Just as a note obviously Ryuki came much earlier and it's inspired by Highlander.

Yeah, he throws himself into it. It's cool that he had a good time, but I'm almost a little surprised? There's an intensity to his performance, that, like, I would be less surprised if someone said he was a classically-trained actor who hated his time working in the kids-show gutter. He's approaching his character... it's pitched between Dramatic Supervillain and Violent Animal. There's a space in there, and that space is, for me, Asakura. It's raw and real in a way that's totally distinct from the other actors on this show.

I don't know, I guess I feel like Reiko could handle it? Yui's experiences, aren't most of those when she's a little kid? At least, the ones that we've seen on the show so far have been. I'd hope Reiko would be a little more curious and understanding than a group of six-year olds?

No, yeah, it's nice to see Riders team-up, or at least find commonality. So much of the last two episodes has been the push-and-pull of Shinji and Tezuka trying to work together, and it's led to some rewarding scenes when they're able to fight together.

It's weird! It's a weird policy. I know that it's because Auntie's got a gut feeling on who's good or bad or whatever, but it's a weird way to run a business. I think that's fair to say! I think Auntie just likes having handsome young men around, if we're being honest.

Sure, Shibaura's a puppet-master. He's a game designer, and his main thing so far has been manipulating people into fighting to the death. He'll kill monsters to survive, but it's not really his thing. We all gotta eat to live, but I don't think I'd say that every human is about eating. There's what we do to survive, and what we do to get what we want. That's... that's sort-of one of the themes of Ryuki? Where those impulses overlap, or conflict? I don't know, just a thought.

I can see the Highlander influence, sure, but Ryuki came out just a few years after Battle Royale, which probably added to the DNA of this show. And since Fortnite was just ripping off PUBG which was ripping off Battle Royale...

I remember back in the days it was kind of a big deal when Asakura debuted. Not because we finally got a full-fledged maniacal kamen rider who is crazy, but the fact that an actor who played a playboy detective/goofball that can transform into a sparkly crystal-armored superhero in the obscure standalone Toei toku hero show Changerion came back to Toei studios at least 5~6 years later to play a full-fledged maniacal kamen rider who is crazy. Fun fact, one of his co-stars in Changerion is Atsushi Ogawa, aka the man who claims to be Tetsuya Sawaki in Agito, and Inoue was the main script writer for Changerion.

Neat! It's fun, the way some folks filter in and out of toku shows. (I'm pretty sure Kanon from Ghost is the new Pink Ranger?) I can't imagine what it would be like to have a comedy actor suddenly go all in as a terrifying villain, though. I wonder if that would blunt its impact? That disconnect, of looking at his face and thinking Comedy while he's holding a little girl hostage... weird.

I feel like I'm going to get a version of that when I watch Blade, and the first few times I see Garren it'll be impossible to take him seriously. He's the conniving principal from Fourze, not some hero! (I don't know anything about Garren, so maybe he's also a conniving principal? If so, please ignore this paragraph.)

The actor Kousei Amano(then Hironari Amano) who played that same principal in Fourze and Garren in Blade was also famous for playing Tuxedo Mask for a while in Sailor Moon musicals prior to Blade, and the same Tuxedo Mask role was also previously taken by Mr. Tyrannoranger himself Yuuta Mochizuki from Zyuranger and Kenji Urai aka N Daguva Zeba from Kuuga. Crazy, I know. :lolol

...

...

...they really only have about ten actors for all of these toku shows, don't they.

That's silly! ... They have as many actors as the BBC.

Some actors just really like the genre and come back for multiple projects. Others only use it as a steppingstone towards more mainstream success. That’s why you’ll see Nao Nagasawa over and over again in tokusatsu, but Masaki Suda is way too busy to even consider reprising Philip.

Yeah, I think I read on the Wiki that Philip, Kuuga, and Hibiki are the three that are Not Gonna Happens when it comes to Legend Riders, and the Hibiki one was because he's forever pissed about how that show ended. (I want to say the other one was Den-O, but they managed to get him back for the last Heisei movie?) I honestly think it's amazing they're able to get as many veterans to come back as they do. Like, Kitaoka shows up in that Ex-Aid/Sentai spring movie! Fifteen years later or whatever! Crazy. This franchise. It's so good.

Hibiki's actor is both due to what you said... and because he's ex-communicated from the studio due to certain abuses.

Den-O's actor on the other hand, while he did turn up in Forever? It was a MASSIVE undertaking both in spending and keeping it secret; and something that ended up blowing peoples' minds. It was to the extent that they couldn't really get anyone else back beyond voice roles -- which ironically, even included passing over Philip's actor who said he would have been happy to be in the movie! He's a huge name in movies in general so he's unlikely to come back again; this was just a special one-off that was only achieved through maximum effort for the sake of the anniversary.

... talking of which, you can certainly count Drive's actor in as one of those main Rider actors that struck it big.

As I've heard it, Joe Odagiri basically did Kuuga as a favor for a friend. He's more of a serious movie actor now and he considers his tokusatsu work to be kind of an embarrassment (it was a big deal when he did a cameo appearance in Daimajin Kanon, which was another favor for the same friend).

Masaki Suda is a hugely in-demand actor. It's not that he wouldn't come back again, it's just that he's literally booked years in advance. The same is generally true of Sota Fukushi (Fourze), Takeru Satoh (Den-O), and Ryoma Takeuchi (Drive).

Shigeki Hosokawa's (Hibiki) case is a little different. He was very vocal about his justifiable distaste for the butchered travesty that was the final part of Hibiki (preview for your Hibiki thread; I have THOUGHTS about that show) and that definitely created a big rift between him and the company. More recently, though, he was blacklisted from his agency due to accusations of power harassment. So even if he did want to reprise the role, he couldn't.

Really, if you go looking back all the way to the Showa era there are a lot of interesting stories about the actors and their continued involvement/lack thereof with the show. Skyrider's actor, for example, always wanted to come back to the franchise but his agency wouldn't let him because it was a kid's show. Rider 2's actor has returned to voice the character, but can't appear as him on-screen because he was badly scarred in a house fire. And then there's Super-1's actor, who scammed a bunch of fans out of money before completely vanishing off the grid.

Yeah, he was this guy:

https://i.imgur.com/DHcEl7Rl.jpg

The snake-print boot I mean, not Emu. Poor, poor Emu. I can't remember if this screencap happens after or before Asakura beats him with a metal pipe and shoves his face in a bag of medical waste, but what I definitely remember is that the Brave special forever defined Emu in my heart as "the guy writers have a bet going to see who can punish him the most".

I mean, for f***'s sake, in the Another Ending movies, the way Yuuya Takahashi kept him out the plot was to have him get shot. Back in the W Returns days, just getting held up by some cops was enough to keep Shoutarou and Philip from stealing Accel's V-Cinema spotlight, but noooo, Emu's gotta end up in the hospital. See, 'cause he's a doctor! It's irony or something!

As I've heard it, it's important to note that Odagiri actually does look back fondly on his time working on Kuuga, but legitimately doesn't have much love for tokusatsu as a whole, and definitely didn't want to get typecast doing those kind of roles. This is all hearsay on my part, though, because I can't even remember where I heard most of this stuff.

Nah, the deal with Odagiri seems to be he just doesnt have an affinity for the genre as much. He is not ashamed of filming Kuuga though, and he keeps in touch with the cast and staff whenever he has the chance. And the friend you mentioned is the producer of Kuuga and first-half of Hibiki Takatera who he respects and was one of the motivations to star in Kuuga since Takatera assured Odagiri this will not be the usual hero stuff at the time. Odagiri isnt a huge fan of toku, yes, but he does not hate being part of Kuuga.
As for toku alumni who have gone to be big shots not returning a part of it seems to be the agency's decision and also they cost too much to hire because of their status and resume so it can be hard for Toei to make it happen even if an agency says lets do this unless they allocate their budget based on said actor and work around that probably.

Man, thanks for all of that info! Y'all are the best. I love that I can toss up a What's The Deal With Legend Riders and four super-knowledgeable fans can break it down for me. Thanks for sharing your expertise!

MASKED RIDER RYUKI EPISODE 19

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/ryuki/ryuki19a.png

Rider Fest! Six Riders! No Waiting! Cool Dialogue! Awesome Action! Yui's Plot Is Both Depressing And Infuriating! RIDER FEST!

Woof, this episode. It's a tense, hilarious culmination of the last few episodes worth of storytelling. It's nearly perfect. But, man, the Yui stuff. Kind-of this show's achilles heel right now.

All of the main storyline kills, though. Shibaura's manipulation to get all six Riders in one place to fight, it's incredibly exciting. Shinji gets a bunch of big ol' hero moments (he's holding that kid's hand after they've both been knocked out!!!), Asakura luxuriates in his menace, Kitaoka gets to confront Asakura while a billion cameras watch, Tezuka shows his dedication to changing Ren's fate, Ren risks it all to save a friend, and Shibaura gets the Rider Battle of his dreams. It's a terrific intertwining of all of these characters and all of their goals.

The Ren/Tezuka stuff, there's a thing I'm really liking that I hadn't even noticed until this episode. (Or maybe I did and I forgot?) We've still got no real clue about what Ren's feeling, what he's planning. There's a mystery to Ren's motivation at this point, and I think that adds a ton of drama to a plot that's maybe dragged on a bit long. (How long has he been brooding in that park, a century?) I like the uncertainty of what exactly Ren's going to do next, besides claim he'll kill Riders. He's a gigantic question mark, and I think that's a smart move.

Everyone else, all the other Riders, pretty much do what they do best. Everyone's in-character in this one, and while nothing was surprising, every action the other Riders took made sense. I got why they were involving themselves, what they hoped to achieve. That's tough to do with six Riders, and it's laudable that eighteen episodes got us to such a rich cast.

Shame about Yui, though.

So, first, I do not at all understand what was going on with Yui being held hostage or whatever. Shibaura goes to the tea shop and sees Yui. The next scene is Shibaura alone at the tea shop, taunting Ren and Tezuka with Yui's apron. Shibaura leaves, Ren and Tezuka meet him at the venue. While Ren and Shibaura fight, Tezuka goes inside and finds Yui... standing around? What was she doing there? How did she get there? Tezuka just walks up to her, so it's not like she's locked away or guarded. Did she get dragged there by Shibaura, and then he went back to the tea shop before the other two got there? Why didn't she just leave? Literally nothing about Shibaura using Yui as leverage makes any sense to me.

(She's just standing against a wall with her arms folded when Tezuka runs up, like she's waiting for a table at a busy restaurant. She looks mildly inconvenienced by her circumstances. I don't understand what she's doing there.)

And, that's frustrating, an illogical plot point. It's one thing, and if that was all that bothered me about Yui, whatever. I'll live. But, man, I'm real bored whenever Yui shows up these days. This show gives her nothing interesting to do. She's just holding down the fort at the cafe, or worrying about the boys. All of the Shiro stuff, it's just the same beat of plaintive whining, drippy nonsense where she's begging a mirror ghost for answers. There're steps in the right direction, where Yui's being more active in getting answers by investigating(-ish) the Secret Science Society, but in this episode she's worthless. She's a victim, in basically every scene. It's weird to me that, on a show with so many nuanced, compelling characters, Yui is sincerely getting less watchable with every episode.

And that's not even the biggest bummer of this episode! Shibaura might've added one too many Riders to Rider Fest, and gotten Final Vented into being a monster's lunch. It's not certain yet, but it ain't looking good. Just in case I never get another chance, Shibaura, play us out.

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/ryuki/ryuki19b.png

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/ryuki/ryuki19c.png

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/ryuki/ryuki19d.png

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/ryuki/ryuki19e.png

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/ryuki/ryuki19f.png

Heck I remember hearing about Suda talking with his agency buddy Matsuzaka who played Takeru/Shinken Red in Shinkenger(Seriously this should be one of your future Kamen Rider Die Reviews alongside Liveman) about fun times filming Kamen Rider W and Shinkenger and just goes to show, they have become big time but they still love being heroes(Please review Shinkenger Die :lolol).

Don't worry, I don't think anyone in the fanbase takes Garren seriously for at least the first half of the series.

Ooh, ooh! This line is actually even better than it looks from those subs.

His exact line in Japanese is 俺は止めを迷ったりしないけどいいよね？ which directly translated is more like "I won't hesitate to kill you, but that's fine, right?" Like he's so dedicated to being a smarmy little s***, he just has to work in making fun of Ren not being able to go through with murder every time they talk, even though that's the only reason he's still around and able to talk smack. Wonderful characterization as always.

"Hey, hey, get a load of this loser! Had me totally defeated and wouldn't even stab me to death! Can you believe this guy? What an idiot."

There's a great thing I saw, a video of Shotaro and Philip doing a reunion photoshoot a year or so ago. There's a bit where they mess around with the Double Driver, and Suda still knows how to operate Fang Memory! It was adorable.

Noted!

I wish the whole episode had just been Shibaura trying to provoke Ren. It was endlessly entertaining. Shibaura is maybe my favorite character on Ryuki. I wish he knew about Eri so he could be, like, "Are we going to fight, or are you just going to cry about your comatose girlfriend, Mr. I Won't Kill To Save My Comatose Girlfriend Becuase I'm A Big Baby Who Has A Comatose Girlfriend" and then Shibaura stares Ren in the eyes while playing The Smiths' "Girlfriend in a Coma" from his phone.

A hero isn't about being a powerhouse who fights other monsters but someone who helps others even at risk, Shinji shows this. I wonder if he's also doing stuff like that before he becomes a Rider, because being a Rider gives you more of a power and chance to be a hero. Assuming (ep. 14) that Goro knows that Kitaoka is a Rider, this episode shows that Goro isn't all about supporting him winning Rider War (he obviously supports him outside that) as he's worried about him going there.

Tezuka outright telling Ren to just give up on Eri for his own safety, basically being a murder in inaction (despite Tezuka being shown to care about innocents in previous episode). I think Shinji wouldn't be like that, he would be totally confused where if he stops Ren from fighting he'd create peace, but if he does that, he'll also let an innocent (Eri) die.

Gai shows more of what he has in the form of Confine Vent (2 copies!), it's like the reverse of usual Rider card, where weapon cards give you an advantage to opponents with new equipments, Confine Vent gives the opponent a disadvantage by removing their equipments. Another part of Raia being Gai's opposite. Also the fight shows where Shinji (once again) defends Ren from another Rider, by using Guard Vent to block Gai's Final Vent. So another way to survive Final Vent other than countering them with other Final Vent is using your Guard Vent to block, though Shinji's shield seemed destroyed at the end. A fact that gets overlooked by Shinji haters who think he's only carried by Ren in the entire show.

And who made the fight a mess in the first place, Kitaoka? And don't kill me for this one but to me, I think Ouja, Rider wise isn't my favorite in design. He's better than Gai and Raia IMO, but I don't like his design as much as the others (Ryuki and Scissors are debatable though). Same for his Final Vent, I know it's a bicycle kick but the movement IMO is like someone helplessly waving their body around due to falling from heights, which makes it quite silly to me especially for a serious hardened Rider. The end of the episode is one of the best showdowns, a Rider with their huge serpent-themed monster facing off. And Shinji still calls out Ouja for killing Gai (like Emu feeling bad for Kuroto's death), while Tezuka (who wants to change all Riders) seems just didn't care.

Shibaura's death is also, an ironic death like Scissors. He wants to manipulate other Riders to fight each other AND he thinks that he can manipulate Asakura too, but at the end, he's the one getting manipulated instead by the people he thought will manipulate, Asakura, by using him as a human shield to Zolda's Final Vent. Gai is the best Guard Vent!

https://scontent-sin6-1.cdninstagram...2b&oe=5EADA26B

I agree that this is the most baffling moment for her in the show. It's not like she was in danger after she's taken away, damn door's not locked. The most plausble explanation I can get (where he's in the shop, but she's somewhere else) is that she's taken by Metalgelas from a mirror and it brings her to the current place as mirrors can be used as a pseudo-teleportation; Wild monsters won't attack her but Contract Monsters can under Rider's orders. But still...not in actual danger.

Tbf it's the first time Shiro directly interacts with her again, he lied to her to keep her out of it but she's not convinced. May I ask, what impression she gave to you at the first few episodes?

Yeah, I love what happened to Gai here. His whole M.O. up to this point had been about manipulating the rules of the game and the other players in order to get ahead and he assumed that Asakura would be another chess piece that he could move around the board. But instead, Asakura basically picks up the chessboard and smacks Gai upside the head with it. It's a really good example of the difference between lawful evil and chaotic evil.

I really dug Asakura's Final Vent. I love the build up, the Snake Run he does to charge up his kick. It's properly theatrical.

It's a poetic ending for Shibaura, being so confident in his manipulations that he doesn't consider that he maybe stacked the deck against himself. (No, uh, pun intended.) If he'd not decided to jump in, to add himself to the conflict, maybe he'd've been in a better position to capitalize? But, you know, that's not our (our!) Shibaura. He's raised to feel invincible, and he never has to suffer the consequences of his actions. So inevitably he's going to get in too deep with a contest that's literally life or death. At least he died like he lived: assuming he wouldn't be devoured by a rhino monster who lived in a mirror.

I guess in the beginning I thought Yui'd be more integral, more of an equal partner in the story. But the show very quickly sidelined her into Damsel territory, where her main role is to worry about the boys. There's a... she has a weakness that doesn't feel merited by her place in the narrative, and it makes her questing feel kind-of embarrassing. What could be a mix of anger, guilt, confusion, shame, fear... it all plays as sort-of whiny and lame to me. Her search for answers doesn't have a forceful drive behind it, to me, so much as it has Yui looking pathetic. I don't know if it's the character or the performance, but she comes off as the kind of person you can't ever confide in, because she'll just start crying if you tell her anything honest.

I was hoping she'd be the peacemaker, the balance between Ren and Shinji, but she's mostly been The Fragile Woman, the character that needs to be protected from everything in the story, physically or emotionally.

It's a bummer.

I feel like Ryuki's doing it better Final Vent wise, with Dragreder coiling him around, him jumping high, and he flips around as Dragreder obscures him everytime he changes his position. And Ryuki's kick feels more impactful than Ouja's bicycle kick (probably because of it's silly movements to me) But it's just personal taste.

This is how Final Vent works in Ryuki (mostly), anyone getting touched by it is immediately destroyed. Which is why I questioned about Ren final vent-ing Tezuka in ep. 14 with him surviving, and where Ren hesitated to merely stab Shibaura with Sword Vent, but can scan Final Vents no problem.

I thought this mainly applies to people who only consider the "rule of cool" stuff in toku, where anyone not doing something in a "rule of cool" (like fighting, creating impossible science, etc.) way is treated as not doing something at all. Where involving yourself by investigating isn't a "cool" toku stuff so she's treated as doing nothing and only "worrying about the boys" part is being viewed.

I'm embarassed to discuss about this, and seemingly obstinate to you but, a certain review I read (I really want to share that review to whole KR fandom, but as it also has Ryuki, not now) talks about how actually strong-willed and strong character-wise she is for refusing to stay in the sidelines, trying to get involved, and keep searching for truth, risking her sanity, even if she (like you cover there) keeps getting heartbroken, getting hurt, and constantly being crushed around by the world.

Lol but didn't you beg for Ren not to listen to Yui doing that in ep. 10? (if because Ren mocking Shinji was funny). Other than that she still does the peacemaker time to time like before Shinji moves to Atori and when Shinji's card is stolen. I honestly thought before to you it was because that she doesn't start feuds with others lol, but actually like you said there being a peacemaker. Judging from my cover about Shinji/Tezuka and how you didn't find it memorable except for their quarrel.

Yeah, I don't know. I'm sure part of me is just disappointed with how the show's using Yui, and that makes me more negative about her. And I think some of it's the performance, whatever choices the actor is making aren't working for me.

Like, there's more of an emphasis lately (not in this one, though!) on Yui trying to piece together what Shiro was up to back in the Secret Science Society days. That's a huge piece of the plot that needs to be discovered. It's just, a) I don't feel like we've learned anything too terrifying or exciting yet, and b) I wish Yui didn't seem so on the verge of tears in every one of those scenes. I can't believe I'm saying this, but maybe her brother becoming a mirror ghost and ruining so many lives in her name isn't that big of a deal? We've got a global pandemic under way, industries are on the precipice of disappearing, and like, people are still playing Animal Crossing, you know? Things don't have to be Feelings all day every day. It's like we've only got two things for Yui to do on this show, be worried about Riders or be worried about Shiro. It's sort-of exhausting to watch?

Oh, okay. I see how it is! 0.01% of Tokyo gets murdered a week in Kuuga, and you constantly question why everyone isn't evacuating the city in a panic, but Yui gets a bit upset about her own brother getting people killed, possibly because of her, and SUDDENLY it's "hey, maybe tone it down with all those pesky emotional responses". You can't fool me, Die! You're just looking for excuses to be critical!

Nah, I'm just messing with you. At least I think I am...

I see what you're saying about Yui's scenes, anyway. There are a lot of times when, compared to the fun of watching the Riders go at it, it's hard not for them to feel like an obligation more than anything.

But like, I'll stick up for her as a character any day of the week. I think it's pretty mean to pick on her like she's some horrible wet blanket when her motivations and reactions to things are all totally believable ways of responding to unbelievable events. I think it's important to keep an open mind about the way she's portrayed going forward. She's stronger than you think, but not in the way you seem to be expecting. She's never going to turn into Reiko overnight, because they're two different characters serving two different roles, even if the investigative angle is overlapping a bit.

To be perfectly honest, I don't know exactly what it is about Yui that's bothering me. I'm almost trying to work backwards, investigating why I feel the way I do. Writing about it, it's making me think harder about why I'm having this reaction to her. It's maybe unfair! I'll cop to that! But... man, there's something happening there that's working less and less for me. Gotta be something there.

I feel like it's probably a lot of the choices the actor is making. There's a way to play Yui's character where you want her to succeed, to find peace, to absolve herself of her guilt over her brother's actions... it's just, for me, that's not coming through. I don't at all feel that way when a Yui scene starts. There doesn't seem to be layers to her performance, it's just a minor calibration of How Much Does It Look Like She's Going To Cry. Oh, this is a 25% scene. This one's a 15%. This one's a 30% that becomes a 95%, so that's some range.

But the other thing, it's how isolated Yui feels from the main action. Like, remember the first episode, where Yui got to go fight Mirror Monsters with Ren? What was that, her birthday gift? Because they don't seem to let her leave the restaurant much, let alone help fight monsters. Was there a cut scene where she accidentally got a school bus full of children killed by a monster, so now she's banned from monster-fighting? No one seems to let her help fight monsters, and they barely talk to her about the Rider Battle stuff. If the show didn't want me to resent Yui scenes, maybe start putting her in the more important plots?