Tezuka and Jun banging was the last thing I expected to see in just about anything, let alone this.

And ya know, sorry in advance if this comes across as insensitive(which hey, if it is, feel free to yell at me!), but I actually found them hooking up to be super gross. Not only due to it coming across more as lust rather than anything romantic at best(and reaching for brownie points at worst), but also because of the implication it ends up giving to Tezuka's' entire backstory in Ryuki: That he didn't actually think of Yuichi as a close friend, but was infact in love with him the entire time and thus was his primary motivator. As someone who's a big supporter of platonic love, well, didn't appreciate that!

Could say more, but there's one more part to go, so I'll save that for next time.

Special Time! Survive Edition! (Part 2)

-Ren hearing (persumably) past Shinji's voice to stop the battle, I might weep. But also like. Kinda cheap not to have your own motivation, isn't it. Even a "I killed a guy last episode, And I'd Rather Not Do That Again!" for Ren would've succiffed.

-Is it bad I don't really care about Tatakae Lady and Another Ryuki's deal? Like I know they're trying to reflect Kanzaki and Yui's whole deal, but we already went through a similar plot in the Fourze/Faiz arc?

-Not to be that guy, but like. If this takes places *after* Another Ryuga, but before Episode 29, what's stopping Sougo from whacking Another Ryuki to pieces using Zi-O II, like he did with Ryuga?

-Vaguely heard Tezuka was canon gay when I watched Ryuki for the first time, and assumed something like, "Ah they must've impiled Tezuka's piano friend was more than a friend somewhere, that's some neat rep for me." But...Tezuka and Jun? It's very odd pairing, esp considering how bizzare Tezuka's character is in this one? (I can totally buy Jun being an absolute weirdo in any romantic relationship he'd persue tho.)

-Like 13 Riders and Zi-O were all very "No matter what Time Nonsense goes on, these people will always be the same kind of people they always are! :-)" So I don't really get the reason for Tezuka's heelturn in the first place? And then they switch him back right before he dies, so like what's the point?

Tangent: A lot of the props/suits look really nice, surprisingly a lot better than some returning suits that came after Ryuki (Accel in that one special...Oof.) I wonder how much of it had to be remade, and how much seemed good to go after pulling it out of storage? (I'm like half sure Gai was remade completely, it's so shiny.)

Too soon!

I didn't read that much into it, really. With all of the amnesia running around in this story, I'm not sure you can pin a lot on past actions. It's also been sixteen years; I think it's reasonable for one relationship to be platonic, and another to be romantic.

For this one, I think Tezuka is in love, but Jun's just doing the shitposting version of a hookup. There's maybe a thematically appropriate to story to tell in there, about how motivations get misinterpreted and true understanding is obscured by different levels of interest, but this plot gets, like, two scenes. There isn't much there to unpack.

Still! I'm not inclined to push back on anyone who found something they didn't like in this episode. (Except Ren spraying Shinji with beer. That was perfect.)

It's a concept I half-like -- Ren is a changed man after Shinji's sacrifice! -- that falls apart once Ren can't give any intensity to his goal due to his amnesia. This was a dude who was defined by his intensity in the original Ryuki series, but here's it's just like Sougo's first episode King stuff: I Vaguely Want This Thing But I Don't Know Why. Way less fun!

Yeah, Tezuka's various betrayals don't make any sense to me. Can't even squint and see why he'd do these things.

Well, it’s time for part 2 of my comment, with the “compare and contrast”

Whereas Shinji is a man who is against killing no matter what and was the only person not drafted into the Rider Battle, Tatsuya is someone conducting a murder game for the sake of a loved one, and is explicitly under the control of someone else.

And now I’ll reveal why I went with Dive Into the Mirror for Another Ryuki. Specifically, Tatsuya is a homage to Adam, the doppelganger to the hero Kit from Dragon Knight, who like Tatsuya, was drawn into murdering people for the main villain, in exchange for his girlfriend’s safety. For bonus points, both girlfriends are named “Sara”.

For the fighting part, I'd say it's done well, with a new and more advanced special effects. KR still has never perfected special effects though. The one gripe I had on the special effects here was how Ryuki's Dragon Rider Kick has Ryuki's foot burning on flames already before Dragreder shoots fireballs on him, kinda invalidates the teamwork aspects on the Final Vents. Final Vents also seem less deadly here, it's the Riders get de-henshined and then dissolved into Mirror World, while in original Ryuki, they exploded and got engulfed in the flames, leaving no body behind, or at best broken deck. Though I'd say Ouja's Veno Crash seems to be done better than the original series, the venom that enhances his kick is made more clear here and his movement isn't as silly looking as the one on Ryuki. Other than the special effects there's also some neat fighting moves on the Riders as well, like Ryuki/Raia's (ugh) Strike + Copy Vent combo, where Tiger and Gai simultaneously countered with Freeze and Confine Vent respectively, to disperse Raia's fireball and negate Ryuki's weapon.

Reminder that the other Ryuki spin-off that also jumps right into TATAKAE and has more Riders seen than on the TV Shows was that 13 Riders. So it'd be kinda expected to have a Ryuki spin-off here that also focuses on fan service and also not focusing on the weight of history, and 13 Riders also had the same writer. I'd acknowledge too that Shinji, Ren, and Asakura all act like themselves which is nice and that Shinji's relationships with the newcomers Ishida/Imperer, and Kimura/Verde. There's also even some logic behind Riders that don't participate here other than Femme being pregnant, which I'll get likely later.

But I gotta be honest here that I'm way more vocal towards butchered adaptations, compared to 'bad choices' in storytelling of which it can have some interpretation and perspectives, and I won't let that go unchecked here, I've given credits above first, and sorry but it's also something expected from Inoue (like Kiba in the last part of Faiz). Regarding, y'know, Tsukuyomi in the last 4 episodes before, here it happened in a much worse fashion for Tezuka. In Ryuki, he was the only other straight up heroic Rider than Shinji, and he has been tested too, he won't be tempted by Shiro, with him giving the Survive Shippu Card (to get revenge on Asakura) into Ren. Here, Tezuka is someone straight up evil, not done by desperation either, not even having apparent humanity in his actions, and he had committed atrocity on the same level as the worst Riders on the original series (Scissors and Ouja); feeding someone into his contract monster. I know Riders on Ryuki are expected to be evil, but then just use any other existing evil Rider that Ryuki provided instead of turning the only other beacon of morality into 1. I also don't buy the amnesia excuse, I don't think that sense of justice or such is a part of memory, if he didn't have a sense of justice he can do differently in Yuichi's death. I also don't know why Goro-chan here gets immediately assumed as someone who'd be undercover on Asakura here, but not for Sougo in ep. 9-10 before (a̶n̶d̶ ̶i̶t̶'̶s̶ ̶a̶l̶s̶o̶ ̶s̶h̶o̶w̶n̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶S̶o̶u̶g̶o̶ ̶d̶i̶d̶ ̶l̶e̶t̶ ̶G̶e̶i̶z̶ ̶f̶i̶g̶h̶t̶ ̶h̶i̶m̶ ̶a̶s̶ ̶w̶e̶l̶l̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶i̶r̶ ̶s̶t̶r̶a̶t̶e̶g̶y̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶Q̶u̶i̶z̶).

It's not just you.

While it's not as exciting and personal, I think it makes sense in continuity with the TV ending, where the Rider War was reset and everybody lost their memories. So Shinji's and Ren's vague familiarity and camaraderie with each other is the result of their memories from different timelines blending together in an abstract way. Actually, I think that's the main appeal of this spin-off for me, that it's an epilogue to the show in the same way that Kamen Rider 4 was to Faiz. And I think Ryuki needed that the most.

Too late for approaching. He's literally 40 here, since he was 23 at the start of Kamen Rider Ryuki and it's been 17 years. He and Ren are still looking pretty good though.

Nice observation! That makes Femme and Abyss my favorite nobodies in this spin-off.

I love this one as well.

I couldn't even tell you the difference between Imperer and Verde. Any Rider who wasn't in the show is just a nobody whose purpose is to get killed. It does diminish the novelty of the Rider War being a competition between people with strong personalities when only half of them are worth emotionally investing in. However, I'd say the worst of Rider Time Ryuki is in the second part, if that's any consolation.

I recall most people thought it was poorly executed and devoid of romance, myself included. It doesn't help that Tezuka is not remotely his usual self here, so it's hard to care about how these two unsympathetic murderers feel about each other. However, I don't think there's any need to retroactively perceive Tezuka's relationship with Yuichi as romantic. I mean, people can if they want to, but it's totally plausible for two potentially bi/homosexual dudes to love each other in a platonic way as well, the same way a hetero dude and girl can also be just friends.

Bi, actually. Remember that Tezuka had a crush on Eri in the 13 Riders special. Unfortunately, him falling for a homicidal psychopath like Jun was not his best choice. The fortune teller is surprisingly lacking in foresight in this spin-off.

What about guys like Sento and Tsukasa, whose sense of justice is the result of losing their memory? I don't think this is the case for Tezuka specifically, but in theory, it could be possible for the reverse to happen where someone gains a sense of justice through character development and then memory loss reverts them to their formerly evil self.

I would just like to point out Jiro Okamoto playing the suit actor for Ouja.
It's really funny to see the disconnect between Asakura looking a little malnourished then transforming to Ouja and now he's become a little thicker.

Also, boy, did the stunt Ryuki suit not age well

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/M22DDTs0Yws/maxresdefault.jpg

Ha ha, neat!

Mostly because Sougo was still being developed then, and we've got an entire series worth of Goro's actions to point to for evidence. Goro's actions are so weird and out-of-character that even Asakura's like Dude WTF.

That's fair. It's still a pretty sizable restriction to telling a big reunion story, though, which is maybe why the Build New World movie in early 2019 IMMEDIATELY had everyone get their memories back so you can, y'know, enjoy the camaraderie you spent a year totally invested in. (The Build/Zi-O movie did the same thing! It sucks to have characters show up, but not have their history!)

It's all because of Goto's great cooking! This isn't an Asakura who's eating rats in an abandoned warehouse; this is an Asakura who is eating multi-course meals, prepared by a world-class cook!

Absolutely! If it seemed as though I was trying to say otherwise, then I apologize, as that is very much not what I was getting at. I just feel that, for this particular instance, things don't work out at all optimally.

Again, I'll say more once the thread reaches the final part, since my full thoughts tie into my feelings on this entire special as a whole.