[SPLIT LIP]

Okay, finished Ryuki, and I have a lot to say, so I'll spoiler tag the whole thing in case anybody reads it.

Let's just say as a finale, that was nearly perfect.

NEARLY perfect.

Why nearly? I think anyone who's watched it knows.

What the fuck was with that ending? The episode itself was great bar a few tiny bits. As much as I ahte Asakura, that was an EXCELLENT way of capping off his "character." That's exactly how it should have been. Same with Kitaoka and Gorou. That couldn't have been better. I was actually getting choked up when I saw Kitaoka on the couch like that, Reiko still waiting at the resturant. And Gorou becoming Zolda was perfection. Though I'm not sure how that works, then again as we've established Magnugiga is a pretty laid-back guy (my he rest in peace) so I'll believe it. But that's who Gorou is. He'll do anything for his Sensei, even after he's passed on.

Ren, as much as I found him unentertaining, really had a great "end." Yeah, it's an ERRYWUN DIES ending but it was really well done. Even teh sappy bit with Yui and Shiro, I'll take it.

No, it's the actual end that sucked. The second we got back to the Ore Journal I knew what had happened. God. Dammit. You know, if anyone wonders why I'm okay with how W really ended, it's because Phillip came back under his own own power. Using established continuity and abilities Phillip has demonstrated, it seemed very plausible that he could use the Xtreme memory to return. Narrative significance aside, at least it made sense, which allows me to accept it.

This... this was LITERALLY the reset button. It LITERALLY made the show pointless. Everything was undone, everything that happened, rendered moot. Everythign that was gained and lost just erased. The chess game ended and the pieces were put back. Nothign was achieved, nothing was learned or gained.

What a load of shit.

19:13. That's the time in the Youtube video I was watching this episode when the the screen went black before it cut back to the journal. I'm going to remember that should I ever rewatch the show again, so I can have a proper ending.

But seriously, overall? Ryuki is just okauy. When it's good, it's REALLY good, but when it's bad.... it hurts. The story is painfully drawn out, far beyond normal Rider fare, and the characters are hit and miss.

Ryuki is alright, which isn't really a good thing to say about your main charatcer. But he was good, an idiot beyond redemption, his death was touching and he had good morals that despite adversity, ultimately he stuck to. Zolda is by far the best character. He's multi-layered, charming, dispicable, nobel, sleezy, humble and selfish all at once. He's really genuine and everything he does feels real. Gorou was the ultimate bro of all Kamen Rider. I seriously might get Figma Torque to represent him, since charatcers that awesome deserve plastic representations. Raia, even though he died long ago, I still remember as a strong moral character. He felt like Ryuki should have been. Someone who fights to not fight. He took that oxymoron of a motivation and made it seem real. Tiger was a greta villain, short-lived but very well realised as a mentally damaged self-styled hero. He wasn't cartoonish, he wasn't outrageous. He was almost tragic. He had these methods he was taught to use, but they never worked and only caused him pain.

On the side of not so great characters, well, let's start with Knight. Knight was UTTERLY POINTLESS. Even in the finale he felt tacked-on. While he was annoying early on, he really just became bland, and even though he was good in the very end, it doesn't make up for him largely being an addition. Ouja... was the single worst villain I've seen in a rider show since the Phantoms in Wizard. There was NOTHING to him, he was just a bully and a really bland one. Nothign about him was entertaining, NOTHING about him was threatening. He was just dumb. The point of the character wasn't the proble, if you want to write and unstoppable rage monster, you can, but they didn't. They wrote a Gary Stu. A character who exists only for other characters to talk about when he's not around and do the impossible to seem "cool" and "badass." Though he went out perfectly, he was a huge dissapointement. Imperer wasn't bad, but he was also pretty pointless. Alternative was cool, and his story looked interesting... but then he died and we didn't get to really explore his family connection.

The Kanzaki's were bad actors and I didn't like them. Ditto the Ore Journal crew.

While I'm certainly not dissapointed I watched Ryuki, it gave me Zolda and Gorou afterall, it could have been so much better if it just stopped to think about how things should happen. I'm positive the end was mandated from higher up, but that doesn't excuse it. But still, Zolda and Gorou are some of my favourite Kamen Rider characters ever now, so overall I'd consider Ryuki a success.