[Fish Sandwich]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

The time limit thing is neat, for the adverse effects and additional complications, but I think it's mostly just a super-smart way to create reasons why the Riders don't immediately kill one another.

Definitely! It's not even that rare for Rider shows and the like to use flimsy excuses to get a villain just short of killing the hero (the perennial "tossed 'em in a river", for example), so for Ryuki to build that narrative shortcut right into the world, it makes it much more palatable to the audience. You're told upfront this will be happening, so it doesn't come off as cheap, even though when you think about it, it's not any less lazy in the long-term.

This is the same reason I have a soft spot for the Riders' abilities to outright detect monsters in Agito, and especially Ryuki, where it's employed to the exact opposite effect as the time limit. Need to break up a conversation in a hurry? Just say there's a monster nearby! Again, not flawless storytelling structure, but it's an efficient way to add justification to the heroes randomly stumbling upon bad guys to fight.

Combining it with the time limit, I think, gave Ryuki's episodes a ton of extra flexibility and breathing room in what they wanted to do, since those rules removed the need to sweat the "small" stuff every week.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

"HEN--" oh god he's going to turn into a superhero and murder me this totally sucks should i just attack him no god that'll just piss him off what am i gonna "--CHMEN have mostly just made bad choices in their life, and it seems unconscionably cruel to assault them. Why don't I buy you a coffee, and we can talk about what led you to this point?"

Gosh, I wish he did that. Unlike the main villains, most of those poor Masquerade Dopants were never shown to be fine after exploding. I think Double and Accel combined probably mercilessly slaughtered like at least 50 of those guys throughout the series.