[Kamen Rider Die]

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Originally Posted by FreshToku

What a surprisingly relevant and appropriate time for this tweet to have happened:

https://twitter.com/hasseijackson/st...31342318104576

"Accessorizing with masks" isn't something I've ever had to think about as an American, but, uh... thinking about it a lot right now. I guess I'd probably buy a variety pack of Ryuki masks. I wonder if that's going to be way more of a thing, globally, going forward. I know that Asian countries have less of a stigma about masks in public, but maybe this'll be a turning point for America's acceptance of them?

I don't know. Still! Tezuka's a good choice to be the spokesperson for We Are Responsible For Each Other's Safety. Although, for the current Ryuki cast, no one practices social distancing, physical and emotional, like Ren.

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Originally Posted by DreadBringer

So at the end Ren remarks that Kitaoka is weaker, essentially denying Kitaoka's praise to Ren?

Yeah, that's a very Ren move, to take a compliment and spin it back as an insult, to keep people at a distance, to be an asshole. If Kitaoka's going to praise Ren for being stronger, Ren's going to claim that he's the same, Kitaoka just got worse. He's such an asshole and I love it!

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Originally Posted by DreadBringer

And Tezuka gave Survive card to Ren. So even when Raia had a crazed revenge to Guldthunder, he isn't tempted by Shiro to go get even at Asakura, the one harmed and indirectly killed Yuichi and the bigger problem overall.

I feel like that's the moment when Tezuka knows he'll need to sacrifice himself, when he gives the card to Ren. He can't fight the other Riders, he can't stop the Rider Battles are Shiro, but maybe he can save Ren and Shinji, and maybe they can do what he couldn't. I think that card, giving it away, that was the moment for him.

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Originally Posted by DreadBringer

And also his death is another one, ironic. Tezuka's predictions are always right, but he purposely made a wrong one by claiming that he'll die instead of Shinji and fulfills the wrong prophecy by sacrificing himself, to prove that fate can be changed a̶n̶d̶ ̶k̶e̶e̶p̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶1̶0̶0̶%̶ ̶t̶r̶a̶c̶k̶ ̶r̶e̶c̶o̶r̶d̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶r̶i̶g̶h̶t̶ ̶p̶r̶e̶d̶i̶c̶t̶i̶o̶n̶s̶. Tezuka feels that Shinji is more suitable for stopping the Rider War based on how unpredictable he is back in ep. 18 as one of the reasons, but Tezuka is also "inspirational character" (cliche is inspirational characters mostly die) to drive Shinji's character. Despite making most efforts to Ren (and the interactions you cover most), the big part is he actually influences Shinji, with the way how he tried to change Riders as people, and after that Shinji tried Tezuka's methods a bit.

I guess I wouldn't call it ironic, though. Shibaura's death is ironic. Tezuka's is definitely poetic. He achieves his goals at the cost of his own life. And, for me, that's maybe part of the problem with my emotional distance from it. There's... I can feel the hand of the writer, tying things up neatly and constructing a clever, complete end to Tezuka's story. But that, I think, robs it of some of the messiness that could surprise, or shock. Everything that happens to Tezuka makes sense, but it maybe makes too much sense?

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Originally Posted by DreadBringer

You know there are already numerous secondary Riders who gets final upgrade first right? Like Cross-Z, G3-X, Deep Specter, etc. And I will also say that Knight Survive is my second most favorite design in this series. Ouja just lets Knight change into Knight Survive? Well I know he's someone who likes good fights so it makes sense a bit, and this episode didn't really portray it well but later part in the series will show why it makes sense not to attack upgrading Riders (this episode just has Knight turn to Knight Survive the same way a human turns into a Rider).

The new Knight costume is neat, and the scene where it debuts is suitably intense (a pocket dimension just to show off form changes!), but Knight's the first Ryuki character to get an upgraded form, and that's weird to me. The examples you mentioned, they all got their upgrades after the title character did. Ryuki hasn't gotten an upgraded form yet, but now Knight's powered-up. I guess I can sort-of see why fans think this is more Knight's show than Ryuki's?

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Originally Posted by Kurona

I liked Tezuka a lot and was so goddamn happy when he and Shinji took each other's hand. That right there was just my biggest "Yes, HELL YES!" moment; like the exact thing you know is gonna happen from the moment this character shows up and you're just waiting in sheer anticipation for it!

And then he dies

I feel like we got a whole story with Tezuka, though, you know? There's nothing I can see with Tezuka that went unexplored, or was left vague. He gets a complete arc, so maybe that can make things better?