[Shin Densetsu]

Quote:

Originally Posted by badlander86

To my knowledge, I think Shinji is the first titular Kamen Rider to die and more interestingly for it to be an out-of-suit death. Ren's reaction to Shinji dying in his arms was so strong and powerful that it made up for what an ass he was for most of the series.

Asakura's final stand was a little strange. Being cheated out of killing a man he had become obsessed with pushed him over the edge...truly a vexed individual.

In the end...I dunno. Would it have been better without the reset? It would have been dark as hell but I think it would have further cemented Ryuki's reputation as one of the most unique Rider series of this generation.

In hindsight I can more or less see why this show did not do well over in Japan especially with its target demographic being kids. The stories were rather dark, the main villain being Kanzaki Shirou wasn't a dude with a special form or the "ultimate badass" type character, maybe too much focus was placed on the secret between Yui and Kanzaki....In a way, this show is up there with GARO in terms of mature storytelling. I mean even Imperer's death was pretty fucked up in that scene where his fiancee is waiting for him not knowing he had become a notch on Asakura's belt.

This was the series that got me back into Toku. The X or Highlander of the Kamen Rider franchise.

I didn't know that the series didn't do so well in Japan. Just how well was it received? I do like how Tamashii Nations is giving it some love with SH Figuarts. DEFINITELY a god send for a guy like me who only started watching Ryuki relatively recently. When Kickback told me about what he was starting(which was this place), I had picked Ryuki as one of the 1st Rider series I would watch. I am glad I did. Prior to this I had only watched ZX, a few dubbed episodes in Tagalog of the original Kamen Rider, and a few episodes of Masked Rider when it was localized with that one dude back when MMPR was already popular.

I think it's downfall was the fights in particular, being predictable. For the 1st half of the series either the monster died or ran away, and if it did die, it was usually Ren or Shinji using Final Vent and if it ran away, it was running away from the Final Vent. Basically the fights became predictable.

This does change later aside from the Survive Card being somewhat of a deus ex machina. By the last episodes the fights are a lot less predictable. In this respect, I think the movie, Episode Final, excelled.

Simply put, the fights in the majority of the series, due to predictability, did not seem on par with the mature storytelling. The storytelling and characterizations is where this series excelled. To see the way Akiyama ended up in the end was a surprise. Even for Kitaoka, even Shinji said something to the matter of "well if he's fighting just to live then I can't really blame him anymore!". I loved how we got to know the characters just as Shinji did; his experience mirrored ours.

Speaking of dark..finding out that Yui was technically somewhat dead...nuts! The whole story was due to Shiro not being able to take loss.

Quote:

Originally Posted by badlander86

On the subject of Asakura who is in my mind the greatest Villain in Heisei Rider mythos, I loved how the writers really pulled no punches in portraying him as utter scum.

Killing his own family in a fire, playing a traumatized scarred victim just to bait his brother to finish the job (Seriously...What the fuck?), destroying a talented pianist's career murdering Raia, murdering Gai, using a young girl as bait for his Mirror Monster hunt, murdering Imperer...And yet I find it hilarious that this guy could have a seat with Kitaoka and Ren to collectively mock Shinji. Also he seemed to like offering people food. Maybe because he doesn't like the idea of people going hungry. Strange character trait for a pure psychopath.

He was Kanzaki's ringer, the guy Kanzaki could rely on to thin the herd which was why his deck was rigged with three contract cards. Survive? Who needs Survive when you've got Unite! I love how they never bothered to give him a clearly defined objective or wish. He was there for the carnage. And I love him for it.

I think Asakura's characterization was done on purpose by the writers. There have been some characters in Sentai/Rider series where they start bad, then turn good eventually, these tend to be bad asses sometimes. Being that Ren, Tezuka, Toujo(to an extent), and Kitaoka can all be seen as primarily good if not netural(like Kitaoka until the end when it's realized that he's not so much trying to live out a life of various wealth as much as he is just trying to live to begin with), I think the writers made Asakura THEE main bad guy. Simply because if not him, there would be no one else but Odin, and Odin just stands in place for Kanzaki Shiro since Kanzaki lacks a physical form.

Asakura is the bad guy to end up liking, like Magneto and others. For me, seeing him take out all those Riders left me wanting to see someone kick his ass. Asakura was entertaining because he was deadly and unpredictable. I remember when he pulled out his extra contract cards and was like "WTF?! He has more than Jun!". Then when he pulled out Unite Vent I was like "Alright WTF x 10 that's not even fair!".

Asakura managed to kill the biggest dick in the series(Gai), and the most peaceful(Tezuka). By way of karma he was going to bite it one way or another.

I did like how the moments where it seemed like Asakura had a heart, he shoves a nail right through it. THAT is excellent storytelling by way of the writers.