[badlander86]

So if someone were to establish a loose "timeline" of Ryuki, would it be:

13 Riders → Episode Final → TV Series

Yeah, Odin had that fight won but whatever Kanzaki was feeling affected the flow of the fight.

Regarding Shinji's character. Despite being for all intents and purposes a wuss for a vast majority of the series, Shinji never once lost track of what his mission was: To stop the Rider War and avert civilian deaths from the Mirror Monsters. Painfully naive, I think Shinji's story was in fact the most tragic of the Riders. His background is never fleshed out aside from his occupation of being an amateur journalist but I don't think they needed to because he was meant to be the everyman trying to do the right thing...only to have the right thing blow up in his face over and over again. From being used by the Room 401 crew to being mocked constantly by Ren and even forced to dress up as a French maid by Kitaoka...he had it pretty rough. But he never lost sight of his goal without going into a ridiculous monologue or explanation of why he is right. Shinji often gets dismissed as being the least interesting of the Ryuki characters despite being the title Rider but I think he complimented the others. He was the conscience of the show in the face of desperation and ambition.