[Kamen Rider Die]

MASKED RIDER RYUKI EPISODE 18



There's an... immediacy, I guess, that I really liked about this episode. It's paced real well. There's an emphasis on a core cast and a single plot, and pretty much anyone who doesn't help further that one plot gets a token scene. Ren's still hiding from himself in the park, Yui's (eternally?) questioning what Shiro's up to, and Tezuka works at the tea shop now. (To that last one, shit, why not. Auntie will put an apron on any handsome boy who wanders in, and Tezuka is there all the time anyway. It's random, but nearly everything about how the tea shop is run is random.)

There's really only five people who are well-served by this one. Shinji, Reiko, Kitaoka, Shibaura, and Asakura, our brand-new Rider.

Asakura, Kamen Rider Snake Motif, he's a neat addition. He's utterly remorseless, completely ruthless, and shockingly cruel. While characters like Kitaoka and Shibaura are villainous in their drive to win, and Scissors was an amateur killer hoping to go pro, Asakura is a cold-blooded (Snake Motif!) psychopath. When he isn't killing someone, he's asking, "Why aren't I killing someone?” He's easily the worst person yet to get a Card Deck, which is why he's an awesome person to get a Card Deck.

We've been getting a steady escalation of villainous Riders since Scissors, since Shinji saw a Rider die. Kitaoka is an asshole, and would love to see other Riders get bumped off, but he's not super into trying to do it with his own two hands. Shibaura, he'll definitely try to get a Rider killed, but he's okay (and maybe a little happier) maneuvering Riders into killing each other. (He's so excited about Asakura killing Shinji! It's like he asked Santa to have one of his rivals kill the other, and now it's Christmas morning. His enthusiasm is so infectious, I kind-of want Asakura to murder Shinji.) With Asakura, we get an unrepentant killer, one who'd hold a child at gunpoint. There's nothing redeemable about Asakura. Even if you lock him up, he'll get out and kill again. He's a fascinating test of Shinji's convictions, and a great addition to a cast of warring Riders.

The supporting cast for Asakura's story, though, that's what makes this one really work. Asakura's a threat, a weapon, and the real fun is in who wields him, and against whom. Kitaoka's not much more than a target in this one (he's only normal-human-being levels of smarmy in this one, which, boooooo), but he's once again in the cross-hairs of clients, with both Asakura AND Shibaura wanting him dead. (I kind-of love how Shibaura totally looks up to the charmingly amoral Kitaoka, right up until he finds out he's a Rider. Then it's like, Oh You're Cool But You're Dead. Not a second of hesitation from Shibaura. Kid's got focus!) Reiko throws herself completely into the story, chasing after an escaped homicidal lunatic armed with nothing more than a white pantsuit and a Smart car. (The pantsuit might be more resilient than that car, weapon-wise.) Shinji's his most energetic self, trying to prove himself to Reiko, but he's stymied by the demands of being a superhero --- oh, man, she IS Lois Lane, isn't she --- and forced to stop chasing Asakura to detonate a monster. (Great monster fight, incidentally. The use of different levels was clever, and the new fight song sounded great. Short fight, but a really good one.)

If there's an MVP for this one, though... it hurts a little bit to say this, because I hate him so much, but it's Shibaura. Using his weird game-designer combination of Need For Chaos and Follow The Rules, they've solidified him as more than just a Poor Man's Genm, he's levelled-up (in my eyes) to being Kamen Rider Shitstirrer. He's not about killing monsters, or killing people with monsters. He's not even really about killing other Riders, at least not directly. He's, like, the opposite of Tezuka: he only wants Riders to fight. He's personally offended by Shinji and Tezuka, for deciding not to fight other Riders. He doesn't even really care if Asakura kills Shinji or Kitaoka, just so long as Riders fight Riders. It's honestly pretty great, as far as motivations on this show go. I like how meta it is, how he's very into the core concept of this show and is going to do whatever it takes to keep things on brand. It makes all of his irritating mannerisms more palatable, because he wants the things you want as a viewer. He's a Kamen Rider fan, and he wants to see Riders fight. It... I don't know if I'm supposed to see myself in Shibaura, but I sort-of do now.

Oh, no.