[Kamen Rider Die]

Quote:

Originally Posted by DreadBringer

Shinji inheriting Ryuki Deck from Sakakibara (who becomes an actual Rider, the 3rd heroic one)

This was a thing that sort-of bugged me. I don't want to nitpick the changes this story makes to the rules of Rider Battle, but the more I think about it, the more the Card Decks being the root of all powers... it's a dumb loophole that breaks the Rider Battles? Like, in the main series, if you take out a Rider, you take out a Rider. Once they've made a contract with a monster, you can't reuse their Deck. That thing gets broken or they get killed, it's over for them. That reduces the number of Riders (assuming Shiro isn't just being a dick and handing out Decks like they're packets of tissues) and brings the contest closer to completion. Right? But in this one, Shinji gets a Deck from a dying Ryuki... which keeps Ryuki in play, despite Ryuki dying. Now, killing the Rider doesn't necessarily mean there's one less player, so killing a Rider is way less important than destroying a Deck. Why didn't Kitaoka just break Asakura's Deck when he had it? It'd mean for sure that there'd be one less opponent, no matter if Asakura got free or not.

Yeah, the No Contract Monster thing, it maybe breaks the concept of Rider Battles?

Quote:

Originally Posted by DreadBringer

While Shinji works to persuade other people to stop the Rider War (though in this special, he does it mainly by looking for partners) and fight for justice, Takamizawa (with Shibaura as main partner) works to persuade other people to bring their worst side and ditch humanity as Riders, and fight those against that.

They just do it in real boring ways, I thought. There's no nuance. I like the gimmick of Kamen Rider Geico, his whole thing, but his pitch in this one is just generic villain bullshit, same as Shinji's generic hero bullshit.

A lot of what works well in the series is how, give or take an Asakura, there's equal weight given to everyone's outlook. Most of Shinji's character growth comes from trying to understand the other Riders, figure out what's driving them. In this, it's just All Of The Bad Guys fighting Shinji, and eventually Ren. No one's got a great argument, nothing that's really capable of getting you to think. It's barely even an argument, beyond Stopping Evil or Being Evil. I don't know, there wasn't a compelling anything to the viewpoints in this one for me.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DreadBringer

Unfortunately there are probably some people who dislikes the "boring" drama of philosophy clashes between the characters, moral dilemmas, etc. and wants to follow Ryuki only for the battle royale part (it's like... those that only care about the action part but also with the added nuance of heavy fan of battle royale games like Shibaura), to watch Riders ganging up, fighting and killing each other, and is probably disappointed that the main series isn't into that much and treating 13 Riders as jumping straight into the point for Ryuki premise.

I would legit love to hear from someone who preferred 13 Riders to the Ryuki series. I would love to hear why they felt that way. Gotta be someone, and I hope they're on these boards.