[DreadBringer]

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

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?

What do you mean that "you can't reuse their Deck"? Anyone can henshin with the Deck, not just the owner, just that it's not performed by anyone else at the moment in the main series. Ryuki is the first series that introduces henshin device that can be brought anywhere, pocketed. If you talk about how anyone who contracts can't go back and must keep fighting, it means that your Contract Monsters should be constantly fed by fighting other monsters or that you'll be eaten, changing your life completely. But it doesn't refer to the Decks. For breaking Decks, no, the wish is created from the lives of the other 12 Riders, so they have to tatakae and die.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

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.

All Of The Bad Guys are fighting Shinji happens because Takamizawa perceives Shinji just like Tezuka (who says he's unpredictable and thinks he's the most suitable to stop the war) regarding him and the war, both knows that Shinji is a big threat to the war (ep. 28 also elaborates on that). But obviously because he's a selfish bad guy, where if Shinji went haywire, he can stop the war and deny Takamizawa his wish, he instead dedicates himself to defeat Shinji, and plants this mindset to the other selfish Riders, making them also know and realize that Shinji is a big threat to the war and can potentially deny their wish, which leads to all the other like-minded Riders forming a temporary truce and alliance to remove the war's obstacle before resuming fighting each other (after killing Shinji and Ren, ofc). All the other Riders are villanious, but Takamizawa is the main antagonist here, and his businessman charisma is his actual strength here. Ren is turning into Shinji's ally so I guess he's just lumped together with him as he's risky too, can potentially help Shinji doing his thing.