[Kamen Rider Die]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Androzani84

You want to hear from someone who preferred the special? That’s my cue to enter then.

I’m more fond of what this special does to characterise the two leads than the series itself, namely because it ignores ALL the problems I had with their in-series characterisations. I also love seeing Shinji trying desperately to hang on to his innocence during all this, namely because I’m trying to do the same thing in real life.

And also, when people talk about all the casting and character milestones concerning the Riders in this show, they overlook one in this special. The guy playing Verde was not only the first non-Japanese actor to play a rider (half-American) but was also at the time the oldest actor to play a Rider at 38 (the current record holder is Kamen Rider Jun, at age 60).

And the original Ryuki manages to make an impression on me, purely for the casting joke he entails. (For an explanation, he was the Red warrior in a past Super Sentai show, who had this (the first in the video) as his main mecha https://youtu.be/nOZfBmR546s

Neat! Thanks for sharing that! There's definitely more of an emphasis on Shinji's motivation not wavering in this one, so I can see that being an advantage to some fans. It's a much more clear-cut Good vs Bad dynamic, which makes Shinji's goals more directly heroic.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DreadBringer

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.

Unless I've forgotten something from the show, once you form a contract and get a logo on your Card Deck, it's your Card Deck. No one else can use it. Hell, they can't even use the cards in another Deck, normally. With this one, people are tossing Decks around and swiping each other's cards. It feels like it changes the stakes of battle, if you can have multiple Ryukis and Knights. That's definitely not how it's worked on the series thus far.