[Kamen Rider Die]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Magnugiga

(Very) late to the party, but oh man, Ryuki’s my all-time favorite. A lot of it might be nostalgia; along with Black and Kuuga, it’s the KR shows I actually watched on TV and through VCDs during childhood and formative years.

About the 13 Special Riders: I watched it through a VCD lent by by classmate before I even finished the series, and yeah, I was pretty underwhelmed. But then, it’s pretty much impossible to have all the nuances from the series in such a short duration (especially since they decided to re-tell it from the very beginning), and after I finished the series, I actually gained a newfound appreciation toward this special… for spoiler-y reason, I suppose :v Still, definitely the worst among the three Ryuki timelines/narrative products at that time; Episode Final vs. the series would be a far more interesting debate to me at least, but we’ll cross that bridge once we get there.

The VCD I watched only shows the preferred ending. I wasn’t surprised at the audience choice; the common discussion theme among Ryuki viewers at the time was how annoying and cowardly Shinji and his philosophy was, and how Ren (a character archetype that was extremely popular at that era) should totally be the main character instead. I assume it’s similar in Japan. I eventually warmed up to Shinji a lot, though (him and Kouta from Gaim might actually be my favorite main Riders, and I think it’s not a coincidence that Gaim was the one show that managed to rekindle my interest for KR as an adult).

Welcome aboard!

The 13 Riders special is so weird because it's such an obviously flawed idea that I can't figure out why they went ahead with it. Taking a show that's (especially as we're in the final stretch now) explicitly about how heroism is not a binary state but a series of self-justifications, to take that and just do a 40-minute thing about Fighting and Survival and Good Guys fighting Bad Guys... like, why even make a Ryuki special at that point? What good is it doing to tell that story? If you can ever describe your storytelling as "a dumbed-down *fill in the blank*", you have fatally miscalculated.

I really dislike playing backseat showrunner. It's very hard to come up with a story to tell, and make it work onscreen, on time, and on budget. But. If you've got to tell an alternate universe story that fits into an hour, why not use Ryuki #0 (I don't know anyone's name, the guy who gives Shinji the Ryuki deck) to tell a story about him and Shinji? Keep Ren and Yui at the edges, bring back Gai and Tezuka if you want, but use Ryuki #0 to tell a story about why Shinji needed to be Ryuki, why he matters and makes a difference. You can use all the suits and whatever, bring back or introduce villains, but you have a story you can tell in the time allotted that can work the same thematic ground the show does. You can tell a different story about the same things as the weekly series: personal motivations, the ways guilt and rage become a license to be selfish, the subjectivity of heroism, the perils of inaction, etc etc etc. To do it the way they did, to just do Ryuki But Worse... I'll never understand why they chose that story to tell.

Thanks for posting!

Quote:

Originally Posted by BagJo

This was very much my way of thinking during my first watching of Ryuki. Like you though, I eventually warmed up to Shinji.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kurona

I think that's probably the idea behind Ryuki -- to force you to like and respect this guy you can't understand at first sight.

Maybe that's a reason Ryuki didn't work for me - because I was at worst fine with Shinji from the beginning. A bit dumb and naive, sure, but his heart's in the right place and he's clearly risking everything to do what's right. That's the sort of thing I have the most respect for, so he didn't need to do much more to win me over

Yeah, man, I really liked Shinji right away. (I think? Cue Fish Sandwich throwing my words back in my face.) There's a warmth to his character that I think makes him a great foil for Ren, but it's also why I think of Ren as the secondary Rider. Ren's an asshole who can be really fun to watch, but that dude's not the hero of the show to me. There's ups and downs to Shinji's story, but I think the exploration of his character, and the centrality of his dilemma (how to save people who don't want to be saved), it's so much more thematically rich than Ren's various levels of brooding.