[Kamen Rider Die]

MASKED RIDER RYUKI EPISODE 49



Oof.

Oooooooffffff.

Man. Scale of 1 to 10, how wrecked do you think kids were after seeing this episode when it aired? 10? 10,000?

Just a brutal episode of Ryuki, both on an emotional level (Shinji! Yui!) and on an incoherent-premise level (Shiro! Also Yui!). It's collectively probably my favorite and least favorite Ryuki episode.

Just to get it out of the way, oh my god did they shit the bed with the Mirror World explanation. Not only does the explanation make zero sense (a Mirror Yui came out to take the place of the dead real Yui who will arbitrarily die at age 20 oh and also the house exploded and I guess their parents left them to die????), it's a scene that, for me, mostly doesn't work dramatically. Shiro's great at telling people to Fight, he's decent at telling people to die, but WOW is he unable to match Yui's performance in that death scene. It's hammy, unconvincing acting. He's got no connection in the scene, there's no honesty to his performance...he, like, can't figure out what to do with his hands. It's a total disaster of a scene for me. I can't, for a second, get on board with whatever horseshit they've cobbled together to try and salvage a year-long plot that started at A Mirror Ghost Will Grant You A Wish If You Fight Well and somehow got less intelligible as it progressed, but even the emotional core of it felt hollow and forced. It's nice that Yui got to die on her own terms, and that actor sold the hell out of that choice, but that's the only compliment I can pay this part of the series. I never loved this storyline, and, Christ, the end of it? F-.

(Also, so, is the amount of Riders necessary for the final battle as handwaved as the rest of this premise? We're consistently told that Riders Can't Quit, that they have to fight until there's one left, but, like, it doesn't matter that Asakura and Kitaoka aren't fighting? Kitaoka got to bail last episode, "withdraw”, like that was ever an option offered to literally any other character, but Asakura? He would definitely want to fight! He has not conceded! Just, why even have rules if Shiro's just making them all up.)

The rest, though, holy shit, A+.

There's a funereal feel to this episode, a pall over the proceedings. Mostly in silence, Shinji and Ren have barely begun to process Yui's death before Shiro declares that the Rider Battles will continue. And then, it's just, oh. There's no end to this. It's just misery until we die. There are no options, no one can be saved.

It's more of that as the episode progresses. Kitaoka's out of the hospital, but clearly without much time left. Asakura is going to be killed by the police at dawn. And Shinji's at Ore Journal, confessing his secrets and adrift in confusion. Nothing he does seems to matter, and he doesn't know what he should even fight for at this point.

That scene in Ore Journal, with Shinji and Okubo... I don't assume it's most people's favorite scene from the episode. The final scene, it's a killer. (Too soon?) I couldn't blame anyone who cited it as an all-time fave. This Ore Journal one, though. Man. Maybe my favorite dramatic scene in this show.

Okubo's been a secret weapon on this show, maybe. There's the wacky hijinks and awkward comedy and whatnot, but there's a sense that he gets it. He gets people, and he gets how to help them. Shinji's torn up by indecision, and Okubo lets him know that there's nothing wrong with questioning yourself. That for Shinji, a character who leapt to conclusions like they were rampaging monsters, it's good to examine your motivations, to wonder if you're doing the right thing. But if you can believe in yourself, trust in yourself, you'll do the right thing. It's a journalist saying, Hey, we don't always know what the right thing to do is, but asking that question is the start of getting an answer we can live with.

And at that moment, as Shinji's getting a little guidance from a friend, it gets brighter in the room. The sun comes up. The darkness recedes. A hero who lost his way starts to see a future.

It's a beautifully shot scene, and it's probably the scene I'll remember most from these 49 episodes of Ryuki.

I mean, that or Shinji dying. It's a toss up.

So, yeah! Shinji dies!

I was wondering what was going to come from those blue bug guys (mosquitos?), and the answer is City-Wide Rampage. Agito went pretty low-key (relatively!) with its finale, so it's nice to get back in the Kuuga vein of monsters everywhere, screaming civilians, and horrifically outmatched heroes. Shinji's skewered right out of the gate, before he can even Henshin, as he saves a little girl. It's a perfect capper to that Ore Journal scene, putting those lessons into practice. Shinji's not a... you know, a big picture guy. Plans, process, it's not exactly his specialty. The moment, jumping in and helping someone who's scared, that's where he lives. Doing that, saving a child from Shiro's madness and the rampaging monsters he commands, it's when Shinji knows what he'd wish for. An end to all of it, the pain and violence. An end to Mirror World. He wants to stop it, even if that means Eri can't be saved or Kitaoka can't live forever. (UNACCEPTABLE.) Keeping all these other people safe, it's something that's worth fighting for.

Except he can't, because he just died.

It's all up to Ren now.