[Kamen Rider Die]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kurona

I have other thoughts that I may or may not give later - depends on if I know how to put it into words - but one thing I wanna put out there is that I don't think "world reset, everyone back alive again" is necessarily bad. Like any narrative tool it all depends on how you use it, what the context is, how well it fits your themes and messages etc etc.

And in Ryuki's case, I think it mostly succeeds. For me at least, it gives the whole series a framing of "this is how things could be if we're like this, and society does that", and I find that really interesting. Like a... I don't want to say a warning, because that sounds very authoritative and superior which completely goes against a lot of the show's messages, and it doesn't feel like that. More like a peek into how things could be, into a very different very violent alternate world; to make you question what sort of world you want. Like I said before, Ryuki was a series that ultimately I feel is not for me; but on reflection I think has so much going for it and so many positives I can speak of it. And I genuinely think the way they used the world reset is one of them.


One more thing I'd like to say is that while I don't necessarily agree with all your reasoning on it (abuse can... abuse can just be really whack like that. There's rarely a logic or consistency to it because it isn't a logical or consistent thing to do), I do overall agree that the Mirror World lore and backstory and all the rest of it is a big negative of the series. It just had me asking questions and frankly not the ones I think they wanted me to ask, and not ones that lead to any positive answers. The whole thing does feel very poorly thought out and very "this-is-my-second-draft-at-3AM-with-all-my-disconnected-thoughts-I'll-figure-out-how-it-all-actually-works-later". I sort of understand what they're going for, but that's despite how it's communicated rather than because of it.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts!

The parental abuse story elements... I don't want it to sound like there needs to be a strict, logical reason to abuse two children. (The fact that I had to write that sentence at all is not my proudest moment.) That's something that by its nature is inexplicable. It's more that that level of abuse is not the sort of thing you just toss in at the end of a superhero show for children. That is a gigantic premise that is almost insulting to use as thematic mortar. I think they're playing with fire, narratively.

The idea of the reset being a better version of these characters, I can see it a little bit... but then Asakura's there, being a violent asshole? It's like everyone's back, but no one's really better? They'll be safer, for sure (well, again: Asakura), but that's the only real advantage they have. It's mildly optimistic, a second chance for characters who doomed themselves, but that's at best implied, at worst inferred.

And I don't dislike the use of a story reset at the end of a story. I mean, Build! Build used it perfectly! Here, it doesn't really feel grown out of the story they were telling. It feels... incongruent? It feels like an emotional choice that they're struggling to rationalize.

Or maybe that's just me!