[Magnugiga]

There's a really strong (and a bit weird) fascination with ESP in Japan through the 1980s, which was often reflected by the pop media at the time. But yeah, Golgom is basically Team Rocket.

Got into some more comfy Ryuki time by rewatching the Special Episode 13 Riders. It's... not very good, but I guess your ceiling will always be limited when your entire plot is a flimsy excuse to get all the 13 Riders together in just under 50 minutes.

It's basically Verde show to me. Takamizawa was eh, whatever, just a generic rich and powerful bad guy, but I enjoyed the suit design and the troll-y fight with Raia. Kusaka can merely dream what shenanigan he could cook up with that Copy Vent alone.

Other than that, Shinji as Knight was very cool to see, and I actually like the idea of the gimmick multiple choice endings. It's an AU story, might as well experiment by having Bad Ending and Worse Ending to troll the audience. I might lean a bit more toward the 'fight to the death' ending, even if that scene with the simultaneous Final Vent scene didn't make any lick of sense. A lot of things in this special didn't make much sense, actually, but well, whatever.

Episode Final: lots of nostalgia value here, but I'd still maintain to this day that this is a legit great KR movie. My ideal version of Ryuki would be most of the movie's plot transplanted into Episode 30ish-40ish of the show (retaining the Tiger/Imperer plotline and the ending from the show in the process). The Yui/Shiro part, for one, worked so much better here. It's partly because the whole thing's not being dragged out through dozens of episodes, but it's also because you really see more from Yui's perspective here. I also like the additional connection about Shinji and Yui, it strengthened Shinji's dilemma even more by establishing Yui as more than a complete stranger to him.

This was the first time I watched the Director's Cut version, which is longer by 20 minutes compared to the theatrical cut. These extra minutes comprise stuff like Auntie pranking the gang at the end of the ghost story, the Chief being stunned by seeing Shimada without glasses, some extra lines from the Agito gang, Kitaoka and Goro discussing what flower to get for Reiko, Reiko applying make-up before her meeting with Kitaoka... these aren't significant plot-wise and didn't really add anything that we don't already know, but it's a pleasant treat to someone like me who really love these characters. The DC version has smoother transition/bridging between scenes too, which is a bit of a problem I had with the theatrical cut (most notably in the very abrupt cut from Kitaoka resigning to Shinji and Miho's okonomiyaki date).

Most of the extra stuff are in the Shinji/Miho scenes. There were extra lines of dialogue and longer bantering in their scenes, and it just solidified how lovely they are together. Still my favorite romantic couple in Kamen Rider (well not much competition for that :v), and Miho herself was extremely memorable and charming, the kind of character I'd really love to watch over the course of a full series. That shoelace scene, it still got me every damn time.

Admittedly, the Ren/Shinji bromance moment was weaker than the equivalent scenes in the show proper (or even in the special) because of the relative lack of build-up to it, and the ending was a bit underwhelming in its open-endedness. But again, the fight scenes were fantastic (Knight's aerial fight with Darkwing detaching itself was a personal fave), and all 6 Riders featured here got their respective moments of awesomeness with what felt like a very appropriate distribution of screen time.

Finally, the counter showing 'X rider remaining', I love that. Very reminiscent of the novel Battle Royale (which itself borrowed the trick from Stephen King's The Long Walk), seemingly a major source of inspiration for Ryuki (and a lot of works with similar concept obviously). Come to think of it, Shinji was very similar to Shuuya from BR in their role as a naive pacifist MC; there were some situations where they had practically the same lines.