[DreadBringer]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

RIDER TIME: RYUKI EPISODE 1 - ?ADVENT AGAIN?

This was a stunningly accurate recreation of the entertaining-but-inessential Inoue movie versions of various non-Inoue series, or at least the first twenty minutes of one of those movies. It?s the general premise of Ryuki, but with an emphasis on fight scenes and betrayals, rather than anything more decompressed and nuanced. TATAKAE, right from the jump.

On that level, it?s pretty fun. We saw more Riders here than we did in the entire Ryuki TV series, and a bunch of ?em got to do cool stuff. Unlike Shinobi?s smaller and newer cast, we?ve got a ton of big-name actors here, including the returns of Shinji, Ren, Tezuka, Asakura, and GODDAMN GORO-CHAN. Just a stupid amount of fan service in this first episode.

For the fighting part, I'd say it's done well, with a new and more advanced special effects. KR still has never perfected special effects though. The one gripe I had on the special effects here was how Ryuki's Dragon Rider Kick has Ryuki's foot burning on flames already before Dragreder shoots fireballs on him, kinda invalidates the teamwork aspects on the Final Vents. Final Vents also seem less deadly here, it's the Riders get de-henshined and then dissolved into Mirror World, while in original Ryuki, they exploded and got engulfed in the flames, leaving no body behind, or at best broken deck. Though I'd say Ouja's Veno Crash seems to be done better than the original series, the venom that enhances his kick is made more clear here and his movement isn't as silly looking as the one on Ryuki. Other than the special effects there's also some neat fighting moves on the Riders as well, like Ryuki/Raia's (ugh) Strike + Copy Vent combo, where Tiger and Gai simultaneously countered with Freeze and Confine Vent respectively, to disperse Raia's fireball and negate Ryuki's weapon.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

It?s just? I wanted this story to have the weight of history behind it. If you?re going to drag Shinji and Ren and Goro and Tezuka back into the Mirror World to TATAKAE, let it feel like they?re revisiting Hell. Ryuki was a series that talked about how individual choice and societal good intersected, so it?s weird for this reunion special to rob these characters of their bonds and their decisions. There should be an additional weight to these interactions, but there isn?t. It?s fun for the audience to catch these echoes, but the characters themselves are just going through familiar motions.

It?s not bad, though. Shinji, Ren, and Asakura all act like themselves, which is great. (There's an incredibly funny bit where Shinji discovers that no one in his group considers him the leader, and it's perfect.) There's a ton of action, and the premise is crystal clear. But it's not really saying anything, and it doesn't feel like it's built to, either. It?s the standard Inoue Summer Movie: bigger and faster, but rarely better.

Reminder that the other Ryuki spin-off that also jumps right into TATAKAE and has more Riders seen than on the TV Shows was that 13 Riders. So it'd be kinda expected to have a Ryuki spin-off here that also focuses on fan service and also not focusing on the weight of history, and 13 Riders also had the same writer. I'd acknowledge too that Shinji, Ren, and Asakura all act like themselves which is nice and that Shinji's relationships with the newcomers Ishida/Imperer, and Kimura/Verde. There's also even some logic behind Riders that don't participate here other than Femme being pregnant, which I'll get likely later.

But I gotta be honest here that I'm way more vocal towards butchered adaptations, compared to 'bad choices' in storytelling of which it can have some interpretation and perspectives, and I won't let that go unchecked here, I've given credits above first, and sorry but it's also something expected from Inoue (like Kiba in the last part of Faiz). Regarding, y'know, Tsukuyomi in the last 4 episodes before, here it happened in a much worse fashion for Tezuka. In Ryuki, he was the only other straight up heroic Rider than Shinji, and he has been tested too, he won't be tempted by Shiro, with him giving the Survive Shippu Card (to get revenge on Asakura) into Ren. Here, Tezuka is someone straight up evil, not done by desperation either, not even having apparent humanity in his actions, and he had committed atrocity on the same level as the worst Riders on the original series (Scissors and Ouja); feeding someone into his contract monster. I know Riders on Ryuki are expected to be evil, but then just use any other existing evil Rider that Ryuki provided instead of turning the only other beacon of morality into 1. I also don't buy the amnesia excuse, I don't think that sense of justice or such is a part of memory, if he didn't have a sense of justice he can do differently in Yuichi's death. I also don't know why Goro-chan here gets immediately assumed as someone who'd be undercover on Asakura here, but not for Sougo in ep. 9-10 before (a̶n̶d̶ ̶i̶t̶'̶s̶ ̶a̶l̶s̶o̶ ̶s̶h̶o̶w̶n̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶S̶o̶u̶g̶o̶ ̶d̶i̶d̶ ̶l̶e̶t̶ ̶G̶e̶i̶z̶ ̶f̶i̶g̶h̶t̶ ̶h̶i̶m̶ ̶a̶s̶ ̶w̶e̶l̶l̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶i̶r̶ ̶s̶t̶r̶a̶t̶e̶g̶y̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶Q̶u̶i̶z̶).