[cosmicrescend0]

Special Time! Survive Edition! (Part 3)

-......Yeah, past me was 1000% correct in skipping this. If i could jump into a Time Mazine and stop myself from hitting the play button on Episode 1, I would've.

-Like. I know there's only so much you can do with roughly an hour and half, but like? What even is the point of this special, what it is trying to do/say, other than speedrunning Ryuki beats with a dash of fanservice and making sure Sougo gets the Ryuki Ridewatch? Both Episode Final and (especially) 13 Riders were also more or less speedruns, but at least that had something interesting to say/think about. A Rider War without any weight to its deaths, without conflicting struggles to fight for: it's just a bunch of dudes fighting and dying and not much else. And if I wanted to watch a bunch of dudes fighting and dying and not much else, I wouldn't be watching Ryuki?

-Like yeah I totally get "Ryuki's Riders don't exist without the Rider War, so let's throw one to pop one out real quick", but Like. What was Tatakae Lady going to do if the Rider that won was anyone but Shinji??? Especially someone like Asakura or Jun??

-Odin Sure Did Appear In This Special. I like the idea of Odin being this entity that exists eternally to oversee a potenial Rider War, but implying it to maybe being Kanzaki (esp when already know all Odin doesn't even need him, he's got like 4 different users in the original show!) just sours it for me.

-I'll give it up, the Ren/Shinji death scene did get me. Shinji trying to fight back tears as they swear to meet again someday, it's damn good. Knowing this is the 3rd time one of them has died in the other's arms, and it almost gives the feeling of the two being star-crossed. In another time, another place, I hope these guys are bickering to their heart's content.

Ren appearing in Geiz's outfit for the briefest second made me laugh out loud. There's a full-body shot of Ren's actor wearing the outfit somewhere to dipsute this, but something about the angle makes it look like they photoshopped Ren's head onto Geiz's body, and that was hysterical to me.

Edit: Almost forgot to ask, but since I dont think I saw anyone bring it up, what does everyone think of Alive A Life Neo? I think it's a fun enough spin on the original, but I still prefer the original.