[Sh Ranger]

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

RIDER TIME: RYUKI EPISODE 3 - ?ALIVE A LIFE?

Because, man, Ren and Shinji! Why wouldn?t you just build the entire series around their reunion? I get wanting to make it a reward, but why would you make something so miserable that you?d need to reward the audience? Just make something sweet and poignant, like the last five minutes! But over a 90-minute project! As stupidly obvious as Ren Sacrifices Himself For Shinji is as a plotpoint (the main gear for this project was Stupidly Obvious), the actors sell the shit out of the aftermath. Both guys make you feel every second of the past sixteen years, and the missed opportunities that come along with them. If the Tezuka/Jun stuff felt like a hollow excuse for a relationship, these two manage to put onscreen the kind of bond that transcends time and space and life and death and even reality itself.

It?s a shame that those moments exist as the payoff to the most relentlessly mediocre Ryuki episodes I?ve ever seen. I couldn?t begin to guess why Inoue would make something so charmless and bleak, only to resolve it with something so humane and generous. My favorite moment in the whole series is Shinji leaving the big New Collectibles fight between Team Zi-O and Odin, to check in on Definitely Couldn?t Get Eri?s Actor Back So Here?s Eri?s Back. It?s the character realizing that these fights are hollow and pointless, so it?s better to spend your time helping people out, honoring their dreams. Odin?s dumb, and the show seems to realize that. But we still get the fight scene, an obligatory and heartless bit of business. That?s sort of the whole series of Rider Time: Ryuki. There?re moments that say that Inoue has as tight a grip on what Kobayashi was trying to accomplish as he ever did guesting on the TV series, but they?re tiny specks in a tapestry of meaningless fights that the script can?t bring itself to try and justify.

Kobayashi's vision for the finale of Kamen Rider Ryuki was for the Rider War to end with all the Riders dead after Ren used his wish to save Eri. Unfortunately, executives overruled her and forced the reset to happen, undoing an entire show's worth of character development. 17 years later, Inoue gives us Rider Time Ryuki, an epilogue that finally makes that vision come true! For that reason, I'm grateful that RT Ryuki exists, despite how messed up it is in the middle. It's worth all that mediocrity and absurdity just to see that emotional conclusion with Shinji and Ren, with Ren entrusting Eri to Shinji and Shinji becoming the only survivor of the Rider War, allowing him to carry the memories of his friends' sacrifices in to the future that Kanzaki tried to deny them. Despite their differences, I think Inoue and Kobayashi actually have a lot in common.

It's a shame that you didn't enjoy this, since that means this is the second Rider Time series that disappointed you. Hopefully Decade VS Zi-O/Zi-O VS Decade will be more your thing.

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Originally Posted by DreamSword

There's also a ton of aspects of the plot that make no sense(why is Kenzaki acting as Odin directly when he can possess whoever -- hell, how is he even still alive?), but that really isn't the important part to me. What is most important is that, ultimately, it feels like alot more emphasis was put into getting the actors back rather than the characters, and that goes against the entire point of reunions like this, I think.

Kanzaki never actually left his domain in the Mirror World, so nothing was stopping him from coming back whenever he wanted to. Since he reset the Rider War instead of taking responsibility for his actions, he couldn't properly atone. He was unsatisfied with the outcome, so he decided to make one last attempt to revive Yui. That's my take anyway.

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Originally Posted by DreadBringer

I guess to make myself more clear, about Tezuka there's another stuff I added above regarding him 'turning back' here. But I also think that Ryuki does establish Tezuka as incorruptible anyway, but even if he does get tempted, what he did was the same as the most depraved Riders did in Ryuki, the likes of Scissors and Ouja! And iirc I thought Sento and Katsuragi was about personality split (and when they reunited again it's about them clashing through different personality), and I don't recall Tsukasa intentionally destroying the world, Destroyer of the World can be about his power system that caused that. Narutaki is all spiteful towards Decade, but Zi-O got Hiryu taking that role.

For sure, Tezuka was totally OOC here. Him regaining his memory and feeling the guilt of his actions doesn't even try and explain why he became like that. Regarding Sento, World C did acknowledge him as a separate being from Katsuragi. But that was after all his friends and Evolt helped him to become a hero. That's why he continued to identify as Kiryu Sento even after regaining some of his old memories, as his strong belief in love and peace (and Satou Tarou's athletic body) allowed him to surpass the limits of Katsuragi's cynical personality and raise his Hazard Level even higher. Tsukasa may not have willingly become a destroyer, but he was aware of his actions as the leader of Dai Shocker, like severing Gackt-Riderman's arm and throwing Natsumi and Yuusuke out of his base.

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Originally Posted by DreadBringer

I'm disappointed that Die didn't make this one of his screencaps.