More Kamen Rider
I mentioned in my Kuuga post a long time ago that I was watching Kamen Rider Ryuki. Well, I just finished it. It was the second Kamen Rider series on tubi that interested me and now my second completed Kamen Rider series. Partially because of the words of how this series influenced a very famous anime. Yeah, it was Madoka Magica. If you know Madoka, which you should if you are an anime fan of any stripe, then you know what kind of plots and horrors are in this show without me saying anything else. Just think of how the 12 episodes are replaced with 50 and magical girls are replaced with Kamen Riders.
This is yet another little bit of proof of how big of a deal tokusatsu is as an influence in the anime space. You should know that Kamen Rider, Ultraman, and Super Sentai among others influenced so many little spheres of anime. You can see influences of that throughout the history of anime. It's amazing how something modern-ish in comparison, which did come out in 2002, also influenced something huge a decade later. Urobuchi is such a huge Kamen Rider fan that he even wrote one himself called Kamen Rider Gaim.
The General Story of Ryuki
In a city where people are disappearing from mysterious circumstances, there exists a truth behind it all. A truth that monsters from the mirror realm are feeding on people to survive. There exists a new enemy to them called Kamen Riders. Wielding their card decks, they fight the monsters to save humanity while also fighting amongst each other. They are 13 card decks and they fight for a battle of supremacy so there can only be one in the end. The last Kamen Rider is the chosen one to defeat the mysterious Odin and hopefully get their wish answered.
As a loser, constantly late intern for the online rag Ore Magazine, who stumbles into the whole mess. His name is Shinji Kido and while on an assignment, he finds a card deck that he doesn't understand. He also runs into another Kamen Rider, Knight, Ren Akiyama who is instantly opposed to Shinji joining and Yui Kanzaki who is involved with the Kamen Rider mess somehow. Each Kamen Rider has a wish or a goal and Kido is so interesting that he doesn't have a goal yet. He only fights to stop the Kamen Riders from killing each other in their death game.
The show is so interesting in exploring so many Kamen Riders with so many distinctive personalities that makes the tension so palpable. There is the corrupt cop Masashi Shido who dies a quick death, the corrupt super lawyer Shuichi Kitoaka who uses power on both sides to gain prominence, and Takeshi Asakura the other main Kamen Rider who is a killer with no morals and only wants to fight. The others are such interesting characters that don't have as long of life spans, but shake up the formula quite a bit. Sometimes even looking into the mechanics behind the Kamen Rider death game. Let's get into these things with a little more detail.
A look at Shinji Kido
If you didn't know Kido was a Kamen Rider, you wouldn't see anything different about him besides what I describe. He is someone who is constantly late to work at the Ore Magazine. I mean, the guy got evicted from his apartment and had to live at Ore until he found a new place to stay. He does a lot of good investigative work, but he also gets distracted one way or another. The biggest one this time is joining the Kamen Rider games. That involves a lot of things from saving people to fighting other Kamen Riders. Just generally being over his head.
Shinji has a complete journey in Ryuki. He never fought for anything, but only wanted to end the Kamen Rider fight without thinking of why. The main problem itself comes from everyone having their own reason to fight. Ren, who he becomes friends or even more with, is fighting for something. Kitaoka is fighting for his own goals. Some others want to end the fight too, but don't understand why Shinji wants to. He is also indecisive because he is a reporter that wants to get everyone's view points before thinking about his own.
So the journey Shinji goes on is self discovery. Discovering what his own purpose is and why he would want to fight. This always comes with his very quick and goofy nature along with so much of his flaws, but his morals are solid. He even gets challenged a bit by Asakura who just kills to kill. The world and riders make fun of him all the time, but they always state that Shinji is better than both of them. But Shinji never thinks about himself which is why he is empty as a person and only thinks of others. The selfish vs the empty.
Ren and Other Kamen Riders
I didn't mean to throw Ren away in the opening synopsis, because Ren is the deuteragonist. There is a whole throuple thing between Shinji, Ren, and Yui too. He is so different from Shinji because he actively joined the Kamen Rider death game because he has a goal. He's very abrasive, wanted to never give Shinji a time of day, and kept close to Yui because she's connected to the Kamen Rider death game system. He planned that from the get go compared to Shinji who just stumbled into the same situation.
The more I saw of Ren, the more I liked him. His relationship with Shinji is just so interesting. Ren is the older brother figure to Shinji because that's the way they fight with each other. But there are so many moments when Ren will stand up for Shinji and/or ask him what's wrong. I also think his backstory makes everything about him make sense about him for everything. All you the point of why you see him put himself on the line so many times. Plus, he wears a black leather jacket and rides on a motorcycle. He's awesome.
As a whole, Ryuki gives everyone so many layers. Kitaoka is a corrupt lawyer, but he's great and I loved seeing him on screen and being smug. Asakura the insane killer has some actually good moments when he saved a girl in between hiding from the authorities and fighting other Kamen Riders. There is a Kamen Rider who wants to learn how to be a hero and is cruel, but learns to be an actual hero in the end. Another one wanted me to be a Kamen Rider because his job sucks, but got where he wanted and died tragically. There is a lot of depth to the Kamen Riders stories. Everyone doing it is self employed, doesn't have a job, is struggling for employment, or something else and that makes Ryuki so interesting.
The Mysterious Flaws
Ryuki is fifty episodes in length and you can feel that sometimes. I will say that Ryuki is very front and back loaded with the highest amount of mystery and emotional plot beats. The middle episodes are very meandering focusing on a small cast of characters. There was a lot of good and silly moments in those episodes with the strongest bit of repertoire built between them. It just felt like a different show where character deaths and drama don't happen as often. But I was happy to see them happen and change my perceptions of characters a bit.
I honestly think the general mystery is alright in execution. The mystery regarding the Kanzaki siblings is much more interesting than the ending. The ending is emotional, but feels a bit too much to just have Kamen Riders fight each other for it. But, it is for these Kamen Riders characters to interact and fight against each other which was the point. I'm pretty sure the emotions and the unnecessary and unfair Kamen Rider death game was the point. Especially to get one wish answered after having their body broken. I just wish the core of Ryuki was a bit better. It doesn't hamper the existence of watching Ryuki much.
Conclusions
Kamen Rider Ryuki is a beautiful series produced in 2002. Some premium material for really good visual effects with the mirror effects and visuals. There is some cheapness to it with filming locations where there is no people in industrial locations for kaiju and Kamen Riders fighting. The use of cards and the special effects from their powers and the use of the motorcycles was great. In general, the direction of Ryuki is absolutely solid with battle scenes and solid normal live scenes and characters too. There is a good balance between the normal and the mirror world. The difference comes for those holding the card decks.
I really liked Ryuki. Even when the core of the story is kind of eh, everything around it is great. This is a wonderful Kamen Rider series that is pretty unique with characters from all walks of life fighting over their dreams that won't happen. It's a very powerful human story with cool powers from being Kamen Riders. Shinji is a wonderful character that I can get behind and Ryuki shows so much great material. Watch Kamen Rider Ryuki, I'm begging you. It'll really surprise you with how in depth it is.
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