An outsiders perspective can be interesting, it gives a series a new fresh perspective that may be able to invigorate the series especially long running franchises. That's not to say that writer Yasuko Kobayashi was completely new to tokusatsu, she had been writing at Toei for tokusatsu and anime since 1993 and had already two anime's and two tokusatsu under her belt as head writer. But in terms of Kamen Rider, her only real interaction with the series was a singular episode with the series that was from last year, she was completely new to the series. Despite that, Kobayashi had opinions about Kamen Rider, very low opinions, an interview with her during Ryuki's time on the air showed she was very derisive of the concepts of heroism that the series had represented and wanted destroy those concepts with Ryuki. Now I didn't know this going into Ryuki, but does this direction of deconstruction work or are we better off with the basics.
SYNOPSIS
Shinji Kido is the new rookie reporter for the ORE Journal. an online News site that has him working with their ace reporter to look into a string of mysterious disappearances across the city. While looking into one of their leads. Kido finds that their witness has covered all of his reflective surfaces and has disappeared, only leaving behind a strange deck of cards. Before he can think about what is going on, he soon notices a large red dragon in the reflection of a nearby building that nearly tries to eat him. Not long after this experience, Shinji finds himself pulled into a mysterious world that is basically empty expect for these monsters. Before he becomes monster chow. Shinji is saved by a man by the name of Ren Akiyama who using a similar deck to his transforms into Kamen Rider Knight.
After escaping from the mirror world and resting at a local cafe owned by a girl who was travelling with Ren, Yui Kanazaki, the two explain what is happening and take the deck but leave him with a card to seal the red dragon away and never bother him again. But after witnessing what the monsters have done to those who have been left behind and impassioned speech from his superior, Shinji takes back the deck and contracts with the red dragon in order to become Kamen Rider Ryuki to eliminate the monsters. Unfortunately for Shinji, destroying the mirror monsters is not what riders with these decks are supposed to do as in reality, they must destroy each other. Shinji has entered the rider war, a contest created by Yui's missing brother Shiro which pits 13 people against each other with the simple goal of be the last one standing and have one wish be granted. Shinji is not keen on that and hopes to stop the fighting, but soon finds that almost none of the others may have the same ideals.
Now I know I did just give a lot of information here but that is sort of an issue with the opening episodes, it is giving us a lot of information about this world, how is works and the elements about it. within the first couple of episodes, and it can at times feel exposition is being dumped during that initial stretch of episodes. But despite that, I really like the story here, throughout the series, we have the going mystery behind why the rider war was created and what the mirror world is and who Shiro was. It does have some issues in terms of tone being a bit too dark for some people with how most of the riders are not particularly good people who have honest motives for doing this, speaking of that.
CHARACTERS
Now, despite the fact that their are 13 riders the series talks about, the main series only has 10 of the 13 advent deck users and one extra rider who isn't part of the thirteen, and the stories focus is on mainly 4, the aforementioned Shinji Kido and Ren Akiyama, alongside Shuichi Kitaoka, an amoral attorney who has enter the war for eternal life as Kamen Rider Zolda, and Takeshi Asakura, a criminal who enters the war just to fight. So before we get to them, lets talk about the 7 other riders.
Despite that, there really isn't much to talk about the first rider we are introduced to after the first 4 episodes Masashi Sudo, kamen rider Scissors. He lasts a total of two episodes and is there to show a few things. One, there are evil riders and you should be wary of their trusting other riders, and two, the consequences of a contract between rider and mirror monster breaking as he is eaten alive by his own monster after Ren cracks his deck (and before someone reads this and goes down to the coments to say spoilers, it happens within the first 10 episodes so it is like one of the first things). He is more a sample of what is to come later of the more villainous riders.
Miyuki Tezuka, kamen rider Raia, is a piece of fresh air in a cast where most of the riders we meet are either straight villains, or walk the anti line between hero and villain. Unlike Shinji more optimistic approach to ending the war, and almost melancholic due to the nature of his predictions almost always being right. I also really like the story, what little he got in 10 episodes, of why the joined the rider war to avenge his friend, and the arc of his of trying to defy fate.
Jun Shibaura, kamen rider Gai, fits into a simlar situation to Scissors, he is there to show just how bad riders, but he has the problem of that unlike Masashi, he is almost immediately followed by the original villain rider, if he was in any other series, he may have been a threat because of his wealth, intelligence, and some broken abilities like the card that allows him to stop other rider abilities, but since Asakura is here, he didn't really have much of a chance. Though I am more curious as to why he got an advent deck, while yes Shuichi is a playboy lawyer but we do a get a reason as to why he was approached, Jun seemingly is here just to win with nothing that would lead him here. But I do have a sort of personal theory of why he is here, like with how Shinji and Tezuka weren't the first people approached and merely picked the deck up from the previous choice, Jun likely found one and Shiro just decided to let him in on it since he may have been having issues finding more riders.
Talking about Odin is a little difficult right now do to his relationship with Shiro, mostly in the fact that Odin isn't a character rather some random person Shiro hypnotized to be his over powered win condition for the war.
Satoru, Kamen Rider Tiger, can be best described as having the same level of craziness as Asakura in bloodshed, but with a severe hero complex. By that I mean he just randomly attacks or kills his allies as according to his mentor Hideyuki, as he forgets that sacrifices likely mean putting off hanging out with friends or letting something go for the greater good, not killing people as that sacrifice. Satoru is frustrating in the terms of the series, of the 8 riders introduced before him only 2 could be considered straight good guys, while the rest are either anti-heroes or villains, or just straight villains, Satoru could have been sort of naive in the way that he takes the sacrifice means of completely forgoing any social life to focus on rider work and maybe see Shinji as a threat since he is protecting Yui. After all, the initial group he is apart of see's her as necessary to eliminate the mirror world so he thinks, related to Kanazaki must eliminate. But no, we get another jerk rider who kills randomly, betrays and acts condescending for not taking the right sacrifices.
Speaking of Satoru's first group, Hideyuki Kanegawa, Alternative Zero, really doesn't have much outside of backstory, wanting to end the mirror world so it doesn't cause anymore problems, and preaches the idea of the needs of the many outway the needs of the few which leads his idea of getting rid of Yui to put an end to it. Sadly for him, his protegy took this to mean, kill all around you and you a true hero and ends up dead by his hands before he can do anything of major note outside of being part of tiger's introduction.
Of the side riders in this series, Mitsuru Sano may be my favorite in execution of his story. Something I haven't brought up before is the irony that many of the riders face in death, for example, Masashi is killed by the same monster he has fed many of his own victims into, Jun ends up being killed by Ouja, a person he thought he could control but ends up being used instead. Mitsuru, who is Kamen rider Imperer, probably has one of the greater tragedies in the fact that he gets what he wants, his wish was to regain the wealth that his father took from him and he serves as sort of a mercenary for hire who works with whoever is paying the highest or both, but when his father dies, he ends up getting the wealth he lost back, and a pretty nice fiancee, but he didn't get it from the rider war, and unless he becomes the last rider, he will never be free of the mirror world, so he starts paying other riders in hopes of getting them to help him, even turing to Satoru who at this point has Mitsuru as the only ally...that he has left to betray and leave for dead, and in the last moments of his final episode, we see a broken man trapped within the mirror world, once again taken away from the happiness that he found, showing just how the rider war isn't over until one remains.
Moving on to the main quartet of Riders, I almost immediately liked Takeshi Asakura for how in his first full time as Ouja as he raises the stakes of the whole series, becoming the first Rider to actually Kill someone, (Ren's doesn't count because yes he did crack the advent deck but he didn't fully kill him) and following that doesn't stop being a complete sociopathic monster, a portrayal that is only helped by Takashi Hogino's terrifying performance as the purple rider, and while he does play the villain throughout most of series, particularly in trying to kill Shuichi for keeping him in prison, he also highlights one of the more interesting aspects about the series and also keeps the riders on their toes as a sort of wild card to keep things on the rail for Shiro in regards to keeping the rider war about killing the other riders.
Shuichi Kitaoka is very much the rich jerk playboy, living a very lavish life that is with very clearly dirty money and an initial enemy for obvious reasons. But as the series goes on, it starts peeling away layers, the reason for why he is fighting for eternal life, why he is living such a lavish lifestyle, his interaction with people are ill and his evolving relationship Reiko, the ace reporter I mentioned in the synopsis, from rather icy to some affection to the end. A these layers are his slightly better relationship with Shinji and Ren as he is dealing with the more villainous Asakura as he feels responsible for dealing with him. I enjoyed Kitaoka as a character for how in depth they went with him and the story we get from him.
While he is technically the secondary rider here, there are a lot of arguments for Ren being the main character of the show, in that he is the first rider that we see in the show, he gets the ultimate form before Shinji does and he has a story that is more integral to the rider war. On the surface, Ren seems like the perfect person for the rider war, serious and straight forward and willing to fight others, but as he hangs around others, the cracks in his tough guy persona begin to break to and starts to make bonds with others. but this goes against the mentality of needing to be cold and uncaring in order to take a life which is a necessity of the rider war. This leads to him making some rather not smart moves like assisting Asakura in escaping the law as he sees him as a perfect example of a rider war kamen rider. his girlfriend also is sort of a major motivation changer as depending on her current health, like when during her coma when her condition worsened, he asked Shinji to fight him as he felt her time was running out. Ren is probably the best character in the show as we see him as a different person by the end of show than he was from the beginning
Shinji would probably be a prime example of what a Kamen rider is, positive, kind, good nature and believing the best in others. Unfortunately this is not a standard kamen rider series where the riders are fighting not monsters but one another, but that what works so much about the character. Shinji being the antithesis of what the rider war stands for gives him good contrast with so many of the other riders, and yes, I would've liked more riders who could be considered good people, but it does good to accentuate. Also his positive nature in regards to certain aspects is endearing, whether he is kicked out his apartment or having to deal with the fact that he probably the only person who wants the fighting to stop can be nice to see in someone, but we also see that Shinji's optimism for the better can break as we get closer to the end and he tries to act more like the other riders actually worries his two other allies in the fact that this is not him. So going back to what I said previously about Ren being more the main character, while Shinji does have a goal he is working towards, he never really has a wish to be granted throughout and only wishes to end the fighting, only coming into his own when he decides that he wants to fight to destroy the mirror world, but in comes that irony in the fact that after being the only rider with no real dream or wish he wants fulfilled, it is only when he finally discovers it that he does meet his end, (oh woops, um spoilers, sorry.) While Shinji in another series would have been good at best, it is this kind of story that pushes him into being an amazing character and proof that certain stories are better for certain characters.
In terms of additional side characters, the ORE Journal serve as comedic relief for certain situations, this is more the boss and the web site designer as Reiko is more serious as she is often working on the story of disappearances, that is not to say they cannot be serious but they are comedy first, though I do like the reality ensue's moment when they post their story on the mirror monster's it completely ruin's their reputation since the story is kind of too ridiculous to believe unless you haven't seen it.
Goro mostly serves as Shuichi's servant throughout the series as he is indebted to the man for helping him and acts somewhat as a moral compass whenever he feels he is going overboard, he also comes to try and stop Shuichi from continuing his rider duties due to his health but never can fully voice his opinion. He is a fairly good character though his rather stoic demeanor can have him fade into the background but when he does something, it is noticeable.
Sanako, Yui's aunt, is also a comedic character with her intuition, but she is more sporadic which makes it harder to remember certain aspect about her, though I do like some of the early kind of cliched things about how she thinks Shinji may make good boyfriend material and let's him stay with them.
Which leaves us with two characters, the Kanazaki Siblings, Yui serves as a good middle ground between between Shinji and Ren and keeps the two from fighting each ohter, but despite that she is very strong willed and willing to put an end to the fighting by talking to her brother, though she does have issues of just being a cheer member since she cannot come into the mirror, she also has a slight issue with getting in trouble with more villainous riders but she is an enjoyable character throughout
Shiro on the other hand spends most of the series as rather mysterious in why he is doing this or his motivation, he is shown to want to win by the fact he has an instant win condition in the form of Odin which he selected for how overpowered it is compared to the other riders which includes its own personal reset button if things are not going his way. Shiro does lean more towards Anti-villain for his reasons as to why he is doing to to save Yui since she is not as alive as we are lead to believe. Plus his rather bad childhood make a good kind of sympathetic villain in comparison to the outright complete monster Ouja is. Overall a rather fine villain if a little too mysterious early on.
AESTHETICS and MUSIC
Considering that Ryuki had a total of 13 riders, Ryuki goes for a rather simplistic design in the form of the V buckler. The design is actually really good, it is basically a belt with slot for a deck in it that once inserted transforms the user. But yeah, this was the first Kamen Rider series to make use of a transformation trinket to be used in tandem with the belt, the advent decks, I was a little concerned early on that all of the decks would be black since the first three riders had fully black decks, even though only one of them I would consider black as a primary color, but after that most decks matched the riders colors, mostly. The suits themselves are across the board really great, I especially like Knights, Ouja's, and Odin's. The knight aesthetic works gives each rider this tournament feel as each one could be representative of a kingdom for each one. The Survive modes that Ryuki and Knight get also look spectacular, Knight more so because the blue added really highlights the suit the Shoulder pads give him a more mantle appearance giving more credence to his knight appearance. Ryuki's survive form is not too far off, it is more that the additions are not as major as the addition of blue to Knights, though the added chest armor is nice.
The monster designs are good, it is harder to remember them since they are not really characters, just things the riders fight at the end if they are not at each others throats. There are some neat designs, but the main focus is on riders fighting one another and the monsters serve as fairly decent snacks for the contract monsters. Speaking of those, they are pretty good looking, some of them are made of that early 2000's CG which has aged...not great, but the base design for them having these artifical animal looks but being closer to the creatures they are based off of than the standard mirror monsters. One last odd aesthetic thing, so the riders have these vents that they use to make use of the cards that are in their decks, some are basically on their arm or are their primary weapon, but then their is Gai who is on his shoulder that he tosses everytime, so what, has practice that throw so it is consistently or does it just gravitate their. Then their is Ouja who has this cobra staff for his personal staff that I can't really call a primary weapon since I can't remember him using it unless it is form the cards, maybe I am forgetting but from what I watched to remember the show it just was that, it so clunky design wise to just have it doing one thing, it could have easily been some kind of personal weapon.
Nitpicks aside, the music is pretty good, the techno rock that is on display perfectly matches the metal and mandmade nature of the conflict on display here. The two stand out tracks are the opening Alive a life which steps away from previous showa era and the previous two heisei shows and is more about the themes of the series rather than about how awesome our main hero is and it really is a pretty solid track, and REVOLUTION which takes over as battle theme for the later half of the series and it just is used at the right point to introduce it and remember it.
FAVORITE and LEAST FAVORITE EPISODES
Favorite: Episode 19, Rider Gathering. As the episode title states this is the biggest gathering of rider's at this point in the series, Zolda vs Ouja, Knight, Ryuki, Raia vs Gai. But what I think works so well about the episode how it ups the stakes to higher than they have ever been and shows the new danger in the form of Takeshi Asakura, ruthless, psychotic and willing to kill, he marks the first time that a rider does actually kill a fellow rider, and by the fact that Shinji doesn't like him at all and is fine beating him should show that Ouja is different from other riders.
Favorite: Episode 31-32, The Girl and Ouja, Secret data gathering. Asakura is in need of mirror monsters to feed his contract monsters as they have been getting snippy with him and finds that feast in three monsters who have eaten an entire boat except for a singular girl who thinks of him as a hero who helped him. Meanwhile, Shinji and Ren initially believe that Asakura is feeding his monsters human but it turns out to be those three monsters, so Ren intends to get the monsters before he does. What I think works so well is about how even though Ren claims that no one would care about him being gone, but Shinji does realize that the girl would be the only one, despite the fact that all of the other riders might know Ouja as a monster, to the rest of society, the Kamen riders are protecting them from the monsters who are terrorizing the world, so Shinji saving him in the end while dumb makes sense in a showing that a hero could still be around. the two parter, more so 32 than 31 also pushes the overall story of the season forward.
Favorite: Episode 35, Friendship's Battle, This is probably more so for the ending portion of the episode than the episode as a whole, but up until we get there it is a solid episode that shows tension growing between them because of Ren's Girlfriend and Shinji choosing to use the Survive card to well Survive.
Favorite: Episode 44, Glassy Happiness, a rather well done tragic end of Imperer's story as the reality of the rider war ensues for him, as he is desperate to win as he has other's fight, and how he ends up being betrayed by the only rider he could of considered a friend as he slowly dies on the inside of the mirror world, torn away from the dream he had finally obtained. Also, on the subject of levity, I really like the scene where he is going around trying to pay other riders and the look on Ren's face just screams I may go through with this, considering how against an alliance he was with him earlier it kind of comes off as both hypocritcal and ironic.
Least Favorite: Special: 13 riders. ....I'll come back to you in two weeks.
Yeah, not a lot of bad in Ryuki in my opinion, yeah there are lesser episodes but I wouldn't say there was an episode I flat out despised, with the exception of 13 riders.
CONCLUSION
Despite the writers rather negative stance on Kamen Rider, it didn't keep her from writing what I think is an amazing series. It is by no means perfect and their are issues that keep from the top, like the over abundance of evil riders and a rather meh ending, but I still think Ryuki is an amazing series you should watch, 13 riders not withstanding.
FINAL GRADE: A
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