...Okay, so if you remeber two weeks back when I went over my favorite and least favorite, I brought up a certain special as the worsts episode of the entire series, well then, it is time to talk about 13 riders.
13 riders is yet another alternate continuity in which Shinji which sees him instead of being the first ryuki, but taking over from the man who he took deck from after he disappear in the tv series, he then sets out to stop the other riders from fighting to honor his last wish to stop that fighting. Now I claim that this is alternate continuity but it is better to say that this more an alternate interpretation of the events by the writer of the special Toshiki Inoue, as a result certain elements are much different than what they were presented in the main series, for example for some reason Shinji is already bumming inside of ORE Journal even though the reason for his eviction in the main series was because his time as a rider was causing his paycheck to be consistently cut to the point he couldn't pay rent. Here, he's just bumming here for no good reason. That is one of the big issues of the special, its treatment of Shinji.
Now that's not to say the main series didn't sometimes rain on him but it wasn't consistently in the balls, here he is made out to be completely pathectic, stupid, and everyone constantly looks at him like the idiot for not wanting to fight. Argubly one of the dumber moments happens early in the special, so after becoming ryuki 2 he finds a list from the original ryuki which has the name of every rider in the war and who is the first one he visits...Asakura, yeah, the same Asakura who is a notable criminal, not like say the lawyer or anyone else, for some reason the first rider he decides to go talk to is the criminal sociopath.
Oh yeah, speaking of that prison let's talk about, so first off, the police allow shinji to come in with all of his stuff, not having him leave anything in the case he may be helping the criminal escape. Then we see asakura who is chained up like he is Hannibal Lector being transferred. Then Kitaoka shows up out of nowhere...with Asakura's Deck in hand! Okay, I will give biggest benefit of the doubt that maybe that is like the only thing he brings with him, but why would he be bringing that along with him, you think he would keep it as far away from his as possible. You wanna know how dumb this is, an episode or two after this special airs has Kitaoka visit Asakura in prison and not bring the advent deck with him. So yeah, if you couldn't guess Asakura escapes because of a water bottle shinji has that he had him spill and Steals back his advent deck and escapes into the water.
I know I just spent a couple of paragraphs complaining about one scene, but that's a good amount of issues here. Another change I don' t understand why is Miyuki Tezuka, who went from a fortune teller who wanted to prevent fighting in the rider war, to now knowing Ren and having once loved Ren's girlfriend Aikawa and wanting to help alongside stopping the fighting because...because the original series didn't have any kind of love triangle thing going and if you know Inoue's work you know he likes his love triangles. This doesn't matter because not long after his introduction he is killed immediately by Kamen rider Verde only a few minute's after he is introduced and well, let's get to him.
Itsuro Takamizawa, a wealthy businessman who Shiro approaches for some reason to join the rider war because... I guess he wanted to be wealthier than he already was. Yeah, I have no idea why of all the people Shiro would've approached Itsuro at all considering that he seemed like he looked like he is rather well off as the ceo of a well off business, if say he was failing and since joining the rider war, he has likely used it to improve his business but no he is a extremely businessman and...ughh, manipulator. Which I guess works into his fighting stance which, yeah the Verde suit looks pretty good, the decision on basing it on a chameleon works well with how Itsuro is a more trickster kind of fighter who prefers to fight his foes off guard and shows his rather slimy nature.
So remembered how Jun attempted to manipulated Asakura to make the game more exciting for him and got himself killed for his troubles. Well Itsuro believes that Shinji is such a potential danger to the rider war that he gets the other riders together to kill him, and it is not just like say Jun or Shuichi, no no no, he gets all of them. Yeah, even Asakura, Femme, Odin and a sneak preview of two riders that hadn't shown up in the tv show. Look, here was the thing, alliances never worked because one, its kind of hard to split a reward when only one rider has to remain, and two, riders like Asakura and Satoru were too dangerous because of their instability that made it impossible for alliances to exist. Here, pfbpfp, there they all are curb stomping the two riders and neither Ouja or Odin are trying to insight infighting. This is the big reason why I do not consider this an alternate continuity and rather an interpretation by Toshiki, because this setup would never work in the main series, because Shuichi would never work with Asakura, and Miho, do I need to remind people that Ouja killed her sister! And Odin, Odin, what is he doing here, isn't he supposed to be the final boss of this whole thing why is he here, does Shiro think Shinji is such a threat that he has to help Itsuro, is he not a time limit before his sister dissapears, isn't that the whole point of the bloody war!
Oh but before we get to the conclusion, let's talk about the ending. Ugh, spoilers but I wouldn't reccomend watching this at all. So Ren and Itsuro mutal kill one another and Shinji has his deck his broken by Odin. Ren tells Shinji to carry on the war and hands him the knight deck and Shinji subseqently transform as a bunch of mirror monsters show up to defend the core (Oh right I forgot, early in the special we are told that the mirror world exists because of this core, I could complain about how dumb it is that it is just lying out in the open and anyone who wanted to destroy the mirror world, like say a group from the main show, but this special already has a bunch of problems.) Jun dies during the confusion and Shinji heads off to destroy the mirror world, but wait, what about Ren's wish to continue fighting, will he just betray his new friend.
This was a big gimmick about the special, you, or in this case the Japanese viewing public could decide on whether or not Shinji destroyed the mirror world or goes back to fight a battle he likely wouldn't win. I am going to be frank, I am not a fan of this kind of thing. It's nothing more than just a slight change based on a small decision that doesn't effect the larger show and feels like a ratings trick (Ryuki wasn't seeing the ratings that the previous years show Agito was) and in this case the difference is a none ending where shinji goes back to basically die (I know that there was a comic adaptation of the special where shinji did survive this, but still) and him destroying the mirror world but the rider war being reset as Shinji screams like a maniac on a crowed street, continuing the trend of the special trashing on Shinji.
CONCLUSION
I know this has probably come off more negative than I usually am but to be frank, I didn't like 13 riders, it takes worst aspects of Ryuki and amplifies them alongside own issues, its too overstuffed with things it wants to do and probably would've been better off being maybe a two night event rather than just a single night event. I didn't like many of the interpretation of the characters here who come off as either stupid or overly mean (you may have noticed I barely brought up ORE or Yui well that's because they really are not around enough to matter). All in all its bad special that I can't reccomend whether you enjoyed ryuki or are looking for some more of Inoue's work.
FINAL GRADE: ABSOLUTE TRASH
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