Retro Ride Review with Ethan: Kamen Rider Ryuki

A classic series of Kamen Rider, still watched, enjoyed and even memed to this day, Ethan takes a look back at Kamen Rider Ryuki in this special Retro Ride Review!

With Chinese New year of the dragon fast approaching I thought it fitting to take a look at the one Rider to actually have a Chinese dragon as their motif, Kamen Rider Ryuki. Join me as we take a look back at this now two decade old show to see how it fairs by today’s standards and if I recommend it. .Ɉi bnɘmmoɔɘɿ I ʇi bnɒ ƨbɿɒbnɒɈƨ ƨ’γɒboɈ γd ƨɿiɒʇ Ɉi woʜ ɘɘƨ oɈ woʜƨ blo ɘbɒɔɘb owɈ won ƨiʜɈ Ɉɒ ʞɔɒd ʞool ɒ ɘʞɒɈ ɘw ƨɒ ɘm nioį oƨ iʞυγЯ ɿɘbiЯ nɘmɒﻼ ,ʇiɈom ɿiɘʜɈ ƨɒ noϱɒɿb ɘƨɘniʜƆ ɒ ɘvɒʜ γllɒυɈɔɒ oɈ ɿɘbiЯ ɘno ɘʜɈ Ɉɒ ʞool ɒ ɘʞɒɈ oɈ ϱniɈɈiʇ Ɉi ɈʜϱυoʜɈ I ϱniʜɔɒoɿqqɒ Ɉƨɒʇ noϱɒɿb ɘʜɈ ʇo ɿɒɘγ wɘИ ɘƨɘniʜƆ ʜɈiw ,ƨɿɘbiЯ ɘmoɔlɘW

Recap

Forming contracts with monsters from the unknown ‘Mirror World’, thirteen people draw upon these monsters’ power in order to become Kamen Riders, in exchange for feeding them the life force of creatures they defeat from the mirror world whom hunt humans for food. The creator of the Advent Cards – the things that allow people to contract with these monsters – has one rule: If you become a Rider, you must fight and the last Rider standing gets their wish granted. 

While out investigating one of the many disappearances happening recently Shinji Kido, intern for the online news site ORE Journal, finds an Advent Card Deck and stumbles his way into becoming a Kamen Rider. Inspired by Kamen Rider Knight’s strength, Shinji becomes a Rider not for the wish but to save people from the threats of the Mirror World. Eventually, he forms a tentative allyship with Kamen Rider Knight: Ren Akiyama. Someone that seeks to win the Rider War at all costs. Shinji and Ren work with a young lady named Yui Kanzaki, who’s looking for her missing brother: the organizer of the Rider War and inventor of the Advent Card Decks, Shirō Kanzaki. Over the course of the next year, Shinji comes to understand the tagline of the show, ”Those who don’t fight won’t survive!”, is no joke, and that there can be only one Kamen Rider.     

The Bad?

This is a very nitpicky thing, I’ll be honest, however, when Kamen Rider Odin debuts, he says he’s the thirteenth Rider. They draw attention to it and we never see all thirteen in the series proper. They only get as far as ten, Femme, Ryuga and Verde are all left for the movie and thirteenth rider special respectively. While they do eventually get to make good on the promise of that many Ryuki Riders in the Zi-O mini series (don’t worry, we are not getting into that today, I feel like I would need a whole other review to unpack everything with that!) even going past that number if you include the Decade original Rider, Abyss, for the main series to give a definitive number and not reach it or even acknowledge these three other riders is a little disappointing.   

The Good?

Before jumping into specifics it’s worth acknowledging all of the firsts Ryuki hit: first series with a collectable gimmick (as well as that gimmick being cards), first series to feature Riders as villains, first series that used a device to activate and announce a Rider’s arsenal/final attacks, first series to feature Riders with a wide range of animal motifs, franchises first female Rider in Kamen Rider Femme, and probably way more that I’m missing. Regardless of all the praise I’m about to throw at Ryuki (as if the only thing in the bad section being something so nitpicky wasn’t enough of a hint that I really like this series), it is without a doubt a groundbreaking series that set in place a lot of the ideas and concepts we still see Kamen Rider using to this day. I mean, all five firsts I just listed are all things Gotchard is doing, over twenty years later. 

When writing the bad section, I was at first going to include a part talking about how I feel there are maybe too many comedic relief characters but, as I was writing, I realised it likely only felt that way because I binged the whole series and most of the extra material in a week. These characters roll into the plot, providing narrative juxtaposition between the Rider Battle Royal and civilian life, giving lighter moments to what could have easily been a much darker show and this makes it a much stronger show overall. No piece of media can remain at a consistently downer, with constantly serious and sad tones. To do this would prevent the truly sad, serious and down moments from hitting as hard as they would hope. The lighter moments give that much needed comparison. 

One thing I will say I quite like about Ryuki is how its structured almost like a visual novel. With the movie, specials and expanded material being alternative routes, the visual novel takes reset each time due to Shiro Kanzaki’s Time powers. Each route reveal little bits of information that the viewer wouldn’t have gotten elsewhere and leaves things open for us to piece together. For example, the movie proves Hideyuki Kagawa’s plan was completely wrong and wouldn’t have worked. As someone that’s a big Fate fan, noticing similarities between Fate/stay night and the series as a whole. This is just an extra detail I enjoyed.    

Before watching the series, I saw a lot of people over the years criticising Shinji but I think he really works for what the show was trying to do and that’s to show a clash of ideals and explore that. Shinji provides a moral and idealistic baseline to compare everyone else to and, much like the viewer, questions what’s right and what’s wrong, grappling with the moral complexity of the situation. Much like the lighter comedic moments give us a much needed juxtaposition, the audience is asked to juxtapose the world views and rationale of the other Rider Battle participants.

Something that also resonated with me about Shinji is that, while he might not be the most dynamic protagonist the franchise has ever seen, he may very well be the purest. He has an unwavering faith in his convictions and believes that nobody should die, so much so that this is one of the few consistent things over all of the Ryuki timelines. Shinji will always find himself becoming a Rider in order to protect people. This is just, simply, inspiring and one of the reasons why Shinji shot way up in my personal favourite Rider tier list.   

Conclusion

Shocking no-one who’s stuck with this review, I’m sure, I quite enjoyed one of the most beloved seasons of Kamen Rider ever. When the bad section of a review is just something that even I acknowledge is nitpicky, you know I’m going to have a lot of good things to say about it and, while I could easily go on dissecting this series on a thematic and narrative level, for now, at least, I’m going to wrap this up and tell you something I think you can guess the answer to.

Yes. Kamen Rider Ryuki absolutely holds up by today’s standards and I very much recommend it. Much like how watching Neon Genesis Evangelion is important not only because it’s amazing but because it’s one of them works of media that so much has been getting ideas and inspiration from, as I mentioned earlier in this article, a lot of what was first for Ryuki is now standard and continue to be recurring ideas in the Kamen Rider franchise as a whole. It is worth seeing where they came from. 

What do you think? Do you like Kamen Rider Ryuki? Any plans you feel like sharing for Chinese New Year? What series would you like to see me do a Retro Ride Review on next? Let me know in the comments below! As always, I’ve been Ethan: writer, reviewer and last Rider standing for The Toku source and I’ll see you next time.