This is the follow up to my 10-episode check-in post for Kamen Rider Ryuki. Read that first if you want to follow along with my thoughts from the beginning.
Dude. This show is fucking awesome.
By this point, the show has started to move away from the "fighting mirror monsters attacking people" conceit to focus more on the actual conflict between the Riders themselves. That's not unusual for Kamen Rider seasons from the Heisei era and beyond, but it still feels so markedly different in Ryuki compared even to shows that focus on a similar "Rider War" concept. It ties back into something I touched on in the last of these posts, where there seems to be this sense that the Riders actually fighting each other is literally only a negative.
Last time, I talked about how the show kind of felt like it was suggesting that "why do the Riders have to fight" is an unhelpful question, because it takes the thesis statement of "those who do not fight do not survive" at face value. If you have entered the Rider War, then you must fight or you will not survive. Those are the rules. It's literally a matter of life or death. But now, when presented with that same statement, the show has found ways to continually ask: "Okay, yeah, but why though?" And it's done that not just through Shinji's ideals, but also through Miyuki Tezuka aka Kamen Rider Raia, who has given us reason to question not the moral basis for the Rider War, but the material one: Shiro Kanzaki isn't going around telling people to kill each other in the Mirror World for no reason. Why should we take him at his word?
It's also by this point that the show has given us some truly villainous characters, and good god to they hit different. At this point, the show has made it clear that most of the people who would willingly participate in the Rider War are varying degrees of fucked up and generally deplorable. While it seemed as though our "bad guy" would be Shuichi Kitaoka aka Kamen Rider Zolda, there's just too much we don't know about the guy for us to draw the conclusion that he's actually just awful. Like, I wouldn't want to be friends with the guy, but his greatest crime is just being honest about the nature of his work as a defence lawyer. He's nothing compared to our first real bastards: Jun Shibaura aka Kamen Rider Gai and Takeshi Asakura aka Kamen Rider Ouja. They both ooze charisma and demand your attention when they're on screen, but while Shibaura is just a little fucking shit who doesn't take this seriously and fucking dies for it, Asakura is... something else.
Speaking of, the way that Asakura has had influence over both Shinji and Ren is incredibly interesting. For Ren, it's further amplified this tension the show has been exploring with his character centred on his cold and ruthless personality being merely a facade, and the desire to effectively make himself more like Asakura, as that's the only way he can conceivably win the Rider War. This contrasts really well with how Asakura has also started pushing Shinji to the limits of his ideals and morals - Shinji ultimately doesn't want to kill anyone, but when Asakura is able to so easily take someone's life and even find joy in the act, it takes Shinji to an interesting place; a place where you could argue that maybe - just maybe - some people deserve to die. But then, if he dies, then that would be a victory more for Shiro Kanzaki than anyone else. Shinji has been getting visibly more competent at fighting, but his moral quandaries have only gotten more and more complex as the plot thickens.
Bonus thoughts: seeing Kitaoka and Goro-chan interact is so cute. I want them to kiss. Also I can't believe I didn't mention it earlier but the music in this show whips ass?
Oh yeah, and this shot from the end of episode 19 goes so fucking hard and I'm shocked it didn't hang on it a little longer before cutting to episode preview.
