Ryuki complete series discussion thread

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Ryuki complete series discussion thread

Post by takenoko »

So I've said many times before that Ryuki is kind of a pivotal show for both toku and TV-Nihon history in general.

Phoenix512 was commenting on how I had a lot of clips from the show, which was true because there was a pretty big explosion in video encoding. I'd say between Ryuki to Blade, there was a lot of advancements on the Japanese side that made toku a lot more accessible to people on the Internet.

This interest is probably what eventually led to the formation of #TV-Nihon in general which occurred in 2002, the same year that Ryuki aired. That's why a lot of TN people are big fans of the show. I know it was my first Kamen Rider series as well.

It may not seem like a big deal now, but Ryuki broke a lot of molds. Agito had multiple Riders over Kuuga's solitary one, and Ryuki took the idea and ran away with it. This concept got mixed responses from people who loved or hated what this did to the Rider concept (the loner hero) which has now become something of a Highlander ripoff.

But I'm not the kind of person that runs into a show with preconceived biases. It was a cool show, it had great music and action. There were a lot of great designs and a lot of characters were awesome and badass. It had Femme as, I think, the first official female Kamen Rider. It had Kamen Rider that were outright evil (and some emo!) Plus the show even had an evening special with that crazy dial in choose your ending thing, which was a pretty cool concept.

This is the Kamen Rider series that we at TV-Nihon have really wanted to sub, and it looks like we've finally done it. It feels good to know that a show I wanted to work on when I started fansubbing is now finally in completion

Edit: This is as complete as we're doing, for the moment. We're temporarily putting the hyper battle video on hold because of certain spoilers. It will be done eventually. You'll just have to trust me when I say, don't worry about that
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Re: Ryuki complete series discussion thread

Post by zeta_gundam »

Ryuki had quite a bit of impact on me as well. This was actually the first Kamen Rider series that some Singapore firm decided to dub and air over a Singaporean channel for kids, and I was around 12 when I was watching it then. (Singapore later dubbed Faiz and Blade, and Kabuto is currently on air.) That was probably my 'awakening' to tokusatsu and Kamen Rider in particular.

I think the idea of cards and monsters really hit off real well with me at that point in time, considering how I was influenced by Yu-Gay-Oh. Like what Takenoko said, they had great music. Until today, I still think "Alive A Live" is one of the better Kamen Rider openings in years, maybe next to "Journey Through the Decade" (yeah, I have a bias for Gackt).

Looking back, the show actually got me interested in many things in the long run. Firstly, it got me interested in quantum physics and extra dimensions when I was around 15 years old. The whole idea of a parallel extra dimension behind the mirror was fascinating and intriguing to me, and I remembered Ryuki when I was reading about quantum physics. Secondly, it got me thinking about human nature; there was a line in the show that went something along the lines that "When human desire becomes so strong, they become Riders." The parallel mirror world was in a way a parallel of our human nature, and in there the Riders fight for what they believe in. Lastly, being the photographer I am now, I have conceptualised certain photos based off 'the mirror world', all thanks to something that influenced me almost 6/7 years ago. So when T-N decided to resub/continue with Ryuki, it really made me think back about my younger days (I'm still young though XD) and how much I have grown to love toku over the last few years.

It feels great to 're-live' your younger days.
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Re: Ryuki complete series discussion thread

Post by Phoenix512 »

Yeah there's nothing like opening a rar file to see 15 things to work on. I can't say that Ryuki was my first Kamen Rider series or can't remember what was my first one exactly (Faiz or Blade). People always joke about Kabuto being the Sentai Kamen Rider but Ryuki did it first with 10 Riders on the TV series and 3 more in other media. Ryuki had strong main Rider characters and even made a Rider who's truly bad likable (Asakura).

Ryuki had four different paths it could have taken. The best path for the series to end was the TV series path as it end the Rider War for good along with the fighting. The movie and the two specials just had the fighting continue on. I'll probably rank this ending up there with Blade for the moment. Ryuki was a lot of fun to work on.
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Re: Ryuki complete series discussion thread

Post by takenoko »

Phoenix512 wrote:Yeah there's nothing like opening a rar file to see 15 things to work on.
I'm a good boss like that. Delegation!
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Re: Ryuki complete series discussion thread

Post by Aoiblue »

Overall, this was a great series.
Yep, thats all I'm gonna say :D
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Morals and ethics of Ryuki

Post by takenoko »

Reading PHurricane's comment in the 48 thread made me remember that there's a lot to be said about the philosophies that occur in the show

Like the whole morality of the Rider battle thing. Is it okay to have 13 guys fight to the death to accomplish their wish? I don't think the series ever answers this, since we never see Shinji or Ren kill another Rider for the sake of winning the battle. But Ren had his goal and his philosophy, and Shinji had his, and it was interesting to see them clash.

Toujou said that Ren was no hero, but I thought he was a heck of a lot more of a hero than Toujou was. But did Ren's fight count as a selfish one, considering it was for another person?

What about Kitaoka, is it okay to kill other people to save one's own? Even Shinji said that he couldn't blame him for that one

Overall, I don't think anyone would have been happy if Shinji stopped the battle. You'd just have 12 angry people.
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Re: Ryuki complete series discussion thread

Post by Dengar »

That's what I like about it. Despite the fact that it would cause pain for people, Shinji chose to stop it anyways.
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Re: Ryuki complete series discussion thread

Post by takenoko »

But isn't that kind of wrong? It'll make Shinji feel good for following his convictions, but why should everyone else have to suffer because of his selfishness?
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Re: Ryuki complete series discussion thread

Post by Dengar »

Isn't it the same for everyone else? Heck, isn't it the same for everyone in the world?
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Re: Ryuki complete series discussion thread

Post by takenoko »

Well, I think a Shinji win is equivalent to no one winning. At least someone else would get a chance to be happy, I guess everyone else would be dead though
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Re: Ryuki complete series discussion thread

Post by Darien_Shields »

I don't know if this is the right thread or not... I'm sorry if it's the wrong one, but... I have a question.

Where did the wish come from?

Okay, so... as I understand it (stop me if I'm wrong)... Kanzaki and Yui imagined lots of monsters when they were young. Either one or both of them apparently also had a sort of psychic power to make their imagination real inside the "mirror world". So they imagined lots of things and the mirror world became populated with monsters. The only humans in the mirror world were copies of Yui and Kanzaki, because they also imagined themselves being happy in the mirror world, so those versions of them were real there.

Then the real Yui died. Her mirror version left the mirror world and replaced her, although warned Kanzaki that she would not live past her 20th Birthday. I'm not sure why this was- presumably some limit of the mirror world (possibly at that point the entire mirror world would start to break down just out of old age). Okay.

Kanzaki gets sent to America, but swears to find a way to save (mirror) Yui. He winds up doing research into the mirror world and figures out a way to form contracts with mirror monsters to create Kamen Riders. He also discovers the wish. This is the bit I particularly don't get.

If 13 (give or take a few) Kamen Riders fight to the death and one lives, he or she has their wish granted. Is there any particular reason for this? I'm just a bit puzzled as to where it came from.

Awesome job on the series either way. It's definitely been a wild ride and possibly has one of the most... best feelings of completion I've had out of a series.
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Re: Morals and ethics of Ryuki

Post by Bauffie »

takenoko wrote:You'd just have 12 angry people.
Minus a few who died in a gory manner.

Well, when it comes to this, there are basically no good answer. Sacrificing one to save millions is a jolly good deal to me, but just the thought of personally sacrificing that one person is probably something I can't do. Some can, some don't approve of it.

I remember some people talking about the Survive card when wondering if Shinji should have been the title character. If he received it first and then Ren would receive it later, wouldn't it give the impression that "Oh, Ren has the Survive card too. Shinji's not the only special one"? I think that having Shinji receive it after Ren would give off the feeling that "hey, you can do it, I can do it too". He's not the type to be the mighty kind on a thron waiting to be challenged. He's more of a challenger, one who goes through all sorts of situations/tests to find the answer he's looking for(perhaps, his own selfish reason for fighting/not fighting like everyone else's). He knows he's not the strongest. He's supposed to be the somewhat "dumb but honest" type of guy.

Shinji evolved in his own way. He took long(what, 48 episodes?) to find his answer, but during that time, in most battles, there was always something different at stake, different proposals and different moral problems coming from all sorts of people/riders(deaths, sacrifices, fights among friends, what to do with foes and scums, Yui disappearing). All he did was going through each and every proposals to realize that probably nothing worked right. I guess that's why he went crazy near the end and decided to put on that fake face to force a decision upon himself. That was one of the favorite parts. It just made me consider him as one of the most human character there is. >>;

He's also the one who had the most influence on the game(philosophy conflicts?). He was the only one who wanted change and made a change. The ending with Ren coming up victorious made sense. So if Shinji won, what would he do with a single "new life"? Shinji's wish was for a community, practically the whole world(?) and that's what he died for.
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Re: Ryuki complete series discussion thread

Post by Phoenix512 »

There was a difference in the movie and TV series about Shirou's role in all of this. It was assumed in the movie that Shirou was going to blackmail the winner of the Rider battle and use his lifeforce to save Yui. While in the TV series, there's a wish that appears in front of the winner of the battle. Basically both the movie and TV series both suggests that Shirou knows how to play around with Mirror World to create the battle even though it existed way before he researched it. In a way, I think Shirou used his physical body to create the wish but the rules of Mirror World wouldn't allow him to use it immediately. So that's why he had Odin as his puppet.
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Re: Ryuki complete series discussion thread

Post by kaemmerite »

takenoko wrote:But isn't that kind of wrong? It'll make Shinji feel good for following his convictions, but why should everyone else have to suffer because of his selfishness?
I think the thing is, it extends beyond just the other Riders. The show kinda showed that, in a way.

I mean the Riders all have to kill each other, and most of them do it for selfish reasons, except for Ren for the most part. But when each Rider died, look at what it did. Most of the time the consequences weren't fully shown; for example, when Kagawa died, it didn't show his family. But imagine how devastated his wife and kid would be that their father disappeared and never came back.

Think about how much Shinji was affected when Tezuka died, or how that little girl must've felt when Asakura stopped showing up to see her (granted, he was using her, but she didn't know that).

The point is that if Shinji had stopped the fighting, then yeah, the Riders wouldn't be able to fulfill their wishes, but overall I guess it would cause less sorrow. Families and friends of the other Riders wouldn't be made to suffer. And even then, most of the Riders themselves weren't suffering in the first place. Kitaoka eventually accepted the inevitability of his death, and even before that he didn't seem really stressed about his health. Ren lost Eri but that was caused by the Rider Battle in the first place. Sano actually got his wish without the Battle anyway, and Toujou wouldn't have flipped out and become an unlikeable bastard if it hadn't been for the Rider Battle (he seemed decent enough in the TV series ending).

The only one I can really see truly being frustrated at not getting their wish is Asakura. But I don't feel bad for him anyway. *shrug*

So I actually support Shinji because well, really all the other Riders were being greedy. I mean all of us are greedy every day in real life, but I think Shinji was saying, it isn't right to hurt so many people just to get our own selfish desires, and that's why he wanted to stop the fighting.

Yui was the same way, telling Kanzaki that it wasn't right to have everyone fight just so she could live. She could've been like "Yeah, all those people need to fight so I can continue living!" but she knew that her desire to live at other people's expense wasn't right, so much so she almost committed suicide just to get it to stop.
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Re: Ryuki complete series discussion thread

Post by AesPir »

This series is my introduction to Kamen Rider. I downloaded the episodes that were up before you guys put up the DVD releases and have been following it since.

I came in expecting it to be another half-serious series like the Super Sentai I have seen. Boy was I in for a surprise/treat. From the opening sequence of episode 1 I was hooked where they showcase the spider mirror monster attacking it's innocent victim. And from there on it was a show with depth! While I did kind of have to get over the gratuitous use of cards in fights, (which grew on me with time) I really liked how there were two battles going on. For one there was the battle against evil monsters, which has been the main plot in countless other shows like this, but then you had what made the show... The battle of might and wills that was the Rider Battle (And I honestly LOVED the Highlander theme as soon as I saw it... How unusually dark for a costume hero show.)

One thing I really liked was Shinji, who is a bit of a loser. When he enters the battle, I kinda thought to myself, "Oh great. Now he transformed and now he is going to be a super badass fighter for no reason at all." Nope. Not only is his power incomplete (a process that I was saddened not to see the other Riders have to go through even though it was implied that Ren had to as well), but he gets the crap kicked out of him a lot before he starts to learn how to fight, and even then he still gets the crap kicked out of him a lot. He was by far not an invincible hero... Which made his character so great. Then of course, he winds up bringing out the best in most of the characters who are more heroic than himself, while still struggling to make people with warped viewpoints see something better in their lives.

I think if I had one complaint about the show, is it seemed that it wanted to fit more into itself than it did, as evidenced by the special and movie with alternate endings explanations and characters (who made up the full 13). It's like 50 episodes wasn't enough, so they had to cut corners from time to time. It also feels like there were some compromises made during the course of the show. But they weren't big enough to ruin the series.

Another thing I liked was that it had a good explanation as to why the normal world doesn't notice or care about people running around in costume fighting horrible monsters. That was another thing that gripped me from the beginning.

I'm sure I will add more later, but I loved this series.
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