![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
akinoameTo the leader, the pariah, the victor, the messiah
Kamen Rider.
Over the decades, the name has become synonymous with a masked man on a motorcycle, fighting great evil in the name of justice. A hero. In the 2011 film Let’s Go Kamen Riders, a great deal is made of the original Kamen Riders fighting for evil, as the new generation of Riders and children try to remind them that they are supposed to be heroes of justice.
But Ryuki is a war without justice. So is it a world without heroes? And if there are no heroes, can there be villains?
Now, I've said before that I watched this in 2009—which, incidentally, is when TV-Nihon finished the DVD subs. So, convenient timing for me. But there was a reason I began watching it then, and it was Kamen Rider Dragon Knight, the American adaptation that was airing at the time. The thing is...I never actually watched Dragon Knight. I couldn't make it through a single episode. But there was something else airing in 2009 that influenced me greatly, another show I plan to review in the future: Power Rangers RPM.
RPM was pretty much my obsession during that year. I loved the setting, the characters, and the background mystery plot running on. While I can't make a direct comparison between RPM and Ryuki—the closest I could really manage is a comparison between Dillon and Ren, and even then, that's a stretch—I will admit that there was a bit of cross-analysis going on. My thoughts on RPM bled a little into my thoughts on Ryuki. What I saw of RPM really got me more into the mystery and characters of Ryuki. So if there are any points of this analysis that do sound like I'm talking a little more about that series instead, now you know why.
These two quotes are from TV-Nihon's sub of 13 Riders, the 45-minute television special that told an alternate take on the Rider War. I bring them up now because I think they both captured the themes of the series, something that I'm trying to explore in this final Endpoint. And as for the last quote, I also want to come back to the ending of the special and discuss whether or not the endings were appropriate, given our heroes.
The quote from "This is War" that I chose for this section I think perfectly encapsulates our four main characters. The Leader is Shinji, who is the closest thing to a leader the Riders this season have. The Pariah, unsurprisingly, is Kanzaki, who straddles the line of sympathy all season. The Victor is Ren, who is the only one to bring his character arc to a satisfying conclusion and still wins the Rider War. The Messiah is Yui, who is the one who manages to end everything.
This is probably the most difficult part of the analysis because it's hard to break it down neatly. These are the four most important characters to the plot. Naturally, they interact a lot, and their interactions have major effects on one another's development. Furthermore, there are clear parallels drawn between the Leader and the Messiah, as well as the Victor and the Pariah, which is perfectly fitting with a series focused so much on mirrors and fighting the monsters within them. Nevertheless, I'll at least try to make some sense out of this while covering the bleed-through.
The Leader
We start with our title character, Kamen Rider Ryuki, Shinji Kido. The first and last impressions we get of him are of an enthusiastic and friendly young man who wears his heart on his sleeve, even if he's not terribly bright and tends to leap before he looks. He's naïve while at the same time having a much better understanding of the world than the more jaded members of the cast. In a way, he's both a continuation of a tradition and the start of something new in terms of lead Riders. Before Shinji, Riders were ideals—good people with the ability to do whatever they put their minds and hearts to, everything that a child might want to grow up to be. Admittedly, I've only just started Agito at the time of this writing, but even then you still see that Shoichi isn't really held back by little things like the fact that he has no memories of his life before the series. And the perfect example of what a Rider was supposed to be is Yusuke Godai of Kuuga, who was eternally cheerful and optimistic even in the face of ultimate darkness and had two-thousand skills to his name.
Shinji got the optimism, but he missed out on capability. In that way, he's the spiritual predecessor to Ryotaro of Den-O (eternally unlucky, and it's implied much of his problems come from his own low self-confidence) and Gentaro of Fourze (super-friendly but really slow on the uptake). And this is his character arc. He's a fairly static character in that he doesn't make a complete 180 in terms of characterization (such as Ren, for example), but his character arc is about him gaining maturity.
Toward the end of the series, viewers tend to wonder if maybe the story is more about Ren than Shinji, for reasons that I'll explain and deconstruct when I get to Ren's portion of the analysis. But honestly? Shinji absolutely deserves to be the lead Rider, even if it takes him until episode two to gain his true Rider form and even if he dies one episode before the finale. Shinji is the heart and the soul of the series, and of its Riders in general. He's what inspires the others, just like Yusuke did for the police in Kuuga and Gentaro later would for the Kamen Rider Club in Fourze and what Haruto is attempting to do for the entire world in Wizard. Ren wanders around with a damaged moral compass (in fact, one that he himself is trying to damage), and as much as Yui wants the fighting to stop, all the time she's spent with Ren hasn't gotten her to take that first step yet. It's Shinji who walks up to her, asks about her brother, and as he watches Ren struggle against a Monster, he asks if making a Contract with Dragreder will allow him to help. Over Yui's protests that he's sacrificing his chance at a normal life, he decides to become a Kamen Rider so that he can protect people from Monsters. And over time, he realizes that it's not just innocent civilians he needs to save, but the Riders too.
So why, then, do I have him listed as the Leader and not the Messiah? I'll get more in-depth into the reasons when I cover Yui, but ultimately, Shinji cannot save everyone to the extent that she can. People aren't willing to listen to him, and he fails to realize when he actually has changed someone. As his story arc progresses, he begins to realize that the Riders are fighting for something. It starts when he gets into a fistfight with Ren and finds his ring—this doesn't pay off until about fifteen episodes later when Tezuka tells him about Eri. He can try to get Ren to change his attitude, but he can't ask him to give up the person he loves. It becomes the elephant in the room for their relationship. When Ren starts changing for the better and actually behaves the way a friend would, the two pretend it isn't there because Shinji promised him that he'd fight if Ren had to. Shinji promises to change the Riders in order to change their fates, and they both pretend that Ren hasn't changed because of him.
If I had to pick a custom soundtrack for Shinji, it would absolutely include For Good from the musical Wicked. The two characters singing realize that they've been irrevocably changed, even if they can't say one way or another if they've changed for the better. This is the Riders' relationship with Shinji. Ren and Kitaoka even discuss it toward the end—now I dare you to think of that scene without Kristin Chenoweth and Idina Menzel singing. Tezuka comes to believe in him as the one person who can change the Riders' fates. Okubo and Reiko gain a whole new respect for him once they learn just what he is and what he's been doing. It's not his abilities that make him an inspiration; it's his heart. He genuinely wants to help people and save them. He gives up in despair when it comes to changing the Riders, unaware that he's already changed the ones who matter. For every Asakura, there is a Kitaoka or a Tezuka or a Ren—someone who may outwardly seem like they haven't changed, but in their heart, they know they can never be what they once were and eventually, they're okay with that. Shinji seems to come to accept them as they are. A line from CSI comes to mind: "What you are never changes. Who you are never stops changing." Somewhere in their innermost core was the quality that made these people what they were—snarky, determined, Kamen Riders. That couldn't change. They could never stop being Riders. It was more than just their desires—somehow, they discovered the quality that makes someone a Kamen Rider in a more conventional series, and that couldn't change. But who they were, the lost and selfish people fighting to survive—that changed. And I believe that the epilogue shows the promise that they can continue to change and evolve and grow.
But Shinji fails to understand it that way, since Ren is still constantly picking on him and can't give up on Eri, and Kitaoka still drives him insane. Every time he tries to change what these people are, he can't, and as Asakura becomes more and more of a dangerous sociopath, he gives into his despair. He comes to realize that it’s not a matter of changing people. Ren’s not a fluke, fighting to save someone he loves. He’s just one of many fighting for what they believe in, and Shinji has no right to judge them for that. So should he try to stop them? This conflict is what drives him all series.
Shinji is, in some ways, a character from a conventional Rider series thrown into a world without black-and-white. If he landed himself in Kuuga, it would be easier—or Fourze, W, or even 555. In those series, even when you have sympathetic bad guys, it's still clear that what they're doing is wrong. There is good and there is evil. There are heroes and villains with fewer lines blurred between. One of the greatest conflicts he runs into comes when he meets the would-be heroes behind the Alternatives and Tiger. Their mindset is that it’s all right to sacrifice one life if it will save ten people—and this is a very Rider War kind of logic: to sacrifice someone else for a desire or for the greater good. But in Shinji’s mind, it’s totally illogical. He can’t wrap his mind around the idea that you can quantify the value of human lives.
This is how Kagawa and his students see it. Consider x to be the value of a human life.
10x > x
If you have ten human lives, that is mathematically more than the value of one human life. Therefore, if you have to sacrifice one person to save ten people, you can still balance out the scales.
Shinji, however, cannot quantify the value of life. In his mind, it is infinity. Ten times infinity is still equal to infinity. Someone like Kanzaki can argue that if 10∞ = ∞, then sacrificing ten to save one is still equivalent. But Shinji still can’t make the choice, and this is what he struggles with all throughout the series—the indecisiveness that Ren criticizes in him toward the end. Math is simple, as black and white as justice. But Kamen Rider Ryuki is a battle without justice, and similarly, without math. What Shinji has to grapple with is the fact that there is no right and wrong. There is only what you want.
The cast of Ryuki is extremely human, touching on the good and bad parts of humanity. Shinji, Ren, and Kitaoka are probably the best examples of this. Characters regularly complain that Shinji is stupid, and it’s absolutely not true. Is he naïve? Absolutely. Stupid? No. It takes him a while to catch on to certain things, and he runs headfirst into everything, but this has nothing to do with his intelligence. He’s a fundamentally good person, and the only one of the cast who takes up the deck specifically to protect everybody. I’m actually disappointed that he never got more of a chance to face off against Kanzaki—I think he probably could have gotten him to come around, given the chance. I wasn’t kidding about him being a predecessor to Gentaro. Sure, he can’t save everybody, but he does get them to realize that they need to save themselves.
Takamasa Suga does a beautiful portrayal of Shinji, and it’s really easy to miss early on. Shinji’s high-energy, go-get-‘em attitude is fun in the beginning, along with the ways he constantly gets baited into arguments with Ren, but it’s in his moments of doubt where he really shines. Appropriately, his name means "belief," at least according to Decade. He struggles to find what it is he believes in, if only because what he believes in is in conflict to what the others believe in. Because he’s such an optimist, it gets to him when the Rider War turns out to be much more complicated than it originally appeared. And that’s the thing: they’re fighting for a wish. Say it out loud, and it sounds stupid. But then ask yourself if there is something you care about more than life itself, something you would fight, die, and kill for. It’s a troubling question. Shinji can’t face that, and he gets himself into a massive rut when he can’t figure out the answer to his questions: Am I doing the right thing? Am I justified? It’s one thing to become a Kamen Rider and fight to save people from Monsters. It’s another thing to become a “Rider” and fight others in order to save what’s most precious to you—and this is probably why Ryuki tends to call them “Riders” more than “Kamen Riders,” but the interchangeability of terms for “Kamen Rider” is endemic to the Heisei Rider series anyway, dating back to Kuuga.
Now, with everything I’ve said, I bet it sounds like Shinji is a tragic hero. On the contrary, I find him triumphant. When I think of tragic heroes, I think of the classics: Sophocles’s Oedipus and Creon, Shakespeare’s Hamlet and especially Brutus. These are characters with “fatal flaws”—a trait that brings about their downfall. Oedipus’s desire to avert his fate—he left Corinth believing he’d avoided the fate of killing his father and marrying his mother, only to kill his biological father, the King of Thebes, and become king by marrying Queen Jocasta, who turned out to be his mother. Creon’s pride and anger damned Antigone and his own son and wife by forbidding Antigone from burying her brother as the gods willed. Hamlet’s desire for revenge consumed him, Ophelia, and his mother. Brutus’s nobility and devotion to Rome led him to betray Caesar, and when he lost his battle against Antony and Octavius, he retained his honor by committing suicide.
Shinji is not nearly so tragic. He may struggle. He may die. But he succeeds. His naïveté isn’t a fatal flaw—it is inspiration. His wholehearted belief is what changes Ren and Kitaoka and inspires Tezuka and Yui. He dies happy, knowing that he’s at least managed to change Ren, who has gone from cold and uncaring to crying and begging him to live. He may not change their fates, but he’s allowed them to walk their own path to the destination. And that is what truly matters.
The special gave two possible endings: the first, canonical, ending was that Shinji would battle the other Riders, deciding he would find his answer just as Ren had tried to. The second was that he would destroy the Core Mirror and thus the Mirror World. While I’m still not sure which ending was more appropriate for that particular incarnation of Shinji, the second ending is absolutely the right outcome for him in the series. At the moment of his death, he apologized to Ren and said that he still felt it was right to close the Mirror World, even if it would cause his friends pain. It was a wish that even Ren could respect and understand. Shinji isn’t himself when he’s trying to do what someone else believes in; the whole point is that he has to follow what he believes. He proves that, contrary to what the Rider War is trying to prove, there truly are such things as heroes, and he lives up to the name of Kamen Rider.
And if I must be honest, I love the relationship between Shinji and Ren as Riders. We’ve gotten used to the concept of secondary Riders who oppose the primary Rider on all fronts. But these two are so different. Yes, they argue. They don’t agree on a damn thing. Even at the end, Ren is arguing with Shinji—telling him not to be so stupid to ask Ren to live when he’s the one who needs to live. They cement their friendship on the promise to fight—if Ren ever needs to, Shinji will fight him. They constantly disagree, though they don’t always break into a fight. Shinji believes one thing, Ren believes another, and they can spend all of time trying to convince the other of their viewpoint, but they almost always come out of it respecting one another.
An odd thing I noticed in the series is that Shinji doesn’t have an image song to himself. After the series, a CD set called Last Message was released that included the characters’ image songs. I already mentioned how Asakura got one and Kitaoka got two (one being a duet with Goro). Ren had a song, as did Yui. Shinji, however, didn’t. I don’t know if this means Takamasa Suga couldn’t sing, but even the theme songs seemed not to be his own. “Alive A Life” was very loosely connected to the actual plot of the series—which is old hat for Kamen Rider now, but until then, all of the shows had an opening that was all about the hero. Hitoshi Kitadani’s “Revolution,” the theme for the Survive forms, was just as much Ren’s song as it was Shinji’s, as is “Reborn” and apparently Rider CHIPS’ “Hateshinai Honoo no Naka e” (“Into the Endless Flame”), if I’m making sense of this translation (otherwise, it’s also loosely connected). The closest we really get is Kitadani’s “Hatenaki Inochi” (“A Boundless Life”), which also seems to refer to Ren too. Poor Shinji can’t catch a break when it comes to music. But it’s close because it does talk about “unwavering nobility” in your heart, which Shinji has in spades. Furthermore, the title. The kanji actually reads “Hatenaki Kibou,” which translates to “Boundless Hope,” with kana writing out “inochi,” “life,” as the alternate reading. Because of this, translations write in “life/hope” during each line. Where there’s life, there’s hope. That’s Shinji. He despairs, yes, but he never completely loses hope. Even when his life runs out, his hope continues to live on through everyone else he’s touched.
Shinji takes up the Ryuki deck after literally stumbling on it at Koichi Sakakibara’s apartment. Due to the multiple timelines, we can really assume it was destiny that led him into that apartment, against Reiko’s orders, to find the deck. He stumbles his way into being a Rider and into being the hero, but he more than justifies his place among them. His Contract Monster is Dragreder, who presumably ate the former Ryuki and tries to eat Shinji in the beginning. Unsurprisingly, Dragreder’s power cements Shinji as a power-type. Shinji himself isn’t too good at strategy or finesse, so just being able to go in and punch something or blast fire at it is perfect for him.
But we first see Ryuki in Blank form in episode one. Oddly enough, I like the aesthetics of Blank Form more than Ryuga, if only because there’s some contrast in the suit: a dark blue bodysuit base, similar to Knight’s, with the rest of the armor over it, unmarked (such as a plain silver Visor and no symbol on his mask). But it’s his pathetic form, the successor to Kuuga’s white Growing Form and predecessor to the black-and-silver Den-O Plat Form. Because he has no contract, his Blank deck only includes three cards: Contract, Seal (which holds off attacking Monsters), and the hilariously pathetic Sword Vent, which summons a simple, straight-edge sword that breaks on first use.
Ryuki in normal form more than makes up for it, in one of the most spectacular scenes ever, where Shinji makes the contract with Dragreder and has it appear to enter his body, changing his Rider form (later homaged in Wizard with Haruto’s Dragon Phantom for Dragon Flame Styles). His bodysuit turns red, and Dragreder’s emblem appears on his mask, with the Visor gaining a design similar to Dragreder’s head. There’s no particular design theme to the grill on his mask, but I personally think it makes him look a little more heroic—it almost makes his helmet look like a Sentai’s helmet in certain series and makes him stand out as different and more of a good guy than the others. His fighting style is very straightforward, as he’s one of the few who likes to fight with his fists. But he’s got a great range of Weapon Cards that make up his deck, giving him just what he needs in a battle. Sword Vent gives him a gorgeous saber that is his go-to weapon, helping him remain in close range against Monsters. And it’s understandable that this is his preferred weapon because he’s constantly fighting alongside Knight. Strike Vent provides him with a ranged attack, with a gauntlet resembling Dragreder’s head appearing on his right arm, allowing him to blast fire while being backed up by Dragreder doing the same. Guard Vent is his defense, and for such a small thing, it’s really versatile—plates with arms, created from Dragreder’s own body, appear for his use. He can either hold one as a shield or wear them on his shoulders as armor—whichever is more useful for the situation. When it comes time for the finisher, Final Vent, Dragon Rider Kick, is my all-time favorite attack. What’s not to love? Ryuki leaps into the air, doing a flip as Dragreder circles him. At the pivotal moment, he extends his leg out as he plummets toward the enemy, and Dragreder blasts fire at him. Ryuki is on fire as he kicks his opponent—later, we see more clearly that it’s his foot that’s on fire because of him channeling the power, but that doesn’t make it any less awesome—and blows it up real good.
In episode 34, Kanzaki gives Shinji the Survive Rekka (something along the lines of “Raging Fire”) card, warning him that he’ll need it soon. He's forced to use it when Ren challenges him to a fight, and he discovers his will to survive when he realizes that he has to stop his friend from making a terrible mistake. Ryuki Survive gains gold details on his helmet, with the grill on his mask extending somewhat and gold antenna—resembling Dragreder’s whiskers (or whatever you call it on a dragon)—appearing on the helmet, similar to the classic Rider antennae. The sculpt of his metallic red armor is actually thematically similar to the later Den-O Gun Form, which is appropriate given that Ryutaros is a dragon Imagin. Metallic red and gold detailing also appears on his legs and gauntlets. The Drag Visor is no longer on his left wrist—instead, the Drag Visor Zwei is a handheld weapon that functions both as a gun and a sword (“which means it’s awesome”). It too resembles a dragon’s head, and Ryuki places his Survive card in its mouth in order to initiate the transformation. When summoned, Dragreder evolves into the more powerful dragon, Dragranzer, in a shattering glass effect. Sword Vent is an automatic attack, without Ryuki Survive needing to scan the card—he simply holds out the Drag Visor Zwei, and a blade flips out of it. Shoot Vent allows him to fire a laser from the Visor while Dragranzer backs him up with a blast of fire. Guard Vent summons Dragranzer to circle around him to bodily protect him from an attack. But Survive form also provides Shinji with his first Attack/State Card, which would be a lot more effective if he were smarter about using it. Strange Vent has the ability to turn into the next card in his opponent’s deck. So when he fought Knight Survive, he was able to preemptively counter his Trick Vent and create copies of himself. However, this being Shinji, he also preemptively scanned Odin’s Steal Vent, only to promptly have the weapon he stole get stolen back. Final Vent transforms Dragranzer into a motorcycle, which rears up while Ryuki’s riding and blasts fireballs at the opponent before they smash into it. It’s the perfect overkill for a guy whose first attack is “kick the bad guy while on fire.”
The Victor
Fairytales with dragons usually include knights battling them. So if Shinji is the dragon, it’s unsurprising that Kamen Rider Knight, Ren Akiyama, is in constant conflict with him. And here comes the part where you scream, “Akino, shut up!” because I’ve been writing this Endpoint since the summer started.
You know when I mentioned that I was watching RPM when I first watched Ryuki and it influenced my thoughts on the series? This is where it kind of comes into play. When I reviewed episodes 11 and 12, “The Mysterious Empty Train” and “Ren Akiyama’s Lover,” I pointed out that Ren was oddly lacking in backstory. Part of it was justified because he had amnesia through those episodes, but the end of 12 implied that he recovered all of his memories, not just those of Eri. It was unusual, but I admitted then that it was all right, since so much of his character revolved around Eri. And the only reason I even noticed this oddness was because I had begun RPing Ren at different games and I had begun the reviews while doing my canon review for each application.
Why didn’t it bother me when I first watched it in 2009? The best explanation I have is a line from RPM. In the second episode, Summer approaches Dillon in prison, trying to get information from him and determine if he’d be a good candidate for Ranger Black. Exasperated by all the questioning he’s gotten, the amnesiac Dillon reiterates that he doesn’t remember anything about who he is or where he came from. Summer quickly retorts, “I don’t care where you came from. I want to know where you’re going.” That ended up being a major focus of Dillon’s character arc all series, as he never found out who he used to be, but he did discover who he was now.
This was Ren’s character arc. We don’t get a chance to meet him at the start of his journey, but we do know that he had a bad attitude and got into fights all the time. He drove Eri crazy, but he loved her deeply and wanted to protect her. He was all she had left, and he implies that she was the only person left in his life too. So when she falls into a coma as a result of Kanzaki’s experiment, it’s obvious that Ren would fight in the Rider War to save her. In a way, I consider him a deconstruction of the shallow love interest trope. As I pointed out in episode 12, he defines himself entirely by his relationship with Eri. When anything happens to her, he is lost. He doesn’t know how to go on without being able to save her, and even Shinji points out that if he can’t, then he feels as though he may as well die. He has denied himself his own identity—everything he is is for Eri’s sake. Take a look at his image song, “Lonely Soldier”. The lyrics are all about his promise to save her—about how he’ll only let himself love her, how he’ll deny himself friends and happiness, how he’ll take on the burden of pain and loneliness, how he’ll fight even the whole world if it means he’ll save her. That in itself is sad, especially with the fairly light-hearted melody and very easy way he's singing. No sign of emotional trauma! But it gets worse when you look at the Japanese lyrics and realize that he’s referring to himself with the pronoun “boku” throughout the whole thing. Ren exclusively refers to himself with “ore” throughout the series—it’s the expected pronoun for an adult man in Japan, one who is confident of his standing and doesn’t need to defer to anyone. But he defers to Eri in “Lonely Soldier” and uses a much less confident pronoun. Now, I started off in the Digimon fandom—the fandom of a million image songs. Taichi would use “ore” throughout the series, only to use “boku” during his image songs, betraying that he felt a little less confident than the Chosen Child of Courage that he was supposed to be. Much as it incredibly disturbs me to draw a comparison between these two characters, Ren is definitely the same way. He can act as tough as he wants, but his whole character arc is about him finding his true self and becoming a better person, and his devotion to Eri is all-consuming. We’re talking about a guy who made a contract with the Monster that attacked his fiancée. It might have saved his life, but he’s willingly torturing himself every time he has to summon Darkwing, and Darkwing still threatens to attack Eri whenever Ren visits her. The man is a master of self-torture.
True, it’s very easy to argue that Eri is his shallow love interest, but like I said before, I feel it’s unfair to judge a character who spends almost all of her appearances comatose; I feel the same about Princess Aurora of Sleeping Beauty. But it’s not like Prince Phillip had much more in the way of characterization. Ren is very much the same way, which makes this somewhere between appropriate and ironic given that he’s the would-be prince trying to save his sleeping beauty.
Where does it become a deconstruction? When Ren begins to realize he wants more. It starts with episode 13, when he just returns from visiting Eri in the hospital at the end of 12. He sits down to dinner, and everyone is laughing and having a good time except for him. He won’t participate in their toast, he won’t eat, and he gets scared when Sanako says that he and Shinji fight like brothers. He runs away, telling Shinji that he doesn’t want to be playing family—this has been his fear since Kitaoka deconstructed him in episode 10. He can’t let himself get too close.
Running away is Ren’s default answer to every problem in his life. He’s got a reputation for fighting, and we certainly see him punching people out when he gets angry. But it’s always to escape. He’s getting too close to Shinji and Yui? He leaves the house. Tezuka keeps trying to figure out who he is? He tries to avoid him as much as possible. His weaknesses are revealed to everyone? He withdraws into himself, going completely mute. He makes the painful choice to fight Shinji, only to realize he can’t kill his best friend? He runs away from his friends. He learns that Eri’s awakening is only temporary? He avoids her and keeps fighting in order to save her. This always makes his problems worse down the line, and part of his development from interacting with Shinji and Yui is that he learns to face his problems and try to do something about them—just as they’re doing. He even runs away after Yui’s disappearance. But when Shinji dies, Kanzaki comes to him and tells him there’s no time left and he must fight Odin. He can no longer run away from what he has to do. In the end, it’s ironic: He never had to make the sacrifices he kept running away from. He never had to bloody his hands in order to get his wish. He never had to fight Shinji—Shinji would just die saving somebody from a Monster. He never had to kill the first Odin—Kanzaki would destroy the last one himself.
Ren is someone who is willing to walk into hell for the sake of someone he cares about, and he completely fails to realize that this isn’t what that other person would want. And even when someone does make him realize it, he insists that he has to because he just wants them to be okay. He’s extremely self-defeating to the point that it becomes self-destructive. And the biggest thing that this comes to is his ability to kill. Tezuka challenges him on this in episode 14, asking if he really has it in him to kill another person. Ren says that he’s willing to destroy himself as long as he can save Eri, but is he willing to go all the way? He can let his body get harmed all the time, but can he let himself destroy his soul? And this is the very first time Ren has to ask himself this question, and for a moment, he can’t answer. It proves just how heavily it’s weighing on his heart. But again, he thinks of himself as nothing compared to Eri, and he promises that if it’s for her, he’s willing to take on any pain and destruction.
But in episode 17, he’s forced to make that decision. He has the chance to kill Shibaura in combat, and he fails to, his hands shaking. It leaves him open for an attack that would have killed him had Shinji not jumped in and pushed him partially out of the way—instead of the attack striking his heart, it only hit his arm. He has a complete emotional breakdown when Shinji and Tezuka carry him home. Shinji tells him that he’s earned his respect, and he starts screaming and crying, since that’s the last thing he needs to hear. The accidental Rider respects him. It’s a new low for Ren. By the time they get him back to Atori, he’s burnt out. He can’t even walk, and he just lies mutely in bed, refusing to eat and turning away from Yui when she tries to talk to him. Afterwards, he sees how unflinchingly Asakura managed to kill Shibaura, and he tries to take a few lessons from him, ultimately asking him to kill Shinji when he realizes he can’t do it. He does manage to get his head on straight when he realizes just how bugfuck nuts Asakura is and when Shinji promises to fight Ren in order to help him, and this arc is put on hold for a while. Ren simply runs away from this conflict.
From here, his personality is drastically different from it was beforehand. I've said in the past that his actor, Satoshi Matsuda, deserves major props for conveying so much personality in subtlety. Faint changes of expression and tone do a hell of a lot for the very closed off and private Rider. Yasuko Kobayashi even praised him for playing Ren's undercurrent of sadness as always looking like he's on the verge of crying. He does an amazing job with the stoic and depressed moments in Ren's personality, but he's very comfortable with the changes that come. Beforehand, Ren was cold, constantly pushing people away and trying to be the kind of Rider that could win. Now, he’s much more open to the others, while still being subtle and private about his emotions. His tone of voice is lighter, and he doesn't lose his temper as easily. His facial expressions soften. He teases Shinji rather than fighting him. His relationship with Yui is pretty much the same as it was before, but he gets on her nerves less and starts openly expressing his concern about her rather than trying to hide both what he’s doing and his thoughts on what she’s doing. One of the best moments that expresses the change is when Goro shows up to ask if Asakura is alive. He accidentally confirms it, and Goro goes off to find him. Ren gives up and tries not to get involved, clearly reasoning that it’s not his problem. But then he senses Venosnaker, and he runs off to try to find Goro, only to realize that he’s been kidnapped. He then races to Kitaoka’s and offers to help rescue him—people he hates. He even gets into a battle because of this.
TV Tropes reasons that this was Ren’s true personality all along, but I think that’s too simple an explanation. Ren clearly didn’t give a fuck in his past. What’s true about his personality is that when he cares about somebody, he gives his all to try to help them. What changes about him is that he learns to care about more than one person, and even about the people he doesn’t like. Where Shinji learns that the world isn’t black-and-white/right-and-wrong, Ren begins to realize that there is right and wrong in the world, and there are things he just can’t accept. It’s hard to call him friendly at this point, but he’s certainly less antagonistic to characters like Kitaoka, and he begins to embrace the way he’s changing as a person.
But his changes come to haunt him when Eri’s life is in danger and the only way to save her is to kill the other Riders. His self-destructive streak completely takes over him, as he begins denying himself his happiness again as he struggles over what choice to make. The doctor estimates that Eri only has a few days left to live, and Ren consciously knows that there is no way he can win the Rider War in time. But he has to try. Shinji even realizes that Ren knows it’s impossible and is pretty much trying to commit suicide doing the best he can. Desperate, Ren demands to battle Odin, and that’s when he really discovers his will to survive. He gained the Survive Shippu (something along the lines of “hurricane”) card from Tezuka, which really didn’t give him a chance to earn it—he spends several episodes using it without really having too much to justify it. The Survive cards will still work if you don’t have the will to survive, but they’re given to you in order to inspire it in you. Ren’s will to survive up until that point was entirely to save Eri. He didn’t care what happened to himself. But in the first battle against Odin, even his Survive form wasn’t enough to take him down. He was reduced to basic form Knight and lying injured on the ground. Odin came up to him, ready to finish him off with a blow to his deck. At the last second, Ren reacted and lifted his fallen sword, thrusting up in self-defense. He managed to spear Odin right in the middle—something that shocked the both of them, since neither was sure Ren was capable of it. The realization that he killed Odin was almost enough to break Ren, and he screamed in agony as he stared at his bloodless hands. When he finally recovered enough to leave the Mirror World, he stumbled and fell before staggering away.
According to Igadevil, the original plan was that Ren would make his first kill against Asakura right after gaining Survive. However, this would not have worked with Ren’s character development. His first kill had to be in self-defense. It was what proved he wasn’t too far gone. For the first time, he realized that he didn’t want to die, and that it had nothing to do with saving Eri. He didn’t even realize what he was doing until his sword was in Odin. And the weight of what he’d done almost destroyed him. Shinji had warned him that he’d never be able to come back if he took someone’s life, and now he understood what it meant. When he went to visit the awakened Eri, he was scared and asked her if he’d changed. He no longer wanted to be a monster, even if he was trying to save her. But she managed to see that the changes in him were all for the better.
One of the questions that people wind up with at the end of the series is "Shouldn't this be called Kamen Rider Knight instead of Ryuki?" And to be honest, I had this question myself when I first watched it, and it was not helped at all by RPM, where you could honestly make the case that either Dr. K or Dillon was really the main character. Ren is treated very differently within the story, as opposed to most auxiliary Riders. He's the first one we meet and the last one we say goodbye to. He's a Rider from episode 1 to episode 50, where the title character doesn't become a full-fledged Rider until 2 and dies in 49. His character arc is extensively portrayed, with him having a very clear goal in mind—to save his beloved. He's ultimately manages to grant his wish. Shinji flounders for so many episodes, trying to find a wish, and his characterization is a little more static than Ren's is. Shinji may come out of the series (well, the main timeline) more mature, but Ren has a complete transformation in terms of personality, becoming a more caring human being who allows himself to love other people and won't let himself sacrifice these precious bonds for anything. In short, much as Shinji struggles to find another way, Ren's the one who actually succeeds. It's very easy to see the series as Kamen Rider Knight through the eyes of its secondary Rider, Ryuki, who shows up someways into Ren's journey and influences his character development.
But in the end, Shinji's too important to really be a "secondary Rider." I prefer to use the term "auxiliary Rider" for the characters marketed as anyone other than the title Rider while "secondary Rider" is the term for the story-treated character in this role. What's the difference? I'm actually going to say Riderman from all the way back in V3. He's considered a main Rider even though he's not the title character, nor is he even called "Kamen Rider" until he presumably dies (he still calls himself "Riderman," and on occasion, "Gackt"). But as far as the story goes, it seems like V3 could have continued on with no real holes in the plot if he hadn't been there. He adds a lot, definitely, but you can still tell a good story without him. Similarly is one billed as an auxiliary Rider, who absolutely is a secondary Rider: Ryu Terui, Kamen Rider Accel of W. He has a great backstory: His family was killed by the Weather Dopant, and he became a Kamen Rider to get his revenge. Ultimately, he learns that justice is always better than revenge, and he joins W to stop the Dopants peacefully—or as peacefully as kicking them until they explode can be. But if he hadn't been included in the series, it still would have told a complete story. I like using Terui as an example because this actually happened to him in-story: We learn that he was one of the first choices for W, rather than one of our heroes, Shotaro. Had Shroud had her way, Terui would have become W with Philip, all in the hopes of creating the ultimate Kamen Rider, CycloneAccelXtreme. But Philip ended up bonding with Shotaro, utterly ruining that chance.
In terms of story, Ren is too important to the overall plot for him to be a true "secondary Rider." If he were removed from the story, it wouldn't be complete—nobody would fight Odin at the end, and Shinji wouldn't be quite as torn over his desire to end the Rider War, since there'd be nobody important to him who needed to fight. Where would Shinji struggle, knowing that someone will die if the Rider War doesn't continue, long before he learns about Yui? Likewise, Shinji is too important to Ren's character development to be removed—Ren gains most of his changes as a result of interacting with Shinji.
A better example of who Ren is like comes down to Kamen Rider W themselves, Shotaro and Philip. Without one, you can't have a complete story: Half the story of W is Shotaro coming to terms with his boss's death and learning that it's okay to be a half-boiled man rather than the hardboiled ideal. The other half is Philip discovering his past. Both influence one another, and we even see for a little while what the world is like without Philip—Shotaro is plagued by his absence and can never fully recover. It's only when Philip returns that he's able to once again embrace his half-boiled life. Likewise, Philip emphasizes throughout the series that he needs Shotaro as his partner and wouldn’t pick anyone else over him. Both of them needed to atone for their perceived sins, and between Shotaro’s half-boiled style and Philip’s inhuman intellect, they completed one another. This is what I call a "double Rider," and less in their honor as much as in the honor of the original Double Riders, Kamen Riders 1 and 2 from the original series. Kamen Rider 1 was billed as specializing in “technique” while Kamen Rider 2 specialized in “power”—maybe Hayato Ichimonji wasn’t a genius like Takeshi Hongo was, but he certainly knew how to put his strength to use as the tank of the team. Ren and Shinji are the same way: Ren lacks the raw power that Shinji has (look at the difference on their cards—Shinji has more of a range in his cards and has a Monster with higher attack points), but Ren attacks with a finesse that Shinji is decidedly missing. And in terms of characterization, like Shotaro and Philip, their interactions provide a wealth of character development that helps them become much stronger people by the end of the story.
Of the three main characters, Ren quickly becomes the heart of the trio. Now, when I say “heart,” I don’t mean it as a personality trait, the way TV Tropes defines it. The “heart of a team” is the person who is at the core of the group. He or she brings them together and is probably the most important person to them. Take them away, and there is a massive hole in the team. A very bad example would be Taichi in Digimon, whose time spent trapped in the real world led to the entire team fracturing and going off in different directions for no logical reason—a noble attempt at this concept, but without any sense whatsoever. A good example of a heart is someone who doesn’t cause the team to fracture once they’re gone, but instead, you see their loyalty to that person shine brighter.
This is the person who has the strongest ties with the other characters, compared to what they have with one another. And as a note, not every series and team has to have one; this is a case of how characters interact with one another rather than a personality trait, remember. This character is usually the team leader—adding to accusations that Ren is the real lead character in Ryuki. The best example is probably Gentaro Kisaragi in Fourze, given how he personally drew every person together in the Kamen Rider Club. Other examples include Harry Potter, Captain Marvelous of Gokaiger, Yuji Kiba among the Orphenoch trio and to Takumi in 555, and Sora in Kingdom Hearts to some extent.
Shinji may be the heart for the Riders in general, providing the bonds that are needed for both Ren and Kitaoka to change, giving Tezuka something to believe in, and challenging and practically destroying even by proxy almost everyone else’s views of the world. But when it comes to the triune lead heroes, Ren is that heart. He was the one to initiate the friendship, even if unintentionally. He met Yui sometime before the series began. He stopped thinking of her as an ally, a useful source of information, and began seeing her as a friend—even as a little sister, as both Yasuko Kobayashi and Satoshi Matsuda have pointed out.
Then he met Shinji, and just as Shinji was affecting his character development, he was creating a strong but tense bond with him that defined who the two of them were. It’s why even in Decade, the World of Ryuki story had to be about Ren as much as it was about Shinji. Their bond—friendship, rivalry, brotherhood, whatever—is what made them who they are by the end. When Ren first met Shinji, the new Rider barely registered on his radar. He was this dumb guy who stumbled onto a deck, hadn’t even made a contract with a Monster, and ended up getting pulled into this whole thing by mistake. Yes, I’ve described every Kobayashi lead Rider to date. Shinji, Ryotaro, and Eiji might as well come in a set. When Shinji made the contract with Dragreder, suddenly, he was an obstacle in Ren’s way. He was a real Rider, someone who had to be defeated if Ren was going to get his wish. Yui stopped him from killing Shinji and convinced him to just leave the guy alone. Because of Ren’s desire to become stronger and Shinji’s desire to save people, they wound up constantly fighting alongside one another; and between Ren’s skill at doing work at the café and Shinji’s likeable personality, they ended up as roommates at Atori—something that made Shinji grate on Ren’s nerves all the more.
And then something happened. Shinji had fucked up big time by trusting Sudo and thus endangering Ren and Yui. When he tried to make up for his mistake and said he would fight Sudo, refusing to forgive him, Ren taught him to fight because it’s what they’re supposed to do, not because of any moral convictions. He taught him to let his Monster eat even the energy of another Rider’s Monster because they need to become stronger by any means necessary. And as Ren was teaching Shinji to be more like the cold fighter he pretended to be, he himself was learning how to become like Shinji. He began to respect him, to the point that he was conflicted when Shinji was arrested and was being entrapped—a situation that would have benefited Ren, since Shinji would be out of the fight and Ren wouldn’t even have to bloody his hands to do it. But it went against everything Ren truly believed in, the part of himself that he’d denied from the moment he took up the deck. He tried to run away from this part of himself, even tried to sell Shinji out to Asakura, but he finally accepted how he'd changed.
But what makes him the heart of the team really shows up in episodes 34 and 35. With Eri’s condition rapidly deteriorating, Ren was torn between his friendship with Shinji and Yui and his promise to save his fiancée. Kanzaki even told him that he couldn’t have both. Ren could not survive his conflict of desires, and this was the entire point—to force him to choose one side or the other and push him into doing what he was expected to as a Rider. While Yui was unable to stop them, Ren asked Shinji to fight him. Neither one of them could finish the other off, and Ren ran away. From that point on, Yui and Shinji spent the entire episode and most of the next arc trying to help him. They realized what had happened to Eri and tried to find Ren and stop him before he made a mistake that would destroy himself—or before he got himself killed, since he was already on the verge of losing the reason why he’d fought and survived all this time. It got to the point that Shinji had to take on Asakura himself while Yui had to hit Ren in order for them to keep him from hurting himself. And when Ren was avoiding Eri during her brief time awake because he didn’t want her to know about him being a Rider while he still had to keep fighting and getting stronger in order to save her for real, Shinji tracked him down to talk sense into him while Yui tried to watch over Eri for him.
It’s a level of interaction that Shinji and Yui don’t have with one another. I refer to character interaction as having “levels”—there is a particular grouping you’re able to apply to any two characters’ interactions with one another, be it friendly or hostile, based on how intimate the connection is. In terms of hostile interactions, a more casual hatred like that between Sudo and Shinji is not nearly as intimate as the pure venom between Asakura and Kitaoka or Asakura and Miho in EPISODE FINAL. Shinji and Yui are friends. They respect one another greatly and want to help each other. But there is something about Ren that they’re closer to. Ren knew Yui longer, though exactly how long is unclear. He may well be her first real friend, the first person she’s had this much trust in since her brother. Shinji hated Ren at first, and even in the last few episodes, right after Shinji attempted to kill Ren and broke down in grief, they were still taking potshots at each other. But there’s no real venom behind it—Sanako is right in saying that they seem a lot like a pair of brothers picking on each other. I think probably the best Kobayashi Kamen Rider character to compare Ren to in this level of interaction is Ankh from OOO: He says he doesn’t like Shinji just like Ankh doesn’t like, well, anybody at Cous Cousier, but he still wants him and Yui there like Ankh comes to value at least Eiji and Hina, and presumably Chiyoko too. He still values them, thinks of them as his family even without knowing it. It’s not an easy task for him to give up this bond with them, and it’s just as much Ren’s inability to kill Shinji as his inability to kill that keeps him from making that final blow and makes him run away. He can overcome his inability to kill and tries to, tries to challenge Kitaoka and Asakura before finally facing Odin. But he can’t go back and try to kill Shinji again. And when he’s being too stupid to come back home and work with them, then Shinji and Yui are going to worry about him and stop at nothing to try to find him and stop him. Put simply, Shinji and Yui want to save Ren, bringing to mind another set of quotes from RPM: "Why are you always trying to save me?" "Because you're worth saving!" Everything is on the backburner until they can do that and get him to see that. And when he’s finally okay, when he’s got his head on straight for the first time in about a year and he doesn’t need anyone to save him anymore, then he’s able to pick up on the fact that he needs to save them from themselves too. It’s something Shinji and Yui don’t see so well in one another, but Ren can see in them because they saw it in him. Maybe he can’t do anything for them, but the fact that they are the two closest people in the world to him—maybe even closer than Eri now—and the fact that they see Ren as such for themselves makes him the heart of the trio. He’s that core supporting their interactions with one another, his friendship with each of them stronger than their own friendship.
Kamen Rider Knight is one of my favorite designs ever, and I think that goes for anyone who's seen Ryuki. I'll hear complaints about the other suits, but Knight is the one that everybody seems to love. It perfectly combines all of the elements necessary. Maybe he doesn't look like a conventional Kamen Rider, but you absolutely get the perfect motif of bat and knight in there. The bodysuit is the same dark grey-blue used for Ryuki Blank Form, to the point that the whole armor is often mistaken for black when it's really blue. The breastplate is black with silver segments on it outlined in blue, forming a bat—yes, most people's reaction to the costume is Batman, though on further re-watch of Lost Galaxy, I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't at least partially inspired by Bull Black/Black Knight of Gingaman (known in America as the Magna Defender), since they both have the whole knight of darkness with swishy cape thing going on. The helmet is a little Batman-inspired, with the grill visor extending up to look like the ears on Batman's mask, and it's also bat-themed. But underneath the grill are two hardly visible blue eyes, shaped a little more like actual eyes than the bug-like Kamen Rider eyes that Ryuki has. Also, a funny little coincidence, there is a gold arrow-like design running down the middle of the helmet that's really appropriate given he's an airbender. His Visor is a sword, the Dark Visor, and the card reader is covered by what looks like a bat with its wings closed, forming Darkwing's symbol. When Darkwing is attached, it can take the form of wings or a cape. In Survive form, his armor takes on a brighter blue color with gold, the breastplate looking like a bat with its wings outspread, also covering his shoulders, and overall making him look more heroic. The cape stays this time, split so that it resembles a long scarf, and gold details appear on his mask. The Dark Visor Zwei makes the opposite transformation of Ryuki's Drag Visor Zwei, transforming from a handheld weapon to a wrist-mounted sword and scabbard/crossbow, holding the Survive card in a special slot. Darkwing evolves to Darkraider, a larger bat with fan blades in its wings for an attack.
Ren is purposely a mysterious guy and he has a bad tendency to run away, while at the same time being direct and aggressive when angry. So fittingly, his fighting style is direct and close-ranged, relying exclusively on a sword, and his deck relies on disorientation Attack Cards. His primary weapon is the Dark Visor, but in more serious fights, he'll use Sword Vent to summon the Wing Lancer, a short lance that functions as a good sword. Guard Vent is his defensive Weapon Card, and it absolutely sucks. In theory, it's awesome, as shown with the Figuarts: Darkwing attaches to his back and envelopes him with its wings in an attack called Wing Wall, creating a shield that protects his whole body from harm. In practice, though, Ren holds up his cape to try to defend against an attack, and it goes about as well as you'd think. You have no idea how aggravated I was to see this exact defense pulled off effectively in Kamen Rider Wizard ten years later. Yes, they used CGI, but I can think of a million low-budget solutions to actually make it look decent. There is no legitimate reason why Ren's defense has to suck so bad. This is the same principle behind flight, which can happen when he scans his contract card. The problem is that I honestly don't think that they made a wing harness for Ren in the series. You only see it properly in the movie—everything else is blurry in the series. Which is a shame, considering that over in the States, we managed to get a wing harness for Red Battlized Ranger in Power Rangers in Space, four years earlier and on what I imagine was probably a smaller budget. Did it look horrible? Yes. Did it accomplish what it needed to? You bet it did. One of his Attack Cards is Nasty Vent, which is a secondary summon, where Darkwing will use a debilitating sonic attack, Sonic Breaker, on the enemy—an attack that Knight himself is immune to. It's hard to tell if it affects his allies or not, or if they've just learned to get the hell out of his way. His second Attack Card also doubles as a State Card, Trick Vent, where he can create illusory copies of himself, called Shadow Illusion—later reused with Decade and Diend's Attack Ride Illusion and Wizard's Copy Ring. The limit we've seen is eight, and the show is never consistent on just how solid the illusions are or what happens when they're destroyed. Sometimes attacks go right through them, sometimes the copies all shatter when attacked hard enough, sometimes they just disappear if the real Ren is attacked. But they are solid enough to attack the enemy at least, allowing Ren time to hide and counterattack or recover. Final Vent is Hishouzan (no translation available at this time), where Darkwing attaches to his back like a cape as he leaps/flies into the air. As Knight holds the Wing Lancer, Darkwing's wings wrap around him, and he spirals downward to drill right through the enemy in a combination impalement/Rider Kick.
Survive form changes up Ren's fighting style, adding a ranged attack into the mix and giving him the element of air. Trick Vent remains, though obviously stronger because the form it's copying is stronger. Like with Ryuki Survive, Sword Vent is an automatic effect, since half of his Visor is a sword, the Dark Blade. While in Climax Heroes, we see that the sword will become stronger if you use the Sword Vent card, this is never shown in the series. Presumably because his defense sucks, it's dropped completely, and Shoot Vent takes its place as his new Weapon Card. The Dark Visor Zwei extends a crossbow, the Dark Arrow, allowing him to shoot blue energy arrows at an opponent. It's useful to put some distance between himself and an opponent, but Ren seems to be more comfortable with a sword, so it's rarely used. Blust Vent is another summon Attack Card, where Darkraider will use the fans on his wings to execute Dark Tornado, creating twin cyclones of wind. Ren usually uses this as a disorientation tactic, however, typically to allow him to escape or counterattack. His Final Vent is Shippudan (again, no translation available at the time of this writing), where he leaps into the air and lands on Darkraider, who transforms into a bike and fires a paralyzing ray of energy at the enemy. With the enemy immobilized, Knight's scarf encircles him and forms a missile—similar to his previous Final Vent—allowing him to charge right into the enemy and destroy it.
[Edit, August 10, 2014: According to Toku Sequence, the Survive Final Vent translates to "Hurricane Slice"]
[Edit, February 3, 2015: Also from Toku Sequence, the normal mode Final Vent is "Flying Slash"]
The Messiah
But if you insist on trying to find a single main character in this series, look no further than Yui Kanzaki.
Here's the point in the analysis where things start to get tough. While I can and certainly have talked a lot about Shinji and Ren, it's harder to get as much out of the Kanzaki siblings, if only because they're fairly confusing. This is the point where viewers start complaining about the show being incomprehensible because of time travel. My argument all review has been that Ryuki is actually more straightforward than you think. It's less about time travel and alternate endings than it is about secrets and lies.
And it's these secrets and lies that undermine attempts to analyze Yui and Shiro Kanzaki. Their history is kept secret, their true natures a mystery. By the end, they embrace the enigma and create one of the most confusing and contested finales known to man. Are they godlings, able to reshape the world at whim, just by drawing pictures? Are they quantum entanglement embodied, able to affect even those they haven't personally met just by a contagious force of connections, as Riders interact and entangle with one another? How do they control the Monsters, how do they affect living people's medical conditions? What the hell was up with Yui during those episodes where she was controlling the Monsters?
Yui is the one at the heart of everything, so if I ever stand a chance of explaining the series and her character, I must attempt to demystify her history. The truth was revealed nonlinearly, through the course of the entire series, which makes it harder for a first-time viewer to understand, particularly with the confusion of EPISODE FINAL. For the sake of evaluation, I will leave out the movie, and for two important reasons. First, it was written by Toshiki Inoue, not Yasuko Kobayashi. Regardless of my thoughts on him, it wasn't really "supposed" to happen. Like Gargoyles without Greg Weisman or the entire second half of RPM without Eddie Guzelian—it's hard to take into account another writer's interpretation when it doesn't include the original head's plans. And the second reason is much simpler: I already covered it when I reviewed the movie. It's done and over with.
Yui's story is very uncomfortable, and it comes down to abuse. As children, she and her brother were locked away inside their own home by their parents, who were cold and uncaring. Kobayashi never gives any reason why their parents acted this way, which makes it harshly realistic. This is a real thing that happens to children all over the world. You can't trivialize it by explaining, "Well, their kids might have been magical." No offense meant to JK Rowling and Harry Potter. The only person who ever comforted her was her brother, Shiro, who one day came up with the idea that if nobody else was going to protect them, then they would create a world where they were always safe. They took paper, paint, and crayons and began drawing. Some were pictures of themselves together, a promise to never be apart. Some were recreations of pictures they saw around the house, like a photo of a ship on the Oarai Coast. But the most important were simple crayon drawings of creatures that they called Mirror World Monsters. We even see Yui drawing a picture of Dragreder while Shiro draws Darkwing—appropriate for reasons with Yui you might understand after Shinji's analysis and with Shiro, reasons I'll get into with his analysis. They created a kind of game. Beyond any reflective surface was a place called the Mirror World, where normal people couldn't survive. There, Yui and Shiro were protected by the Monsters, which would eat anybody who tried to harm them.
But imagination spilled over into reality, and the Mirror World and the real world began to come together. Unfortunately, Kobayashi doesn't really explain much about the Mirror World or any of the creatures inhabiting it—including the Kanzakis—so there's never any explanation of just how these wishes became reality. Whatever the Mirror World originally was, it just grants wishes, later limited by the Rider War. Fortunately, she fixed this storytelling problem with Den-O, where it's explicitly explained that imagination can become reality.
One cold day when they were seven and thirteen, Yui and Shiro were locked in a room again, drawing, when suddenly Yui collapsed and died. Though Shiro pleaded for help, their parents only peered in before locking the door again, fully knowing that their daughter had died and their son was stuck in there with the body. The only person who listened to Shiro's pleas was a being from the Mirror World, a human girl who looked and acted just like Yui. She asked him if he wanted her to stay with him, and when he agreed, she warned him that she would only be there until she turned twenty, at which point she'd disappear, just like any human who came to the Mirror World. But at the moment she crossed over, a massive backlash of energy exploded throughout the house, breaking glass, setting a fire, and killing their parents. Shiro was injured by the explosion, but because Mirror Yui had merged with her, Yui was safe. She woke up to the fire and began crying, only for her brother to promise to protect her.
Following the accident, their aunt, Sanako, took them in for a little while, at least until Shiro recovered. Sanako was a world-traveler and had no idea what was happening to her niece and nephew until the accident happened. But once Shiro was well again, relatives living in America, the Takamis, decided to take him in. Shiro fought and pleaded, but it was to no avail, and Yui had to watch her brother leave her.
The rest of Yui's story up until the moment she met Ren is a story of loneliness. One of the early stories she tells Shinji is that when she was a child and still living with her brother, she mentioned to her classmates that she saw Monsters in the mirror, but nobody other than Shiro believed her, and her classmates all teased her. While a lot of her memories are false, I think this one might have had some grain of truth in it—the story Shiro came up with may have been inspired by Yui's fear that monsters might be lurking behind the glass. Either way, it's clear that she grew up without any friends. The first person we see to care about her and isn't blood related to her is Ren. From what we can glean from the both of them is that Ren originally found out about her and decided to stay around her to get information about Kanzaki, and with Yui able to sense Monsters, it was an added bonus. Anything he might miss, she'd catch. The relationship was of mutual benefit: Ren got an edge in battle because he had a partner who could sense Monsters and get any clues about Kanzaki that might lead him closer to winning, and Yui had someone who had made contact with her long-lost brother and might do so again. But their relationship became a friendship as Yui came to believe in him, watching him fight until he was too injured and exhausted to move, clearly fighting for some cause greater than himself. It made her trust him. Which is why she was hesitant to trust Shinji at first. To anyone else at first glance, Shinji was clearly more trustworthy than Ren: He wore his heart on his sleeve and promised to protect people he didn't even know. He put his own life on the line to help total strangers. And he didn't try to kill the first guy he saw. But Yui had been betrayed by damn near everyone she'd ever known in her life, even if she'd suppressed some of the memories. Her parents abused her, her brother had been taken away and now was apparently sending Monsters after people and making her only friend kill others or be killed, and her aunt was totally clueless. How else would you act when you see someone who doesn't have an agenda? Ren might have been secretive, but it was clear that he wanted something and needed her to get it. Shinji was nice for the sake of being nice. It wasn't as easy to understand. Over time, Shinji would grow on her, and the three of them would have a much closer friendship than simply mutual benefit mixed in with rivalry. The two of them would become her new family, people she trusted and wanted to save from her brother.
However, Yui's history was unknown even to her, and there are numerous contradictions. It's possible that this is a result of rampant abuse of Time Vent, but there's one thing that makes me think that's not it. An argument made in favor of Ryuki being all "wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey" is that Kanzaki is recorded as dead at Ackley University at the same time he's attending Seimeiin, but Kanzaki seems to explain himself well enough, in my opinion, and I'll get to that a little later. She remembers having a good life with her family, but under scrutiny, she realizes she can't remember her parents, and she can't explain even to Ren why she never drew them as a child. She claims she hasn't seen her brother since he left, but there are photos of the two of them together recently. She remembers him promising to always protect her, not long before the Rider War began. Again, it may very well be timey-wimey stuff, but I wouldn't put it past Kanzaki to just appear and give her a little time to be happy before he utterly fucks up everything.
Like with Shinji, this is an utterly depressing character arc. But Yui is more than just a sad, lonely girl. She has a strong will, beautifully portrayed by actress Ayano Sugiyama, despite always being crushed down by the entire world. To put it into perspective, think of Tsukasa in Decade, constantly being vilified as the Destroyer of Worlds. Put that pressure onto a young woman with no powers, who only wants to save her friends and stop her brother, with the barest hope that he can be saved from himself. Given what happens to her, Yui kicks ass...relatively speaking. She doesn't get into any battles or anything, but she never stops searching for the truth, putting her own sanity at risk. She's constantly getting heartbroken as she sees what kind of evil her beloved big brother is capable of, and she's being blamed unfairly as the cause of all the trouble by Kagawa and his research team. When she realizes what's going on, she tries to put an end to it by killing herself, trying to make it clear that she doesn't want a new life at the cost of others' lives. And I will admit, I do think it's stronger in the movie, where she actually does kill herself, making sure there was no way her brother or her friends could stop her, all the while trying to talk some sense into her brother. After she disappears, she convinces her brother to stop at long last, after multiple time loops. She finally convinces him that she wants them to be together and happy, and they should use this chance to let everyone else be happy, in a world where they can't hurt them.
For this reason, I label Yui as the Messiah, since she takes all that burden onto herself and uses it to save everyone. There's no translation available for her image song, "Inori" ("Prayer"), so I wrote down what was featured in the final episode, as translated by TV-Nihon:
Figuratively speaking, she is God. Through her character arc, she ascends to become a warm figure who creates a world full of happiness for everybody, even if it means she's no longer a part of it. Madoka fans, go nuts. And if she's still the light connecting the stars that are the characters of the show, then maybe they will find their way back to one another, as we see in the epilogue.
But if I must talk gods, then I have to discuss one topic I've really wanted to avoid: "Chosen Yui," the bizarre, Kanzaki-ish persona she adopted for two or three episodes when Inoue was writing in her weird stuff going on. It makes no frickin' sense and the ending of the series never refers back to it. She comes "right the fuck out of nowhere, has little to no bearing whatsoever on the plot, is way over the top in terms of ridiculousness, even within the context of the [series], and after it happens, no one speaks of it again."
Does this complaint sound oddly familiar? It should. I just quoted the Nostalgia Chick's definition of a Big Lipped Alligator Moment—a trope which she named. Yui's strange moment where she started controlling Monsters, had no personality and acted like a drone, and everything was so bizarre that Shinji and Ren just agreed to drop the subject cold. It never appeared again in the series, and we don't even see Yui capable of controlling Monsters ever again. Sure, they won't attack her, as seen with Dragreder leaving once she shielded Shinji from it back in episode 14, but she doesn't ever make them do anything. And she acts perfectly normal from then on.
Yui's normal personality is a young woman learning to be happy while everything around her is being ruined. Her friends are being forced to fight each other. Her brother is killing people. Every bad thing that happens to everyone is because she died from child abuse and is only now alive on borrowed time. Toward the end of the series, she's terrified as she begins to disappear, but she decides to accept it and try to live as normally as possible till the end so her friends don't have to suffer any more than they already have. It's this earnest good heart that finally gets through to her brother and makes him stop. And when she and her younger self sit down to draw, they're easily able to smile at one another, because they're making the kind of world they always wished for: where nobody has to be sad again.
The Pariah
And now, the single most difficult character in the entire season, the one who I have struggled all series to understand. The one who brings in the deepest questions of good, evil, heroes, villains, and sympathy. The frustrating Shiro Kanzaki.
Let's start with something comparatively simple: his existence. Kanzaki is an embodied Schrödinger's cat: alive and dead at the same time. We know that in August 2001, he was attending Seimeiin University and ran the experiment that set into motion the events of the series. But in April of that same year, he died in an accident at Ackley University in New York, and there is an official death certificate to prove it. When Ren finally asks him about the multiple Odins, Kanzaki explains that he has no physical form, hence, he cannot be a Rider. So what we can assume is that in April, he ran an experiment similar to what happened in his home when Yui died. However, his body was killed. From then on, the Mirror World version of Kanzaki appeared, easily hopping the globe and registering at Seimeiin. This explains why he can stay in the Mirror World for such lengths of time, though they never reveal if he has a harder time staying in the real world and might disappear like Yui. And without a physical form, he's got some pretty odd powers. For one is his time travel capabilities. As I mentioned with Odin, he has the ability to reset time, which he does for the alternate canons of the movie and special, and for the finale—all of which is done without the all-important Time Vent card. He's able to control the Monsters, or at least most of them, which makes some modicum of sense because he helped create them. But what always confused me was how he was able to warp reality and affect people's health. Kitaoka's health took a sudden nosedive after a warning from Kanzaki, and it proceeded to spiral downward from there. Furthermore, Kanzaki visited Eri, and her heart rate and breathing went out of control, and she nearly died. Once Ren killed Odin, everything went back to normal and she woke up—implied to be a reward for Ren's behavior. Even if Kanzaki is secretly holding Time Vent the whole time or something or has the ability to time travel without it, this is the one power that makes no sense and is never explained to my satisfaction.
There's absolutely no way around this, so I'm just going to dive in. I am a sucker for Linkara's History of Power Rangers review series, and a year after I watched Ryuki, he wrote up one on Time Force. In it, he made the case that fan-favorite villain Ransik was not a sympathetic character. He had a sympathetic backstory, sure, but none of his actions were explained as him trying to do good for mutantkind, and he frankly committed too many atrocities to be considered sympathetic. When people tried to help him, he stabbed them in the back. Flash-forward two years, and I watched a particular episode of Ben 10: Ultimate Alien and made a similar comment about another villain that got me in some trouble with her fans. And because I apparently love the smell of napalm in the morning, here I am risking flames again:
Kanzaki is not a sympathetic character. He has a sympathetic backstory, but that does not make him a sympathetic character.
It took me a long time to deal with this. I want to feel bad for him, I really do. The shit he went through is horrible, and when you get down to it, he's caught in a cycle of abuse. His parents abused him, and on some level, he's blind to the true horrors of what he's doing. He's so caught up in trying to save Yui that he totally misses the fact that he's hurting her. Hell, there's one bit where he locks her in the same room where she died and has to force himself not to answer her desperate cries for him to let her out, and it's eerily similar to his father's actions when she died. He is willing to do anything for his sister, down to even resetting time specifically to save a painting he made with her when they were children. It shows just how far he's willing to go.
And that's the part that troubles me. If you argue that he's an tragic hero, then we're walking in at the last acts of the story, when he's so far gone that it's impossible to see him as a hero. TV Tropes, however, has the term tragic villain, which I think is more accurate in this case. Kanzaki does horrible things. It's more than just the Rider War. There are countless innocent people who have been attacked by Monsters. There are the loved ones left behind—we see especially painful examples with Tezuka and Ren, who both lost, or are in the process of losing, someone to the Monsters. There are the Odins, who have had their personalities overwritten entirely to become puppets. There's Eri, who Kanzaki still attacks just to get to Ren, and he clearly enjoys watching him suffer.
Yes, he has a sympathetic motivation. He wants to save Yui at all costs. We feel the same way when we see what she's going through. But the difference actually is embodied in Ren, who I feel is how Kanzaki could have turned out had he gone down a different path. Ren is similarly driven and makes disastrous choices, willing to destroy himself to save someone he loves. But Ren hasn't extinguished that last bit of light in him—he still knows his limits and stops when he feels he has to. He still feels horror when he makes his first kill, and out of self-defense at that. He only ever kills again while trying to save someone else, and it's Odin anyway. Ren even asks Kanzaki who the original Odin was, and Kanzaki tells him it doesn't matter—Ren was still pained from that battle and had to know who it was he killed, and Kanzaki couldn't be bothered to remember. It's why I said that it's appropriate that Shiro had been the one to draw Darkwing: Kanzaki is what Ren tried to be before realizing that it wasn't worth the pain.
Kenzaburo Kikuchi does a hell of a job portraying this conflicted nature. Kanzaki is creepy and inhuman, but at the same time, he sees himself as a scared child who just wants to save his only sister. However, his actions prove that he's no longer that broken child—which is why I designed his image above the way I did. The "real" Kanzaki is the adult who has hurt everyone else in his quest to avert fate. His actions are selfish, not taking into account Yui's needs and wants—even as a child, his plea to her as she died was "Don't leave me alone!"
And yet, this may make him more human. Ryuki displayed humanity with all of its flaws, as well as some of its greatest strengths. Kanzaki gets off scot-free at the end, and it's frustrating. But it's in an ending that gives everyone a second chance. After all this time spent trying to survive, it gives everyone a chance to live.
"Without battle, you can't survive." It sounds like a horrible fate. But in the end, I think that the heart of Ryuki is that even if destiny exists, you're not helpless against it. Keep trying for what you want, but don't screw others over in the process. While the endpoint may be the same, the path you take toward it changes. This can make even monsters like Asakura redeemable, and tragic villains like Kanzaki forgivable.
The thing about the end of Ryuki is that it isn't an end at all. It's a beginning. Everyone has the chance to make a fresh start in a world without pain. The question of whether heroes and villains exist becomes moot. This world doesn't need heroes. It has people with the potential to do good or bad, and it is up to them to decide how they will act.
Kamen Rider.
Over the decades, the name has become synonymous with a masked man on a motorcycle, fighting great evil in the name of justice. A hero. In the 2011 film Let’s Go Kamen Riders, a great deal is made of the original Kamen Riders fighting for evil, as the new generation of Riders and children try to remind them that they are supposed to be heroes of justice.
But Ryuki is a war without justice. So is it a world without heroes? And if there are no heroes, can there be villains?
Now, I've said before that I watched this in 2009—which, incidentally, is when TV-Nihon finished the DVD subs. So, convenient timing for me. But there was a reason I began watching it then, and it was Kamen Rider Dragon Knight, the American adaptation that was airing at the time. The thing is...I never actually watched Dragon Knight. I couldn't make it through a single episode. But there was something else airing in 2009 that influenced me greatly, another show I plan to review in the future: Power Rangers RPM.
RPM was pretty much my obsession during that year. I loved the setting, the characters, and the background mystery plot running on. While I can't make a direct comparison between RPM and Ryuki—the closest I could really manage is a comparison between Dillon and Ren, and even then, that's a stretch—I will admit that there was a bit of cross-analysis going on. My thoughts on RPM bled a little into my thoughts on Ryuki. What I saw of RPM really got me more into the mystery and characters of Ryuki. So if there are any points of this analysis that do sound like I'm talking a little more about that series instead, now you know why.
"Mirrors facing each other create [an] infinite number of worlds. There is more than one fate. The only thing that's the same is desire. All humans desire. That's why they fight. And when that desire becomes so great that it becomes unbearable, people become Riders. The Rider battle begins."
"Is this conclusion a tragedy? Or was this for the best? This is merely the prologue of the story. For the answer, the other Ryuki story will probably tell you."
These two quotes are from TV-Nihon's sub of 13 Riders, the 45-minute television special that told an alternate take on the Rider War. I bring them up now because I think they both captured the themes of the series, something that I'm trying to explore in this final Endpoint. And as for the last quote, I also want to come back to the ending of the special and discuss whether or not the endings were appropriate, given our heroes.
The quote from "This is War" that I chose for this section I think perfectly encapsulates our four main characters. The Leader is Shinji, who is the closest thing to a leader the Riders this season have. The Pariah, unsurprisingly, is Kanzaki, who straddles the line of sympathy all season. The Victor is Ren, who is the only one to bring his character arc to a satisfying conclusion and still wins the Rider War. The Messiah is Yui, who is the one who manages to end everything.
This is probably the most difficult part of the analysis because it's hard to break it down neatly. These are the four most important characters to the plot. Naturally, they interact a lot, and their interactions have major effects on one another's development. Furthermore, there are clear parallels drawn between the Leader and the Messiah, as well as the Victor and the Pariah, which is perfectly fitting with a series focused so much on mirrors and fighting the monsters within them. Nevertheless, I'll at least try to make some sense out of this while covering the bleed-through.
The Leader
We start with our title character, Kamen Rider Ryuki, Shinji Kido. The first and last impressions we get of him are of an enthusiastic and friendly young man who wears his heart on his sleeve, even if he's not terribly bright and tends to leap before he looks. He's naïve while at the same time having a much better understanding of the world than the more jaded members of the cast. In a way, he's both a continuation of a tradition and the start of something new in terms of lead Riders. Before Shinji, Riders were ideals—good people with the ability to do whatever they put their minds and hearts to, everything that a child might want to grow up to be. Admittedly, I've only just started Agito at the time of this writing, but even then you still see that Shoichi isn't really held back by little things like the fact that he has no memories of his life before the series. And the perfect example of what a Rider was supposed to be is Yusuke Godai of Kuuga, who was eternally cheerful and optimistic even in the face of ultimate darkness and had two-thousand skills to his name.
Shinji got the optimism, but he missed out on capability. In that way, he's the spiritual predecessor to Ryotaro of Den-O (eternally unlucky, and it's implied much of his problems come from his own low self-confidence) and Gentaro of Fourze (super-friendly but really slow on the uptake). And this is his character arc. He's a fairly static character in that he doesn't make a complete 180 in terms of characterization (such as Ren, for example), but his character arc is about him gaining maturity.
Toward the end of the series, viewers tend to wonder if maybe the story is more about Ren than Shinji, for reasons that I'll explain and deconstruct when I get to Ren's portion of the analysis. But honestly? Shinji absolutely deserves to be the lead Rider, even if it takes him until episode two to gain his true Rider form and even if he dies one episode before the finale. Shinji is the heart and the soul of the series, and of its Riders in general. He's what inspires the others, just like Yusuke did for the police in Kuuga and Gentaro later would for the Kamen Rider Club in Fourze and what Haruto is attempting to do for the entire world in Wizard. Ren wanders around with a damaged moral compass (in fact, one that he himself is trying to damage), and as much as Yui wants the fighting to stop, all the time she's spent with Ren hasn't gotten her to take that first step yet. It's Shinji who walks up to her, asks about her brother, and as he watches Ren struggle against a Monster, he asks if making a Contract with Dragreder will allow him to help. Over Yui's protests that he's sacrificing his chance at a normal life, he decides to become a Kamen Rider so that he can protect people from Monsters. And over time, he realizes that it's not just innocent civilians he needs to save, but the Riders too.
So why, then, do I have him listed as the Leader and not the Messiah? I'll get more in-depth into the reasons when I cover Yui, but ultimately, Shinji cannot save everyone to the extent that she can. People aren't willing to listen to him, and he fails to realize when he actually has changed someone. As his story arc progresses, he begins to realize that the Riders are fighting for something. It starts when he gets into a fistfight with Ren and finds his ring—this doesn't pay off until about fifteen episodes later when Tezuka tells him about Eri. He can try to get Ren to change his attitude, but he can't ask him to give up the person he loves. It becomes the elephant in the room for their relationship. When Ren starts changing for the better and actually behaves the way a friend would, the two pretend it isn't there because Shinji promised him that he'd fight if Ren had to. Shinji promises to change the Riders in order to change their fates, and they both pretend that Ren hasn't changed because of him.
If I had to pick a custom soundtrack for Shinji, it would absolutely include For Good from the musical Wicked. The two characters singing realize that they've been irrevocably changed, even if they can't say one way or another if they've changed for the better. This is the Riders' relationship with Shinji. Ren and Kitaoka even discuss it toward the end—now I dare you to think of that scene without Kristin Chenoweth and Idina Menzel singing. Tezuka comes to believe in him as the one person who can change the Riders' fates. Okubo and Reiko gain a whole new respect for him once they learn just what he is and what he's been doing. It's not his abilities that make him an inspiration; it's his heart. He genuinely wants to help people and save them. He gives up in despair when it comes to changing the Riders, unaware that he's already changed the ones who matter. For every Asakura, there is a Kitaoka or a Tezuka or a Ren—someone who may outwardly seem like they haven't changed, but in their heart, they know they can never be what they once were and eventually, they're okay with that. Shinji seems to come to accept them as they are. A line from CSI comes to mind: "What you are never changes. Who you are never stops changing." Somewhere in their innermost core was the quality that made these people what they were—snarky, determined, Kamen Riders. That couldn't change. They could never stop being Riders. It was more than just their desires—somehow, they discovered the quality that makes someone a Kamen Rider in a more conventional series, and that couldn't change. But who they were, the lost and selfish people fighting to survive—that changed. And I believe that the epilogue shows the promise that they can continue to change and evolve and grow.
But Shinji fails to understand it that way, since Ren is still constantly picking on him and can't give up on Eri, and Kitaoka still drives him insane. Every time he tries to change what these people are, he can't, and as Asakura becomes more and more of a dangerous sociopath, he gives into his despair. He comes to realize that it’s not a matter of changing people. Ren’s not a fluke, fighting to save someone he loves. He’s just one of many fighting for what they believe in, and Shinji has no right to judge them for that. So should he try to stop them? This conflict is what drives him all series.
Shinji is, in some ways, a character from a conventional Rider series thrown into a world without black-and-white. If he landed himself in Kuuga, it would be easier—or Fourze, W, or even 555. In those series, even when you have sympathetic bad guys, it's still clear that what they're doing is wrong. There is good and there is evil. There are heroes and villains with fewer lines blurred between. One of the greatest conflicts he runs into comes when he meets the would-be heroes behind the Alternatives and Tiger. Their mindset is that it’s all right to sacrifice one life if it will save ten people—and this is a very Rider War kind of logic: to sacrifice someone else for a desire or for the greater good. But in Shinji’s mind, it’s totally illogical. He can’t wrap his mind around the idea that you can quantify the value of human lives.
This is how Kagawa and his students see it. Consider x to be the value of a human life.
10x > x
If you have ten human lives, that is mathematically more than the value of one human life. Therefore, if you have to sacrifice one person to save ten people, you can still balance out the scales.
Shinji, however, cannot quantify the value of life. In his mind, it is infinity. Ten times infinity is still equal to infinity. Someone like Kanzaki can argue that if 10∞ = ∞, then sacrificing ten to save one is still equivalent. But Shinji still can’t make the choice, and this is what he struggles with all throughout the series—the indecisiveness that Ren criticizes in him toward the end. Math is simple, as black and white as justice. But Kamen Rider Ryuki is a battle without justice, and similarly, without math. What Shinji has to grapple with is the fact that there is no right and wrong. There is only what you want.
The cast of Ryuki is extremely human, touching on the good and bad parts of humanity. Shinji, Ren, and Kitaoka are probably the best examples of this. Characters regularly complain that Shinji is stupid, and it’s absolutely not true. Is he naïve? Absolutely. Stupid? No. It takes him a while to catch on to certain things, and he runs headfirst into everything, but this has nothing to do with his intelligence. He’s a fundamentally good person, and the only one of the cast who takes up the deck specifically to protect everybody. I’m actually disappointed that he never got more of a chance to face off against Kanzaki—I think he probably could have gotten him to come around, given the chance. I wasn’t kidding about him being a predecessor to Gentaro. Sure, he can’t save everybody, but he does get them to realize that they need to save themselves.
Takamasa Suga does a beautiful portrayal of Shinji, and it’s really easy to miss early on. Shinji’s high-energy, go-get-‘em attitude is fun in the beginning, along with the ways he constantly gets baited into arguments with Ren, but it’s in his moments of doubt where he really shines. Appropriately, his name means "belief," at least according to Decade. He struggles to find what it is he believes in, if only because what he believes in is in conflict to what the others believe in. Because he’s such an optimist, it gets to him when the Rider War turns out to be much more complicated than it originally appeared. And that’s the thing: they’re fighting for a wish. Say it out loud, and it sounds stupid. But then ask yourself if there is something you care about more than life itself, something you would fight, die, and kill for. It’s a troubling question. Shinji can’t face that, and he gets himself into a massive rut when he can’t figure out the answer to his questions: Am I doing the right thing? Am I justified? It’s one thing to become a Kamen Rider and fight to save people from Monsters. It’s another thing to become a “Rider” and fight others in order to save what’s most precious to you—and this is probably why Ryuki tends to call them “Riders” more than “Kamen Riders,” but the interchangeability of terms for “Kamen Rider” is endemic to the Heisei Rider series anyway, dating back to Kuuga.
Now, with everything I’ve said, I bet it sounds like Shinji is a tragic hero. On the contrary, I find him triumphant. When I think of tragic heroes, I think of the classics: Sophocles’s Oedipus and Creon, Shakespeare’s Hamlet and especially Brutus. These are characters with “fatal flaws”—a trait that brings about their downfall. Oedipus’s desire to avert his fate—he left Corinth believing he’d avoided the fate of killing his father and marrying his mother, only to kill his biological father, the King of Thebes, and become king by marrying Queen Jocasta, who turned out to be his mother. Creon’s pride and anger damned Antigone and his own son and wife by forbidding Antigone from burying her brother as the gods willed. Hamlet’s desire for revenge consumed him, Ophelia, and his mother. Brutus’s nobility and devotion to Rome led him to betray Caesar, and when he lost his battle against Antony and Octavius, he retained his honor by committing suicide.
Shinji is not nearly so tragic. He may struggle. He may die. But he succeeds. His naïveté isn’t a fatal flaw—it is inspiration. His wholehearted belief is what changes Ren and Kitaoka and inspires Tezuka and Yui. He dies happy, knowing that he’s at least managed to change Ren, who has gone from cold and uncaring to crying and begging him to live. He may not change their fates, but he’s allowed them to walk their own path to the destination. And that is what truly matters.
The special gave two possible endings: the first, canonical, ending was that Shinji would battle the other Riders, deciding he would find his answer just as Ren had tried to. The second was that he would destroy the Core Mirror and thus the Mirror World. While I’m still not sure which ending was more appropriate for that particular incarnation of Shinji, the second ending is absolutely the right outcome for him in the series. At the moment of his death, he apologized to Ren and said that he still felt it was right to close the Mirror World, even if it would cause his friends pain. It was a wish that even Ren could respect and understand. Shinji isn’t himself when he’s trying to do what someone else believes in; the whole point is that he has to follow what he believes. He proves that, contrary to what the Rider War is trying to prove, there truly are such things as heroes, and he lives up to the name of Kamen Rider.
And if I must be honest, I love the relationship between Shinji and Ren as Riders. We’ve gotten used to the concept of secondary Riders who oppose the primary Rider on all fronts. But these two are so different. Yes, they argue. They don’t agree on a damn thing. Even at the end, Ren is arguing with Shinji—telling him not to be so stupid to ask Ren to live when he’s the one who needs to live. They cement their friendship on the promise to fight—if Ren ever needs to, Shinji will fight him. They constantly disagree, though they don’t always break into a fight. Shinji believes one thing, Ren believes another, and they can spend all of time trying to convince the other of their viewpoint, but they almost always come out of it respecting one another.
An odd thing I noticed in the series is that Shinji doesn’t have an image song to himself. After the series, a CD set called Last Message was released that included the characters’ image songs. I already mentioned how Asakura got one and Kitaoka got two (one being a duet with Goro). Ren had a song, as did Yui. Shinji, however, didn’t. I don’t know if this means Takamasa Suga couldn’t sing, but even the theme songs seemed not to be his own. “Alive A Life” was very loosely connected to the actual plot of the series—which is old hat for Kamen Rider now, but until then, all of the shows had an opening that was all about the hero. Hitoshi Kitadani’s “Revolution,” the theme for the Survive forms, was just as much Ren’s song as it was Shinji’s, as is “Reborn” and apparently Rider CHIPS’ “Hateshinai Honoo no Naka e” (“Into the Endless Flame”), if I’m making sense of this translation (otherwise, it’s also loosely connected). The closest we really get is Kitadani’s “Hatenaki Inochi” (“A Boundless Life”), which also seems to refer to Ren too. Poor Shinji can’t catch a break when it comes to music. But it’s close because it does talk about “unwavering nobility” in your heart, which Shinji has in spades. Furthermore, the title. The kanji actually reads “Hatenaki Kibou,” which translates to “Boundless Hope,” with kana writing out “inochi,” “life,” as the alternate reading. Because of this, translations write in “life/hope” during each line. Where there’s life, there’s hope. That’s Shinji. He despairs, yes, but he never completely loses hope. Even when his life runs out, his hope continues to live on through everyone else he’s touched.
Shinji takes up the Ryuki deck after literally stumbling on it at Koichi Sakakibara’s apartment. Due to the multiple timelines, we can really assume it was destiny that led him into that apartment, against Reiko’s orders, to find the deck. He stumbles his way into being a Rider and into being the hero, but he more than justifies his place among them. His Contract Monster is Dragreder, who presumably ate the former Ryuki and tries to eat Shinji in the beginning. Unsurprisingly, Dragreder’s power cements Shinji as a power-type. Shinji himself isn’t too good at strategy or finesse, so just being able to go in and punch something or blast fire at it is perfect for him.
But we first see Ryuki in Blank form in episode one. Oddly enough, I like the aesthetics of Blank Form more than Ryuga, if only because there’s some contrast in the suit: a dark blue bodysuit base, similar to Knight’s, with the rest of the armor over it, unmarked (such as a plain silver Visor and no symbol on his mask). But it’s his pathetic form, the successor to Kuuga’s white Growing Form and predecessor to the black-and-silver Den-O Plat Form. Because he has no contract, his Blank deck only includes three cards: Contract, Seal (which holds off attacking Monsters), and the hilariously pathetic Sword Vent, which summons a simple, straight-edge sword that breaks on first use.
Ryuki in normal form more than makes up for it, in one of the most spectacular scenes ever, where Shinji makes the contract with Dragreder and has it appear to enter his body, changing his Rider form (later homaged in Wizard with Haruto’s Dragon Phantom for Dragon Flame Styles). His bodysuit turns red, and Dragreder’s emblem appears on his mask, with the Visor gaining a design similar to Dragreder’s head. There’s no particular design theme to the grill on his mask, but I personally think it makes him look a little more heroic—it almost makes his helmet look like a Sentai’s helmet in certain series and makes him stand out as different and more of a good guy than the others. His fighting style is very straightforward, as he’s one of the few who likes to fight with his fists. But he’s got a great range of Weapon Cards that make up his deck, giving him just what he needs in a battle. Sword Vent gives him a gorgeous saber that is his go-to weapon, helping him remain in close range against Monsters. And it’s understandable that this is his preferred weapon because he’s constantly fighting alongside Knight. Strike Vent provides him with a ranged attack, with a gauntlet resembling Dragreder’s head appearing on his right arm, allowing him to blast fire while being backed up by Dragreder doing the same. Guard Vent is his defense, and for such a small thing, it’s really versatile—plates with arms, created from Dragreder’s own body, appear for his use. He can either hold one as a shield or wear them on his shoulders as armor—whichever is more useful for the situation. When it comes time for the finisher, Final Vent, Dragon Rider Kick, is my all-time favorite attack. What’s not to love? Ryuki leaps into the air, doing a flip as Dragreder circles him. At the pivotal moment, he extends his leg out as he plummets toward the enemy, and Dragreder blasts fire at him. Ryuki is on fire as he kicks his opponent—later, we see more clearly that it’s his foot that’s on fire because of him channeling the power, but that doesn’t make it any less awesome—and blows it up real good.
In episode 34, Kanzaki gives Shinji the Survive Rekka (something along the lines of “Raging Fire”) card, warning him that he’ll need it soon. He's forced to use it when Ren challenges him to a fight, and he discovers his will to survive when he realizes that he has to stop his friend from making a terrible mistake. Ryuki Survive gains gold details on his helmet, with the grill on his mask extending somewhat and gold antenna—resembling Dragreder’s whiskers (or whatever you call it on a dragon)—appearing on the helmet, similar to the classic Rider antennae. The sculpt of his metallic red armor is actually thematically similar to the later Den-O Gun Form, which is appropriate given that Ryutaros is a dragon Imagin. Metallic red and gold detailing also appears on his legs and gauntlets. The Drag Visor is no longer on his left wrist—instead, the Drag Visor Zwei is a handheld weapon that functions both as a gun and a sword (“which means it’s awesome”). It too resembles a dragon’s head, and Ryuki places his Survive card in its mouth in order to initiate the transformation. When summoned, Dragreder evolves into the more powerful dragon, Dragranzer, in a shattering glass effect. Sword Vent is an automatic attack, without Ryuki Survive needing to scan the card—he simply holds out the Drag Visor Zwei, and a blade flips out of it. Shoot Vent allows him to fire a laser from the Visor while Dragranzer backs him up with a blast of fire. Guard Vent summons Dragranzer to circle around him to bodily protect him from an attack. But Survive form also provides Shinji with his first Attack/State Card, which would be a lot more effective if he were smarter about using it. Strange Vent has the ability to turn into the next card in his opponent’s deck. So when he fought Knight Survive, he was able to preemptively counter his Trick Vent and create copies of himself. However, this being Shinji, he also preemptively scanned Odin’s Steal Vent, only to promptly have the weapon he stole get stolen back. Final Vent transforms Dragranzer into a motorcycle, which rears up while Ryuki’s riding and blasts fireballs at the opponent before they smash into it. It’s the perfect overkill for a guy whose first attack is “kick the bad guy while on fire.”
The Victor
Fairytales with dragons usually include knights battling them. So if Shinji is the dragon, it’s unsurprising that Kamen Rider Knight, Ren Akiyama, is in constant conflict with him. And here comes the part where you scream, “Akino, shut up!” because I’ve been writing this Endpoint since the summer started.
You know when I mentioned that I was watching RPM when I first watched Ryuki and it influenced my thoughts on the series? This is where it kind of comes into play. When I reviewed episodes 11 and 12, “The Mysterious Empty Train” and “Ren Akiyama’s Lover,” I pointed out that Ren was oddly lacking in backstory. Part of it was justified because he had amnesia through those episodes, but the end of 12 implied that he recovered all of his memories, not just those of Eri. It was unusual, but I admitted then that it was all right, since so much of his character revolved around Eri. And the only reason I even noticed this oddness was because I had begun RPing Ren at different games and I had begun the reviews while doing my canon review for each application.
Why didn’t it bother me when I first watched it in 2009? The best explanation I have is a line from RPM. In the second episode, Summer approaches Dillon in prison, trying to get information from him and determine if he’d be a good candidate for Ranger Black. Exasperated by all the questioning he’s gotten, the amnesiac Dillon reiterates that he doesn’t remember anything about who he is or where he came from. Summer quickly retorts, “I don’t care where you came from. I want to know where you’re going.” That ended up being a major focus of Dillon’s character arc all series, as he never found out who he used to be, but he did discover who he was now.
This was Ren’s character arc. We don’t get a chance to meet him at the start of his journey, but we do know that he had a bad attitude and got into fights all the time. He drove Eri crazy, but he loved her deeply and wanted to protect her. He was all she had left, and he implies that she was the only person left in his life too. So when she falls into a coma as a result of Kanzaki’s experiment, it’s obvious that Ren would fight in the Rider War to save her. In a way, I consider him a deconstruction of the shallow love interest trope. As I pointed out in episode 12, he defines himself entirely by his relationship with Eri. When anything happens to her, he is lost. He doesn’t know how to go on without being able to save her, and even Shinji points out that if he can’t, then he feels as though he may as well die. He has denied himself his own identity—everything he is is for Eri’s sake. Take a look at his image song, “Lonely Soldier”. The lyrics are all about his promise to save her—about how he’ll only let himself love her, how he’ll deny himself friends and happiness, how he’ll take on the burden of pain and loneliness, how he’ll fight even the whole world if it means he’ll save her. That in itself is sad, especially with the fairly light-hearted melody and very easy way he's singing. No sign of emotional trauma! But it gets worse when you look at the Japanese lyrics and realize that he’s referring to himself with the pronoun “boku” throughout the whole thing. Ren exclusively refers to himself with “ore” throughout the series—it’s the expected pronoun for an adult man in Japan, one who is confident of his standing and doesn’t need to defer to anyone. But he defers to Eri in “Lonely Soldier” and uses a much less confident pronoun. Now, I started off in the Digimon fandom—the fandom of a million image songs. Taichi would use “ore” throughout the series, only to use “boku” during his image songs, betraying that he felt a little less confident than the Chosen Child of Courage that he was supposed to be. Much as it incredibly disturbs me to draw a comparison between these two characters, Ren is definitely the same way. He can act as tough as he wants, but his whole character arc is about him finding his true self and becoming a better person, and his devotion to Eri is all-consuming. We’re talking about a guy who made a contract with the Monster that attacked his fiancée. It might have saved his life, but he’s willingly torturing himself every time he has to summon Darkwing, and Darkwing still threatens to attack Eri whenever Ren visits her. The man is a master of self-torture.
True, it’s very easy to argue that Eri is his shallow love interest, but like I said before, I feel it’s unfair to judge a character who spends almost all of her appearances comatose; I feel the same about Princess Aurora of Sleeping Beauty. But it’s not like Prince Phillip had much more in the way of characterization. Ren is very much the same way, which makes this somewhere between appropriate and ironic given that he’s the would-be prince trying to save his sleeping beauty.
Where does it become a deconstruction? When Ren begins to realize he wants more. It starts with episode 13, when he just returns from visiting Eri in the hospital at the end of 12. He sits down to dinner, and everyone is laughing and having a good time except for him. He won’t participate in their toast, he won’t eat, and he gets scared when Sanako says that he and Shinji fight like brothers. He runs away, telling Shinji that he doesn’t want to be playing family—this has been his fear since Kitaoka deconstructed him in episode 10. He can’t let himself get too close.
Running away is Ren’s default answer to every problem in his life. He’s got a reputation for fighting, and we certainly see him punching people out when he gets angry. But it’s always to escape. He’s getting too close to Shinji and Yui? He leaves the house. Tezuka keeps trying to figure out who he is? He tries to avoid him as much as possible. His weaknesses are revealed to everyone? He withdraws into himself, going completely mute. He makes the painful choice to fight Shinji, only to realize he can’t kill his best friend? He runs away from his friends. He learns that Eri’s awakening is only temporary? He avoids her and keeps fighting in order to save her. This always makes his problems worse down the line, and part of his development from interacting with Shinji and Yui is that he learns to face his problems and try to do something about them—just as they’re doing. He even runs away after Yui’s disappearance. But when Shinji dies, Kanzaki comes to him and tells him there’s no time left and he must fight Odin. He can no longer run away from what he has to do. In the end, it’s ironic: He never had to make the sacrifices he kept running away from. He never had to bloody his hands in order to get his wish. He never had to fight Shinji—Shinji would just die saving somebody from a Monster. He never had to kill the first Odin—Kanzaki would destroy the last one himself.
Ren is someone who is willing to walk into hell for the sake of someone he cares about, and he completely fails to realize that this isn’t what that other person would want. And even when someone does make him realize it, he insists that he has to because he just wants them to be okay. He’s extremely self-defeating to the point that it becomes self-destructive. And the biggest thing that this comes to is his ability to kill. Tezuka challenges him on this in episode 14, asking if he really has it in him to kill another person. Ren says that he’s willing to destroy himself as long as he can save Eri, but is he willing to go all the way? He can let his body get harmed all the time, but can he let himself destroy his soul? And this is the very first time Ren has to ask himself this question, and for a moment, he can’t answer. It proves just how heavily it’s weighing on his heart. But again, he thinks of himself as nothing compared to Eri, and he promises that if it’s for her, he’s willing to take on any pain and destruction.
But in episode 17, he’s forced to make that decision. He has the chance to kill Shibaura in combat, and he fails to, his hands shaking. It leaves him open for an attack that would have killed him had Shinji not jumped in and pushed him partially out of the way—instead of the attack striking his heart, it only hit his arm. He has a complete emotional breakdown when Shinji and Tezuka carry him home. Shinji tells him that he’s earned his respect, and he starts screaming and crying, since that’s the last thing he needs to hear. The accidental Rider respects him. It’s a new low for Ren. By the time they get him back to Atori, he’s burnt out. He can’t even walk, and he just lies mutely in bed, refusing to eat and turning away from Yui when she tries to talk to him. Afterwards, he sees how unflinchingly Asakura managed to kill Shibaura, and he tries to take a few lessons from him, ultimately asking him to kill Shinji when he realizes he can’t do it. He does manage to get his head on straight when he realizes just how bugfuck nuts Asakura is and when Shinji promises to fight Ren in order to help him, and this arc is put on hold for a while. Ren simply runs away from this conflict.
From here, his personality is drastically different from it was beforehand. I've said in the past that his actor, Satoshi Matsuda, deserves major props for conveying so much personality in subtlety. Faint changes of expression and tone do a hell of a lot for the very closed off and private Rider. Yasuko Kobayashi even praised him for playing Ren's undercurrent of sadness as always looking like he's on the verge of crying. He does an amazing job with the stoic and depressed moments in Ren's personality, but he's very comfortable with the changes that come. Beforehand, Ren was cold, constantly pushing people away and trying to be the kind of Rider that could win. Now, he’s much more open to the others, while still being subtle and private about his emotions. His tone of voice is lighter, and he doesn't lose his temper as easily. His facial expressions soften. He teases Shinji rather than fighting him. His relationship with Yui is pretty much the same as it was before, but he gets on her nerves less and starts openly expressing his concern about her rather than trying to hide both what he’s doing and his thoughts on what she’s doing. One of the best moments that expresses the change is when Goro shows up to ask if Asakura is alive. He accidentally confirms it, and Goro goes off to find him. Ren gives up and tries not to get involved, clearly reasoning that it’s not his problem. But then he senses Venosnaker, and he runs off to try to find Goro, only to realize that he’s been kidnapped. He then races to Kitaoka’s and offers to help rescue him—people he hates. He even gets into a battle because of this.
TV Tropes reasons that this was Ren’s true personality all along, but I think that’s too simple an explanation. Ren clearly didn’t give a fuck in his past. What’s true about his personality is that when he cares about somebody, he gives his all to try to help them. What changes about him is that he learns to care about more than one person, and even about the people he doesn’t like. Where Shinji learns that the world isn’t black-and-white/right-and-wrong, Ren begins to realize that there is right and wrong in the world, and there are things he just can’t accept. It’s hard to call him friendly at this point, but he’s certainly less antagonistic to characters like Kitaoka, and he begins to embrace the way he’s changing as a person.
But his changes come to haunt him when Eri’s life is in danger and the only way to save her is to kill the other Riders. His self-destructive streak completely takes over him, as he begins denying himself his happiness again as he struggles over what choice to make. The doctor estimates that Eri only has a few days left to live, and Ren consciously knows that there is no way he can win the Rider War in time. But he has to try. Shinji even realizes that Ren knows it’s impossible and is pretty much trying to commit suicide doing the best he can. Desperate, Ren demands to battle Odin, and that’s when he really discovers his will to survive. He gained the Survive Shippu (something along the lines of “hurricane”) card from Tezuka, which really didn’t give him a chance to earn it—he spends several episodes using it without really having too much to justify it. The Survive cards will still work if you don’t have the will to survive, but they’re given to you in order to inspire it in you. Ren’s will to survive up until that point was entirely to save Eri. He didn’t care what happened to himself. But in the first battle against Odin, even his Survive form wasn’t enough to take him down. He was reduced to basic form Knight and lying injured on the ground. Odin came up to him, ready to finish him off with a blow to his deck. At the last second, Ren reacted and lifted his fallen sword, thrusting up in self-defense. He managed to spear Odin right in the middle—something that shocked the both of them, since neither was sure Ren was capable of it. The realization that he killed Odin was almost enough to break Ren, and he screamed in agony as he stared at his bloodless hands. When he finally recovered enough to leave the Mirror World, he stumbled and fell before staggering away.
According to Igadevil, the original plan was that Ren would make his first kill against Asakura right after gaining Survive. However, this would not have worked with Ren’s character development. His first kill had to be in self-defense. It was what proved he wasn’t too far gone. For the first time, he realized that he didn’t want to die, and that it had nothing to do with saving Eri. He didn’t even realize what he was doing until his sword was in Odin. And the weight of what he’d done almost destroyed him. Shinji had warned him that he’d never be able to come back if he took someone’s life, and now he understood what it meant. When he went to visit the awakened Eri, he was scared and asked her if he’d changed. He no longer wanted to be a monster, even if he was trying to save her. But she managed to see that the changes in him were all for the better.
One of the questions that people wind up with at the end of the series is "Shouldn't this be called Kamen Rider Knight instead of Ryuki?" And to be honest, I had this question myself when I first watched it, and it was not helped at all by RPM, where you could honestly make the case that either Dr. K or Dillon was really the main character. Ren is treated very differently within the story, as opposed to most auxiliary Riders. He's the first one we meet and the last one we say goodbye to. He's a Rider from episode 1 to episode 50, where the title character doesn't become a full-fledged Rider until 2 and dies in 49. His character arc is extensively portrayed, with him having a very clear goal in mind—to save his beloved. He's ultimately manages to grant his wish. Shinji flounders for so many episodes, trying to find a wish, and his characterization is a little more static than Ren's is. Shinji may come out of the series (well, the main timeline) more mature, but Ren has a complete transformation in terms of personality, becoming a more caring human being who allows himself to love other people and won't let himself sacrifice these precious bonds for anything. In short, much as Shinji struggles to find another way, Ren's the one who actually succeeds. It's very easy to see the series as Kamen Rider Knight through the eyes of its secondary Rider, Ryuki, who shows up someways into Ren's journey and influences his character development.
But in the end, Shinji's too important to really be a "secondary Rider." I prefer to use the term "auxiliary Rider" for the characters marketed as anyone other than the title Rider while "secondary Rider" is the term for the story-treated character in this role. What's the difference? I'm actually going to say Riderman from all the way back in V3. He's considered a main Rider even though he's not the title character, nor is he even called "Kamen Rider" until he presumably dies (he still calls himself "Riderman," and on occasion, "Gackt"). But as far as the story goes, it seems like V3 could have continued on with no real holes in the plot if he hadn't been there. He adds a lot, definitely, but you can still tell a good story without him. Similarly is one billed as an auxiliary Rider, who absolutely is a secondary Rider: Ryu Terui, Kamen Rider Accel of W. He has a great backstory: His family was killed by the Weather Dopant, and he became a Kamen Rider to get his revenge. Ultimately, he learns that justice is always better than revenge, and he joins W to stop the Dopants peacefully—or as peacefully as kicking them until they explode can be. But if he hadn't been included in the series, it still would have told a complete story. I like using Terui as an example because this actually happened to him in-story: We learn that he was one of the first choices for W, rather than one of our heroes, Shotaro. Had Shroud had her way, Terui would have become W with Philip, all in the hopes of creating the ultimate Kamen Rider, CycloneAccelXtreme. But Philip ended up bonding with Shotaro, utterly ruining that chance.
In terms of story, Ren is too important to the overall plot for him to be a true "secondary Rider." If he were removed from the story, it wouldn't be complete—nobody would fight Odin at the end, and Shinji wouldn't be quite as torn over his desire to end the Rider War, since there'd be nobody important to him who needed to fight. Where would Shinji struggle, knowing that someone will die if the Rider War doesn't continue, long before he learns about Yui? Likewise, Shinji is too important to Ren's character development to be removed—Ren gains most of his changes as a result of interacting with Shinji.
A better example of who Ren is like comes down to Kamen Rider W themselves, Shotaro and Philip. Without one, you can't have a complete story: Half the story of W is Shotaro coming to terms with his boss's death and learning that it's okay to be a half-boiled man rather than the hardboiled ideal. The other half is Philip discovering his past. Both influence one another, and we even see for a little while what the world is like without Philip—Shotaro is plagued by his absence and can never fully recover. It's only when Philip returns that he's able to once again embrace his half-boiled life. Likewise, Philip emphasizes throughout the series that he needs Shotaro as his partner and wouldn’t pick anyone else over him. Both of them needed to atone for their perceived sins, and between Shotaro’s half-boiled style and Philip’s inhuman intellect, they completed one another. This is what I call a "double Rider," and less in their honor as much as in the honor of the original Double Riders, Kamen Riders 1 and 2 from the original series. Kamen Rider 1 was billed as specializing in “technique” while Kamen Rider 2 specialized in “power”—maybe Hayato Ichimonji wasn’t a genius like Takeshi Hongo was, but he certainly knew how to put his strength to use as the tank of the team. Ren and Shinji are the same way: Ren lacks the raw power that Shinji has (look at the difference on their cards—Shinji has more of a range in his cards and has a Monster with higher attack points), but Ren attacks with a finesse that Shinji is decidedly missing. And in terms of characterization, like Shotaro and Philip, their interactions provide a wealth of character development that helps them become much stronger people by the end of the story.
Of the three main characters, Ren quickly becomes the heart of the trio. Now, when I say “heart,” I don’t mean it as a personality trait, the way TV Tropes defines it. The “heart of a team” is the person who is at the core of the group. He or she brings them together and is probably the most important person to them. Take them away, and there is a massive hole in the team. A very bad example would be Taichi in Digimon, whose time spent trapped in the real world led to the entire team fracturing and going off in different directions for no logical reason—a noble attempt at this concept, but without any sense whatsoever. A good example of a heart is someone who doesn’t cause the team to fracture once they’re gone, but instead, you see their loyalty to that person shine brighter.
This is the person who has the strongest ties with the other characters, compared to what they have with one another. And as a note, not every series and team has to have one; this is a case of how characters interact with one another rather than a personality trait, remember. This character is usually the team leader—adding to accusations that Ren is the real lead character in Ryuki. The best example is probably Gentaro Kisaragi in Fourze, given how he personally drew every person together in the Kamen Rider Club. Other examples include Harry Potter, Captain Marvelous of Gokaiger, Yuji Kiba among the Orphenoch trio and to Takumi in 555, and Sora in Kingdom Hearts to some extent.
Shinji may be the heart for the Riders in general, providing the bonds that are needed for both Ren and Kitaoka to change, giving Tezuka something to believe in, and challenging and practically destroying even by proxy almost everyone else’s views of the world. But when it comes to the triune lead heroes, Ren is that heart. He was the one to initiate the friendship, even if unintentionally. He met Yui sometime before the series began. He stopped thinking of her as an ally, a useful source of information, and began seeing her as a friend—even as a little sister, as both Yasuko Kobayashi and Satoshi Matsuda have pointed out.
Then he met Shinji, and just as Shinji was affecting his character development, he was creating a strong but tense bond with him that defined who the two of them were. It’s why even in Decade, the World of Ryuki story had to be about Ren as much as it was about Shinji. Their bond—friendship, rivalry, brotherhood, whatever—is what made them who they are by the end. When Ren first met Shinji, the new Rider barely registered on his radar. He was this dumb guy who stumbled onto a deck, hadn’t even made a contract with a Monster, and ended up getting pulled into this whole thing by mistake. Yes, I’ve described every Kobayashi lead Rider to date. Shinji, Ryotaro, and Eiji might as well come in a set. When Shinji made the contract with Dragreder, suddenly, he was an obstacle in Ren’s way. He was a real Rider, someone who had to be defeated if Ren was going to get his wish. Yui stopped him from killing Shinji and convinced him to just leave the guy alone. Because of Ren’s desire to become stronger and Shinji’s desire to save people, they wound up constantly fighting alongside one another; and between Ren’s skill at doing work at the café and Shinji’s likeable personality, they ended up as roommates at Atori—something that made Shinji grate on Ren’s nerves all the more.
And then something happened. Shinji had fucked up big time by trusting Sudo and thus endangering Ren and Yui. When he tried to make up for his mistake and said he would fight Sudo, refusing to forgive him, Ren taught him to fight because it’s what they’re supposed to do, not because of any moral convictions. He taught him to let his Monster eat even the energy of another Rider’s Monster because they need to become stronger by any means necessary. And as Ren was teaching Shinji to be more like the cold fighter he pretended to be, he himself was learning how to become like Shinji. He began to respect him, to the point that he was conflicted when Shinji was arrested and was being entrapped—a situation that would have benefited Ren, since Shinji would be out of the fight and Ren wouldn’t even have to bloody his hands to do it. But it went against everything Ren truly believed in, the part of himself that he’d denied from the moment he took up the deck. He tried to run away from this part of himself, even tried to sell Shinji out to Asakura, but he finally accepted how he'd changed.
But what makes him the heart of the team really shows up in episodes 34 and 35. With Eri’s condition rapidly deteriorating, Ren was torn between his friendship with Shinji and Yui and his promise to save his fiancée. Kanzaki even told him that he couldn’t have both. Ren could not survive his conflict of desires, and this was the entire point—to force him to choose one side or the other and push him into doing what he was expected to as a Rider. While Yui was unable to stop them, Ren asked Shinji to fight him. Neither one of them could finish the other off, and Ren ran away. From that point on, Yui and Shinji spent the entire episode and most of the next arc trying to help him. They realized what had happened to Eri and tried to find Ren and stop him before he made a mistake that would destroy himself—or before he got himself killed, since he was already on the verge of losing the reason why he’d fought and survived all this time. It got to the point that Shinji had to take on Asakura himself while Yui had to hit Ren in order for them to keep him from hurting himself. And when Ren was avoiding Eri during her brief time awake because he didn’t want her to know about him being a Rider while he still had to keep fighting and getting stronger in order to save her for real, Shinji tracked him down to talk sense into him while Yui tried to watch over Eri for him.
It’s a level of interaction that Shinji and Yui don’t have with one another. I refer to character interaction as having “levels”—there is a particular grouping you’re able to apply to any two characters’ interactions with one another, be it friendly or hostile, based on how intimate the connection is. In terms of hostile interactions, a more casual hatred like that between Sudo and Shinji is not nearly as intimate as the pure venom between Asakura and Kitaoka or Asakura and Miho in EPISODE FINAL. Shinji and Yui are friends. They respect one another greatly and want to help each other. But there is something about Ren that they’re closer to. Ren knew Yui longer, though exactly how long is unclear. He may well be her first real friend, the first person she’s had this much trust in since her brother. Shinji hated Ren at first, and even in the last few episodes, right after Shinji attempted to kill Ren and broke down in grief, they were still taking potshots at each other. But there’s no real venom behind it—Sanako is right in saying that they seem a lot like a pair of brothers picking on each other. I think probably the best Kobayashi Kamen Rider character to compare Ren to in this level of interaction is Ankh from OOO: He says he doesn’t like Shinji just like Ankh doesn’t like, well, anybody at Cous Cousier, but he still wants him and Yui there like Ankh comes to value at least Eiji and Hina, and presumably Chiyoko too. He still values them, thinks of them as his family even without knowing it. It’s not an easy task for him to give up this bond with them, and it’s just as much Ren’s inability to kill Shinji as his inability to kill that keeps him from making that final blow and makes him run away. He can overcome his inability to kill and tries to, tries to challenge Kitaoka and Asakura before finally facing Odin. But he can’t go back and try to kill Shinji again. And when he’s being too stupid to come back home and work with them, then Shinji and Yui are going to worry about him and stop at nothing to try to find him and stop him. Put simply, Shinji and Yui want to save Ren, bringing to mind another set of quotes from RPM: "Why are you always trying to save me?" "Because you're worth saving!" Everything is on the backburner until they can do that and get him to see that. And when he’s finally okay, when he’s got his head on straight for the first time in about a year and he doesn’t need anyone to save him anymore, then he’s able to pick up on the fact that he needs to save them from themselves too. It’s something Shinji and Yui don’t see so well in one another, but Ren can see in them because they saw it in him. Maybe he can’t do anything for them, but the fact that they are the two closest people in the world to him—maybe even closer than Eri now—and the fact that they see Ren as such for themselves makes him the heart of the trio. He’s that core supporting their interactions with one another, his friendship with each of them stronger than their own friendship.
Kamen Rider Knight is one of my favorite designs ever, and I think that goes for anyone who's seen Ryuki. I'll hear complaints about the other suits, but Knight is the one that everybody seems to love. It perfectly combines all of the elements necessary. Maybe he doesn't look like a conventional Kamen Rider, but you absolutely get the perfect motif of bat and knight in there. The bodysuit is the same dark grey-blue used for Ryuki Blank Form, to the point that the whole armor is often mistaken for black when it's really blue. The breastplate is black with silver segments on it outlined in blue, forming a bat—yes, most people's reaction to the costume is Batman, though on further re-watch of Lost Galaxy, I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't at least partially inspired by Bull Black/Black Knight of Gingaman (known in America as the Magna Defender), since they both have the whole knight of darkness with swishy cape thing going on. The helmet is a little Batman-inspired, with the grill visor extending up to look like the ears on Batman's mask, and it's also bat-themed. But underneath the grill are two hardly visible blue eyes, shaped a little more like actual eyes than the bug-like Kamen Rider eyes that Ryuki has. Also, a funny little coincidence, there is a gold arrow-like design running down the middle of the helmet that's really appropriate given he's an airbender. His Visor is a sword, the Dark Visor, and the card reader is covered by what looks like a bat with its wings closed, forming Darkwing's symbol. When Darkwing is attached, it can take the form of wings or a cape. In Survive form, his armor takes on a brighter blue color with gold, the breastplate looking like a bat with its wings outspread, also covering his shoulders, and overall making him look more heroic. The cape stays this time, split so that it resembles a long scarf, and gold details appear on his mask. The Dark Visor Zwei makes the opposite transformation of Ryuki's Drag Visor Zwei, transforming from a handheld weapon to a wrist-mounted sword and scabbard/crossbow, holding the Survive card in a special slot. Darkwing evolves to Darkraider, a larger bat with fan blades in its wings for an attack.
Ren is purposely a mysterious guy and he has a bad tendency to run away, while at the same time being direct and aggressive when angry. So fittingly, his fighting style is direct and close-ranged, relying exclusively on a sword, and his deck relies on disorientation Attack Cards. His primary weapon is the Dark Visor, but in more serious fights, he'll use Sword Vent to summon the Wing Lancer, a short lance that functions as a good sword. Guard Vent is his defensive Weapon Card, and it absolutely sucks. In theory, it's awesome, as shown with the Figuarts: Darkwing attaches to his back and envelopes him with its wings in an attack called Wing Wall, creating a shield that protects his whole body from harm. In practice, though, Ren holds up his cape to try to defend against an attack, and it goes about as well as you'd think. You have no idea how aggravated I was to see this exact defense pulled off effectively in Kamen Rider Wizard ten years later. Yes, they used CGI, but I can think of a million low-budget solutions to actually make it look decent. There is no legitimate reason why Ren's defense has to suck so bad. This is the same principle behind flight, which can happen when he scans his contract card. The problem is that I honestly don't think that they made a wing harness for Ren in the series. You only see it properly in the movie—everything else is blurry in the series. Which is a shame, considering that over in the States, we managed to get a wing harness for Red Battlized Ranger in Power Rangers in Space, four years earlier and on what I imagine was probably a smaller budget. Did it look horrible? Yes. Did it accomplish what it needed to? You bet it did. One of his Attack Cards is Nasty Vent, which is a secondary summon, where Darkwing will use a debilitating sonic attack, Sonic Breaker, on the enemy—an attack that Knight himself is immune to. It's hard to tell if it affects his allies or not, or if they've just learned to get the hell out of his way. His second Attack Card also doubles as a State Card, Trick Vent, where he can create illusory copies of himself, called Shadow Illusion—later reused with Decade and Diend's Attack Ride Illusion and Wizard's Copy Ring. The limit we've seen is eight, and the show is never consistent on just how solid the illusions are or what happens when they're destroyed. Sometimes attacks go right through them, sometimes the copies all shatter when attacked hard enough, sometimes they just disappear if the real Ren is attacked. But they are solid enough to attack the enemy at least, allowing Ren time to hide and counterattack or recover. Final Vent is Hishouzan (no translation available at this time), where Darkwing attaches to his back like a cape as he leaps/flies into the air. As Knight holds the Wing Lancer, Darkwing's wings wrap around him, and he spirals downward to drill right through the enemy in a combination impalement/Rider Kick.
Survive form changes up Ren's fighting style, adding a ranged attack into the mix and giving him the element of air. Trick Vent remains, though obviously stronger because the form it's copying is stronger. Like with Ryuki Survive, Sword Vent is an automatic effect, since half of his Visor is a sword, the Dark Blade. While in Climax Heroes, we see that the sword will become stronger if you use the Sword Vent card, this is never shown in the series. Presumably because his defense sucks, it's dropped completely, and Shoot Vent takes its place as his new Weapon Card. The Dark Visor Zwei extends a crossbow, the Dark Arrow, allowing him to shoot blue energy arrows at an opponent. It's useful to put some distance between himself and an opponent, but Ren seems to be more comfortable with a sword, so it's rarely used. Blust Vent is another summon Attack Card, where Darkraider will use the fans on his wings to execute Dark Tornado, creating twin cyclones of wind. Ren usually uses this as a disorientation tactic, however, typically to allow him to escape or counterattack. His Final Vent is Shippudan (again, no translation available at the time of this writing), where he leaps into the air and lands on Darkraider, who transforms into a bike and fires a paralyzing ray of energy at the enemy. With the enemy immobilized, Knight's scarf encircles him and forms a missile—similar to his previous Final Vent—allowing him to charge right into the enemy and destroy it.
[Edit, August 10, 2014: According to Toku Sequence, the Survive Final Vent translates to "Hurricane Slice"]
[Edit, February 3, 2015: Also from Toku Sequence, the normal mode Final Vent is "Flying Slash"]
The Messiah
But if you insist on trying to find a single main character in this series, look no further than Yui Kanzaki.
Here's the point in the analysis where things start to get tough. While I can and certainly have talked a lot about Shinji and Ren, it's harder to get as much out of the Kanzaki siblings, if only because they're fairly confusing. This is the point where viewers start complaining about the show being incomprehensible because of time travel. My argument all review has been that Ryuki is actually more straightforward than you think. It's less about time travel and alternate endings than it is about secrets and lies.
And it's these secrets and lies that undermine attempts to analyze Yui and Shiro Kanzaki. Their history is kept secret, their true natures a mystery. By the end, they embrace the enigma and create one of the most confusing and contested finales known to man. Are they godlings, able to reshape the world at whim, just by drawing pictures? Are they quantum entanglement embodied, able to affect even those they haven't personally met just by a contagious force of connections, as Riders interact and entangle with one another? How do they control the Monsters, how do they affect living people's medical conditions? What the hell was up with Yui during those episodes where she was controlling the Monsters?
Yui is the one at the heart of everything, so if I ever stand a chance of explaining the series and her character, I must attempt to demystify her history. The truth was revealed nonlinearly, through the course of the entire series, which makes it harder for a first-time viewer to understand, particularly with the confusion of EPISODE FINAL. For the sake of evaluation, I will leave out the movie, and for two important reasons. First, it was written by Toshiki Inoue, not Yasuko Kobayashi. Regardless of my thoughts on him, it wasn't really "supposed" to happen. Like Gargoyles without Greg Weisman or the entire second half of RPM without Eddie Guzelian—it's hard to take into account another writer's interpretation when it doesn't include the original head's plans. And the second reason is much simpler: I already covered it when I reviewed the movie. It's done and over with.
Yui's story is very uncomfortable, and it comes down to abuse. As children, she and her brother were locked away inside their own home by their parents, who were cold and uncaring. Kobayashi never gives any reason why their parents acted this way, which makes it harshly realistic. This is a real thing that happens to children all over the world. You can't trivialize it by explaining, "Well, their kids might have been magical." No offense meant to JK Rowling and Harry Potter. The only person who ever comforted her was her brother, Shiro, who one day came up with the idea that if nobody else was going to protect them, then they would create a world where they were always safe. They took paper, paint, and crayons and began drawing. Some were pictures of themselves together, a promise to never be apart. Some were recreations of pictures they saw around the house, like a photo of a ship on the Oarai Coast. But the most important were simple crayon drawings of creatures that they called Mirror World Monsters. We even see Yui drawing a picture of Dragreder while Shiro draws Darkwing—appropriate for reasons with Yui you might understand after Shinji's analysis and with Shiro, reasons I'll get into with his analysis. They created a kind of game. Beyond any reflective surface was a place called the Mirror World, where normal people couldn't survive. There, Yui and Shiro were protected by the Monsters, which would eat anybody who tried to harm them.
But imagination spilled over into reality, and the Mirror World and the real world began to come together. Unfortunately, Kobayashi doesn't really explain much about the Mirror World or any of the creatures inhabiting it—including the Kanzakis—so there's never any explanation of just how these wishes became reality. Whatever the Mirror World originally was, it just grants wishes, later limited by the Rider War. Fortunately, she fixed this storytelling problem with Den-O, where it's explicitly explained that imagination can become reality.
One cold day when they were seven and thirteen, Yui and Shiro were locked in a room again, drawing, when suddenly Yui collapsed and died. Though Shiro pleaded for help, their parents only peered in before locking the door again, fully knowing that their daughter had died and their son was stuck in there with the body. The only person who listened to Shiro's pleas was a being from the Mirror World, a human girl who looked and acted just like Yui. She asked him if he wanted her to stay with him, and when he agreed, she warned him that she would only be there until she turned twenty, at which point she'd disappear, just like any human who came to the Mirror World. But at the moment she crossed over, a massive backlash of energy exploded throughout the house, breaking glass, setting a fire, and killing their parents. Shiro was injured by the explosion, but because Mirror Yui had merged with her, Yui was safe. She woke up to the fire and began crying, only for her brother to promise to protect her.
Following the accident, their aunt, Sanako, took them in for a little while, at least until Shiro recovered. Sanako was a world-traveler and had no idea what was happening to her niece and nephew until the accident happened. But once Shiro was well again, relatives living in America, the Takamis, decided to take him in. Shiro fought and pleaded, but it was to no avail, and Yui had to watch her brother leave her.
The rest of Yui's story up until the moment she met Ren is a story of loneliness. One of the early stories she tells Shinji is that when she was a child and still living with her brother, she mentioned to her classmates that she saw Monsters in the mirror, but nobody other than Shiro believed her, and her classmates all teased her. While a lot of her memories are false, I think this one might have had some grain of truth in it—the story Shiro came up with may have been inspired by Yui's fear that monsters might be lurking behind the glass. Either way, it's clear that she grew up without any friends. The first person we see to care about her and isn't blood related to her is Ren. From what we can glean from the both of them is that Ren originally found out about her and decided to stay around her to get information about Kanzaki, and with Yui able to sense Monsters, it was an added bonus. Anything he might miss, she'd catch. The relationship was of mutual benefit: Ren got an edge in battle because he had a partner who could sense Monsters and get any clues about Kanzaki that might lead him closer to winning, and Yui had someone who had made contact with her long-lost brother and might do so again. But their relationship became a friendship as Yui came to believe in him, watching him fight until he was too injured and exhausted to move, clearly fighting for some cause greater than himself. It made her trust him. Which is why she was hesitant to trust Shinji at first. To anyone else at first glance, Shinji was clearly more trustworthy than Ren: He wore his heart on his sleeve and promised to protect people he didn't even know. He put his own life on the line to help total strangers. And he didn't try to kill the first guy he saw. But Yui had been betrayed by damn near everyone she'd ever known in her life, even if she'd suppressed some of the memories. Her parents abused her, her brother had been taken away and now was apparently sending Monsters after people and making her only friend kill others or be killed, and her aunt was totally clueless. How else would you act when you see someone who doesn't have an agenda? Ren might have been secretive, but it was clear that he wanted something and needed her to get it. Shinji was nice for the sake of being nice. It wasn't as easy to understand. Over time, Shinji would grow on her, and the three of them would have a much closer friendship than simply mutual benefit mixed in with rivalry. The two of them would become her new family, people she trusted and wanted to save from her brother.
However, Yui's history was unknown even to her, and there are numerous contradictions. It's possible that this is a result of rampant abuse of Time Vent, but there's one thing that makes me think that's not it. An argument made in favor of Ryuki being all "wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey" is that Kanzaki is recorded as dead at Ackley University at the same time he's attending Seimeiin, but Kanzaki seems to explain himself well enough, in my opinion, and I'll get to that a little later. She remembers having a good life with her family, but under scrutiny, she realizes she can't remember her parents, and she can't explain even to Ren why she never drew them as a child. She claims she hasn't seen her brother since he left, but there are photos of the two of them together recently. She remembers him promising to always protect her, not long before the Rider War began. Again, it may very well be timey-wimey stuff, but I wouldn't put it past Kanzaki to just appear and give her a little time to be happy before he utterly fucks up everything.
Like with Shinji, this is an utterly depressing character arc. But Yui is more than just a sad, lonely girl. She has a strong will, beautifully portrayed by actress Ayano Sugiyama, despite always being crushed down by the entire world. To put it into perspective, think of Tsukasa in Decade, constantly being vilified as the Destroyer of Worlds. Put that pressure onto a young woman with no powers, who only wants to save her friends and stop her brother, with the barest hope that he can be saved from himself. Given what happens to her, Yui kicks ass...relatively speaking. She doesn't get into any battles or anything, but she never stops searching for the truth, putting her own sanity at risk. She's constantly getting heartbroken as she sees what kind of evil her beloved big brother is capable of, and she's being blamed unfairly as the cause of all the trouble by Kagawa and his research team. When she realizes what's going on, she tries to put an end to it by killing herself, trying to make it clear that she doesn't want a new life at the cost of others' lives. And I will admit, I do think it's stronger in the movie, where she actually does kill herself, making sure there was no way her brother or her friends could stop her, all the while trying to talk some sense into her brother. After she disappears, she convinces her brother to stop at long last, after multiple time loops. She finally convinces him that she wants them to be together and happy, and they should use this chance to let everyone else be happy, in a world where they can't hurt them.
For this reason, I label Yui as the Messiah, since she takes all that burden onto herself and uses it to save everyone. There's no translation available for her image song, "Inori" ("Prayer"), so I wrote down what was featured in the final episode, as translated by TV-Nihon:
I want to be the light connecting the stars with each other
When you're lost, I'll light up the way for you
When you get out of the darkness
Your overflowing tears will be warm
I hope my prayers make it through
I want the world to be full of love
I want a future where no one hurts each other
I'm always praying
Figuratively speaking, she is God. Through her character arc, she ascends to become a warm figure who creates a world full of happiness for everybody, even if it means she's no longer a part of it. Madoka fans, go nuts. And if she's still the light connecting the stars that are the characters of the show, then maybe they will find their way back to one another, as we see in the epilogue.
But if I must talk gods, then I have to discuss one topic I've really wanted to avoid: "Chosen Yui," the bizarre, Kanzaki-ish persona she adopted for two or three episodes when Inoue was writing in her weird stuff going on. It makes no frickin' sense and the ending of the series never refers back to it. She comes "right the fuck out of nowhere, has little to no bearing whatsoever on the plot, is way over the top in terms of ridiculousness, even within the context of the [series], and after it happens, no one speaks of it again."
Does this complaint sound oddly familiar? It should. I just quoted the Nostalgia Chick's definition of a Big Lipped Alligator Moment—a trope which she named. Yui's strange moment where she started controlling Monsters, had no personality and acted like a drone, and everything was so bizarre that Shinji and Ren just agreed to drop the subject cold. It never appeared again in the series, and we don't even see Yui capable of controlling Monsters ever again. Sure, they won't attack her, as seen with Dragreder leaving once she shielded Shinji from it back in episode 14, but she doesn't ever make them do anything. And she acts perfectly normal from then on.
Yui's normal personality is a young woman learning to be happy while everything around her is being ruined. Her friends are being forced to fight each other. Her brother is killing people. Every bad thing that happens to everyone is because she died from child abuse and is only now alive on borrowed time. Toward the end of the series, she's terrified as she begins to disappear, but she decides to accept it and try to live as normally as possible till the end so her friends don't have to suffer any more than they already have. It's this earnest good heart that finally gets through to her brother and makes him stop. And when she and her younger self sit down to draw, they're easily able to smile at one another, because they're making the kind of world they always wished for: where nobody has to be sad again.
The Pariah
And now, the single most difficult character in the entire season, the one who I have struggled all series to understand. The one who brings in the deepest questions of good, evil, heroes, villains, and sympathy. The frustrating Shiro Kanzaki.
Let's start with something comparatively simple: his existence. Kanzaki is an embodied Schrödinger's cat: alive and dead at the same time. We know that in August 2001, he was attending Seimeiin University and ran the experiment that set into motion the events of the series. But in April of that same year, he died in an accident at Ackley University in New York, and there is an official death certificate to prove it. When Ren finally asks him about the multiple Odins, Kanzaki explains that he has no physical form, hence, he cannot be a Rider. So what we can assume is that in April, he ran an experiment similar to what happened in his home when Yui died. However, his body was killed. From then on, the Mirror World version of Kanzaki appeared, easily hopping the globe and registering at Seimeiin. This explains why he can stay in the Mirror World for such lengths of time, though they never reveal if he has a harder time staying in the real world and might disappear like Yui. And without a physical form, he's got some pretty odd powers. For one is his time travel capabilities. As I mentioned with Odin, he has the ability to reset time, which he does for the alternate canons of the movie and special, and for the finale—all of which is done without the all-important Time Vent card. He's able to control the Monsters, or at least most of them, which makes some modicum of sense because he helped create them. But what always confused me was how he was able to warp reality and affect people's health. Kitaoka's health took a sudden nosedive after a warning from Kanzaki, and it proceeded to spiral downward from there. Furthermore, Kanzaki visited Eri, and her heart rate and breathing went out of control, and she nearly died. Once Ren killed Odin, everything went back to normal and she woke up—implied to be a reward for Ren's behavior. Even if Kanzaki is secretly holding Time Vent the whole time or something or has the ability to time travel without it, this is the one power that makes no sense and is never explained to my satisfaction.
There's absolutely no way around this, so I'm just going to dive in. I am a sucker for Linkara's History of Power Rangers review series, and a year after I watched Ryuki, he wrote up one on Time Force. In it, he made the case that fan-favorite villain Ransik was not a sympathetic character. He had a sympathetic backstory, sure, but none of his actions were explained as him trying to do good for mutantkind, and he frankly committed too many atrocities to be considered sympathetic. When people tried to help him, he stabbed them in the back. Flash-forward two years, and I watched a particular episode of Ben 10: Ultimate Alien and made a similar comment about another villain that got me in some trouble with her fans. And because I apparently love the smell of napalm in the morning, here I am risking flames again:
Kanzaki is not a sympathetic character. He has a sympathetic backstory, but that does not make him a sympathetic character.
It took me a long time to deal with this. I want to feel bad for him, I really do. The shit he went through is horrible, and when you get down to it, he's caught in a cycle of abuse. His parents abused him, and on some level, he's blind to the true horrors of what he's doing. He's so caught up in trying to save Yui that he totally misses the fact that he's hurting her. Hell, there's one bit where he locks her in the same room where she died and has to force himself not to answer her desperate cries for him to let her out, and it's eerily similar to his father's actions when she died. He is willing to do anything for his sister, down to even resetting time specifically to save a painting he made with her when they were children. It shows just how far he's willing to go.
And that's the part that troubles me. If you argue that he's an tragic hero, then we're walking in at the last acts of the story, when he's so far gone that it's impossible to see him as a hero. TV Tropes, however, has the term tragic villain, which I think is more accurate in this case. Kanzaki does horrible things. It's more than just the Rider War. There are countless innocent people who have been attacked by Monsters. There are the loved ones left behind—we see especially painful examples with Tezuka and Ren, who both lost, or are in the process of losing, someone to the Monsters. There are the Odins, who have had their personalities overwritten entirely to become puppets. There's Eri, who Kanzaki still attacks just to get to Ren, and he clearly enjoys watching him suffer.
Yes, he has a sympathetic motivation. He wants to save Yui at all costs. We feel the same way when we see what she's going through. But the difference actually is embodied in Ren, who I feel is how Kanzaki could have turned out had he gone down a different path. Ren is similarly driven and makes disastrous choices, willing to destroy himself to save someone he loves. But Ren hasn't extinguished that last bit of light in him—he still knows his limits and stops when he feels he has to. He still feels horror when he makes his first kill, and out of self-defense at that. He only ever kills again while trying to save someone else, and it's Odin anyway. Ren even asks Kanzaki who the original Odin was, and Kanzaki tells him it doesn't matter—Ren was still pained from that battle and had to know who it was he killed, and Kanzaki couldn't be bothered to remember. It's why I said that it's appropriate that Shiro had been the one to draw Darkwing: Kanzaki is what Ren tried to be before realizing that it wasn't worth the pain.
Kenzaburo Kikuchi does a hell of a job portraying this conflicted nature. Kanzaki is creepy and inhuman, but at the same time, he sees himself as a scared child who just wants to save his only sister. However, his actions prove that he's no longer that broken child—which is why I designed his image above the way I did. The "real" Kanzaki is the adult who has hurt everyone else in his quest to avert fate. His actions are selfish, not taking into account Yui's needs and wants—even as a child, his plea to her as she died was "Don't leave me alone!"
And yet, this may make him more human. Ryuki displayed humanity with all of its flaws, as well as some of its greatest strengths. Kanzaki gets off scot-free at the end, and it's frustrating. But it's in an ending that gives everyone a second chance. After all this time spent trying to survive, it gives everyone a chance to live.
"Without battle, you can't survive." It sounds like a horrible fate. But in the end, I think that the heart of Ryuki is that even if destiny exists, you're not helpless against it. Keep trying for what you want, but don't screw others over in the process. While the endpoint may be the same, the path you take toward it changes. This can make even monsters like Asakura redeemable, and tragic villains like Kanzaki forgivable.
The thing about the end of Ryuki is that it isn't an end at all. It's a beginning. Everyone has the chance to make a fresh start in a world without pain. The question of whether heroes and villains exist becomes moot. This world doesn't need heroes. It has people with the potential to do good or bad, and it is up to them to decide how they will act.