Some say eat or be eaten. Some say live and let live: Ryuki 13-16
That Man, Zolda (Yasuko Kobayashi): Previously on Kamen Rider Ryuki: Shinji was arrested for kidnapping and entrapped by his lawyer, Syuichi Kitaoka; Ren discovered that Kitaoka was the fourth Rider, Zolda; and Ren lost his memory in an attack, rediscovering his motivation to save his fiancée, who was rendered comatose after Kanzaki’s experiment.
These four episodes share a common theme and continue the progress of Ren’s character development into the next batch of episodes, while really kickstarting Shinji’s. All quotes, of course, come from TV Nihon’s subs.
It starts later the night of episodes 11 and 12. Yui is looking over the photo of Ejima Lab and resolves to find the truth, especially if Nakamura is right and it’s her fault. Furthermore, she’s determined to do it alone, unwilling to get Shinji and Ren involved since she’s partially doing it for their sakes as well. Ren makes it home in time for dinner, and then things start to go badly. Dinner is a lively affair, with Sanako giving the boys wine, which seems like it’s probably a celebration: Shinji’s out of jail and Ren no longer has amnesia. Time to party. But Ren’s silent and withdrawn, moreso than usual. He fails to raise his glass in a toast, and after that awkward moment, Shinji tries to serve him some dinner, but Ren won’t eat either, won’t even let him put the food on his plate. Shinji gets mad, but Sanako stops Yui from yelling at them for fighting again. She observes that Shinji and Ren are acting exactly like brothers-they’ve been together for a couple of months now, and all this time under the same roof is pushing them toward becoming family. I’m going to come back to this comment an awful lot over the next several episodes because I think that Sanako makes an excellent point. It also ties into Ren’s lack of history and how you really can put anything in his backstory and it barely conflicts with anything.
Shinji’s touched by this sentiment, but Ren gets upset and leaves the house. When Shinji follows him, he insists that he doesn’t want a “superficial friendship” and rides off. This kind of betrays Ren’s true feelings. It’s something that Shinji can actually agree with, only where Ren is running away from letting a shallow relationship become any deeper, Shinji wants it to develop further, and he doesn’t see what’s wrong with playing family. It’s better than fighting all the time. Ren’s fear of forming relationships and his habit of running away from his problems is something I’m going to talk about in a minute.
Ren’s ride through the city is shot similarly to the special in 13 Riders, only with less stopping, so it works a little better. The music helps the video work convey the sense that Ren is frustrated and confused. He winds up at an outdoor café where a young fortuneteller, Miyuki Tezuka, is predicting his customers’ future. As a note, in 13 Riders, the two were best friends, enough that Tezuka was comfortable enough to use Ren’s given name, though Ren didn’t do the same. That could equally be an indication of how Ren tries to close himself off and prevent people from getting too close to him, or it could just mean that he got tired of explaining to his mom that no, Miyuki is a guy, and Eri is the name of his girlfriend. Take your pick. And also, for the ho yay fans, Tezuka is not even trying to hide the way he’s watching Ren, like he’s checking him out. I’m guessing this is a case of Stupid Sexy Ren.
Now, I’ve been building to this for a while, but here it is: Kamen Rider Ryuki is a revamp of Digimon Tamers, just like Puella Magi Madoka Magica is Ryuki redux. While Yasuko Kobayashi only wrote the first Tamers movie, Battle of the Adventurers, as far as I know, there are an awful lot of parallels between the shows. Both feature heroes who fight each other before coming together, they fight primarily using a card scan system, the monsters consume one another’s energy to gain strength, the monsters are created from a child’s drawings, innocent girls with terrible angst result in everything going to hell, quantum physics, and the final prize of the Rider War just being a bunch of digignomes duct taped together. It doesn’t help that there’s an honest-to-god picture of Leomon among Yui’s drawings of the other Monsters. They’re part of the same universe, I swear.
I’ll get on the parallels in a more serious and in-depth way sometime in the future when I can actually finish watching all of Tamers in Japanese (I have access to the subs, it’s just a matter of not having TIME), but for a superficial look: Shinji takes the place of Takato Matsuda, in being the innocent guy who stumbles into all of this as a newbie. Ren takes the place of Ruki Makino, the experienced badass who convinces themselves that the whole point is to gain strength and that forming emotional connections is bad (and then fights the hero at the end of episode 2 and continuing into 3). Yui and Tezuka are each part Jenrya/Jianliang Li and Juri Katou. Jenrya is a pacifist who’s good at fighting but thinks that it’s wrong for Tamers to fight one another or digimon to battle, and Juri becomes a horribly broken girl over time who believes that her destiny is inescapable.
The part of Tezuka that matches up to Juri is that belief in destiny. His predictions always come true, but he insists it’s not impossible to change destiny. Still, his insistence on his predictions being true proves that he doesn’t quite believe that destiny is changeable, but he’s willing to try. And this draws him to Ren I swear, I did not mean to make that sound as slashy as it does. He sees the serious look on Ren’s face, and uninvited, starts divining. Though Ren tells him to stop, Tezuka picks up that Ren’s accepted his fate but has found a “contradiction” within him. As Ren confronts him, Tezuka admits that he’d predicted that he’d meet someone important, and he now knows who, revealing his card deck.
While all of this is going on, ORE is investigating urban legends in the hopes that they can find the truth behind the disappearances. While her coworkers are derping out, Reiko finds one on disappearances from an express elevator in a nearby office building, so she and Shinji go to investigate. Despite it being an express elevator, Shinji’s goes to the basement to pick up Goro. Reiko has the bad luck to wind up sharing her elevator with Kitaoka, who’s going to his favorite restaurant on the first floor. While Shinji’s awkwardly sharing his elevator with Goro, Yui calls him and asks if he knows where Ren is, since she’s worried that he’s picking a fight with Zolda. Hearing his surprise, she realizes that in the chaos of the past three episodes, Ren never told him who Zolda is. However, this being 2002, Shinji’s getting terrible reception, and the signal breaks up as Yui tells him. He mistakes her answer for “that lawyer’s ____,” not realizing that she’s trying to tell him it’s the lawyer himself. So he immediately thinks of all the henshin poses Goro does on a day-to-day basis and falls for the red herring bit. When they reach the top floor, Shinji pulls him back into the elevator to talk, and Kitaoka watches in confusion. He follows them to the basement garage, overhearing how Shinji is trying to talk Goro out of fighting and to use his Rider powers to save people instead. He breaks up an impending fight and ignores Shinji being pissed at him for the events of episodes 9 and 10. As Shinji leaves, he realizes that Ren and Shinji must not be as close as he thought, if Ren never told Shinji who Zolda is, and he decides that he’s going to fuck with Shinji a little, just because of his ideals. And I’m going to bitch about this in a moment, but back to the other side.
Ren challenges Tezuka to a fight at the stadium, and Tezuka notes his impatience. This is a big thing with Tezuka-he keeps picking at Ren’s character flaws. Not even Shinji can get under Ren’s skin quite this way. Shinji wants to be Ren’s friend. Tezuka wants to change Ren. There’s the difference. Ren can put up with Shinji because he can easily say no. And if he does say yes, then all he has to deal with is Shinji being Shinji. Tezuka is going to keep trying to push him, finding his buttons, and pushing them. Shinji wants to avoid Ren getting mad, doesn’t want to get into a fight with him. Tezuka doesn’t care as long as he can manage to figure out what’s going on with him and get Ren to realize it too.
Tezuka insists that he wants to change the Riders’ fates, since he knows that if they continue as they are now, they’re just going to kill each other the way Kanzaki wants them to. And he knows it means he’ll die too. Ren notes the similarity to Shinji, the way they both want to stop the fighting, and Tezuka finally agrees to fight him as Kamen Rider Raia. There’s also a bit where I swear that Raia kicks Knight in the crotch, but that’s not important right now. He really has him on the ropes, even though he’s a pacifist. He even manages to hit him with a non-lethal variation of his Final Vent, just to stop him. Knight notices that Raia wasn’t taking this fight seriously and asks him why, and Raia just tries to get him to see that this whole fight is stupid and pointless. But above Raia’s protests for his own safety, an injured Knight preps his Final Vent.
Meanwhile, Shinji returns to the building when he senses a Monster inside, targeting the people in the elevator. Kitaoka then puts his plan into action, recruiting Goro. I’m really going to get on that in a minute. Zolda interrupts Ryuki’s battle, forcing him to use Strike Vent in defense against increasingly worse attacks. Zolda is caught in a huge explosion, and Ryuki looks at his Strike Vent hand in horror…
Revival Day (Yasuko Kobayashi): Shinji returns to the real world to see Kitaoka pleading with a seemingly dead Goro, who’s holding the Zolda deck. As Kitaoka puts Goro’s body in the car, Shinji tries to insist that this is all his fault, but Kitaoka points out how it’s impossible-Shinji wasn’t even at the scene. He insists that people only have one life and nothing will bring Goro back. Despite everything that’s going on, this is actually a really good moment for him. It betrays a little of Kitaoka’s character, how he’s trying to extend this one life, and it also provides a little foreshadowing for Kanzaki and Ren. As Kitaoka drives off, a devastated and traumatized Shinji looks at his left hand, where he’d worn his Strike Vent, and drops to his knees, screaming.
Once they’re clear of Shinji, Kitaoka tells Goro he can open his eyes and congratulates him on his acting. And this is where I have a problem. These two episodes follow up on the events of 9 and 10, and in those episodes, Goro proved that he was a good person at heart. When Kitaoka was doing something wrong, he went and did the right thing. He took care of the little girl who Kitaoka threw out, providing some much-needed comfort and sympathy and finally getting Kitaoka to see that he was being a super-dick. So why is he going along with a plan that Kitaoka outright says is to break Shinji completely, to make him realize that if he’s going to try to stick to his ideals, then he’s just going to wind up horrified to find blood on his hands. Ryuki’s usually good about justifying inconsistent character development and showing off the contradictions of humankind, but this one did grate on me.
At the same time, Ren and Tezuka return from the Mirror World, injured from taking each other’s Final Vent, but both hurt particularly because of Ren’s reckless attack. Tezuka points out that Ren’s completely nuts and asks why he’s going so far, insisting that if he keeps this up, he’s just going to ruin himself. And here’s another part of Ren’s character revealed: he’s got self-defeating or outright self-destructive tendencies. He doesn’t even argue with Tezuka about possibly destroying himself, only insisting that before that happens, he’s going to win. So he’s perfectly willing to let himself get hurt and utterly break, so long as he wins. You have issues, Ren. Tezuka calls his bluff and insists that he can still see all of Ren’s doubt in himself. He asks if Ren can really kill someone. And this stops Ren, and he can’t answer for a moment before he thinks of Eri and swears that he can’t afford to doubt himself. This moment foreshadows his upcoming character arc on this very question, which takes up everything from this episode until about episode 21 and then winds up simmering in the background for about…10-15 episodes after that? Yeah, it’s a big deal. It also serves to contrast with what’s going on with Shinji right now. Ren wants to be able to kill people, but when Shinji’s done so (or thinks he’s done so, at least), he’s horrified. Not that this is foreshadowing or anything.
Shinji wanders the city in a daze, reflecting on Zolda’s “death.” It’s this really great scene where we listen to his thoughts as they all conflict. He’s broken over the loss of a person’s goals, dreams, and smile-everything gone. It defies his belief in protecting people; just because someone is a Kamen Rider, it doesn’t mean Shinji shouldn’t protect them-a major character goal of his later. He tries to justify himself, insisting that it was a battle and he was scared, but he thinks about Zolda’s family and how hurt they’d be, since as we see in episode 2, he’s spurred to fight when Reiko makes him realize that every victim is important to someone else. And in this great bit of layered voice-over by Takamasa Suga, it all comes down to one truth: “I took his life. He was a Kamen Rider…It was because we fought.” Where he once thought that the Riders’ fighting each other was stupid and pointless, he now sees the tragedy it really causes. When Riders fight one another, someone’s going to get hurt or die. And it wouldn’t have happened if they hadn’t fought in the first place. He remembers his vow to Yui to fight the Monsters and protect people, and he wonders if he’s no different from the Monsters (using the English word that the creatures are called) he fights.
At Atori, presumably the next day, Yui senses a Monster powerful enough to make all the windows rattle. She rushes upstairs to see Shinji sitting in despair as Dragreder bursts from a window next door to eat him. Yui gets in the way, and Dragreder stops short and returns to the Mirror World. In all of this going on, it’s hard to pick up on the foreshadowing: Monsters will eat humans if their contract holder isn’t allowing them to feed on other Monsters, so why isn’t Dragreder attacking Yui and having two snacks at once? Yui asks Shinji what’s wrong, but at first, he won’t say. She reminds him of the contract and urges him to fight some Monsters and feed Dragreder, but Shinji argues that he deserves to get eaten, explaining that he killed Zolda. He refuses to fight anymore, quitting as a Rider and running away. You know, this is oddly a Ren thing to do. Yui then calls Ren to explain what’s going on. In a very nice moment, Ren puts his own personality conflicts on hold to find and help Shinji. He’s willing to ignore his own problems and put his friend first, another step forward in the evolution of their friendship. But he himself is in shock that Shinji of all people managed to kill someone, and he reflects on Tezuka’s question of his own resolve. If someone like Shinji, who wants to stop the fighting, has it in him to kill another Rider, how can Ren lack that ability?
Dragreder comes for Shinji again, but this time, Darkwing holds it off as Ren approaches him. Shinji confesses to him, and he explains that he heard from Yui. Shinji insists that he didn’t mean to kill Zolda, that he attacked on instinct. Broken, he asks Ren what to do, how to atone for his sin. But because this is Ren, he’s not very good yet at being a supportive friend. He argues that Zolda should have been ready to die the moment he took up the deck, and Shinji is angry and in disbelief that Ren’s answer is “It can’t be helped”-someone just died. Ever the soldier, Ren just repeats that this is war, and this is what happens in war. Shinji realizes that Ren doesn’t understand, and in a great moment of the typical subtlety that goes on with Ren’s emotions, Shinji misses the way Ren can’t meet his eyes, which would have proved that he does in fact understand, but he wants to deny it. That they’re arguing over something that deep down, Ren doesn’t believe in at all. And if you haven’t noticed yet, neither one of them has referred to Zolda by name. Shinji admits that Kitaoka was crying when he saw him, and this stops Ren in confusion. He asks what Shinji means, since Shinji just told him that he killed Kitaoka. And Shinji, I’m sorry. I love you, but you’re not very bright, and you show it even in this heartwrenching moment. Being Shinji, he fails to catch on that Kitaoka is Zolda, and Ren realizes that Kitaoka was behind this from the start.
At ORE, it turns out that Kitaoka blocked them from covering a press conference, since he’s unnerved by how much Reiko’s looking into him. While he likes the attention, this much investigation makes him nervous. They’re forced to watch the press conference on TV, though Shimada wonders why Kitaoka looks so familiar-remember, she only saw him in passing at the hospital. Reiko’s terrible mood is worsened by the delivery of flowers and a giant photo of Kitaoka. So after the conference, she calls Kitaoka, who’s playing the electric guitar because…do you really need a reason? She thanks him for the gift and invites him to dinner, and his ego fails to catch on that this is really damn suspicious. He returns to the building so he can meet her at the restaurant, but he senses a Monster. As he’s about to henshin, the elevator doors open, revealing Shinji. Both are shocked, and as Shinji begins to catch on, the elevator behind Kitaoka opens too, revealing Goro. As all of this is beginning to sink in for everybody, Ren walks in, revealing that the Monster Kitaoka sensed had been Darkwing the whole time. He calls Kitaoka scum, and Kitaoka realizes that Ren set everything up, down to even Reiko calling him. Kitaoka calls it a dirty trick, but Ren argues that Kitaoka’s the one playing dirty, faking Zolda’s death by staging a massive explosion. Kitaoka says that he did it to make Shinji see what it really means to fight, and Ren asks if Kitaoka understands it himself, but Kitaoka insists he knows it better than the both of them do. They look over to a thoroughly pissed Shinji, who looks ready to punch Kitaoka again. Goro immediately steps in the way to defend his Sensei, but Shinji takes his hands and drops to his knees, crying in relief that Goro’s alive. This shocks all three of them, but they take it in entirely different ways. Goro softens, clearly realizing that it was wrong, and sympathizing more with Shinji. Kitaoka expresses his disgust and says Shinji’s being an idiot. But Ren’s actually proud and argues, “He may be a fool, but he may be a better man than you or I.” This is going to come up again later on. Kitaoka calls Goro over to take him home, and Goro manages to get out of Shinji’s hands and places them together in a comforting gesture before leaving. And that is Goro. Not the guy who agrees to fake his own death to break another person’s spirit, but the guy who accepts a little girl’s paper cranes and takes her for ice cream and makes sure that a person he hurt is comforted before he can leave. He’s a very softhearted individual, something that even Kitaoka will bring up later on.
Like the derp he is, Shinji realizes that they left before he could beat up Kitaoka. He and Ren sense a Monster again and find the one that Shinji missed before, now targeting people outside the building. Shinji rescues the would-be victim and almost stops himself from transforming before doing so with a renewed sense of purpose. Ren catches up and watches Ryuki go to fight, with an almost-smile on his face.
Oh, and if you’re wondering what happened to Kitaoka? He found the flowers and photo taped to his car, with tears graffitied onto his picture, and he punched it in frustration. You know, I can just see how the phone call went when Ren asked Reiko for help:
“I need you to do something to help Kido. That lawyer’s messing with him again.”
“Can I vandalize his car?”
“Wait, what?!”
“I’ll be there! Just let me get my Sharpie.”
“…Yui, I think it was a mistake getting Kido’s coworkers involved.”
Anyway, Ryuki is still having trouble with the Monster, since it’s a gunslinger and he’s not very good against them in general, based on his track record against Zolda so far. Knight shows up to assist him, attacking from the air. This is his first real use of flight in the series, outside of his Final Vent, but the effects really get showed off in the movie. Working together, they’re able to destroy the Monster, with Ryuki holding it still so Knight can use his Final Vent. As the energy is released, Ryuki apologizes to Knight, insisting that he no longer wants to get eaten-god, you know things are messed up when that’s an actual line. He lets Dragreder feed on the energy, then insists that he’s decided to stop the fighting between the Riders. Knight tells him to go ahead and try, but “As for me…” and frustrates Ryuki by not finishing that thought and leaving him hanging.
That night at dinner, they try again with a toast. This time, Ren joins them, much to everyone’s happy surprise. He’s still quiet and reserved, but he’s not actively fighting against the family they’re becoming anymore.
Meanwhile, Tezuka tries to divine over a sketch of the Knight deck symbol. A gust of wind blows it on to a lantern, where it burns…
Iron Mask Legend (Toshiki Inoue): There’s a little development inconsistency with Ren in this episode, where he seems to take a step backwards. It’s probably because of the shift between writers, but to be honest, it still works. Ren’s issues are persistent and will not easily resolve themselves, and it does provide more development for him. So it works, as opposed to another fandom of mine Ben 10.
As the drawing burns, Tezuka has a vision of Knight fighting a new Rider. He’s losing, and the new Rider hits him with a Final Vent. The vision ends with Ren dying in flames as the last ashes of the paper burn out and the candle is blown out by the wind.
At ORE Journal, Chief Okubo reveals that he had bad results on a recent health test and needs an additional checkup. Since he’s going to be out and Reiko will have to cover his duties as acting Chief, Shinji asks Yui to fill-in part-time. Sanako agrees with him, saying it would be good for Yui to get out more and see the world. But while this conversation is going on, Ren is still distracted by Tezuka’s words, and he breaks one of the dishes he’s cleaning. Shinji goes over to clean it up, teasing Ren and acting like it’s not a big deal. Seeing him act like this reminds Ren of how Shinji acted so relieved at Goro’s being alive and his own observation that Shinji was better than him. When Shinji realizes that Ren’s just standing there, he tells him to help. Ren starts to walk away, but he stops to step on Shinji’s hand. Naturally, Shinji gets mad at him and confronts him on this, but Ren walks away, shoves him off, and leaves. As I said before, this really is a running thing for Ren. It’s his reaction to internal conflict. For someone so willing to keep up the fight and has a bad tendency to pick fights with people, when it comes to his fight-or-flight response in the face of his own problems, he prefers to run. He avoids confrontations and keeps trying to go on like he doesn’t have a problem, only making things harder on himself in the long run. In contrast to Shinji, who faces his problems, admits them, takes them really damn hard, and then allows himself to get over them quickly. When faced with an obstacle, Shinji rarely runs from it. Ren usually does. Shinji will keep trying to find a way to get past it, and while he doesn’t always manage it, it means that he stands a better chance of getting past this obstacle than Ren, who will prefer to try to avoid it, only for it to come up again down the line or for his determination not to think about it lead to him obsessing over it-like forcing yourself not to think about an elephant. And what’s interesting about this is that Shinji doesn’t have a focused goal in mind, where Ren does. And this is where Ren sabotages himself and Shinji manages to get through the series mostly okay, until it gets closer to the end. And this problem becomes more pronounced later on. On top of that, we see that his coping mechanisms are really immature: he’ll pick fights and pick on other people to avoid his problem and instead of having mature interpersonal relationships. He runs from them, as we saw last episode.
This leads him to more problems with Tezuka. As he wanders the city in a daze and gets into another fight with complete strangers, Tezuka approaches him from behind and blocks the reflexive punch. He points out Ren’s tenseness, once again poking at the holes in his defenses and, well, blowing them up. Ren insists that he’s just the person he is and that he’s not going to change. Tezuka argues otherwise, that the pressure of the contradiction within him is making him crack. Ren challenges Tezuka to another fight, but he refuses. As Ren walks away, Tezuka asks the all-important, armor-piercing question: “Why are you so sad?” If you’ve ever watched classic CSI, this is similar to the rocky friendship that Grissom has with Lady Heather. Heather is a psychologist in her spare time and manages to pick up on things that Grissom would rather keep private, and she manages to point out to him that he’s becoming increasingly less comfortable with her because of this, because he’s afraid of people knowing him. It’s pretty similar with Ren here: Tezuka is a complete stranger who’s managed to break through his armor. It alarms Ren that somebody’s managed to find this deep, intense sadness that he’s been trying to hide. And if a complete stranger can see it, who else can? And he runs away again. And I’m sure I’ve probably inspired some fics here. You’re welcome.
On the main plot side of things, masked, hooded LARPers are clashing at Meirin University, and it appears as though a woman was attacked in the crossfire. Reiko asks Shinji and Yui to investigate, and Shinji wonders if this might be another Kamen Rider. There’s also a brief subplot about Shimada being insanely jealous of Yui for some reason, but it’s there for background humor. As Yui and Shinji go through the halls of the school that night, two LARPers fight in one of the rooms, using real weapons and filming their clash. One is injured badly, and the other steals the badge he’s wearing. Shinji and Yui find the injured LARPer barely breathing. The next day, they explain to Reiko that the vic wouldn’t tell them what happened or why he wore that mask, but Yui determined he was a third year student who was part of the internet gaming club, Matrix. Wow, Yui should be hired full-time; she’s good at this. The two of them go to talk to Matrix, but they’re four unhelpful, elitist assholes who insist all they do is create and play games. When asked about the vic, they insist they’ve “forgotten” what he was like. Yui tries to question the youngest club member, Jun Shibaura, but the president tells him to get their guests a drink. Taking the hint, he insists he knows nothing before leaving. Later, Shimada gets a threatening video emailed to her, featuring one of the masked LARPers, with text reading “kill you.” Despite the threat, ORE is even more determined to get to the bottom of this.
Another battle happens, this time at a construction site. The victor takes his vic’s two medals, including the one he’d taken from the last vic. This vic is yet another member of Matrix. And a third person, cloaked but unmasked, appears and smiles in approval, similar to Kanzaki.
Ren returns home to find Tezuka already there, and he still wants Ren to answer his question. Shinji and Yui show up, preventing a fight, and all four go inside the shop to talk. Shinji is thrilled to meet another Rider who thinks the way he does. Tezuka reveals his ability to predict things and gives them a demonstration. He predicts that if Shinji continues his investigation, he’ll find a new Rider. At that point, Reiko calls to tell Shinji that Shimada traced the email and hacked the source computer. She found a game where masked men fight until only one is left. But now, the game is being played in real life, with each level corresponding to one of the crime scenes. Shinji and Yui realize this is identical to the Rider War, and Shinji swears to stop it. As he heads off, Ren follows. Tezuka asks if it’s because Ren’s worried about him. Even at this point, he keeps needling him-taking a jackhammer to the barrier Ren’s built around himself. Little by little, he’s chipping away, but he’s doing it so persistently that Ren’s going to break open sooner or later. Ren denies Tezuka’s observation, insisting that he just wants to fight the new Rider.
At the docks, the last two LARPers battle within a ring of fire. It appears to be a double fatality as the cloaked man watches. Shinji arrives and tries to wake them, but the cloaked man arrives, revealing himself to be Shibaura. He set up the “game” to give the young, bored nihilists of Matrix the ultimate thrill, applying practical psychology to get them addicted and to seek out bigger thrills. He’s a manipulative little shit, is what I’m saying. To satisfy this drive he manipulated into them, they had to start fighting for real. And why did he do it? Because it’s fun and he gets to show off that he’s superior. There have been worse motivations. Shinji realizes that Shibaura is the Rider Tezuka warned him about, and as the last LARPer tries to take the badges and run, he’s killed by one of two Monsters. Shinji and Shibaura henshin into Ryuki and Gai to fight, as one Monster stays back. Gai destroys the other Monster fairly easily and turns on Ryuki. Unwilling to fight back, Ryuki holds off on scanning his contract card. This leaves him open to a double-team attack by Metalgelas and Gai, which sends him flying. Gai then delivers another blow, and Ryuki falls, dropping his card. And Gai picks it up, leaving Ryuki unconscious…
Card of Destiny (Toshiki Inoue): Ren and Tezuka catch up to Shinji, once again arguing over the issue of whether or not Ren cares about him. I swear, Tezuka comes off as a shipper sometimes. Upon arrival, Knight and Raia are attacked by the second Monster, and Raia discovers Ryuki Blank Form unconscious. Knight watches, leaving himself briefly open to attack before he has to continue fighting. The Monster is able to throw him aside and head toward Raia and Ryuki Blank, but Knight sends Darkwing to chase it off. Knight loses the Monster, but he helps Raia get the injured Ryuki Blank back to the real world. Shinji explains what happened between him and Shibaura, claiming that he’s the worst of the Riders. Oh, Shinji. Just wait until Ouja. Over all common sense, he insists on going after him to retrieve his contract card.
Ren criticizes Shinji for losing his card, but Tezuka doesn’t buy a word of it, calling it an act. He points out that Ren just saved the both of them from the Monster, though Ren insists that he just wanted to destroy it. Tezuka, however, argues that Ren isn’t as cold as he thinks he is and that he’s just forcing himself to wear this mask. He asks if it’s to hide the sadness he really feels. Having had enough, Ren punches him, but Tezuka is undaunted, asking if Ren’s mad because he’s right. And he swears to stop the fighting by changing people like Ren.
Having failed to find Shibaura, Shinji returns home and explains everything to Yui and Ren. Ren reminds him that without his card, he won’t be able to become Ryuki and that Dragreder will eat him if the card is destroyed. Yui asks him to help, but he refuses, insisting it’s not his problem, and if you’ve been paying attention to anything in this batch of reviews, you know without me telling you that Ren leaves again. He stops outside the garden wall and tries to convince himself that Tezuka’s wrong and he’s not changing. This is a character arc word for him too, but it’ll show up a little more later on.
When Shinji arrives to work the next day, he finds that there’s a man sitting at Okubo’s desk, flicking the cap of a lighter. No, it’s not Yamaki. But I swear, that reference was intentional. Shibaura counter-hacked Shimada’s computer and uploaded a virus, and on top of that, he stole the email addresses of all their subscribers. He’s holding them hostage, threatening to send viruses to everyone if ORE doesn’t make him their Chief. Even more than that, he threatens to burn Shinji’s card if he especially doesn’t follow orders. The ORE staff is put through utter humiliation: ridiculous and degrading photo shoots designed to showcase Shibaura’s dominance, Okubo being demoted to coffee boy, Shinji having to write the welcome article, Shinji and Reiko having to hold their tongues about all the abuse they’re suffering, and Shimada’s skills as a system engineer being insulted. Countdown to that backfiring. Furthermore, Shibaura wants to raise the number of subscribers for some unknown reason since he clearly doesn’t give a crap about them, and he offers a free month, with Shinji and Okubo dressed as mascots, delivering flyers.
While all this is going on, Ren’s continuing to have problems spilling over into work. He screws up a customer’s order and refuses to own up to the mistake, getting into an argument and bodily throwing the guy out. Yui calls him out on acting weird, and he-do I really have to say it? He visits Eri, unaware that Tezuka followed him. Tezuka listens in and hears Ren promise to win, no matter who he has to fight-including himself. For once, Tezuka decides to respect Ren’s privacy, as he himself tries to come to grips with this new knowledge.
Shimada visits Atori and sets up shop, plugging her laptop into her phone’s internet connection with so much dramatic energy that Yui gives her a look of pure WTF, and she proceeds to program. She manages to finish it, but collapses from over-dramatic exhaustion, telling Yui to hit send.
Meanwhile, a frustrated Shinji is threatened again by Shibaura, but Ren interferes. He says it’s fine if Shibaura burns the card, since it means one less rival, revealing that he’s a Rider too. Tezuka tries to break up the fight, but when Ren won’t listen, he promises to try to stop their fight with all of his power. Shibaura decides not to fight now, but he insists that he’d win easily anyway, wounding Ren’s pride by insisting that he looks weak, and Tezuka has to hold him back from picking another fight. Shibaura and Shinji return to ORE, and Shibaura reveals that he plans on restarting his “game,” sending it to the subscribers to spark battle all over Japan. He wants to psychologically control everybody. But before he can start the program, Yui sends Shimada’s program into his computer-a virus much like the one he infected her computer with. The rest of the ORE team throws him out of the building, but while Shinji delivers the heroic lecture against evil, Shibaura reminds him who really holds the cards…or card, rather. Ren arrives and challenges him once more, to prove who’s really the weak one. This time, Shibaura agrees, and though Shinji protests (Ren just punches him), Knight and Gai henshin and fight. Tezuka senses the Monster from before and henshins to fight himself, but he loses the Monster, running into Knight and Gai’s battle. They attack him for interfering, and Gai gains the advantage, taunting Knight with the Dragreder card. Raia interferes again, managing to distract Gai long enough for Knight to throw his sword, knocking the card out of his hand. Raia retrieves it as Knight resumes the battle, and he returns to the real world (yes, out of a completely different mirror from the one he entered through, for those keeping track) and returns the card to Shinji. He asks him to help him stop the fighting. On the way, Ryuki and Raia have to fight off the Monster, and Ryuki finishes it. By the time they reach Knight and Gai, Gai is lying helpless on the ground while Knight holds his sword to his throat, ready to make the killing blow…
These four episodes share a common theme and continue the progress of Ren’s character development into the next batch of episodes, while really kickstarting Shinji’s. All quotes, of course, come from TV Nihon’s subs.
It starts later the night of episodes 11 and 12. Yui is looking over the photo of Ejima Lab and resolves to find the truth, especially if Nakamura is right and it’s her fault. Furthermore, she’s determined to do it alone, unwilling to get Shinji and Ren involved since she’s partially doing it for their sakes as well. Ren makes it home in time for dinner, and then things start to go badly. Dinner is a lively affair, with Sanako giving the boys wine, which seems like it’s probably a celebration: Shinji’s out of jail and Ren no longer has amnesia. Time to party. But Ren’s silent and withdrawn, moreso than usual. He fails to raise his glass in a toast, and after that awkward moment, Shinji tries to serve him some dinner, but Ren won’t eat either, won’t even let him put the food on his plate. Shinji gets mad, but Sanako stops Yui from yelling at them for fighting again. She observes that Shinji and Ren are acting exactly like brothers-they’ve been together for a couple of months now, and all this time under the same roof is pushing them toward becoming family. I’m going to come back to this comment an awful lot over the next several episodes because I think that Sanako makes an excellent point. It also ties into Ren’s lack of history and how you really can put anything in his backstory and it barely conflicts with anything.
Shinji’s touched by this sentiment, but Ren gets upset and leaves the house. When Shinji follows him, he insists that he doesn’t want a “superficial friendship” and rides off. This kind of betrays Ren’s true feelings. It’s something that Shinji can actually agree with, only where Ren is running away from letting a shallow relationship become any deeper, Shinji wants it to develop further, and he doesn’t see what’s wrong with playing family. It’s better than fighting all the time. Ren’s fear of forming relationships and his habit of running away from his problems is something I’m going to talk about in a minute.
Ren’s ride through the city is shot similarly to the special in 13 Riders, only with less stopping, so it works a little better. The music helps the video work convey the sense that Ren is frustrated and confused. He winds up at an outdoor café where a young fortuneteller, Miyuki Tezuka, is predicting his customers’ future. As a note, in 13 Riders, the two were best friends, enough that Tezuka was comfortable enough to use Ren’s given name, though Ren didn’t do the same. That could equally be an indication of how Ren tries to close himself off and prevent people from getting too close to him, or it could just mean that he got tired of explaining to his mom that no, Miyuki is a guy, and Eri is the name of his girlfriend. Take your pick. And also, for the ho yay fans, Tezuka is not even trying to hide the way he’s watching Ren, like he’s checking him out. I’m guessing this is a case of Stupid Sexy Ren.
Now, I’ve been building to this for a while, but here it is: Kamen Rider Ryuki is a revamp of Digimon Tamers, just like Puella Magi Madoka Magica is Ryuki redux. While Yasuko Kobayashi only wrote the first Tamers movie, Battle of the Adventurers, as far as I know, there are an awful lot of parallels between the shows. Both feature heroes who fight each other before coming together, they fight primarily using a card scan system, the monsters consume one another’s energy to gain strength, the monsters are created from a child’s drawings, innocent girls with terrible angst result in everything going to hell, quantum physics, and the final prize of the Rider War just being a bunch of digignomes duct taped together. It doesn’t help that there’s an honest-to-god picture of Leomon among Yui’s drawings of the other Monsters. They’re part of the same universe, I swear.
I’ll get on the parallels in a more serious and in-depth way sometime in the future when I can actually finish watching all of Tamers in Japanese (I have access to the subs, it’s just a matter of not having TIME), but for a superficial look: Shinji takes the place of Takato Matsuda, in being the innocent guy who stumbles into all of this as a newbie. Ren takes the place of Ruki Makino, the experienced badass who convinces themselves that the whole point is to gain strength and that forming emotional connections is bad (and then fights the hero at the end of episode 2 and continuing into 3). Yui and Tezuka are each part Jenrya/Jianliang Li and Juri Katou. Jenrya is a pacifist who’s good at fighting but thinks that it’s wrong for Tamers to fight one another or digimon to battle, and Juri becomes a horribly broken girl over time who believes that her destiny is inescapable.
The part of Tezuka that matches up to Juri is that belief in destiny. His predictions always come true, but he insists it’s not impossible to change destiny. Still, his insistence on his predictions being true proves that he doesn’t quite believe that destiny is changeable, but he’s willing to try. And this draws him to Ren I swear, I did not mean to make that sound as slashy as it does. He sees the serious look on Ren’s face, and uninvited, starts divining. Though Ren tells him to stop, Tezuka picks up that Ren’s accepted his fate but has found a “contradiction” within him. As Ren confronts him, Tezuka admits that he’d predicted that he’d meet someone important, and he now knows who, revealing his card deck.
While all of this is going on, ORE is investigating urban legends in the hopes that they can find the truth behind the disappearances. While her coworkers are derping out, Reiko finds one on disappearances from an express elevator in a nearby office building, so she and Shinji go to investigate. Despite it being an express elevator, Shinji’s goes to the basement to pick up Goro. Reiko has the bad luck to wind up sharing her elevator with Kitaoka, who’s going to his favorite restaurant on the first floor. While Shinji’s awkwardly sharing his elevator with Goro, Yui calls him and asks if he knows where Ren is, since she’s worried that he’s picking a fight with Zolda. Hearing his surprise, she realizes that in the chaos of the past three episodes, Ren never told him who Zolda is. However, this being 2002, Shinji’s getting terrible reception, and the signal breaks up as Yui tells him. He mistakes her answer for “that lawyer’s ____,” not realizing that she’s trying to tell him it’s the lawyer himself. So he immediately thinks of all the henshin poses Goro does on a day-to-day basis and falls for the red herring bit. When they reach the top floor, Shinji pulls him back into the elevator to talk, and Kitaoka watches in confusion. He follows them to the basement garage, overhearing how Shinji is trying to talk Goro out of fighting and to use his Rider powers to save people instead. He breaks up an impending fight and ignores Shinji being pissed at him for the events of episodes 9 and 10. As Shinji leaves, he realizes that Ren and Shinji must not be as close as he thought, if Ren never told Shinji who Zolda is, and he decides that he’s going to fuck with Shinji a little, just because of his ideals. And I’m going to bitch about this in a moment, but back to the other side.
Ren challenges Tezuka to a fight at the stadium, and Tezuka notes his impatience. This is a big thing with Tezuka-he keeps picking at Ren’s character flaws. Not even Shinji can get under Ren’s skin quite this way. Shinji wants to be Ren’s friend. Tezuka wants to change Ren. There’s the difference. Ren can put up with Shinji because he can easily say no. And if he does say yes, then all he has to deal with is Shinji being Shinji. Tezuka is going to keep trying to push him, finding his buttons, and pushing them. Shinji wants to avoid Ren getting mad, doesn’t want to get into a fight with him. Tezuka doesn’t care as long as he can manage to figure out what’s going on with him and get Ren to realize it too.
Tezuka insists that he wants to change the Riders’ fates, since he knows that if they continue as they are now, they’re just going to kill each other the way Kanzaki wants them to. And he knows it means he’ll die too. Ren notes the similarity to Shinji, the way they both want to stop the fighting, and Tezuka finally agrees to fight him as Kamen Rider Raia. There’s also a bit where I swear that Raia kicks Knight in the crotch, but that’s not important right now. He really has him on the ropes, even though he’s a pacifist. He even manages to hit him with a non-lethal variation of his Final Vent, just to stop him. Knight notices that Raia wasn’t taking this fight seriously and asks him why, and Raia just tries to get him to see that this whole fight is stupid and pointless. But above Raia’s protests for his own safety, an injured Knight preps his Final Vent.
Meanwhile, Shinji returns to the building when he senses a Monster inside, targeting the people in the elevator. Kitaoka then puts his plan into action, recruiting Goro. I’m really going to get on that in a minute. Zolda interrupts Ryuki’s battle, forcing him to use Strike Vent in defense against increasingly worse attacks. Zolda is caught in a huge explosion, and Ryuki looks at his Strike Vent hand in horror…
Revival Day (Yasuko Kobayashi): Shinji returns to the real world to see Kitaoka pleading with a seemingly dead Goro, who’s holding the Zolda deck. As Kitaoka puts Goro’s body in the car, Shinji tries to insist that this is all his fault, but Kitaoka points out how it’s impossible-Shinji wasn’t even at the scene. He insists that people only have one life and nothing will bring Goro back. Despite everything that’s going on, this is actually a really good moment for him. It betrays a little of Kitaoka’s character, how he’s trying to extend this one life, and it also provides a little foreshadowing for Kanzaki and Ren. As Kitaoka drives off, a devastated and traumatized Shinji looks at his left hand, where he’d worn his Strike Vent, and drops to his knees, screaming.
Once they’re clear of Shinji, Kitaoka tells Goro he can open his eyes and congratulates him on his acting. And this is where I have a problem. These two episodes follow up on the events of 9 and 10, and in those episodes, Goro proved that he was a good person at heart. When Kitaoka was doing something wrong, he went and did the right thing. He took care of the little girl who Kitaoka threw out, providing some much-needed comfort and sympathy and finally getting Kitaoka to see that he was being a super-dick. So why is he going along with a plan that Kitaoka outright says is to break Shinji completely, to make him realize that if he’s going to try to stick to his ideals, then he’s just going to wind up horrified to find blood on his hands. Ryuki’s usually good about justifying inconsistent character development and showing off the contradictions of humankind, but this one did grate on me.
At the same time, Ren and Tezuka return from the Mirror World, injured from taking each other’s Final Vent, but both hurt particularly because of Ren’s reckless attack. Tezuka points out that Ren’s completely nuts and asks why he’s going so far, insisting that if he keeps this up, he’s just going to ruin himself. And here’s another part of Ren’s character revealed: he’s got self-defeating or outright self-destructive tendencies. He doesn’t even argue with Tezuka about possibly destroying himself, only insisting that before that happens, he’s going to win. So he’s perfectly willing to let himself get hurt and utterly break, so long as he wins. You have issues, Ren. Tezuka calls his bluff and insists that he can still see all of Ren’s doubt in himself. He asks if Ren can really kill someone. And this stops Ren, and he can’t answer for a moment before he thinks of Eri and swears that he can’t afford to doubt himself. This moment foreshadows his upcoming character arc on this very question, which takes up everything from this episode until about episode 21 and then winds up simmering in the background for about…10-15 episodes after that? Yeah, it’s a big deal. It also serves to contrast with what’s going on with Shinji right now. Ren wants to be able to kill people, but when Shinji’s done so (or thinks he’s done so, at least), he’s horrified. Not that this is foreshadowing or anything.
Shinji wanders the city in a daze, reflecting on Zolda’s “death.” It’s this really great scene where we listen to his thoughts as they all conflict. He’s broken over the loss of a person’s goals, dreams, and smile-everything gone. It defies his belief in protecting people; just because someone is a Kamen Rider, it doesn’t mean Shinji shouldn’t protect them-a major character goal of his later. He tries to justify himself, insisting that it was a battle and he was scared, but he thinks about Zolda’s family and how hurt they’d be, since as we see in episode 2, he’s spurred to fight when Reiko makes him realize that every victim is important to someone else. And in this great bit of layered voice-over by Takamasa Suga, it all comes down to one truth: “I took his life. He was a Kamen Rider…It was because we fought.” Where he once thought that the Riders’ fighting each other was stupid and pointless, he now sees the tragedy it really causes. When Riders fight one another, someone’s going to get hurt or die. And it wouldn’t have happened if they hadn’t fought in the first place. He remembers his vow to Yui to fight the Monsters and protect people, and he wonders if he’s no different from the Monsters (using the English word that the creatures are called) he fights.
At Atori, presumably the next day, Yui senses a Monster powerful enough to make all the windows rattle. She rushes upstairs to see Shinji sitting in despair as Dragreder bursts from a window next door to eat him. Yui gets in the way, and Dragreder stops short and returns to the Mirror World. In all of this going on, it’s hard to pick up on the foreshadowing: Monsters will eat humans if their contract holder isn’t allowing them to feed on other Monsters, so why isn’t Dragreder attacking Yui and having two snacks at once? Yui asks Shinji what’s wrong, but at first, he won’t say. She reminds him of the contract and urges him to fight some Monsters and feed Dragreder, but Shinji argues that he deserves to get eaten, explaining that he killed Zolda. He refuses to fight anymore, quitting as a Rider and running away. You know, this is oddly a Ren thing to do. Yui then calls Ren to explain what’s going on. In a very nice moment, Ren puts his own personality conflicts on hold to find and help Shinji. He’s willing to ignore his own problems and put his friend first, another step forward in the evolution of their friendship. But he himself is in shock that Shinji of all people managed to kill someone, and he reflects on Tezuka’s question of his own resolve. If someone like Shinji, who wants to stop the fighting, has it in him to kill another Rider, how can Ren lack that ability?
Dragreder comes for Shinji again, but this time, Darkwing holds it off as Ren approaches him. Shinji confesses to him, and he explains that he heard from Yui. Shinji insists that he didn’t mean to kill Zolda, that he attacked on instinct. Broken, he asks Ren what to do, how to atone for his sin. But because this is Ren, he’s not very good yet at being a supportive friend. He argues that Zolda should have been ready to die the moment he took up the deck, and Shinji is angry and in disbelief that Ren’s answer is “It can’t be helped”-someone just died. Ever the soldier, Ren just repeats that this is war, and this is what happens in war. Shinji realizes that Ren doesn’t understand, and in a great moment of the typical subtlety that goes on with Ren’s emotions, Shinji misses the way Ren can’t meet his eyes, which would have proved that he does in fact understand, but he wants to deny it. That they’re arguing over something that deep down, Ren doesn’t believe in at all. And if you haven’t noticed yet, neither one of them has referred to Zolda by name. Shinji admits that Kitaoka was crying when he saw him, and this stops Ren in confusion. He asks what Shinji means, since Shinji just told him that he killed Kitaoka. And Shinji, I’m sorry. I love you, but you’re not very bright, and you show it even in this heartwrenching moment. Being Shinji, he fails to catch on that Kitaoka is Zolda, and Ren realizes that Kitaoka was behind this from the start.
At ORE, it turns out that Kitaoka blocked them from covering a press conference, since he’s unnerved by how much Reiko’s looking into him. While he likes the attention, this much investigation makes him nervous. They’re forced to watch the press conference on TV, though Shimada wonders why Kitaoka looks so familiar-remember, she only saw him in passing at the hospital. Reiko’s terrible mood is worsened by the delivery of flowers and a giant photo of Kitaoka. So after the conference, she calls Kitaoka, who’s playing the electric guitar because…do you really need a reason? She thanks him for the gift and invites him to dinner, and his ego fails to catch on that this is really damn suspicious. He returns to the building so he can meet her at the restaurant, but he senses a Monster. As he’s about to henshin, the elevator doors open, revealing Shinji. Both are shocked, and as Shinji begins to catch on, the elevator behind Kitaoka opens too, revealing Goro. As all of this is beginning to sink in for everybody, Ren walks in, revealing that the Monster Kitaoka sensed had been Darkwing the whole time. He calls Kitaoka scum, and Kitaoka realizes that Ren set everything up, down to even Reiko calling him. Kitaoka calls it a dirty trick, but Ren argues that Kitaoka’s the one playing dirty, faking Zolda’s death by staging a massive explosion. Kitaoka says that he did it to make Shinji see what it really means to fight, and Ren asks if Kitaoka understands it himself, but Kitaoka insists he knows it better than the both of them do. They look over to a thoroughly pissed Shinji, who looks ready to punch Kitaoka again. Goro immediately steps in the way to defend his Sensei, but Shinji takes his hands and drops to his knees, crying in relief that Goro’s alive. This shocks all three of them, but they take it in entirely different ways. Goro softens, clearly realizing that it was wrong, and sympathizing more with Shinji. Kitaoka expresses his disgust and says Shinji’s being an idiot. But Ren’s actually proud and argues, “He may be a fool, but he may be a better man than you or I.” This is going to come up again later on. Kitaoka calls Goro over to take him home, and Goro manages to get out of Shinji’s hands and places them together in a comforting gesture before leaving. And that is Goro. Not the guy who agrees to fake his own death to break another person’s spirit, but the guy who accepts a little girl’s paper cranes and takes her for ice cream and makes sure that a person he hurt is comforted before he can leave. He’s a very softhearted individual, something that even Kitaoka will bring up later on.
Like the derp he is, Shinji realizes that they left before he could beat up Kitaoka. He and Ren sense a Monster again and find the one that Shinji missed before, now targeting people outside the building. Shinji rescues the would-be victim and almost stops himself from transforming before doing so with a renewed sense of purpose. Ren catches up and watches Ryuki go to fight, with an almost-smile on his face.
Oh, and if you’re wondering what happened to Kitaoka? He found the flowers and photo taped to his car, with tears graffitied onto his picture, and he punched it in frustration. You know, I can just see how the phone call went when Ren asked Reiko for help:
“I need you to do something to help Kido. That lawyer’s messing with him again.”
“Can I vandalize his car?”
“Wait, what?!”
“I’ll be there! Just let me get my Sharpie.”
“…Yui, I think it was a mistake getting Kido’s coworkers involved.”
Anyway, Ryuki is still having trouble with the Monster, since it’s a gunslinger and he’s not very good against them in general, based on his track record against Zolda so far. Knight shows up to assist him, attacking from the air. This is his first real use of flight in the series, outside of his Final Vent, but the effects really get showed off in the movie. Working together, they’re able to destroy the Monster, with Ryuki holding it still so Knight can use his Final Vent. As the energy is released, Ryuki apologizes to Knight, insisting that he no longer wants to get eaten-god, you know things are messed up when that’s an actual line. He lets Dragreder feed on the energy, then insists that he’s decided to stop the fighting between the Riders. Knight tells him to go ahead and try, but “As for me…” and frustrates Ryuki by not finishing that thought and leaving him hanging.
That night at dinner, they try again with a toast. This time, Ren joins them, much to everyone’s happy surprise. He’s still quiet and reserved, but he’s not actively fighting against the family they’re becoming anymore.
Meanwhile, Tezuka tries to divine over a sketch of the Knight deck symbol. A gust of wind blows it on to a lantern, where it burns…
Iron Mask Legend (Toshiki Inoue): There’s a little development inconsistency with Ren in this episode, where he seems to take a step backwards. It’s probably because of the shift between writers, but to be honest, it still works. Ren’s issues are persistent and will not easily resolve themselves, and it does provide more development for him. So it works, as opposed to another fandom of mine Ben 10.
As the drawing burns, Tezuka has a vision of Knight fighting a new Rider. He’s losing, and the new Rider hits him with a Final Vent. The vision ends with Ren dying in flames as the last ashes of the paper burn out and the candle is blown out by the wind.
At ORE Journal, Chief Okubo reveals that he had bad results on a recent health test and needs an additional checkup. Since he’s going to be out and Reiko will have to cover his duties as acting Chief, Shinji asks Yui to fill-in part-time. Sanako agrees with him, saying it would be good for Yui to get out more and see the world. But while this conversation is going on, Ren is still distracted by Tezuka’s words, and he breaks one of the dishes he’s cleaning. Shinji goes over to clean it up, teasing Ren and acting like it’s not a big deal. Seeing him act like this reminds Ren of how Shinji acted so relieved at Goro’s being alive and his own observation that Shinji was better than him. When Shinji realizes that Ren’s just standing there, he tells him to help. Ren starts to walk away, but he stops to step on Shinji’s hand. Naturally, Shinji gets mad at him and confronts him on this, but Ren walks away, shoves him off, and leaves. As I said before, this really is a running thing for Ren. It’s his reaction to internal conflict. For someone so willing to keep up the fight and has a bad tendency to pick fights with people, when it comes to his fight-or-flight response in the face of his own problems, he prefers to run. He avoids confrontations and keeps trying to go on like he doesn’t have a problem, only making things harder on himself in the long run. In contrast to Shinji, who faces his problems, admits them, takes them really damn hard, and then allows himself to get over them quickly. When faced with an obstacle, Shinji rarely runs from it. Ren usually does. Shinji will keep trying to find a way to get past it, and while he doesn’t always manage it, it means that he stands a better chance of getting past this obstacle than Ren, who will prefer to try to avoid it, only for it to come up again down the line or for his determination not to think about it lead to him obsessing over it-like forcing yourself not to think about an elephant. And what’s interesting about this is that Shinji doesn’t have a focused goal in mind, where Ren does. And this is where Ren sabotages himself and Shinji manages to get through the series mostly okay, until it gets closer to the end. And this problem becomes more pronounced later on. On top of that, we see that his coping mechanisms are really immature: he’ll pick fights and pick on other people to avoid his problem and instead of having mature interpersonal relationships. He runs from them, as we saw last episode.
This leads him to more problems with Tezuka. As he wanders the city in a daze and gets into another fight with complete strangers, Tezuka approaches him from behind and blocks the reflexive punch. He points out Ren’s tenseness, once again poking at the holes in his defenses and, well, blowing them up. Ren insists that he’s just the person he is and that he’s not going to change. Tezuka argues otherwise, that the pressure of the contradiction within him is making him crack. Ren challenges Tezuka to another fight, but he refuses. As Ren walks away, Tezuka asks the all-important, armor-piercing question: “Why are you so sad?” If you’ve ever watched classic CSI, this is similar to the rocky friendship that Grissom has with Lady Heather. Heather is a psychologist in her spare time and manages to pick up on things that Grissom would rather keep private, and she manages to point out to him that he’s becoming increasingly less comfortable with her because of this, because he’s afraid of people knowing him. It’s pretty similar with Ren here: Tezuka is a complete stranger who’s managed to break through his armor. It alarms Ren that somebody’s managed to find this deep, intense sadness that he’s been trying to hide. And if a complete stranger can see it, who else can? And he runs away again. And I’m sure I’ve probably inspired some fics here. You’re welcome.
On the main plot side of things, masked, hooded LARPers are clashing at Meirin University, and it appears as though a woman was attacked in the crossfire. Reiko asks Shinji and Yui to investigate, and Shinji wonders if this might be another Kamen Rider. There’s also a brief subplot about Shimada being insanely jealous of Yui for some reason, but it’s there for background humor. As Yui and Shinji go through the halls of the school that night, two LARPers fight in one of the rooms, using real weapons and filming their clash. One is injured badly, and the other steals the badge he’s wearing. Shinji and Yui find the injured LARPer barely breathing. The next day, they explain to Reiko that the vic wouldn’t tell them what happened or why he wore that mask, but Yui determined he was a third year student who was part of the internet gaming club, Matrix. Wow, Yui should be hired full-time; she’s good at this. The two of them go to talk to Matrix, but they’re four unhelpful, elitist assholes who insist all they do is create and play games. When asked about the vic, they insist they’ve “forgotten” what he was like. Yui tries to question the youngest club member, Jun Shibaura, but the president tells him to get their guests a drink. Taking the hint, he insists he knows nothing before leaving. Later, Shimada gets a threatening video emailed to her, featuring one of the masked LARPers, with text reading “kill you.” Despite the threat, ORE is even more determined to get to the bottom of this.
Another battle happens, this time at a construction site. The victor takes his vic’s two medals, including the one he’d taken from the last vic. This vic is yet another member of Matrix. And a third person, cloaked but unmasked, appears and smiles in approval, similar to Kanzaki.
Ren returns home to find Tezuka already there, and he still wants Ren to answer his question. Shinji and Yui show up, preventing a fight, and all four go inside the shop to talk. Shinji is thrilled to meet another Rider who thinks the way he does. Tezuka reveals his ability to predict things and gives them a demonstration. He predicts that if Shinji continues his investigation, he’ll find a new Rider. At that point, Reiko calls to tell Shinji that Shimada traced the email and hacked the source computer. She found a game where masked men fight until only one is left. But now, the game is being played in real life, with each level corresponding to one of the crime scenes. Shinji and Yui realize this is identical to the Rider War, and Shinji swears to stop it. As he heads off, Ren follows. Tezuka asks if it’s because Ren’s worried about him. Even at this point, he keeps needling him-taking a jackhammer to the barrier Ren’s built around himself. Little by little, he’s chipping away, but he’s doing it so persistently that Ren’s going to break open sooner or later. Ren denies Tezuka’s observation, insisting that he just wants to fight the new Rider.
At the docks, the last two LARPers battle within a ring of fire. It appears to be a double fatality as the cloaked man watches. Shinji arrives and tries to wake them, but the cloaked man arrives, revealing himself to be Shibaura. He set up the “game” to give the young, bored nihilists of Matrix the ultimate thrill, applying practical psychology to get them addicted and to seek out bigger thrills. He’s a manipulative little shit, is what I’m saying. To satisfy this drive he manipulated into them, they had to start fighting for real. And why did he do it? Because it’s fun and he gets to show off that he’s superior. There have been worse motivations. Shinji realizes that Shibaura is the Rider Tezuka warned him about, and as the last LARPer tries to take the badges and run, he’s killed by one of two Monsters. Shinji and Shibaura henshin into Ryuki and Gai to fight, as one Monster stays back. Gai destroys the other Monster fairly easily and turns on Ryuki. Unwilling to fight back, Ryuki holds off on scanning his contract card. This leaves him open to a double-team attack by Metalgelas and Gai, which sends him flying. Gai then delivers another blow, and Ryuki falls, dropping his card. And Gai picks it up, leaving Ryuki unconscious…
Card of Destiny (Toshiki Inoue): Ren and Tezuka catch up to Shinji, once again arguing over the issue of whether or not Ren cares about him. I swear, Tezuka comes off as a shipper sometimes. Upon arrival, Knight and Raia are attacked by the second Monster, and Raia discovers Ryuki Blank Form unconscious. Knight watches, leaving himself briefly open to attack before he has to continue fighting. The Monster is able to throw him aside and head toward Raia and Ryuki Blank, but Knight sends Darkwing to chase it off. Knight loses the Monster, but he helps Raia get the injured Ryuki Blank back to the real world. Shinji explains what happened between him and Shibaura, claiming that he’s the worst of the Riders. Oh, Shinji. Just wait until Ouja. Over all common sense, he insists on going after him to retrieve his contract card.
Ren criticizes Shinji for losing his card, but Tezuka doesn’t buy a word of it, calling it an act. He points out that Ren just saved the both of them from the Monster, though Ren insists that he just wanted to destroy it. Tezuka, however, argues that Ren isn’t as cold as he thinks he is and that he’s just forcing himself to wear this mask. He asks if it’s to hide the sadness he really feels. Having had enough, Ren punches him, but Tezuka is undaunted, asking if Ren’s mad because he’s right. And he swears to stop the fighting by changing people like Ren.
Having failed to find Shibaura, Shinji returns home and explains everything to Yui and Ren. Ren reminds him that without his card, he won’t be able to become Ryuki and that Dragreder will eat him if the card is destroyed. Yui asks him to help, but he refuses, insisting it’s not his problem, and if you’ve been paying attention to anything in this batch of reviews, you know without me telling you that Ren leaves again. He stops outside the garden wall and tries to convince himself that Tezuka’s wrong and he’s not changing. This is a character arc word for him too, but it’ll show up a little more later on.
When Shinji arrives to work the next day, he finds that there’s a man sitting at Okubo’s desk, flicking the cap of a lighter. No, it’s not Yamaki. But I swear, that reference was intentional. Shibaura counter-hacked Shimada’s computer and uploaded a virus, and on top of that, he stole the email addresses of all their subscribers. He’s holding them hostage, threatening to send viruses to everyone if ORE doesn’t make him their Chief. Even more than that, he threatens to burn Shinji’s card if he especially doesn’t follow orders. The ORE staff is put through utter humiliation: ridiculous and degrading photo shoots designed to showcase Shibaura’s dominance, Okubo being demoted to coffee boy, Shinji having to write the welcome article, Shinji and Reiko having to hold their tongues about all the abuse they’re suffering, and Shimada’s skills as a system engineer being insulted. Countdown to that backfiring. Furthermore, Shibaura wants to raise the number of subscribers for some unknown reason since he clearly doesn’t give a crap about them, and he offers a free month, with Shinji and Okubo dressed as mascots, delivering flyers.
While all this is going on, Ren’s continuing to have problems spilling over into work. He screws up a customer’s order and refuses to own up to the mistake, getting into an argument and bodily throwing the guy out. Yui calls him out on acting weird, and he-do I really have to say it? He visits Eri, unaware that Tezuka followed him. Tezuka listens in and hears Ren promise to win, no matter who he has to fight-including himself. For once, Tezuka decides to respect Ren’s privacy, as he himself tries to come to grips with this new knowledge.
Shimada visits Atori and sets up shop, plugging her laptop into her phone’s internet connection with so much dramatic energy that Yui gives her a look of pure WTF, and she proceeds to program. She manages to finish it, but collapses from over-dramatic exhaustion, telling Yui to hit send.
Meanwhile, a frustrated Shinji is threatened again by Shibaura, but Ren interferes. He says it’s fine if Shibaura burns the card, since it means one less rival, revealing that he’s a Rider too. Tezuka tries to break up the fight, but when Ren won’t listen, he promises to try to stop their fight with all of his power. Shibaura decides not to fight now, but he insists that he’d win easily anyway, wounding Ren’s pride by insisting that he looks weak, and Tezuka has to hold him back from picking another fight. Shibaura and Shinji return to ORE, and Shibaura reveals that he plans on restarting his “game,” sending it to the subscribers to spark battle all over Japan. He wants to psychologically control everybody. But before he can start the program, Yui sends Shimada’s program into his computer-a virus much like the one he infected her computer with. The rest of the ORE team throws him out of the building, but while Shinji delivers the heroic lecture against evil, Shibaura reminds him who really holds the cards…or card, rather. Ren arrives and challenges him once more, to prove who’s really the weak one. This time, Shibaura agrees, and though Shinji protests (Ren just punches him), Knight and Gai henshin and fight. Tezuka senses the Monster from before and henshins to fight himself, but he loses the Monster, running into Knight and Gai’s battle. They attack him for interfering, and Gai gains the advantage, taunting Knight with the Dragreder card. Raia interferes again, managing to distract Gai long enough for Knight to throw his sword, knocking the card out of his hand. Raia retrieves it as Knight resumes the battle, and he returns to the real world (yes, out of a completely different mirror from the one he entered through, for those keeping track) and returns the card to Shinji. He asks him to help him stop the fighting. On the way, Ryuki and Raia have to fight off the Monster, and Ryuki finishes it. By the time they reach Knight and Gai, Gai is lying helpless on the ground while Knight holds his sword to his throat, ready to make the killing blow…