Kamen Rider Ryuki: Episode Final

The fandom was a funny place in 2002. Ryuki faced a lot of criticism for being gimmicky, too talky, not Kamen Rider enough. There's even gossip that Hiroshi Fujioka spoke out against it, like he's God of Kamen Rider and it was concrete proof that Ryuki, like, totally sucked, dude. So when Episode Final news hit, you had a ton of people spreading this misinformation that Ryuki was a dismal failure and it got canceled and it was ending early with this movie. Because that always happens! Shows always get canceled and are rewarded with a big screen movie to tie everything up! But some gullible fans bought this, either not seeing the logic of what I just said or not understanding that Japan, for some reason, likes to make movies out of what-if stories/possible alternate endings.

I certainly don't understand the choice to have a show that's built upon mysteries and a "who will survive" scenario deciding to make a movie halfway into its run where it offers answers to those mysteries. It could be a cultural thing, but the way Episode Final -- and the subsequent big-screen Rider movies that offered alternate endings -- goes about it just feels cheap and gimmicky. But it's a cheap gimmick that I bought into, because Episode Final was my event movie of '02. I thought the trailers looked cool. Disappointed that most toku movies are about as meaningful as the weakest filler episode, I thought this idea of the show having its "finale" with the scope of a movie sounded cool. I just really couldn't wait to see it, I practically counted the days until its DVD release. (Nowadays, there's a lot of English-speaking fans in Japan who will see a movie on its release day and write summaries or answer questions you have. Back then you had to wait. In Episode Final's case, you just might have actually had to PAY for a summary by the one person who happened to be in Japan to see it.)

There's a lot I like about Episode Final, but it also plays fast and loose with some rules and I ultimately ended up disappointed by it initially. And I never thought Ryuki was canceled and Episode Final was it, but I DID think that Episode Final WAS going to matter to the show -- I thought the show would hit the 40s and end in a way that would have bled into where Episode Final would land, with maybe an Episode 50 epilogue to the movie. So when the show hit the endpoint and was just cherry-picking elements of Episode Final, I was left with further disappointment.

Inoue writes Episode Final -- I guess Toei trusted him with a movie more than Kobayashi at that point -- and you can tell there are things that Kobayashi probably didn't agree with in Inoue's depiction of the "end." I'm guessing she offered up some of her ideas of where she was going and Inoue put his own spin on it. In my opinion, any of the sloppiness and narrative letdown in the Ryuki series is a result of Episode Final. It was just a terrible mistake to approach the movie this way. Agito was a show that hinged on mysteries bigger than anything in Ryuki, but Project G4 was just another adventure on the side, but had a lot of nice character moments. I feel like Episode Final was an attempt to be like "See! This movie's going to MATTER! It won't feel like a random fillery episode like Project G4! It's going to be THE END of Ryuki!" So they put all of their Advent Cards on the table and what you end up with is a mess. There's no reason why this movie couldn't have just been the story of Femme and Ryuga and take away any elements of it being the "finale."

Kobayashi seems to me, judging by other works, like a writer who doesn't have much planned out. I think she improvises and makes adjustments based on what's happening with the production, and things she discovers along the way. So even if Toei asked her before the halfway point of Ryuki's production what her answers to the mysteries were or where she's headed, she might have had an idea that she would have ended up changing naturally as she kept working on the show. So to have Episode Final blow so much in terms of answers or story endpoints, so soon, I think, kind of throws her and the rest of the series off. The best decision would have been to try to just ignore Episode Final. But if it did hold SOME of her ideas, then she couldn't just abandon that. So I think the show ends up this mixture of pieces of her original intention, some of what Episode Final did, and some things that changed as a result of Episode Final. So everything ends up tangled. By making Episode Final, the entire Ryuki production shot itself in the foot. And not just with any pop gun, but with Zolda's Giga Launcher.

And not even just in terms of how the movie affects the show's ending, but I blame it for the decline in quality in Episodes 24 to 30. I mentioned how those episodes just seem weird and they mess up the flow the show had by being kind of repetitive and most of them have a lighthearted (or outright bonkers) tone to them. And those are the episodes that aired as Episode Final was being promoted. I think these episodes exist as just a restating of the show's mission and status quo and offering light, standalone-ish adventures that's welcoming to new viewers who might be interested from Episode Final. As I noted, the clip show aired the Sunday before Episode Final premiered, so...I do think they were building around it. But see what I mean that Episode Final disrupts Ryuki before it even premieres?

What I like about the movie is how dark it is. It brings back some of the boldness that the show starts losing over time, not totally pulling its punches. I think it's filmed well; it's a slick looking movie. It's only the second Heisei Rider movie, so you can tell it doesn't have the budget it would honestly like, but they do try to make a spectacle of it -- one example being getting to see Knight fly around so much. (Knight's design is never cooler than when he has the cape/wings.)

Other than being the "finale," the big selling point of this movie, obviously, was Femme, the "first" female Rider. (You know where I stand on that matter, folks. #kamenridertackle) Miho Kirishima is a total Inoue character -- we've seen him use the template quite a few times already, a no-good, young shyster woman who becomes the main hero's kind-of love interest. Miho's never really completely soared for me. The "first" female Rider deserved more development, but I think some of it is because she's such a kitbash of a character type that Inoue's used one too many times that it doesn't make this "first" female Rider all that unique. I used to put a lot of blame on actress Natsuki Katou, as well. I used to think she was a little too young to pull off the role, but there's a deeper issue than that. (Also, it's cool since Katou's a well known toku/anime/game geek, but also that she continues Ryuki's sorta-tradition of casting past toku people as Riders.)

Miho/Femme is the one area of the movie that I feel pulls its punches. They want her to be as tough and deadly as the male Riders in Kanzaki's crazy battle royale, but they show her constantly being bested. And they're too afraid to have her be the one to kill Ouja. They also make her a swan, which...could there have been a more predictable choice? (Well, I guess it does cutesily line-up: Inoue's writing for a white swan again.) We're introduced to Miho as a scammer of scammers, but not only is that softened by playing it for laughs, but we're probably also to assume that she's only even criminal in order to get the money to maintain her sister's cryogenic preservation. Aww, so she's not so bad, guys, see?!!!

And while she's "criminal," she's also filled with rage and a desire for revenge towards Asakura. And while the movie doesn't let her get her revenge, letting Asakura instead be killed by Ryuga, I like that she realizes what it was that Shinji was trying to convey to her about fighting, and that she is grateful to him, and begins a road to redemption. That's when they begin to get chummy, with hints of a romantic relationship, but it doesn't completely work for me because of how Inoue depicts Shinji. Shinji's being a klutz, acting childish, and so Inoue has Miho basically treat him like a child. It's not touching to me that her dying words are for Shinji to remember to tie his shoes, because I'm basically like "Wow. That's stupid writing." I get that she was supposed to be somewhat sassy, so it's meant to be played humorously, but it could have easily been conveyed in a better way. The way Inoue writes Shinji here really robs the story of the bittersweetness it's supposed to have. (Also: how's about Shinji realizes what happens to Miho? It's like it becomes a different movie after she dies and nobody remembers her.)

Kitaoka takes an interest in helping Miho because he knows Asakura killed her sister and he feels guilt for his brief time as Asakura's attorney. I could never figure out if this movie was trying to say that THIS was the crime Asakura was put away for, and Kitaoka was the defense attorney on THIS particular case. That would explain Kitaoka's concern, of course, but it takes away from Asakura's mystique a bit. Don't you imagine something so much bigger being the thing that gets him caught? In the director's cut of this movie, you get the scene of his targeting and attacking Miho's sister, and...it's ordinary. He kills her with a broken bottle. Like...I don't even understand what future science is required for some bottle cuts that Miho decides to Demolition Man her. I think this cryogenics company might be taking major advantage of Miho.

Hagino's performance in the movie is, of course, great. I love his introduction scene being him beating down a gang led by Yuusuke Tomoi, and I love his casual heartlessness as he makes the connection with Miho. "Oh, I remember her. She's the one whose sister I killed. Hmm. So what was I saying?"

The idea of Ryuga as being the final Rider is strange to me. (I think this is why Kobayashi has Odin show up early and be like "I'm the 13th Rider! Me! That's who! I'm the final boss! And anybody who tells you otherwise is a goddamn liar!" And Odin's cooler than Ryuga, IMO.) But it might help to explain a bit why Kanzaki keeps Shinji around. Is Ryuga something unique to the Ryuki deck? (If not, well, then why don't all of the Riders have a dark or mirror counterpart?) Is Ryuga born from Shinji's decency, unique since Shinji is the "accidental" Rider? Did Kanzaki create him to be Shinji's opposite, making the most of this "accident?" Was he born as a manifestation of Yui's unhappiness that Shinji didn't keep his childhood promise? (I thought having Shinji and Yui once meet as kids was just a little too much -- far too cutesy and hard to believe.) A dark and powerful Rider being born of Shinji would be enough reason for Shiro to keep Shinji in the game, IMO, and take away that frustrating Scott Evil question I always have of "Why doesn't Shiro just kill him when he's not looking so that his twisted Rider fight can go smoother?!"

The hero having a "mirror" version is a cute and clever idea and all, but a little boring to me. Mostly my problem is that it seems like a cheat -- you're promising 13 Riders, but we kinda only get 12, because this is just a repaint release, dammit! I like the darker Visor voice, but I have to say...it's always been weird to me that they get Jiro Okamoto to play Ryuga. I mean, I think he's pretty good. He made a great villain Rider at that point in his career. But if you're going to have a "mirror" of Ryuki, Okamoto's not a great match for Seiji Takaiwa. Why wouldn't you get Naoki Nagase, who actually doubles for Ryuki at times? (And Nagase goes on to become the "villain movie Rider" suit actor beginning with Paradise Lost. He could have had a quicker start if they listened to me!) Okamoto's performance is cool, though -- he's just a boulder of a killing machine. His work as Ryuga always reminded me of Kane Hodder's take on Jason Voorhees.

Speaking of which, I just feel like there's a dark, eerie, supernatural and horror vibe to the whole movie, which is one of the things I like about it. As I've said, I feel like there's those vibes to the ideas of the show, but they're at the edges of the show -- this movie basks in them. The movie starting out with ghost stories being told, for cryin' out loud. The numerous Shear Ghosts that pop up throughout. The depiction of Yui's mirror image making contact with Yui is done in a very supernatural way, down to Yui's having to give something in exchange for her life, which ends up being her drawings of the Mirror Monsters. There's a story there that was never told -- why did Mirror-Yui want and accept those monster drawings? And then there's that mid-credits scene of the kid versions of Shiro and Yui meeting in the Mirror World, like the Mirror World is some kind of afterlife.

This part, though, is what I feel doesn't line up with the show. We're told this happens after Shiro is sent away to America -- Yui just keeps to herself, isolated, making an imaginary friend out of her reflection as she draws monsters. One day, when she's crying in loneliness, the reflection invites her into the Mirror World, and she stays too long, and the reflection gives her her life in exchange for the drawings. This is Yui's first contact with the Mirror World. The show, at this point, hints that something related to the Mirror World happens to both Shiro and Yui, causing an explosion that kills their parents, and that this is what leads to the two being separated by their extended family. So I think Inoue is diverting a bit from what Kobayashi might have been working out there.

This movie also confirms that Shiro's basically rigged the game; whoever wins the Rider battle -- the one who emerges strongest -- will have their life and energy taken by Shiro to be given to Yui. To me, this makes sense with how we've seen Shiro behave in the series, and I imagine this is one area that was completely Kobayashi's and her actual plan. But she then ends up diverting from this in the actual show and...argh, it's a mess.

That Shiro has the game fixed was possibly an endgame of the series; the surviving Riders come together to take him down once they find out it's all for naught. It's an interesting idea, but a little wasted here. (Especially when Ren's all like "I don't care if he's lying! I can't take the risk, so I'll keep fighting!" Like, you're smarter than this, Ren.) But it doesn't make much sense to tie everything to Yui -- he didn't think the whole "let's start an anime fighting tournament so I can give Yui a new life" thing through when it took him so long to even invent the stuff and get it started. Like "Oh, Yui dies when she's 20? Well, that leaves some time. I can get the ball rolling on that Rider stuff when she's 19, that should leave enough time." Similar to Shiro's banning their cards in episode 25, it's something that sounds cool, but just doesn't make a bit of sense in the narrative as established. He takes his time creating this stuff and setting up the Rider fight, the whole point of the Rider fight is to build up energy that he can give to Yui, but he's going to wait so long that Yui's time limit is just a couple of days away, but six Riders remain? I thought Kanzaki was supposed to be smart!

I like the idea behind Kitaoka's final scene. He realizes his time's running out, so he's like "Eh, screw this Rider thing." He leaves his Deck and he just tries to go out and live the rest of his life. So...I guess he figures if Magnagiga comes trying to eat him, Goro-chan can fight him off? On one hand, it's a cool "fuck you" by the character, just flipping off his fate as a Rider AND mortal, but on the other, you're left bothered that it's ignoring the show's rules.

And, damn, how bleak is Yui's end? It was always such a gut punch to me. She's mostly just a sweet, kind, tragic character in the show. Did Inoue go too far for shock value, or is this a tragic end for a character who saw no other choice? But it's a big moment. It makes Ren break down -- he pretty much just freezes and proceeds to watch the rest of the movie in a stupor along with the audience. It causes Shiro to freak out so much he erases himself from existence and causes most of the glass and other reflective surfaces in Japan to shatter. The sight of poor Yui's corpse is enough to get Shinji to rip himself out of Ryuga. Yui's suicide is such a shock, and it's filmed in such a sad way, and Ayano Sugiyama's performance is great. (Satoshi Matsuda's good when he finds her body, too. Ren goes a little bye-bye seeing her dead, and it's obviously traumatic for him that it happens in the same room where he lost Eri. I think it's safe to say that Lab 401 is haunted.)

I always liked the end of this movie. Things have gone to shit -- whatever Shiro did, it's caused an unending swarm of Mirror Monsters to be spit out into the real world. Only Ryuki and Knight remain in the Rider battle. They both set their sights on the massive amounts of Mirror Monsters and offer each other some kind (parting?) words, before transforming and heading into the crowd as the movie ends. It's a surprisingly more heroic way for these two characters to go out than what the actual show ends up doing with them, and you can't imagine it will end pretty for them, so there's still some of that bleakness since this story was never going to have a happy ending.

So, when I can manage to overlook some flaws and inconsistencies, I'll enjoy this movie, and tend to prefer it to the show's final episodes. Sad thing is, it needed more time to develop characters and ideas and give the other regulars a little more to do. (I think more could have been done with Ren, especially with Ren and Miho since they're both fighting to save loved ones.) Sadder thing? There IS a director's cut, but the extra material is mostly stuff that deserved to be cut -- nothing that adds to the movie. (And, in fact, makes the movie worse. When I last watched the director's cut, I HATED it. It's overly long and just unnecessary -- a product they could release, so they did, not one that warranted it like Project G4.) Shougo says: Stick with the theatrical version!

This movie being an alternate finale, and the movie premiering around the time Odin debuted in the series, I was expecting a post-credits thing where you get a glimpse of Odin's staff and hear "Time Vent!" Like I said in my coverage of 28, I think the timing of that episode and this movie is to introduce the concept of alternate timelines, but I feel like if they had done something like this, it would have been a nice little detail.