This sorry thing. It's a bit of the same situation as Episode Final -- it was a primetime special, so it had to be welcoming to unfamiliar viewers. The Agito primetime special was similar, and that's how it ended up having some inconsistencies with what was depicted in the show. I feel like the inconsistencies in the Agito special were easy to overlook -- that special's not great, but it's not terrible. 13 Riders decides to be yet another alternate retelling of the Ryuki adventure, and it just doesn't have the time or money to pull it off, so it's very lackluster and looks so very low-end soap-opera cheap. Episode Final got to skate past a lot of its problems because of its style, but this 45-minute, shot-on-video-looking TV special doesn't have that glossy style to fall back on.
At the time, I was really excited to see this special. I thought it sounded really cool that it was going to show you WHAT IF...Koichi Sakakibara had become Ryuki? That's a GREAT idea filled with a ton of potential, one that would necessitate an alternate timeline. And they got Keiichi freakin' Wada to play him! Holy shit! (Dairanger's Dragon Ranger is out to get revenge on Ryuki for stealing his pose!) The Ryuki production has had Changerion, two Ultramen and Robocon's Robina be Riders. As Sentai guy, I watched Ryuki and kept wondering where a Sentai person was! And, finally, here it was -- not only a cool guy like Keiichi Wada, but he was going to be playing the man who was originally meant to be Ryuki, Koichi Sakakibara...
And Wada/Sakakibara is like the jokester in a slasher movie and gets killed a minute and a half into the special. Potential *wasted*. I still don't understand the thinking behind this. There's story potential there, you get a guy who's loved by the toku fandom, and...just kill him off in order to make the lunkhead we've spent half a year with the hero we've already seen him be for half a year.
There's so many questions about Sakakibara. He had a Deck, which meant Kanzaki chose him. Was he a nasty bastard like everyone else? The way he covered all of the reflective surfaces in his apartment says he was afraid. None of the other assholes and crazies who have been given a Deck were afraid of the Mirror World and its Monsters, but Sakakibara was. Did Kanzaki make a mistake? Did something about the idea of Mirror Worlds and Monsters change whoever Sakakibara was? Who knows. We don't want to confuse new viewers -- if they're joining this late in the game, that's their fault, I say -- so we have to get to the status quo and make the regular star the lead of this special. From what little is said about him, it does sound like Sakakibara was heroic and actually wanting to stop the battle and close the Mirror World.
The whole special should have been about him! Show how different things are with Sakakibara as Ryuki instead of Shinji! Gaim might have had Ryuki Envy, but at least it learned from this special's mistake, giving us a whole episode devoted to an alternate scenario where Yuuya became Gaim as intended -- since he was the one who was given the belt -- while Kouta ended up becoming the monster.
Another frustrating thing? As an American viewer in '02, I knew I'd see this special before getting to see Episode Final. So I was excited to see SOMEthing pertaining to Femme and Ryuga and...it's useless. And they actually get Natsuki Katou to voice Femme, but it could have just as easily been stock audio from Episode Final for all they give her. (One line and fight grunts!) They're just tacked on, a gimmick to justify naming this thing 13 Riders. (Meanwhile, this thing is more like 5 Riders since most of the focus is on Shinji, Ren, Kitaoka, Takamizawa, and Shibaura.) Not as much of a gimmick as Shirakura's shameless phone-in voting for viewers to select which ending they want -- the crappy "stop the fight" ending or the crappy "continue the fight" ending. (Like choosing between brown or green poop.)
Here's a big problem with a show or movie having alternate timelines -- it ends up making things feel worthless. They don't have the courage to kill, say, Ren, in episode 24 of the show, so they feel free to do it in some alternate "what-if" special like this. It's phony, gutless posturing. But the problem is, when you depict character deaths enough times in alternate timelines, you just numb the viewer into not giving a shit when you stick with it for the final, totally definitive finally final version.
As for the special's one contribution -- Takamizawa/Verde -- he's kind of a waste to me. It's a good idea for a character, a corrupt and power-hungry businessman who finds jollies in fighting and murdering people as a Kamen Rider -- a guy who sees all of life as a Rider battle for him to win -- and actor Arthur Kuroda is surprisingly decent for being given so little to work with, but...that's just it. Verde is probably the most undeveloped Rider in all of Ryuki, and he feels like he's not even in much of the special. (Verde's also my least favorite Rider design of the show; probably the *only* design I don't like from Ryuki. Even Gai's grew on me over time, and he's just kind of a big toaster. I even think Abyss looks cool, although a little last-minute.)
It's also annoying the way this special just ignores the rules, too -- apparently you can just hand over your Card Deck and be done with being a Rider, easy as that. And I know it's born of lazy writing to have everyone in one place, but the idea that ALL of the bad Riders were united, like some Asshole's Alliance like this is some shitty season of Survivor, always seemed so stupid to me, and goes against what we know of these characters from the show. But this special doesn't really care whether you care about the show. It even ends with Kanzaki being like "Yeah, this 'story' didn't matter. See ya in the real show, folks!" Pbbbbbbbbblllllt. (If anything, have them unite only at the end, when it comes to Ryuki's trying to destroy that big mirror; their little club and trying to recruit someone like Ren stretches belief.)
Just a pointless, letdown, blown opportunity. Think of it -- Ryuki had such interest in it that they were able to have the phone-in vote gimmick. They should have taken the time to write something much more interesting and engaging than this for all of the investment viewers had in it. That this special ends up being the end of evening specials for Kamen Rider says it all.
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