Before watching Kamen Rider Ryuki the only other series I had watched was the very first one from 1971. I chose this one because a friend of mine went on a rant saying that the ending pissed him off a bit which got me quite curious.
The whole premise of this series is exceedingly fascinating in my opinion. I went into this without even reading a single thing about the plot so the growing number of riders caught me by surprise. It's practically like someone decided to remake Battle Royale (2000) with Kamen Riders. As the more the show went on and more details came to the light, the entire premise just became more and more captivating. I was surprised with how a good handful of the story was actually quite dark and mature for what is technically a kids show. Thankfully the darker and edgier parts are balanced out quite well by the great comedic moments. I really liked how a good chunk of the comedic moments were quick and subtle, unfortunately a ton of shows in general let some jokes linger for too long which hurts or kills the joke in my opinion but thankfully that does not happen in this show too often.
I found Shinji Kido to be a decent main character, sure his naivety can be a little repetitive and some might find it annoying but I actually thought it was realistic since the dude's young and just found himself in a bizarre situation he knew absolutely nothing about, it's no wonder he has breakdowns here and there. Ren Akiyama was a blast, he is the embodiment of what I'd most likely expect a edgy lone rival to actually be like. I think I'd say Takeshi Asakura and Shuichi Kitaoka were my fav. Riders. Asakura simply due to how exceedingly crazy the dude seemed to be, hell his entire backstory is nuts. Seeing a maniacal guy like him in this show was quite exciting, I just wanted to see how much crazier his antics would get with every appearance he made. Kitaoka never failed to make me laugh and he had an incredibly over the top super attack that I freaking love!
The only characters I really didn't care for were Nanako Shimada and Megumi Asano. Nanako was only really helpful for 1 single episode in my opinion and Megumi only felt relevant in her debut episode. They were actually the least funny characters in the show in my opinion.
I can definitely see why my friend did not like the ending of this series and I've actually heard that quite a number of fans out there did not like it either. I completely understand why folks will say that the ending is just a 'cop-out' but despite that I actually do appreciate parts of it somehow. It certainly wasn't what I expected at all and I even agree with all the criticisms I have seen about it but to me it somehow ended in a way that just felt...poignantly right in my opinion. When I stop to think about the ending I truly feel like the ending we got was the only appropriate way to end this story. This is one of those shows that you're better off watching completely so you can form your own opinion instead of going by what you hear.
Overall I definitely enjoyed Ryuki a lot. It was very fun, had very engaging and well developed characters, exceedingly unique rider designs, a superb atmosphere/setting and a thought provoking plot in my opinion. It's by no means a perfect series with a divisive end but the positives far outweigh the negatives if you ask me. So sorry to drag this on for so long but I just really had tons of fun watching this series.
