Kamen Rider Ryuki The Movie: Episode Final (2002)

Recommended supplement for Ryuki

*pulled from my LB review, broad, qualitative spoilers*

TL;DR: Watch before Ryuki's last few episodes.

Miho's story makes the conflict with Asakura more urgent which was a nagging issue with the series, that a convicted murderer and psychopath was running around rampant and everyone was stewing around whether they should kill him or not since he's got the powers of a Rider behind him now or not to stoop to his level, break moral codes, yadda yadda. Of course, they are only at liberty to have her story in the first place because it's like a pseudo-alternate continuity, because Asakura would've been dealt with in series a lot sooner otherwise, and then the series wouldn't be nearly as long (or they'd have to find a way to draw out real, complex drama from more morally clean characters and find grey areas and hangups and such, *gasp* perish the thought!)

The questionable canon nature of this thing with Miho aside, this movie DOES reiterate and expand on Yui & Shiro's story a bit which is good, adds some details which would soften the blow and ease people into Ryuki's infamous ending even a little bit, so I think this should be required viewing while watching Ryuki, before the last few episodes this vaguely takes place in-between, though it would've been nice if this was incorporated into the TV run properly (also would've been nice if the series' ending didn't suck but alas).

The movie's own ending is a weird cliffhanger never resolved and meant to count as the loose ending to a different path of fate, so it's still not great on its own, but does reinforce the branching nature of the story and the TV series' ending decision with the other routes taken into account. Plus, as far as the endings to all the Ryuki timelines go, this is the least offensive oddly compared to the general futility of the 13 Riders special and Shinji's weird 180 at the very end of it, unable to even let a different route play to its conclusion as well as the TV series ending of course.

Ryuki is one of the hardest Rider series to recommend, though not necessarily one of the worst, ending aside, but if one felt so inclined to watch it, this is essential viewing before the final 5-odd episodes.

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The tv show was finished in January of 2003 but this film was released in summer of 2002 and it's called "Episode Final"??!!

I don't understand why they revealed the ending, long before the show actually ends, and I watch this movie after finishing the tv show and it gave me a little bit confusion.

Is it somekind of alternate story? It is suck storywise, the build up in the show doesn't feel continuous with this movie, it's so deviated, even this movie ends with cliffhanger, Idk what this film serves purpose for, unlike the tv show that give us a perfect closing of the story and in accordance with the build up from the beginning.

The good things about this film are: slightly better CGI, the fighting choreo isn't too stiff and great camera movement, that's from what I noticed.

That's all I think about this film.

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