FOR THOSE WHO WANT TO SEE THIS 3-PART SPECIAL & WANT AN ALTERNATIVE TO TV-NIHON... The special has been translated by 3 different groups:
RiderTime,
GenmCorp, and
Sub-Vent.
Personally, I recommend Sub-Vent since they subtitled half of Ryuki's TV show and came out of retirement for this.
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And now for my thoughts....
Episode 1 was perfectly mysterious! Episode 2 was YAOI-TASTIC! And Episode 3 left me confused.
Like I said, things start off mysterious, making you wonder when this is taking place. However, it is later revealed that this new Rider Battle is indeed taking place in the present year, and not in 2002. If you were worried about how minor Riders are recast, you can blame the passage of time. Some have all ready died of natural causes, and others could not be found in time since this Rider Battle was made spur of the moment, so finding a good-enough match was the best that could be done canonically speaking. There is a girl who seems to have powers similar to Odin, and she is keeping the Ryuki Riders hostage in the mirror world. It's later revealed she is trying to find the one Rider who might be strong enough to stop Another Ryuki. However, that part is kind of dumb. Makes her character look not-so-innocent despite her unfortunate backstory. (Seriously, why narrow the hero pool when you could just have ALL of them team up to beat Another Ryuki? Her motives seem so confused.)
There are a lot of positive things about this special, I think. It was nice to know that Abyss was always something that could happen and wasn't just a multiverse exclusive. It's sad that he was unceremoniously defeated faster here than in Decade, but then again, it really wasn't his story anyways. It's cool how these characters were slowly regaining their memories. Even with timeline changes, there is a chance the original Riders will always have faint memory fragments locked in their minds. Gives extra credence to that theory I had about how the Earth itself remembers its various timelines. And best of all, it's nice to see that the Ryuki suits have held up pretty well over the years, for the most part. They definitely look better than Blade and his faded, purple abdomen.
But there are some cons. Like I said, I still don't understand why this Rider Battle was necessary. Was the Yaoi moment from Episode 2 really necessary? I'm not against it, but it just seem to come out of nowhere and didn't really add much to the plot. Props for being progressive, I guess. It's annoying that we only see Another Ryuki here and not in the TV series, but better this than nothing I suppose. I really don't understand what's happening with Odin himself. I feel bad that Ren had to die; that anyone had to die in this Rider Battle honestly. Thanks to Zi-O, their normal timeline was changed, and they were all given a chance at a normal life. Now all that is scrapped. And the most confusing thing, I'm still not sure how all this fits in the timeline of the TV show. The Zi-O Ryuki arc was pretty well self-contained, and the story here kind of contradicts that, unless a day in the Mirror World somehow lasts a very short time in the real world. (Then again, people have told me that movies and specials aren't suppose to be canon anyways, so maybe this was just made for the fun of it?) If anything, this special fits better after the Ryuki arc is finished.