仮面ライダー: Kamen Rider Ryuki (仮面ライダー龍騎)

Kamen Rider Ryuki (仮面ライダー龍騎 Kamen Raidā Ryūki^?, Masked Rider Ryuki) is a Japanese tokusatsu television series. It was the twelfth installment in the Kamen Rider Series of tokusatsu shows. It was a joint collaboration between Ishimori Productions and Toei, and it was shown on TV Asahi from February 3, 2002 to January 19, 2003. The catchphrase for the series is "Those who don't fight won't survive!!" (戦わなければ、生き残れない!! Tatakawanakereba, ikinokorenai!!^?). In 2009, Ryuki was adapted into the American television series Kamen Rider: Dragon Knight, the first adaptation of a Kamen Rider Series in the United States since Saban's Masked Rider in 1996.

Takamasa Suga As Shinji Kido

Shinji Kido (城戸真司) is the main protagonist in Kamen Rider Ryuki. He is a journalist trainee working for ORE Journal who finds himself drafted into the Rider War after finding a mysterious deck. Among the riders in the Rider War, Shinji does not fight to get his wish but to stop the riders from killing each other over it and protecting the people from the Mirror Monsters. Shinji is a good hearted, friendly, but naive idealist who sees the Rider War as just meaningless chaos. He is willing to go any lengths to prevent the riders from killing each other. Meeting riders like Ren Akiyama however, who fight for a selfless wish has Shinji decide to work with them.
Shinji was aiding in the New Group's investigation behind the "missing persons" crisis that had with the latest victim being Ida Megumi. While checking on the list of missing persons, Shinji finds a clue and investigates the apartment of Kōichi Sakakibara, a man who mysteriously disappeared two months ago. Upon coming across a deck of cards lying on the ground, Shinji was nearly attacked by a monster that emerged from Mirror World, Dragredder.
However, the card deck not only protected him but allowed him to sense things when he feels that Reiko is in danger, ending up in the Mirror World where he encounters another monster, Dispider. He tries to escape the monster as it overwhelms him until he is saved by Kamen Rider Knight who defeats the monster before he and Shinji are ambushed by Dragredder, with the two barely able to get back to the real world in time.
Once coming to, Shinji finds himself in the Atori Cafe where he formally meets Yui Kanzaki and Knight's human identity, Ren Akiyama, who tries to take the Ryuki deck from him with Yui explaining to him of the Mirror Monsters and that he's targeted by Dragredder. After understanding Reiko's reasons for investigating the missing persons case, only to run into Ren who is following him to get Dragredder before Yui contacts him about the reformed Dispider.
Following Ren, and seeing the daughter of a woman who was devoured by the monster, Shinji learns that he can fight once he forms a contract with a Mirror Monster. Though warned that he'll be beyond the point of return if he commits to it, Shinji uses the Contact card Yui gives him to form his pact with Dragredder, becoming Kamen Rider Ryuki to save Knight and destroy Dispider with Dragredder feeding on the monster's essence. But once the fight ends, Ryuki is suddenly attacked by Knight, who beats until Yui indirectly interferes and threatens to leave him.
Indebted to Ren for 30,000 yen after he paid for Shinji for the glass window Yui shattered to get their attention, Shinji later runs an errand for his boss, where Shinji encounters Shiro Kanzaki, who tells him to fight the other Riders, before finding Ren while he was hunting for a Megazelle incognito. The next day, Shinji visits Yui and recognizes the picture of her brother, believing that the Vent Decks were made to protect people from the Mirror World monsters, revealing that to be his reason for becoming a Kamen Rider.
After destroying a Gigazelle, Shinji starts to question Ren's methods after seeing Darkwing scaring a girl, unaware that she was being attacked by another Gigazelle. Later, after getting kicked out of his apartment as his rent was overdue, Shinji moves into ORE temporarily, causing much inconvenience to both himself and the company.
The next day, after a tussle with Ren and seeing that he might have a reason of his own to fight, Shinji is questioned if his resolve is strong enough to take a life, with Ren reminding him of the debt and it would be a shame if he can't pay back in full if dead. After which the two defeat a Megazelle and a Gigazelle.
But the fact that Riders must fight each other worries Shinji, remembering the ring he found on Ren during their tussle. He later learns that Reiko is hospitalized while investigating an antique shop due after finding a link between it and the missing person case, meeting detective Masashi Sudo before Reiko assigns him to continue her investigation on the owner Tomoyuki Kaga. While on his way to the store, he sensed a woman attacked by the Mirror Monster Volcancer, saving the woman and fighting the monster until Scissors arrives, with Ren later showing up to even the odds as Scissors retreats.
Believing that Scissors is Kaga, Shinji attempts to reason with the Rider, leaving his calling card to contacted. But Shinji falls for Sudou's trap, tricked into revealing Knight's identity as well as kidnap Yui. After barely enduring Scissors attack on him, Shinji learns that Kaga is not Scissors when his corpse is found by Ren who investigated the shop and finding Kaga plastered behind a wall. He later he meets up with Ren while he's chasing down Yui and her kidnapper, following him to find out that Scissors is Sudou, getting scolded for endangering Ren and Yui in his ideology.
Confronting Sudou, Shinji was about to fight him because of his evil actions until Ren arrives to settle things with Sudou. Shinji was forced to watch the two fight until Scissors is eaten alive by Volcancer, and he destroys Volcancer with his Final Vent, though he kept his ideals by not having Dragredder absorb the Mirror Monster's essence as Darkwing takes it while Knight explains there are more Riders left to defeat.
Later, while assisting Reiko in the interview a man named Togukawa Katsuhikaku on a golden crayfish, Shinji almost gets run over by a white car as he arrived in the Atori Cafe to meet Yui's grandmother who lets him move into Atori Cafe, encountering the driver Kitaoka Shuichi and grabbing him as before contacting the Sakura Company's thugs, unaware their identity and intent as he saves Kitaoka before escaping with him, disgusted by Kitaoka's methods as a lawyer. Though cornered, Kitaoka and Shinji were saved by the lawyer's apprentice Goro Yura as Shinji senses two Zebraskulls and battles one until it escaped, seeing the other destroyed by Kamen Rider Zolda.
Later, when Reiko believes that the river was polluted by Kawazu Pharmacy, resulting in both the crayfish and the haired-frog Toguwawa found, Shinji accompanies her to see the Pharmacy's representing lawyer, ironically which was Kitaoka. Soon after spending time with Kitaoka, Shinji spends the next day with the lawyer to write an article about him until he hit a nerve and was ordered to leave. Sensing the Zebraskull from before as it devours Togukawa, whose animals turned out to be fakes, Ryuki battles it until he finally destroys it.
But by that time, Zolda gets the drop on Ryuki who forced to fight him before he is forced to retreat. The next day, Shinji learns that Shimada is kidnapped last night and is sent to give the kidnapper the ransom, only to be attacked by him. However, the kidnapper is devoured by a Wildboarder and Shinji is arrested, forced to stay in jail as he can't explain what happened to the kidnapper without exposing himself and Shimada has no memory of her kidnapper.
However, when Reiko and Ren manage to get Kitaoka as his lawyer, he intended to incriminate him after learning that Shinji's actually a Rider. After his friends fire Kitaka, Shinji is freed thanks to the kidnapper's daughter Yukari, meeting her at the hospital with Kitaoka as she defends him before he drives off. But when Yukari is targeted by the Wildboarder, Ryuki joins Knight in a two-on-one fight on the Mirror Monster before Zolda arrives to take them all out.
Though Ryuki and Knight survived, Ren suffered memory loss as a result, not remembering the recent events over the year. Though told to leave him alone, Shinji follows Ren as he attempts to recover his memory, encountering every single person Ren had ever offended before he senses Zenobiter and is forced leave Ren to fight the monster as Ren regains some of his memories. But once he kills the Mirror Monster, Shinji follows Ren to Semiin University before covering for him when they encounter some enemies of Ren's. By the time he find Ren, he's with Yui with his memory completely restored as the two save the dying Professor Ejima from Terrabiter.
While investigating the Non-Stop Elevator rumour for its ties to the missing people, Shinji mistakenly believes that Zolda is Kitaoka's assistant Goro and chides him before sensing Deadlemur. But during the fight, Zolda intervenes and Ryuki was forced to fight back at the cost of seemingly killing Goro. Feeling guilty about it, Shinji quits being a Rider even if it meant that Dragredder would eat him. However, thanks to Ren exposing Kitaoka as the real Zolda, Shinji learns the truth and feels a weight lifted seeing Goro alive and resumes being a Rider with intentions of stopping the Rider War.
When asked to investigate Meirin University where rumors of masked men fighting take place, the chain of events led Shinji to meet its arrogant mastermind Jun Shibaura, who took his Dragedder card from him. But with the aid of a kindred spirit who also wants to end the war, Miyuki Tezuka, Shinji regains his card as Jun is briefly taken to jail. However the appearance of the sadistic Takeshi Asakura in the fight results in the deaths of Jun and than Tezuka. Shinji offers of friendship eventually win Ren over, even though they also maintained something of a rivalry afterward.
At the end of the series, he was stabbed in the back by a Raydragoon before he could transform while protecting a little girl. Shinji died with a devastated Ren by his side shortly afterwards following a fight with the Raydragoons. When Shiro Kanzaki reverted time back to normal after Yui died, Shinji's life was restored as a normal journalist with no memory of being a Rider.

Ryuki Blank Form

Height: 190cm
Weight: 90kg
Punching Power: 3t (AP: 50)
Kicking Power: 5t (AP: 100)
Maximum Jump Height: 10m
Maximum Running Speed: 45km/h
Sight and Hearing: 5km radius

Blank Form is Ryuki's default form when lacking a Contract Monster, possessing an arm-mounted Ride Visor and weak weapons like the Rider Saber and the Rider Shield. It is much weaker than any of his other forms and any of the other Riders, though it is enough to keep him from disintegrating in the Mirror World. Shinji began the series in this form before he contracted Dragredder, and he also reverted back to this form when his Contract Card was stolen by Kamen Rider Gai.
Advent Cards
Mounted on his left forearm, Ride Visor is Ryuki's card reader while in Blank Form.

Sword Vent (AP: 300): A fragile sword. Ryuki's only weapon while in Blank Form.
Guard Vent (AP: 300): No notable description.

Keiichi Wada As Koichi

Koichi Sakakibara (榊原耕一Sakakibara Kōichi) is the original Ryuki before Shinji Kido that appeared in 13 Riders TV Special. In the original TV series, his name was mentioned.
He is a man who lived in an apartment where Shinji found a Card Deck that led him to become Kamen Rider Ryuki. He disappeared prior to the start of the series, possibly eaten by Dragredder.
In the 13 Riders TV special, Sakakibara is the original Ryuki. He saved Shinji but as he could no longer go on due to the severity of his injuries, he passed his deck on to Shinji as he dissolved inside the Mirror World. After Koichi faded, Shinji became the Kamen Rider Ryuki and tried to prevent the other Riders from fighting as his way to thank Sakakibara.

Koichi Sakakibara As Ryuki

Gender:	Male
Series:	Kamen Rider Ryuki
Motif:	Dragon
Rider Type:	Hero
Homeworld:	Earth
First Appearance:	Kamen Rider Ryuki Special: 13 Riders
Last Appearance:	Kamen Rider Ryuki Special: 13 Riders
Number of Episode Appearances:	1 (Ryuki Special)
Actor:	Keiichi Wada

Height: 190 cm
Weight: 90kg
Punching Power: 10t (AP: 200)
Kicking Power: 20t (AP: 400)
Maximum Jump Height: 35m
Maximum Running Speed: 72km/h
Sight and Hearing: 15km radius

This is Ryuki's standard form that he had throughout most of the series, obtained once he forms his contract with Dragredder. A "balanced" Rider with equally powerful melee and far-range fighting capabilities, he uses the Drag Visor gauntlet on his left forearm to use Advent Cards.

Kamen Rider Ryuki Debut:
(2002)

Gender:	Male
Series:	Kamen Rider Ryuki
Motif:	Red Japanese Dragon
Rider Type:	Hero, Protagonist
Homeworld:	Earth
First Appearance:	The Secret Story's Birth
Last Appearance:	Kamen Rider X Super Sentai: Super Hero Taisen
Number of Episode Appearances:	50 (Ryuki) 2 (Decade) 4 Movies
Actor:	Takamasa Suga

Fighting Style

Ryuki is a balanced fighter, able to utilize both a close-range and ranged fighting style. His special element seems to be fire, given his dragon's augmentation to his armor. His Advent Cards further show the emphasis on versatility, with a decently powerful close range weapon (Sword Vent) as well as a capable far-range weapon (Strike Vent) His Contract Monster Dragredder often aids him in his battles. Ryuki however has no special or trick cards like Gai's Confine Vent or Raia's Copy Vent, nor does he have a weapon based Rider Visor like Knight's rapier Dark Visor or Zolda's gun Giga Visor. His Final Vent is a flying side kick called "Dragon Rider Kick", which is a playoff from the usual "Rider Kick" the original Kamen Riders used.
His Survive mode further strengthen his emphasis on versatility, as well as giving him a Trick card (Strange Vent).