MEGAPOST: Shirou Emiya vs Kamen Rider Ryuki

(Write Up & Graphics by Sirus)

Connections/Theme

• Shirou Emiya and Shinji Kido (Kamen Rider Ryuki) are young noble protagonists that accidentally participated into a supernatural Battle Royale (Holy Grail War, Rider Fight)
• Shirou and Shinji are terribly naive and are quick to trust people, which often leads to them getting taken advantage of. However, both are naive in different ways, Shirou seems more aspirational regarding his ideals whereas Shinji doesn’t really have ideals and just acts based on what he thinks is right at the moment
• Both experience deep hesitation and carry darkness in their hearts
• Both have the motivation of not competing, but to stop the bloodshed and save lives
• Both have knightly aesthetics/themes
• Both can summon weapons and copy abilities
• Both have another version of themselves participating in the same game and deeply loathe them (Archer EMIYA, Kamen Rider Ryuga)
• Both of their stories starts with them forming a contract with a Dragon of sorts (Saber/Artoria Pendragon, Dragredder)
• Both their contract partners also have a dark version (Saber Alter, Dragblacker)
• Both have a complex relationship with their colder and more competitive ally, who also act like they don’t care for them (Rin Tohsaka, Ren Akiyama)
• Both coincidentally have a fellow Shinji and Shiro as one of their most notable antagonists, who started off as decent people when they were younger but their morality shifted due to their household situation as well as the system (Shinji Matou, Shiro Kanzaki)
• Both antagonists have a younger sister who are good friends with said protagonists who are also tied to the game in significant ways (Sakura Matou, Yui Kanzaki)
• Both of the Battle Royales are hidden from the public and the prize is getting a wish granted but the system itself being rigged  
• The most powerful enemy in the game is a clad in gold (Gilgamesh, Kamen Rider Odin)
• Both stories are rather infamous for their multiple endings and timelines (the latter which is hilarious since both have different levels of immunity to time loop shenanigans)

Fight Potential

Compared to their many contemporaries of their franchises, these 2 have a rather simple set of arsenal and abilities. But I’ll have to break it down one by one…

Shirou Emiya

Starting with Shirou Emiya. Even before entering the Holy Grail War (by accident), Shirou already had knowledge on basic magecraft. As a magus, Shirou has superhuman physiology, enhanced senses, regeneration as well as transmutating objects. Through projection magic, Shirou can summon weapons and forcefields with Rho Aias. But for the most part, his arsenal boils down to SWORDS.

Which is especially useful with his Reality Marble: Unlimited Blade Works. A pocket dimension filled to the brim with weapons throughout history where Shirou gained a major boost to his stats and abilities. Not only that, he could also mimic the physical abilities and fighting skill of the original wielder of the weapon in that space, along with using telekinesis to shoot those swords as projectiles.

In terms of scaling, this would be a soft composite of Shirou which isn’t much of a problem since the sequel to the original visual novel: Fate/hollow ataraxia (2005), features a slightly older Shirou who is basically a mix of all 3 routes.

Kamen Rider Ryuki

Next up, Shinji Kido. After receiving a Card Deck and making a contract with a red dragon named Dragredder, he would transform into the armored knight: Kamen Rider Ryuki. As a Rider in his universe, Ryuki has Kamen Rider physiology, Extrasensory Perception, and has a variety of weapons and hax through Advent Cards. (And yes, this show is sounding like a mix of Pokemon & Yu-Gi-Oh. Right down to its opening theme being sung by the official Japanese voice actress for Ash Ketchum.)

Moving on, these cards include Sword Vent, Guard Vent, Strike Vent (where he can use his dragon’s fire breath), Ad Vent (where Dragredder can fight alongside him) and Final Vent (which gives him his signature Dragon Rider Kick).

But since Ryuki is from a long running toy commercial, he obviously has multiple forms such as… wait there’s only 3? And one of them is just Blank? Ok, so technically Ryuki only has his default form and his final form: Survive.

Through Survive, Ryuki gained a massive power-up and Dragredder has evolved into Dragranzor. The latter of which can now transform into a battle motorcycle. He also has access to every Advent Card through Strange Vent albeit randomly, which includes:Trick Vent (duplicates of Ryuki), Copy Vent, Steal Vent and etc.

Every Rider in Ryuki can travel to the Mirror World. A dimension which appears as a mirror-flipped "ghost town" copy of the real world, devoid of people except for Mirror Monsters. A perfect battleground for the Rider Fight. Which they could use to evade and attack their opponents through any reflectable surfaces. However, living beings not native to that dimension would cease to exist. Any poor soul that was dragged in there will soon disintegrate and the Rider armor only delays this process for a brief time.

As for scaling Ryuki… this one is a bit complicated since Kamen Rider has weird chainscaling. So for the sake of simplicity, this matchup should use Ryuki’s own season, spin-offs, films and other media, along with his crossover film with Revice and Geats. As for the other crossover events and god forbid Zi-O? It might be a Marvel/DC street tier situation but I’m not well equipped to answer that question.

Overall Fight Dynamic

It's a relatively grounded sword fight. Shirou is definitely the more skilled and intelligent combatant while Ryuki has more hax and a partner to fight with in this bout.

My favorite dynamic of this matchup is how Shirou would respond to being dragged into the Mirror World, forced to counter its corrosive effects with Unlimited Blade Works. It provides tension on whether Shirou could sustain his Reality Marble long enough to overpower Ryuki and escape the dimension. Ryuki in his Survive Form also allows them to exchange copy weapons or abilities of their allies, enemies and each other.

This is also a gold mine of banter potential with their names being similar to their enemies, and how similar their personalities are. Plus, Shinji would get Deja vu since he has met and fought someone with similar heroic ideals to Shirou with Kamen Rider Tiger, the latter of which has a twisted version of it.

I picture the tone would start off with a silly misunderstanding, but would gradually lead to a brutal and tragic climax. Early Heisei Kamen Rider can get incredibly depressing and bloody; and Ryuki is no exception, definitely matching the tone of Fate/stay night.

How it differs from Geats vs Nero

To address the showboaty elephant in the room… Yes, there is a Kamen Rider vs Fate matchup that is officially happening as a DEATH BATTLE! That being Kamen Rider Geats vs Nero Claudius. But since there’s a bunch of other Kamen Fate matchups, isn’t Shirou vs Ryuki just another rethread? No.

To start with, the matchup would already differ just from the analysis alone. Ryuki and Fate/ stay night take place in the early 2000s with multiple timelines being discussed while Geats and Fate/EXTRA has a more futuristic setting with its Battle Royale game. The former is a battle between noble everyday Joes, while the latter is stylish fighters with godlike powers.

As I discussed with Fight Potential, Shirou vs Ryuki is far more grounded in terms of presentation. Geats vs Nero features bombastic kits, multiple forms, reality warping, immortality and dimensional tiering stuff while the latter is just sword guys with a dragon. Sure, they have other abilities but it’s nothing too crazy.

For comparison, Geats vs Nero to Shirou vs Ryuki is like comparing Batman Beyond vs Spider-Man 2099 to the original Batman vs Spider-Man. Sure, both have the same general premise but the tone, scale and vibe couldn't be more apart.

Now that I mentioned it, this is the original Kamen Rider vs Fate matchup. The one that started it all. A comparison that was made even outside of the vs community, which brings us to…

Legacy

(Write Up by JianGeGe)

Kamen Rider and Fate have had a long history but it’s generally accepted to have begun with Kamen Rider Ryuki (2002) and Fate/stay night (2004).

I would like to mention my position on using this as a connection because generally, I’m not a fan of meta reasons as the primary connection for a matchup, but I do think this does work as a good supporting material.

So basically on pixiv (Japanese deviantart) and NicoNico Douga (Japanese YouTube), videos featuring Kamen Rider and Fate and in particular Ryuki and Stay Night have been around from the beginning. Both those websites also have TvTropes like articles on the 仮面ライダーFate (Kamen Rider Fate) tag that goes into more extensive detail:

From pixiv:

As the first work to theme itself on a “Battle Royale” concept, Ryuki shares many similarities with Fate. As a result, there is a misconception that Fate was inspired by Ryuki, however, Fate was in fact originally conceived by Nasu while he was in high school as a novel homaging Makai Tensho. Therefore, the similarities with Ryuki are purely coincidental.

However, Nasu has publicly admitted in various supplementary materials that he is a fan of Ouja, so it’s unlikely that there was entirely no inspiration.

[Connections between the Kamen Rider franchise and Fate franchise] started from Ryuki, which features 13 Kamen Riders each battling to be the last one standing and have their wish granted, and Fate/Stay Night which features 7 Servants battling over the Holy Grail, both of which are centred around a battle royale and from which many crossover fan videos were made (furthermore, both franchises feature a “Rider”). (Due to the similarities between both works, fans of both works occasionally fought over which pioneered certain elements). Coincidentally, Kamen Rider Ryuki’s initial airdate and Fate/Stay Night’s “fated night” both fell on February 3rd.

However it should be noted that the author of Fate has explained that the inspiration for Fate came from Makai Tensei. (This can be seen from the appearance of historical figures like Yajyu Jyubei)

Incidentally, the Nico Nico Douga article on Battle Royale (the novel and film) states that the influence of Battle Royale made the entire concept a credible genre as evidenced by the wildly popular works in mainstream geek culture that featured the concept, specifically mentioning Kamen Rider Ryuki and Fate/Stay Night (as well as Rozen Maiden)

Extra Notes

(Continued with Sirus)

Kamen Rider Ryuki and Fate/stay night are very influential in their own right, especially in Japanese Pop Culture. Fate spawned countless spin-offs, adaptations, and created a multi-million dollar franchise while Ryuki remained to this day as one of the most popular and beloved season of its franchise as well as being the installment that convinced Toei to keep on going, scrapping their plans to end Kamen Rider with Agito. Ryuki also has the best American adaptation. To be fair, there’s only 2 of them.

A prolific writer to bring up: Gen Urobuchi. The writer for Madoka Magica and Fate/Zero, both of which he mentioned, has major influence from Ryuki. He would also later go on to write Kamen Rider Gaim, so it all came full circle.

Shirou himself would fit right in alongside many Kamen Rider protagonists, it's one of the reasons why he has plenty of KR opponents. Plenty of fans outside of the vs community would make that comparison. Heck, even an official Fate/Zero gag manga referenced it.