Kamen Rider Ryuki/YMMV


 * Nightmare Fuel - Sudoh's death where he gets eaten alive. Onscreen.
 * Alas Poor Villain: Sano.
 * Badass Decay: When Tiger first shows up, he's serving up The Worf Effect like nobody's business(even to Asakura), but as time goes on and his real character comes through, he proves incapable of winning any fight at all.
 * A side effect of his deteriorating sanity, perhaps?
 * Complete Monster - Asakura. Also, though he tends to get overshadowed by Asakura, Jun is arguably even more of a bastard.
 * Crowning Music of Awesome - Revolution, the Survive Form theme.
 * Draco in Leather Pants: For whatever reason, Kamen Rider Ouja is one of the most popular riders in Japan not just for Ryuki, but in the franchise in general. There's no other way he could've appeared in the Kamen Rider Decade movies, countless Climax Heroes games, and the upcoming Kamen Rider OOO film.
 * Ensemble Darkhorse: Asakura remains a popular villain in the Rider franchise.
 * Epileptic Trees:
 * Odin was the subject of a lot of them due to his importance in the plot, the lack of direct explanation as to who or what he was (until the final episode) and certain promotional scans (such as one with him holding all three Survive Cards in his Gold Visor).
 * Game Breaker: Ryuki and Knight's Survive Forms.
 * Also Odin himself. Possibly invoked, because Shiro is the one controlling him and only brings him in to eliminate those who oppose him.
 * Germans Love David Hasselhoff - In Japan, Ryuki barely avoided cancellation thanks to a Bandai-led grassroots campaign. The same could not be said in the Philippines, Korea or even Saudi Arabia, however, as the toy sales and TV ratings were overwhelmingly high in those countries.
 * Ho Yay - Kitaoka and Gorou. Especially in their song, "Dear Friend", found on the soundtrack.
 * Shinji and Gorou. "Gorou-chan, YOU'RE ALIVE!"
 * Memetic Mutation: Scissors' status as a Butt Monkey in the fandom, and comparisons to Puella Magi Madoka Magica.
 * Narm - Verde's Final Vent is one of the nastiest: with his chameleon monster's tongue acting as a bungee cord, he drops in on his opponent, grabbing him upside down, then bungees back up, flipping around twice before SMASHING his opponent head first into the concrete. Then the dust clears and we see the victim's legs still sticking into the air for a bit before toppling over. ...Yeah.
 * Sometimes the result of Special Effects Failure - watch in ep 39 as Ren is dramatically HANDED his BFS weapon from offscreen.
 * When the maggot monsters are about to molt and evolve into more powerful creatures, the first thing they do is... jerk around like they're in Michael Jackson's 'Thriller'.
 * Paranoia Fuel - Behind every reflective surface (Mirrors, windows, any body of water, YOUR FRICKING COMPUTER SCREEN) is a monster...wait, I mean an army of monsters that is just waiting to have you for dinner. They will pull you through the portal into the Mirror World, and kill you, leaving no trace behind and making it impossible for anyone to figure out how you were killed. If by some fluke you avoid the initial attack, they will not just try for someone else. They will keep hunting YOU down specifically until they get you. Also, the Mirror World is very hostile to those not native to it, and if you are there for too long, you will dissolve and die anyway (if you haven't already been eaten). Pleasant Dreams.
 * Reverse Funny Aneurysm: One hallmark of Kamen Rider and all Toku in general is the Blind Idiot Translation subtitles on bootleg Hongkong DVDs, so much that some characters get new names. Goro in particular keeps getting called 'Inagaki', presumably because he shares the pet name 'Goro-chan' with Inagaki Goro of the immensely popular boyband SMAP. Fast forward 6 years to 2009, and the real Inagaki Goro lands the role of (the non-canon) Kamen Rider G.
 * In a similar vein, Ren gets called 'Len' or 'Lian' a lot in the early eps of the bootleg DVDs. Kamen Rider Dragon Knight picked Len eventually.
 * Also of note is how Asakura's name was completely and senselessly altered to "Miyako".
 * Perhaps the funniest bad translation is when Zolda summons his giant side-held cannon. His visor calls out, "Shoot Vent!" The subtitle for that line? "Jet Plane Landing!" Well, the cannon's *sorta* jetplane shaped if you squint...
 * Even worse is that the Visors are already in english...
 * Shout Out: The main character is a guy who doesn't want to fight and is named Shinji. One of his coworkers is a cold woman named Rei(ko), the first Kamen Rider he meets is (at the time) a Jerkass and comes across as a bit of a Blood Knight, and another of the main women is named Yui. Is this a Shout-Out to Neon Genesis Evangelion, or am I just thinking too hard?
 * Turns out the plot is apparently driven by a Magnificent Bastard driven to evil because he's trying to save Yui, and he's throwing anyone else's lives to the wind. Sounds a bit like Gendo....
 * Tear Jerker - Like most of the Kamen Rider series, it has its moments.
 * There's a reason Sano's death is considered a 'Traumatic Scene'.
 * Yui's death scenes. Even more so in Episode: Final, where she actually . Her brother does not take it well.
 * Trope Codifier - Popularized a trend of shows in Japan that feature a 'There Can Only Be One' theme, which covers highly popular works such as Mai Hi ME, Fate Stay Night and Mirai Nikki.
 * They Changed It Now It Sucks - It's hard to imagine now, but when Ryuki was first released, many a Showa-era purist declared the franchise Ruined FOREVER. In fact, the reason The Movie is an alternate ending without going into a full-on Elseworld like the other KR movies of the decade or an extra-long episode like most Toku films is because they didn't know they were going to get a full season at that point.
 * The Woobie: Yui. Let's count the ways, shall we? She and her brother spend their early childhood locked up in their home by their own parents, with nothing but drawing and a not-so-imaginary world to comfort them. Then, she suddenly dies at age seven, and is replaced by her Mirror World self in her brother's Deal With the Devil. Following their parents' deaths, she and Shirou are forcibly separated. Twelve years later she finds out that she's not even real, she's only living on borrowed time and will disappear forever once she turns twenty, and that her brother is perfectly willing to manipulate twelve people - two of which are her closest friends - into killing each other in his mad scheme to save her. And that her drawings with her brother are what became the Mirror Monsters that are snatching people away and devouring them in seconds. Jesus.
 * Oh, it gets better. She gets to find all this out by being targeted for death by those who've worked it out, snatched by monsters, and finding herself starting to disintegrate at times. And it can all only be settled
 * The Woobie: Yui. Let's count the ways, shall we? She and her brother spend their early childhood locked up in their home by their own parents, with nothing but drawing and a not-so-imaginary world to comfort them. Then, she suddenly dies at age seven, and is replaced by her Mirror World self in her brother's Deal With the Devil. Following their parents' deaths, she and Shirou are forcibly separated. Twelve years later she finds out that she's not even real, she's only living on borrowed time and will disappear forever once she turns twenty, and that her brother is perfectly willing to manipulate twelve people - two of which are her closest friends - into killing each other in his mad scheme to save her. And that her drawings with her brother are what became the Mirror Monsters that are snatching people away and devouring them in seconds. Jesus.
 * Oh, it gets better. She gets to find all this out by being targeted for death by those who've worked it out, snatched by monsters, and finding herself starting to disintegrate at times. And it can all only be settled