Fanfic / Cinders and Ashes: the Chronicles of Kamen Rider Dante

This is supposed to be a dream come true for a Kamen Rider fan, right? Becoming a Kamen Rider and fighting monsters? So why then do I feel like taking the belt off and tossing it across the room?

— Hoshi Fujioka, summing up the fanfic in a nutshell.

Hoshi Fujioka is a fanfiction writer struggling with depression over the loss of a friend. While on his delivery job, he ends up coming across a mortally wounded person who he notices looks just like himself. Even crazier, this doppelganger has the Volcano Belt, a Transformation Trinket from his Kamen Rider fanfic.

It becomes obvious to Hoshi that this is his Original Character, Hotaro Dairou, otherwise known as Kamen Rider Dante. As Hotaro succumbs to his wounds and passes on his belt to Hoshi, he’s ambushed by a woman in a black military uniform who mistakes him for Hotaro. From there, Hoshi ends up getting wrapped up in a war between the disgruntled characters of various stories and the combined forces of characters and their creators. All while Hoshi himself is forced to revisit the past, find out the circumstances of his friend’s death, and try to move on before his flames of grief destroys all in his path.

Cinders and Ashes: The Chronicle of Kamen Rider Dante is a crossover between Kamen Rider and Re:CREATORS that looks at the concept of a Self-Insert Fic then dissects it, with the first step being “What If? one of the creations that appeared was someone’s self insert” and then going on from there.

You can read it Here, here, or here.

Note that, for the sake of counting, the side story chapters ^note Interludes 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5, as well as Road to Fall don't count.

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This fanfic provides examples of:

• Actionized Adaptation: Partially due to how it’s crossed over with Kamen Rider (and also due to Adaptation Expansion), Re:Creators has a lot more fights compared to canon.
• Actor Allusion:
  • Yuuya spouts off Ryutaros's catchphrase, tying to the fact that they're both voiced by the same person.
  • The Wiki made for it brings up how Vega, the Great Leader of Re:Shocker, is voiced by Tomokazu Seki, who often voices the Great Leader of Shocker across modern Kamen Rider films.
• Adapted Out: invoked Episode 13 of Re:Creators and any elements from it, such as Meteroa’s new form, are passed over, though for obvious reasons.
• Adaptational Angst Upgrade:
  • Hikayu already had a tragic backstory, but it was only mentioned once in the anime. Here, it's mentioned more throughout the White Darkness arc, establishing that during her story, she was a Broken Bird and that Masayuki (the protagonist) helped her process her grief. By extension, her Creator also has this, as he made her game to help his friend cope with a loved one's suicide.
  • Souta's regret with how he treated Setsuna gets a larger mention given the wider spread consequences of her death. It doesn't help that fueling this regret is a villain that was made in his image.
• Adaptational Badass:
  • Magane's Reality Warper ability gets played up more in this story and showing how exactly she can be a threat without ever lifting a finger to fight. The fact that she uses Hangaku in the story whereas in the original, she doesn't, makes her more of a badass. If we take the crossover with Edge of Time into consideration, she not only manages to manipulate Joffrey into retconning his own actions, but also utilizes a lie she told him as a Chekhov's Gun to merge Souta with Yudai.
  • Hikayu has a case where she becomes a badass much earlier than in the show, as midway through the fanfic, she learns how to box and obtains the powers of Magical Slayer Mamika.
• Adaptational Early Appearance: An example where a scene appears earlier than intended. The chat between Souta and Magane in the final arc of the anime is shifted to before the Elimination Chamber Festival. Similarly, Yuuya and Syo's reunion, along with Celesia and Charon's reunion, also happen before the Elimination Chamber Festival.
• Adaptational Heroism: Downplayed with Syo and Charon. While they leave Altair's faction^note Something that Syo only does late into the show and Charon never leaving at all after the Shibuya fight, it's less a case of Heel–Face Turn and more a case of Not What I Signed on For, since they're still intent on killing Yuuya and getting Matsubara to save his world respectively.
• Adaptational Villainy:
  • Downplayed. While Magane was still mostly antagonistic in the episodes that Cinder Road followed, she was tipped off about Souta and Hoshi by Altair and messed with them purely to get a kick out of it. By the end of Cinder Road, though, she seems committed to breaking Hoshi and has even begun creating some Kaizo-Majins that are pure evil, whereas in the original, she branched out to be the Wild Card. She even reveals to Souta that if the world is to be destroyed, she'd rather have it explode in a way she approves.
  • Played straight for her creator and, by extension, Setsuna’s bullies. While the only source of it was Souta himself, Cinders and Ashes pulls no punches in saying that, yes, they were making up the plagiarism accusations, with Kurakuma being one of the people who spearheaded the campaign. Doubly so when several of them become Kaizo-Majin.
  • As per the course with Ascended Extra, Shimashima in no way was allied with Altair.
• Adaptational Wimp: Downplayed and Justified. While Altair was able to beat and almost kill Hoshi in one fight, Alicetaria surprised her In the Back and Hoshi took this to his advantage, turning the tables on her and almost killing her himself. She could have also brought the fight to an end earlier had Hoshi not knocked the Holopsicon from her hands.
• Adaptation Displacement: invoked Discussed, as it's confirmed that two of the Creations, Celesia and Yuichi, came from their respective anime adaptations instead of their original novels. Meteora proposes the reason being that it's easier to watch their anime and thus have more fans of that format than the original.
• Adaptation Expansion: For comparison's sake, the anime had twenty-two episodes while the fanfic only hit the midgame on Chapter 23.
  • Timeline wise, events are more spread out in the fanfic. Case in point, the first five chapters, ranging from Hoshi’s introduction to the cast and fighting Jorougumo, adds a couple of extra days in between Episodes 5 and 6 of Re:Creators. This is later shown in Cinder Fall, where only two whole episodes are adapted (with moments from the final arc happening earlier) and the rest takes place during the timeskips leading to the final arc.
  • While the anime briefly skimmed the plot of all the stories that were involved, Cinder Road expands and explains more details about those worlds, such as how Yuuya obtained Hangaku or how Vogelchavlier was really an isekai anime with Charon being the protagonist, even going as far as to expand on characters within those worlds who go on to be their own characters (i.e. Melt). This also extends to the Creators as well, who range from having additonal thoughts on their situation to having entire backstories.
  • It also showcases plot elements of Setsuna’s backstory being weaved into the current story, such as the “Zenmetsuna” movement or Shimashima helping with the Elimination Chamber Festival.
  • An In-Universe version is Tachibana’s manga adaptation of the fanfic, which includes a villain in the form of Malacoda as well as being implied that he simmered down on Hotaro’s lust for vengeance.
  • The biggest expansion is revealing how Altair came to the Land of Gods in the first place. Before, it was never revealed but here? It's revealed that she was summoned by Setsuna's father by means of an old device used to summon Akagi and Dr. Gilmore.
• Affectionate Nickname: Honoka calls Hoshi “Starry”.
• All Part of the Show:
  • A minor version of this happens in the first chapter, where Hoshi believed he is just in a dream and decided to fight against the Military Uniform Princess, only to find that the dream was actually real and he had just signed himself up for a war.
  • Hanamori, a boxer who was picked to play the role of Hotaro, quickly buys into the role and assumes the attack on the venue he was making his announcement was staged. Unlike most examples of the trope, he manages to realize rather within a short time that it’s far from staged.
  • A larger version of this is during a battle at the concert. A lot of the people attending believed the battling was all a stage to tease the Elimination Chamber Festival and as such, seemed non-chalant about the affair. That is until the battles began to grow beyond just Hoshi and Yuuya vs. Yudai and Syo.
• All There in the Manual: Details for both Kazoku and Bird Keeper Toris are given on Spacebattles.
• And Then What?: A rare version where it's the person who asked the question whose armor gets pierced. Hoshi asks Altair what'll happen after she destroys the multiverse, only to realize that Altair intends to just destroy it.
• Angst Nuke: What Hoshi’s Endeavors eventually become once he creates Yellowstone, as the trigger for an Endeavor is to be Hot-Blooded and going into them results in him exploding into flames. Downplayed for Sakurajima, as while it achieves similar effects, the damage is more heat-based than flame-based.
• Animal Motifs: Natural for Kamen Rider, with Dante having a firefly as his main form and a bombardier beetle and a cicada as his secondary forms, and his monster form being a tigermander. Docro uses the beak of a crow to replicate a Plague Doctor, Malacoda is based off a manticore, and Verge being a snowflea.
• Arc Hero: Interestingly, throughout the fanfic, Hoshi has partnered up with another person and undergoes a development with them.
  • Chapters 2-3: Blitz.
  • Chapters 4-5: Alicetaria & Mamika.
  • Chapters 6-11: Marine.
  • Chapters 12-13: Honoka.
  • Chapters 14-16: Hikayu.
  • Chapters 17-22: Dan Izumi & Yuichi.
  • Chapters 23-??: Souta.
• Arc Number: The number two comes up often in the story.
  • Hoshi is the second person to be Dante.
  • Several Creations have a Debut Queue where Hoshi meets two of them at the same time: Celesia and Meteora in chapter 1, Yuuya and Blitz in chapter 2, Alicetaria and Mamika in chapter 4, Akagi and Dr. Gilmore in chapter 13, and Melt and Yuichi in Chapter 16. The exceptions to this being Rui, Hikayu, Syo. Several Creations have also been shown to be summoned in pairs, such as Hotaro & Rock Spider, Jorougumo & Magane, Vega & Malacoda. The only exception to this is Charon.
  • During GO Princess's final concert, the Creations are assigned in pairs of two for different tasks: Yuuya and Rui to bodyguard the idols, Celesia and Alicetaria to engage with Yuichi, and Hoshi and Hikayu to bodyguard Dan.
  • The second person to inherit a belt will mostly use it for good. Case in point, Hotaro and Yudai's use of their belts vs. Hoshi and Kotoha's use.
  • The additional Riders (with the exception of Toris) can all qualify to be secondary Riders, as Docro is the first Rider to appear after Dante with Verge being the regular Secondary Rider.
• Arc Villain: While Altair is the Big Bad, each couple of chapters has a villain that is introduced and taken care of in that span.
  • Chapters 2-3: Yuuya.
  • Chapters 4-5: Jorougumo.
  • Chapters 6-11 plays with this. Hoshi and the team make it pretty obvious that Magane is the villain, but the most she’s ever done is indirectly have the Hound of Tindalos attack Hoshi as well as steal Honoka’s phone and caused Hoshi to assume she killed her. In fact, a good chunk of the chapters show that it’s Hoshi who’s the villain, albeit not of his own volition, especially after the second major battle, as the focus of the arc is finding a way for Hoshi to be able to use Dante’s powers without having to deal with that problem again.
  • Chapters 12-13: Malacoda.
  • Chapters 14-16: Strike Cobra/Yoshi Mitsukura.
  • Chapters 17-22: Kamen Rider Verge/Yuichi and Freezing Bear/Watari Ryuzaki.
  • Chapters 23-??: Yudai.
• Arch Nemesis Dad: A staple of modern Kamen Riders, one of the main villains is Yuusuke Shimazaki, Setsuna and Tachibana's father. And given the recurring motif that the Creators are technically parents to their Creations, he also qualifies as this to Yuichi.
• Armor-Piercing Question:
  • Yuuya drops a few of them during his rematch with Hoshi, all of which caused him to realize he wrote Dante as more of a weapon against Setsuna's bullies.
  • Yudai and Charon exchange one about why they're fighting. Charon asks why Yudai wants Hoshi to die so badly while Yudai asks if Celesia is the reason he's hesitating to fight. Both deflect, but by the end of the chapter, they both indirectly get their answers.
  • Magane drops several on Souta as she attacks his motivation for why he's helping the others despite being the major cause of the crisis they're facing.
• Ascended Extra: Given this is a fanfic expanding upon a 22-episode anime, certain characters got larger roles.
  • The Hound of Tindalos that Magane summoned ended up being an opponent that Hoshi had to fight and defeat.
  • Kurakuma’s original role in Re:Creators was being a corpse. While the same applies here, he at least had two additional scenes where he reveals Setsuna’s plagiarism was actually set up by him and a group of other people. On top of that, his Ambiguous Situation is cleared up.
  • Magane herself doesn't play a huge role in the show, only being a minor antagonist for a few episodes before helping the allies. In the fanfic, though, she's just as much of a threat as Altair, to the point where she confronts her on this.
  • Shimashima was only given a brief mention by Setsuna in the original, though in the fanfic, he’s one of the main coordinators for the Elimination Chamber Festival. As well as the one who summoned Altair in the first place.
  • Charon and Syo had only a minor appearance before their role in the Elimination Chamber Festival arc where they served either as an obstacle or the 11th-Hour Ranger. The fanfic expands on their characters, Charon's by showing just how someone who has fought for so long ends up being as cynical as Charon and Syo's by showing just how disinterested he is in the overall goal of the villains.
  • Melt was a character that's only seen in the opening of Re:Creators and in Episode 13 where her name is revealed. In the fanfic, though, she's the newly recruited partner of Mamika.
  • Hikayu and her Creator, Ohnishi were introduced shortly before the final arc which was a five-episode Big Badass Battle Sequence and a Dénouement Episode, meaning that they only had a few minor moments where their characters shined. The fanfic expands on their characters with an arc that goes into depth with Hikayu's Dark and Troubled Past and what inspired Ohnishi to write that respectively.
• Awesome, but Impractical: Toranity Mount is the All Your Powers Combined form and, as such, is easily the strongest of Hoshi's forms. However, it also requires loading four Burst Shells into the Volcannik Driver, something that, in the heat of battle, is nearly impossible for Hoshi to do.
• Berserk Button:
  • Hurting Mamika is a sure-fire way to piss off both Alicetaria and Hoshi. Killing her even more so.
  • For Shimashima, it's Setsuna's controversey due to him being unable to stop it, especially with him knowing that the bloodshed is all because of that event. Though her being his daughter did not help matters.
• Big Brother Mentor: Tachibana gives off a speech about being with others to Hoshi that he reflects upon. It’s eventually revealed that he was a big brother. Keyword being “was”. It's revealed that Hanamori also is one to his little sister.
• Big Bad Duumvirate: Altair goes into one with Vega after the latter comes and offers an alliance.
• Big Bad Ensemble: By contrast, Altair and Magane both share billing as major villains.
• Big Damn Heroes: Alicetaria saves Hoshi’s life right before Altair tries to kill him.
• Bittersweet Ending: Cinder Road ends with Hoshi finally finding the resolve needed to become Kamen Rider Dante, gaining new allies, obtaining a new power-up that won’t put him at risk of an Unstoppable Rage or burning himself, and helping lift the stigma off of Setsuna. However, Honoka gets injured in a battle Hoshi was in, he burnt most of his bridges with Meteora’s faction and destroyed any chance he has of rekindling his friendship with Souta, Altair has recruited the Rider that’s a hard counter to Dante, and while people are starting to see that Setsuna didn’t plagiarise, it also kickstarted a flame war, which Vega is planning to stoke the fires. The epilogue adds both a bitter and a sweet portion to it, with Honoka making a good recovery and Yudai teaming up with Magane to ensure Hoshi breaks for good, getting the yakuza involved into matters.
• Breather Episode:
  • Chapter 12 has Hoshi go to Honoka’s house to relax. While there are some dark moments, such as Hoshi’s suicide attempt or Malacoda’s curbstomping, most of the chapter is rather light in contrast to what Hoshi went through in the previous chapters.
  • Chapter 25, after going through not just a Heel–Face Turn arc for Yuichi but also a Big Badass Battle Sequence in Shibuya, allows some of the cast to relax at a hot springs inn. However, the only thing preventing the reader from feeling at ease is the Dramatic Irony that one of the main villains is the one who set up said stay in the first place and that Yudai is revealed to not only be alive, but impersonating Souta. And sure enough, the next chapter after that gives us one of the darkest in the story.
• Broken Faceplate: While a staple for tokusatsu, it gets exaggerated here. By the end of Cinder Road (or 13 chapters in), we see a total of four faceplates broken^note For context, they’re Blaze Neko, Docro, Dante, and Malacoda, in that order.
• Bully Hunter: What Hoshi became through writing Dante to be someone who beats up caricatures of bullies.
• Burn Scars, Burning Powers: Throughout the fanfic, Hoshi obtains several burn scars on his body, with a major contributor being when he gets overloaded by Celesia's Flame Chant and practically coated him in flames.
• Burning with Anger: Endeavors wreath Dante in flames. The way to activate them is to think Hot-Blooded. For Hoshi, that means anger. A downplayed version has his body temperature heat up when he’s stressed and occasionally cause minor explosions upon punching.
• Call to Adventure: Like with most modern Kamen Riders, Hoshi obtains his Rider powers and chooses to fight as Dante.
  • Refusal of the Call: He tried to ignore his drafting into the war and tried to run to Akihabara in the second chapter.
  • Can't Refuse the Call Anymore: However, during an encounter with Blitz and Yuuya, Hoshi ends up entering the battle to save Blitz's life, only to get injured and eventually coming across Mamika and Alicetaria. Afterwards, he accepted his role as Kamen Rider Dante.
  • Resigned to the Call: Later chapters show this is Hoshi's thoughts on the whole thing, especially given the trauma he went through.
• Came Back Wrong: Defied by Altair when she's tempted by Magane to revive Setsuna, knowing full well that Magane would twist it this way.
• Central Theme: The story as a whole, as well as its parts, have themes it explores.
  • Grief and how anger at said grief, while a healthy part of the process and can be used for the betterment of others, is ultimately detrimental to moving on if one decides to stay angry. It says something when Altair's faction (hers included) are all people motivated by loss ^note Altair and Yuusuke with Setsuna, Alicetaria with Magratz Village and later Mamika, Blitz with his daughter, Charon with Lunala, Syo with his sister and mentor, Yudai with Yuna, and Yuichi with everyone but chose to lash out instead of coping. The fic even makes it a point to actively call the Clap Your Hands If You Believe effect "Acceptance" rather than "Approval".
  • There's the theme of brotherhood, as a minor, recurring motif, is that some of Hoshi's allies are either elder siblings or give off the illusion of one.
  • Cinder Road views the difference between justice and revenge. Namely, how revenge is a more destructive version of justice.
  • Cinder Fall has You Are Not Alone be a major role throughout its arcs, which coincides with the fact that the saga has multiple new heroes joining the good guys.
• Cerebus Retcon: The line "Shut up, I'll throw lettuce at you!" was a non-sequiter line in Re:CREATORS, though in Cinders and Ashes, it's a line used in a flame war over Setsuna.
• The Chessmaster: Magane demonstrates in Chapter 19 that she can play a mean game of chess, first by enabling an idol fan to kill idols set to retire without consequence, give another idol fan the means to exact justice onto the first fan, then have it all set during the last concert of an idol whose producer has ties to Zenmetsuna to make the whole conflict look like another battle in the string of Zenmetsuna vs. Aid Setsuna.
• Chronic Hero Syndrome: What prevents Hoshi from outright giving up being Dante. He most likely would have stopped being Dante after his first battle had it not been for him bumping into Yuuya and Blitz. Likewise, when he hears that Souta is in danger.
• Cliffhanger: Several chapters end on one, usually to break up a battle for to be its own chapter. A notable example is Chapter 19, which ends with Freezing Bear already on his way to the next victim with Hikayu being caught by Malacoda, all while Magane reveals to Altair that she had set things in motion so that all hell breaks lose at the concert, with the next episode ending on the cliffhanger of Dan being turned into a Kaizo-Majin.
• Co-Dragons: During the events of Cross Generations, the Showa Darkling and the Dante Kaizo-Majin are this to Joffrey, as they both have huge significance as enforcers.
• Composite Character:
  • In Cross Generations, Joffrey fills in the role of both Tid (main antagonist who targets the Hisagana kids) and Hiryu (the role of Another Zi-O). Comparatively, Another Showa and Another Dante (or as per the Edge of Time naming conventions, the Showa Darkling and the Dante Kaizo-Majin) are these to Another Double and Another Den-O respectively.
  • In Cinder Fall, the GO Princess idol duo become hosts for the Elimination Chamber Festival, filling in the roles of Mikako Komatsu and Sora Amamiya in the anime. This is an Enforced Trope given the rules on Fanfiction.net against using real people in fanfics.
• Cool Big Sis: Honoka, and Hoshi knows it, as he uses her to try and break out of his Heroic BSoD. This is also what causes him to go into an Unstoppable Rage whenever she’s in danger.
• Cope by Creating: Deconstructed. Hoshi’s coping with Setsuna’s death involves him writing his OC killing caricatures of people who attacked her and making the OC’s motivation avenging a thinly veiled copy of Setsuna. Reconstruction with Tachibana’s doujin adaptation, in which he draws it as a means to honor Setsuna’s life, not to avenge her death.
• Creator Breakdown:
  • In-Universe with Hoshi. After realizing that he wrote Hotaro’s story to be a Revenge Fic and nearly had his OC beat up a villain he based off Souta, he quit writing for Kamen Rider Dante.
  • This also happens In-Universe with Yuusuke, who was suffering from a divorce in the middle of writing the adaptation for Kazoku, which led him to a darker ending for the anime.
• Curbstomp Battle: Hoshi gets the receiving end of this from Malacoda, one that results in his helmet breaking.
• Dark Fic: The fanfic manages to become darker than Re:Creators manages to be by going more into detail with the circumstances and consequences of Setsuna's suicide. And then Vega and his Kaizo-Majin come into the picture and make it even darker.
• A Day in the Limelight: While the story is focused on Hoshi, small interlude chapters are devoted to other characters, such as Hotaro in the prologue or a chapter of Alicetaria and Mamika coming across Hoshi. Some chapters are devoted to a character even though Hoshi is the viewpoint character, such as Chapter 7 which focuses on a bit of Yuuya’s past.
• Deconstruction Fic: The fanfic deconstructs the idea of Kamen Rider self-inserts, namely the power and danger that comes with being one, showing that while it can be Wish-Fulfillment, it can also become your worst nightmare.
  • Hoshi becomes a two-fold deconstruction of Kamen Rider self inserts. Hoshi has a Freak Out when he finds out that him becoming Dante actually happened and throughout his fights, he either gets injured or passes out from over-exerting himself in a flaming suit, not helped by his lack of actual combat experience. His reaction to finding out he made his story a Revenge Fic makes matters worse, as he toes the line and becomes afraid of being what most Author Avatars are: weapons to destroy anyone they dislike. As a result of both of these, he, during the course of Cinder Road, often tries to avoid being Dante. A minor jab at the trope is also taking the term "self-insert" literally, as Hoshi is seemingly unnerved with Hotaro looking exactly like him.
  • This deconstruction is furthered in Cinder Fall. While Hoshi ends up staying as Dante, the emotional trauma he endures is noticeable by all parties involved, especially since his battles as Dante become a lot bloodier and with more deaths. The "frequently gets injured" bit of being Dante is brought up by Matsubara when saying how Souta wouldn't survive if he took Hoshi's place and later on, Hoshi's injuries become a major point of contention for many of his allies. At the same time, Hoshi also deconstructs Passing the Torch, since he uses that very experience to discourage the others from trying to fill in his shoes.
  • Another aspect of deconstructing the self insert is that, while normal self inserts are often potrayed as always being in the right with anyone opposing them being antagonists and their otherwise violent behaviours getting no consequences whatsoever, Hoshi not only has his morality questioned time and time again, but his brashness usually gives him consequences both short and long term.
  • Speaking of wish fulfillment, the fanfic also deconstructs the concept of the self insert becoming instant friends with the protagonists, as Hoshi is only part of the team by the circumstance of him being a Creation and Creator. Even then, the only friends he makes are characters who are just friendly overall (Rui, Celesia, Marine, and Hikayu). Everyone else he either tolerates, fights, or even gets angry at. While a case could be made about him having an easier time siding with the villains, he just as easily burns those bridges to the point where the only two villains he has a good friendship with are either dead or merely working with him against a bigger villain. By the end of Cinder Road, he leaves the group altogether after burning some bridges and his only support are Akagi and Dr. Gilmore, with only one of them being a friend of his.
  • Suruga brings up the idea that a Kamen Rider is all about power to Hoshi in Chapter 8 and the reason why there’s such a Power Creep.
  • Much like Black RX, Hoshi’s form changes are dependant on his emotions. However, whereas Kotaro, being an adult who had endured traumatic events before, was able to control his emotions, Hoshi, a young adult who responds to mental trauma far more rashly, can’t and thus he ends up switching to the much more destructive Yellowstone form on a whim, to the point where Sakurajima isn’t seen as an alternative form but a much-needed patch, less Robo Rider and Bio Rider and more Hazard and RabbitRabbit/TankTank.
  • It's Common Knowledge that Kamen Riders fight for justice ^note In reality, they often fought for peace and/or freedom, something that's been pointed out several times, especially in Kamen Rider Revice where they become diametrically opposed sides, with Dante taking it to its literal conclusion. Hotaro (and by extension, Hoshi), is marked as an ally of justice, but it's later revealed that this brand of justice is revenge against Re:Shocker. Remembering what he based Re:Shocker on caused Hoshi to rethink on what exactly his version of justice meant. Meanwhile, Alicetaria's meaning of justice blurs so much that her own creator implied he wanted to quit because of it.
  • On the Re:Creators side, it brings the tragedy of Setsuna to the forefront, from emphasizing on the plagiarism accusations to showing just how her death (and by extension, Souta and Hoshi’s actions) emotionally affected her friends and family, as well as show how such controversy doesn’t just go away nor is restricted to just the internet, as seen when a Zenmetsuna member vandalizes Hoshi’s apartment just because he said he was friends with Setsuna or the full-on flame war that Vega intends to cause. As a direct consequence of Altair being a meme character, her true identity is found out almost immediately once the Creators get a hold of someone who knows of her.
  • Another deconstruction of a Re:Creators plot point is that it's hard to keep up a masquerade, especially once frequent attacks start becoming a thing. It gets to a point where the police are Locked Out of the Loop while the Yakuza are in the know about monster attacks by virtue of willingly becoming the monsters.
• Deconstructed Character Archetype: Charon is one to the Isekai protagonist. He brings up how he has no memories of his life prior to getting transported to Earthmelia, is tired of the endless fighting he is going through, and if Matsubara is to be believed, was shoehorned into Vogelchavilier by his editor, essentially deconstructing how an Isekai protagonist would have no real backstory prior to their displacement, have their stories go on for almost forever, and feel like an unnecessary addition to the story.
• Decon-Recon Switch:
  • As mentioned above, Hoshi’s reaction to being Kamen Rider Dante is far from the Ascended Fanboy trope that most self-inserts have and he, in fact, tries to ditch the mantle a few times. Despite this reluctance, however, he still recognizes from time to time that he does have what it takes to be a Kamen Rider and fights regardless of the problems he has. On top of that, Hoshi ends up remembering his original reason why he made Dante before the Retool: to create a hero that inspires others to protect.
  • The mentioned jab at the Self-Insert looking like the author gets a reconstruction almost immediately (though it's not pointed out until a few chapters later), as Hotaro realizes that Hoshi is his "god" and trusts him with the belt after getting past the initial weirdness.
  • Averted for the emotion-based forms. The solution to the problem, switching to the more traditional “use a collectible to switch forms” format, doesn’t outright fix the problem presented by the deconstruction.
  • While Hoshi abandons his ideals of justice in favor of protecting everyone he can, Alicetaria and Takarada reconstruct the ideals of justice as she confesses that she became disillusioned with fighting an endless war and seeing him as the easy way out, with her fight with Meteora being her Heel Realization. Vice versa for Takarada becoming disillusioned with his old cynical views of justice and adopting a more idealistic version if it.
  • Every Heroic BSoD Hoshi suffers presents a cycle of this:
    • The first: "Being a Kamen Rider is scary, but I have to use this power to stop the bad guys and exact justice!"
    • The second: "But my preception of justice was extremely skewered, so instead I'll fight to protect everyone!"
    • The third: "But I can't save everyone if I can't save myself, so I need others to help me out."
• Deadly Upgrade: Every one of the Belts made by Re:Shocker is this to an extent. The Volcano Belt puts Hoshi in bouts of heat stroke if it doesn’t outright give him first degree burns. The Plague Belt uses diseases as a primary power boost, resulting in either irreparable damages or outright death, not helped with using actual chemical poisons to boost the power and thus, the killing potential of the belt.
• Death Seeker: Hoshi during the Cinder Fall arc ends up becoming this due to his role in the crisis at hand, even telling Marine that he's fine with dying if it meant atoning for what he did. He doesn't realize he was going through this though until Yudai specifally calls this out as being his second chance to commit suicide.
• Defeat Equals Explosion: Subverted for the Kaizo-Majin that are made in the real world, in which they shatter into blue crystals instead of exploding, with the in-universe explanation being that it’s the Restorative Powers booting the Kaizo-Majin portion of the person out. It's later played straight in some cases.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Literally, as Hoshi destroyed the The Hounds of Tindalos with a Rider punch. Word of God pointed out that, the Hound would have won hands down were this battle realistically happened.
  • Broke Your Arm Punching Out Cthulhu: That said, the Hound managed to heavily injure Hoshi to the point where he still has scars on the places where it bit months after the fact.
• Discard and Draw: Hoshi purposefully overloads the Volcano Belt and destroys it, then later obtains the Volcannik Driver.
• Doing In the Wizard: Dr. Gilmore explains how Altair is able to arrive into their world. It's through the use of Project Astro Phoenix, a system used to bring fictional characters into reality in an attempt to have the authors' stories continue long after their passing.
• Dragon with an Agenda: Malacoda tells Hotaro that he intends to take his belt and, after fusing the belt with his own, use the combined power destroy Re:Shocker to avenge Yuna. Once Hoshi destroyed the belt, however, he actively goes against Vega’s back to ensure Hoshi’s suffering. After he's commanded to turn two brothers into Kaizo-Majin, he outright declares to Magane his intent to kill Vega and Souta.
• Dramatic Irony:
  • Once The Reveal that Shimashima is actually Yuusuke Shimazaki and is working with Altair, future interactions between him and the heroes under his Shimashima guise become this trope.
• Driven to Suicide: What effectively kicks off the plot and Hoshi’s Heroic BSoD, but the twist of the knife was that Hoshi almost got this as well had it not been for a bystander to save him and Alicetaria to inspire him. Kurakuma, Magane’s creator, is explicitly said to have killed himself. Hanamori reveals that he too was close to this.
• Elemental Baggage: Zig-Zagged. It's played straight for the Kaizo-Majin, but for the Kamen Riders, they have to draw in an element for their powers, such as Dante drawing in fire, Verge drawing in ice, and Docro drawing in toxins. Their emotions act as their hammerspace, however, to the point it creates a feedback loop where the emotions feed into the Rider's elements and vice versa.
• Elemental Powers: Hoshi created Dante with the intent of him Playing with Fire, though with Yellowstone, it upgrades to Magma Man, Sakurajima has Blow You Away, and while Ashen Form doesn’t have Ashes to Ashes, Fuji Form has a minor application. It also becomes apparent that Re:Shocker does the exact same thing with their monsters and their own belts.
  • Combo Platter Powers: It's shown that Kaizo-Majin can fuse different elements together, with the examples being Malacoda and Strike Cobra, as well as Dante's own Toranity Mount.
  • An Ice Person: Verge, Freezing Bear, and Cool Spider.
  • Blow You Away: Sakurajima Mount's attacks are heated air and it even allows him to fly. Diving Stingray, Cyclone Kirin, and Storming Penguin applies for this too. Dry Sai follows Sakurajima's example of having heated wind.
  • Extra-ore-dinary: The footsoldiers, the Durants, have this, as well as Barracuda Blade, Dengeki Tokage, Nitoryu Jaguar, and implied to be this for Formula Rex.
  • Green Thumb: Wood Panda.
  • Hellfire: Malacoda.
  • Magma Man: Yellowstone Mount.
  • Playing with Fire: Deconstructed, as Meteora is quick to point out how Hoshi’s powers have the potential to be the most destructive out of all the Creations, on top of the damage it inflicts on his body. Blaze Neko, Flaming Tigermander, Frying Alpaca, Fire Fox, and Fire Hedgehog have this as well.
  • Poisonous Person: Yudai's first Rider form is Docro, based off a poison-based Kaizo Majin form. Also Toxic Porcupine, Strike Cobra, and it's implied that Yuna had this as well.
  • Rock Monster: Stone Rhino and Boulder Kong.
  • Sand Blaster: Desert Tanuki.
  • Shock and Awe: Implied to be this for Thunder Ladybug and confirmed for Sparking Giraffe, Electric Hedgehog, Lightning Hornet, Storming Penguin, and Dengeki Tokage.
  • Supernatural Martial Arts: Martial Panda.
• Emotional Powers: All of Dante’s forms (and by extension, the Re:Shocker belts) draw power from not just elements, but also emotions, sometimes even being used as a back-up source. Fuji has passion, Yellowstone has anger, Sakurajima has sorrow, and Ashen is whenever those emotions aren’t strong enough. By contrast, Verge's powers derive from being cold-blooded, though Yuichi circumvents it by being a corpse and thus be naturally cold-blooded. A post on SpaceBattles says that Docro’s powers also draw from toxicity (or failing that, being sick, though that runs the risk of killing the user). This becomes averted for Dante once Hoshi switches to a more traditional form-changing gimmick.
• Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors: Discussed when talking about what kind of Rider would beat Dante. Tachibana proposes someone who uses ice to defeat fire. When Yatoji brings up that it’s normally the other way around, it’s pointed out that ice turns into water when melted and thus would douse the fire in the process.
• Enemy Civil War: Invoked by Vega, whose plan involves empowering two feuding internet crowds and turning them into monsters to fight each other.
• Enemy Mine: Hoshi recruits Alicetaria to help him kill Jorougumo, with her stating that as soon as she’s dealt with, they’ll be back to enemies. They later indirectly undergo this towards Meteora and afterwards, make Altair their enemy.
• Epigraph: Each arc begins with an Epigraph, usually with a meaning that carries throughout the particular arc.
  • Cinder Road: "Through the darkness of futures past, the magician longs to see. One chants out between two worlds... fire, walk with me." - The last two sentences of the phrase fits Hoshi using the powers of Dante, a fire-based Rider from another world.
  • Cinder Fall: "It's not about overpowering an enemy. It's about taking away what power they have." - During this arc, there's plans to depower Altair in the Elimination Chamber Festival.
• Establishing Series Moment: Hoshi’s Freak Out at the hospital followed shortly by him screaming about how his friend killed herself sets up not just the direction the fanfic is going to take, but also Hoshi’s ties to the overall plot of Re:Creators. Even earlier when Hoshi has a minor mental break at seeing Hotaro in person.
• Evil Knockoff: Inverted. As Malacoda brings up, Hoshi's Volcannik Driver and Burst Shells are a copy of his Malefik Driver and Sinful Shells.
• Evil Versus Oblivion: Subverted for Magane. At first, it appears she's going for this trope, but once she hears what Souta intended to write for his contribution to the Elimination Chamber, she ensures he's able to make it happen purely to see how Hoshi and Altair will react, saying that it'd be great if they end up blowing up the world.
• Expy: Par for the course, given what this fanfic crosses over with.
  • Word of God brought up how Hoshi and Hanamori are expies to Peter Parker and Quinten Beck respectively, but with the caveat of them not wanting to be an Avenger or the next Iron Man respectively.
  • Mirroring how Charon’s an expy to Kirito, his Forgotten Fallen Friend, Lunala, is one to Sachi, with a mixture of Asia Argento in there as well.
  • Given how he was originally supposed to be Ryuga, Hanamori is an expy to him: a boxer who is fighting to support an ill girl and is even described as wearing a similar outfit to Ryuga's in his first appearence.
  • Yuichi's Visual Novel origins, ending that involves losing loved ones and even dying in a snowstorm, and the timing of his anime adaptation brings to mind Tomoya, though the anime-exclusive ending he comes from and the ill little sister bring to mind Makoto's fate and Taka's situation with Kana respectively. According to a post discussing the endings to the Visual Novel, two of its endings are nods to two of Kana's endings.
  • The wording of Dan's past, right down how he "gently opened the door", makes it clear that he's essentially the protagonist of Doki Doki Literature Club! who has to live with the Sayo-Nara ending. As a Creator, given his writing style, Dan seems to be one to Key/Visual Arts.
  • On top of Alicetaria being an expy to Guts, Hoshi mentions that she had a dog-themed inner demon that she had to fight in one arc, alluding to Guts' own inner demon which also resembled a dog.
  • As the story goes on, Souta and Yudai's relationship begins to become more remisent of Daiji and Kagero's relationship, right down to Yudai impersonating Souta while he is out on a spa trip that's a front for him to bring despair to the main Rider.
• First-Episode Spoiler: The first two chapters bring up plot points that aren't revealed until midway through the show, namely Setsuna's suicide and the source of Altair's powers.
• Five Stages of Grief: Throughout the fanfic, Hoshi goes through these stages in regards to him being a Kamen Rider (and by extension, mourning Setsuna).
  • Denial: Starting from the end of Chapter 1, Hoshi has a hard time believing he's a Kamen Rider and tries to get away from both that and having to remember Setsuna.
  • Anger: After he creates Yellowstone Mount, Hoshi tapped into a more angrier side to him, lashing out at others before ultimately calming down thanks to Sakurajima Mount.
  • Bargaining: He discusses with Alicetaria about how he would have fought with her and the other Creations, even saying how he would want God to revive Setsuna if he was able to. Briefly before the end of Cinder Road, Hoshi started to seek other people to take the Volcano Belt from him, including Shindou and Alicetaria. Even thanking Kikuchihara for confiscating the belt. Though, he gets out of it once the belt is destroyed and Honoka's injury prompts him to fight Re:Shocker. That said, a more lingering and accurate stage of Bargaining comes in the form of Hoshi being a full blown Death Seeker born out of being The Atoner.
  • Depression: Hoshi spends a bit of Chapter 11 and a good chunk of Cinder Fall in this state, being upset at Setsuna's death and being a Kamen Rider respectively.
  • Acceptance: At the end of Chapter 11, Hoshi seemingly moved on from Setsuna's death, especially when he sees what her Creation plans to do with her grief.
• Fix Fic: While one part of this story is a Kamen Rider crossover, the other part is squarely this, as it fleshes out several characters and arcs of Re:Creators, as well as bring the Setsuna subplot to the forefront.
• Foil: Hoshi is one to quite a few people.
  • Hoshi is one to Souta as both of them remember Setsuna and both of them played a role in Setsuna’s death which they equally regret. However, whereas Hoshi’s regret is deciding not to do anything about it, Souta’s revolved around enjoying the hate Setsuna received and eventually shooting down her plea for support. To seemingly emphasize on this, both their idols are also foils of each other. A minor point that also showed how differently they viewed Setsuna is that Hoshi doesn't bother to draw and as such, wouldn't feel the same envy that Souta had when looking at Setsuna's art.
    • This also extends to when Souta becomes the Dante Kaizo-Majin. As the Flaming Rage of the Aether caused him to think more vengefully about Hoshi and even give him a version similar to his rant at the end of Cinder Road.
  • He’s also one to Alicetaria, given how he based Hotaro off her. Both of them care for Mamika’s well-being and both have equal reactions to her death and assuming she died by Meteora’s hands, however, Hoshi was able to rationalize and believe Meteora whereas Alicetaria ignored what Meteora said and chose to fight her anyways.
  • Hoshi is also compared to Charon by Celesia and during his argument with Syo, it’s clear to see where they contrast, as Charon could be seen as Hoshi if he had fully went into a Roaring Rampage of Revenge before he realizes that revenge has become his entire life and sought a way to bring his rampage to a close. The fact that he also wants to revive those who were killed by the Avalon Brigade brings to mind Hoshi’s talks about turning the world upside down to revive Setsuna.
  • Likewise, Syo's desire for revenge against Yuuya for killing his sister and mentor mirrors Hoshi's relation to Souta, though the contrast is, again, if he had fully went into a Roaring Rampage of Revenge, as his obsession to fight Yuuya is enough to risk jeopradizing his mission.
  • Hoshi and Dan having the same grief is brought up and Hoshi believes this is the reason why he was assigned to protect him. Both had lost a close friend to suicide and took their grief out on their stories (albeit in different ways). The major contrast that's brought up was that, where as Hoshi realized his pained emotions and how he can use it to protect others, Dan wallows in his own depression. Similarly, Dan has forgiven and accepted his friends helping him when they weren't able to help Sayuri, but Hoshi, at the time he spoke with Dan about it, was still conflicted on whether he hated Souta for hurting Setsuna.
  • Hoshi and Shimashima also have a comparison in that they both viewed their inaction to save Setsuna to be their heaviest sin. However, the contrast is that while Hoshi tries to pacify both the Zenmetsuna and Aid Setsuna factions, Shimashima outright labels Zenmetsuna as the enemy in an announcement and does not hesitate to use his Rider powers to try killing one of the accomplices for Setsuna's bullying. Another contrast is that while Hoshi wholeheartedly blames himself for everything bad happening, Shimashima blames everyone but himself.
  • Yuichi and Hotaro are counterparts to each other. While both wish for revenge for the loss of their loved ones, Hotaro rationalized that Yuna's death was not caused by his creator and trusted him enough to make him the next Dante. By contrast, the first thing Yuichi does upon meeting his creator is to try and kill him.
  • Jorougumo and Magane, while both coming from the same story and have the same penchant for mischief, have different powers that share the theme of truths and lies. Magane takes the lies she says and, provided someone calls her out on it, make the lie an outright reality. Jorougumo’s powers work in reverse, with the reality being a mental hallucination of someone’s past, and her being the one to call out their truth before she makes her kill. In other words, while Magane’s powers twist lies inside out, Jorougumo’s powers twists the truth outside inwards.
  • One could see Hotaro as one to Banjou Ryuga, as both are Hot-Blooded Riders that use Good Old Fisticuffs with an ill girlfriend that is killed in an experiment that turned them into a monster and end up getting a magma-themed form. The only difference is that Hotaro never had a Sento to level with him, resulting in him being a lot more aggressive towards the monsters he fights, not even caring for the fact that they were formerly human.
  • Malacoda and Blitz are contrasts to each other. While both are the dragons and the gunslingers to their superiors, Vega and Altair, how they go about serving them is different. While Blitz remains loyal to Altair despite her plans, Malacoda plots behind Vega’s back and even tells Hotaro that he’s planning on destroying Re:Shocker as revenge for making him kill his sister. How they interact with their superiors is also a foil. While there's clearly a Like a Son to Me relationship with both parties, there's two differences. The first is who views who as the child (Altair reminds Blitz of his daughter and Vega compliments Malacoda as his son) but also how that relationship goes (Altair cares enough about Blitz that she doesn't want him to partake in the final battle while Vega begins to choke Malacoda almost immediately after he calls him his son once Verge mentions how Malacoda planned to kill Hikayu.)
• Foreshadowing:
  • Altair brings up how the Gods killed Yuna to Hotaro. At first, she might have meant it as “your God wrote the death of Yuna”, but as we later find out, she actually meant it as “Yuna was based off Setsuna, as such, they killed Yuna as well…”
  • Hoshi muses that he most likely based Ashen Mount off of Kuuga's Growing Form. It's later revealed that Dante as a whole was based off Kuuga.
  • Hoshi states at multiple points that Hotaro and him would definitely join Alicetaria’s cause (and by extension, Altair’s) had circumstances been different, even saying how he’d destroy the world if it meant bringing Setsuna back. He’s also confronted on the issue of Alicetaria possibly manipulating Hoshi into second-guessing his allegiance. He ends up joining Alicetaria when she confronts Meteora.
  • Hotaro mentions how he’s not that different from Altair in that he wanted revenge for Yuna’s death, but realizing that using justice as an excuse to exact revenge isn’t the right route. The fact that he mentioned how he nearly went on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge might refer to Hoshi retooling the story to make it a Revenge Fic.
  • Suruga brings up how a Kamen Rider would be able to be victorious with a newly obtained form only for it to be defeated soon after, essentially dictating how Sakurajima Mount was able to fight Altair to nearly defeat her or how Toranity Mount lost to Strike Cobra after just its second battle.
  • Hoshi sees a flame war erupt during Setsuna's accusations. This would later have some importance as the villains hoped to stoke the flames even further.
  • Malacoda is mentioned in a chapter as Hoshi reads Tachibana’s manga. Turns out he was brought to the real world with Re:Shocker.
  • Throughout Cinder Road, Hoshi’s interactions with ice results in it sizzling and melting, with the Volcano Belt being placed in a high-tech briefcase made to cool it down. By the end of Cinder Road, Tachibana creates a Rider that uses ice powers specifically to counter Dante.
  • Dan brings up how a story isn't finished but just stops moving, similar to Sayori's final poem in Doki Doki Literature Club!. Turns out he had a similar story to the protagonist.
  • Akagi freaks out due to believing he just tripped a bad Event Flag after he and Honoka confessed their love for each other despite the former being Akiba Red. It turns out that he was correct and Honoka is one of the few who was transformed into a Kaizo-Majin.
• Forgotten Fallen Friend: Implied to be the case for Lunala, a priestess that helped Charon during the first arc of Vogelchevalier, as Altair brings up Lunala’s name and then remarks how Charon hasn’t heard that name in a long while. Otherwise averted with Setsuna, Mamika, and Mizuki for Hoshi.
• Forgotten First Meeting: Downplayed and Justified. Hoshi meets up with Setsuna and Souta long before the incident that led to Setsuna’s suicide, but only remembers meeting up with Setsuna and needing a Mind Rape to remember Souta was there too. Souta, however, remembers Hoshi. It’s justified as it was the only in-person meeting Hoshi had with the duo.
• For Want Of A Nail: Hoshi’s presence ends up revealing information of Setsuna and several Creations to the heroes earlier than when they get it in canon, thus allowing them to both gather information on the Military Uniform Princess and recruit Suruga a lot sooner as well as get Kurakuma under protection. It’s also because of him fighting Alicetaria that Meteora avoids getting critically injured.
  • In Spite of a Nail: Regardless, the group has no idea how to fight Altair and their attempts to secure Kurakuma result in him still coming across Magane and dying. It didn’t help that Hoshi’s knowledge on Setsuna as well as his fond memory of her made Souta’s own problems with her that much worse. The first point is subverted by Word of God, who guesses that Meteora and Kikuchihara had come up with the idea for the Elimination Chamber Festival after the meeting, just that a bunch of things kept them too busy to roll it out.
• A Friend in Need: Despite Hoshi’s relationship with Souta souring after revealing his involvement with Setsuna’s plight, Hoshi still went out of his way to protect him from Toxic Porcupine.
• Fusion Dance: It’s been said that belts can combine and shown that Kaizo-Majin can absorb the powers of other Kaizo-Majin, though only through devouring their Essen Crystal and killing them in the process.
• Her Code Name Was "Mary Sue": Turning the trope on its head is the premise of the entire story. Hoshi writes Kamen Rider fanfiction where he and his friends are tied up in a plot by an incarnation of Shocker where he ends up becoming Kamen Rider Dante, only for him to actually become Dante when he obtains the powers. However, it’s Played for Drama, as he wrote up parallels between what happened to his friends and his Kamen Rider fanfiction. This results in his story’s Setsuna dying to Re:Shocker, who he wrote as the allegory to the mob that harassed Setsuna to suicide, with her killer being an expy of Souta. Needless to say, Hoshi is horrified once he realizes what he’s done.
• Heroic BSoD: Hoshi was not too thrilled to have to remember Setsuna’s suicide, even more so once he finds out about his retool of Kamen Rider Dante into a Revenge Fic. This became a full-blown Freak Out once he hears that Mamika died and borders to the Despair Event Horizon when he discovers Souta’s role in Setsuna’s suicide.
• Heroic Safe Mode: Downplayed. While Hoshi recovered from his BSOD, he acts in a safe mode when it comes to fighting Re:Shocker, albeit without being The Stoic.
• Heroic Self-Deprecation: Hoshi often has far crueler words towards himself than towards anyone else, even Souta. It's more noticable when he turns his "The Reason You Suck" Speech into this:
  "I didn't come to her aid when she needed it. I didn't give her advice like she did for me. All I did was fear that if I did defend her from her accusers, I'd be thrown to the wolves as well. Then, when she died, I almost took my own life, too. That's how much I loathed myself. I only managed to live because someone saved my life. I then wrote a story about the hero I could have been… Look where that led me. I burned my bridges with professional mangaka and writers, the government, and the only remaining friend I had. I let Kurakuma die because I threatened his safety, attacked Meteora because I thought she killed her Creator and Mamika, and now the villains I wrote about have not only materialized in our world, but also hurt a lot of people, my sister included. So, yeah, compared to you, I have a lot more bones to pick with myself."
• Heroic RRoD: Transforming into Dante results in Hoshi getting heat stroke. Not only that, but the more heat the belt generates, the hotter the suit and by extension, Hoshi, get. It’s only when Sakurajima is created does this become mitigated and the Volcannik Driver is made does this become a non-issue.
• Hidden Depths: Each of the Creators has revealed some sort of bit about themselves or their stories.
  • Hoshi is revealed to have very similar feelings with Altair's forces and wants to personally disturb the balance to revive Setsuna. It doesn't help that he later realizes that he wrote Dante as a Revenge Fic against Setsuna's bullies.
  • Kurakuma spearheaded the movement that bullied Setsuna to suicide and was soon driven to suicide himself to avoid being killed by Altair.
  • Matsubara originally wanted to write a fantasy story but invoked was forced to make it an isekai by his editor, thus inventing the character of Charon and leading to his reluctance to continue his fight.
  • Nakanogane is painfully aware that Mono Magia was made to sell toys first and foremost and thus was unable to write important themes like how battles affect a pilot’s psyche. However, after seeing how Rui adapted and changed, he’s glad that he didn’t go all out.
  • Yatoji, on top of his knowledge of visual novels, prefers to work by himself due to a falling out with a fellow mangaka leading to his first manga to be cancelled.
  • Takarada had a invoked Creator Breakdown over Alicetaria’s darker elements and neglects to continue it, instead preferring to be a closet idol fan were it not for Alicetaria’s intervention. In an interlude chapter, he even brings up the fear of dying before his story is completed.
  • Shimashima is a Super Sentai fan like Akagi, as shown when he asks why Akagi was involved and not someone from a more recent Sentai or even a popular one. He is also the one to suggest pragmatic ideas such as using a Creator as bait for their vengeful Creation, telling the public about the Kaizo-Majin, or allow Mamika to appear in the Elimination Chamber Festival via fan mods to an unrelated game. He also has a bitter side in that he angerly calls Zenmetsuna's actions unforgivable on live television.
  • Ohnishi has a friend who, twenty years since it happened, still is depressed over the loss of his friend. He had been making visual novels to help him move on.
• Hot-Blooded: Deconstructed. While it’s been pointed out that it means being passionate, something that Hotaro is, Hoshi’s version is a lot more realistic in that Dante gets powered up the angrier Hoshi gets.
• Hot Springs Episode: Subverted. While some of the characters go to a hot springs, the most anyone does there is wear yukata (and even then, only three of them wear one) and eat dinner.
• I Know Mortal Kombat: Deconstructed. Hoshi's experience in fights are Kamen Rider compilations, which leads to him getting outdone by characters who had been in actual fights, most of them deadlier than a fight in real life. Most of the wins he does have are due to assistance from other characters or even utilizing a power.
• I Let Gwen Stacy Die: Hoshi places a lot of blame for Setsuna’s death on himself, to the point of nearly killing himself. His later experiences with people dying and getting critically injured did not help his mindset and once he hears of the Elimination Chamber Festival, passes out from thinking of going through all that again. Souta, Tachibana, and Shimashima also share this setiment in feeling guilty over Setsuna.
• I Need You Stronger: Vega makes it clear to Malacoda that the only reason they’re sparing Hoshi is so that he can make the Volcano Belt stronger. However, Vega also reveals this to Hoshi and on their next battle, Hoshi intentionally overloads the Volcano Belt to destroy it and deny Vega and Malacoda the belt.
• I Should Write a Book About This: Implied to be what Izumi Dan's next novel is going to be about as he talks about childhood friends going to high school and giving them an ending that Sayuri would have wanted.
• Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: Each chapter follows the tradition of “lines of dialogue used as the title”, though they’re all lines from Hoshi with the exception of Chapter 19, when it's said by Magane. Meanwhile, the parts themselves are named “Cinder X”, with X being different for each part.
• In the Name of the Moon: Much like most Kamen Riders, Dante has one depending on which person is being Dante and which form he’s in, with Hotaro’s being a shout out to Kamen Rider Stronger.
  Hoshi: So long as the flames of passion burn inside/magma of rage surge within/winds of sorrow blow across me/I bear this Cross of Fire, I’ll protect the Land of Gods! Kamen Rider… Dante!”
  Hotaro: The fires scream/the magma shouts/the winds cry out! They scream/shout/cry for justice! I am its divine flame/lava/wind… Kamen Rider… Dante!”
  • Yuichi has one as Verge:
  Yuichi: I am the White Darkness at the End of the World… As such, you may call me Kamen Rider Verge!
• Incendiary Exponent: Kamen Rider Dante’s Endeavor modes involve him being wreathed in fire, though with Yellowstone and Sakurajima replacing fire with magma and heat respectively. Hoshi even has shown that he himself can undergo this when out of the suit.
• Ironic Echo:
  • Souta's confession to Hoshi about what happened with Setsuna begins with a remorseful "I'm the one who killed her". Yudai later says this exact same phrase when confessing about killing Yuna, but says it to taunt Hotaro. It's made pretty clear that Hoshi is venting his newfound anger and betrayal by writing a villain based off Souta.
  • Hoshi re-reads a story involving Hotaro fighting a monster, in which he fires back the monster's plea for mercy by pointing out that they didn't show their victim any. Later, Hoshi fights a monster himself and does this exact thing to the monster he was about to kill, though he manages to stop himself before doing so.
• It Only Works Once: Meteora's power to revive Creations is this as repeated use would dull its effectiveness at best and lead to causing the Great Destruction at worst.
• Kiai: Hotaro and Hoshi have “SHOOOTO!” as this.
• Kill It with Ice: Verge's first appearence has him freeze a monster by turning into a compound similar to liquid nitrogen, then shattering the frozen monser with a roundhouse Rider Kick.
• Late-Arrival Spoiler: While the story spoils that Altair was Setsuna's last creation before dying, that's the only twist it spoils out of the gate. Souta's role in it isn't revealed to Hoshi (and by extension, the audience) until roughly around the same time he revealed it in the anime proper.
• Lava Is Boiling Kool-Aid: Subverted. Hoshi makes the quick distinction that the liquid he shoots out in Yellowstone form isn't lava, since it would have been far more destructive otherwise. In other words, what he's firing out literally is boiling Kool-Aid.
• Loophole Abuse: Mamika's studio requested that Mamika doesn't make an appearence in the Elimination Chamber Festival due to the controversey surrounding her fight with Celesia, but it's written around by having her powers be written in, just used by a different character and using a medium that already is in a legal gray area.
• Lower-Deck Episode: Cinder Road plays out as this. For the majority of the first half of Re:Creators, of which the part takes place, Hoshi only partakes in a few scenes from the anime, namely the battles. It doesn’t help that he joins the heroes midway through the first half. In other words, most of Hoshi’s scenes are taking place in between the scenes in the anime, if not during them as is the case with Hoshi’s fight with the Hound happening around the same time as the fight by the river in the anime.
• Magic A Is Magic A: While it (mostly) follows the rules established in Re:CREATORS, it also uses those rules to justify new ones, such as how a spell that can bring back the dead can't revive anyone in the real world or why It Only Works Once.
• Manipulative Bastard: Magane was one in the show, but the fanfic expands on it, with her crafting a badly told lie to make people call her on it in order to activate her power. This is how she manages to get the police to hand over Kurakuma and how she manages to obtain Honoka's phone. Part of Hoshi's incident in Chapter 9 was caused by her texting him in the guise of Honoka, indirectly telling him about Souta's role in Setsuna's death, and (as shown in the anime) making Alicetaria think Meteora killed Mamika. She also attempted this on Altair herself, only for it to be no-sold.
• Meaningful Name:
  • His forms reference volcanoes with a strong tie to the form in question.
    • Hoshi mentions how Dante is meant to be named after Dante's Peak, though the connection to Dante’s Inferno becomes meaningful when you take into consideration that the Divine Comedy is the first Self-Insert Fic and is similar to Hoshi’s tale in that he interacts with the people he admires, desires to reunite with his lost love, and also wished revenge on his (or in Hoshi’s case, Setsuna’s) enemies and watch them burn in hell. Then there's the fact that, according to Dante's tour to hell, fraud is considered to be the heaviest sin, something that the accusations towards Setsuna's plagerism fall under.
    • Fuji being the tallest volcano in Japan and as such the default form for Hoshi.
    • Hoshi brings up how he appropriately named his most destructive, magma-based form after the Yellowstone, a volcano infamously known for its world ending potential.
    • Purgatorio Mount refers to the mountain seen in The Divine Comedy, where the souls of the dead, rather than being punished, carry out tasks that would redeem them. After he briefly assumes this form, Hoshi begins to realize how bad his emotions were and works to better himself as a Rider.
    • Sakurajima has a triple meaning. Aside from being named after a volcano, it shares the same name as Kamen Rider Ichigo’s updated form once he returned in the show. Not to mention the sakura part of the name lending to the form’s pink coloring.
    • Toranity is the combination of Trinity (as in combining three of Hoshi’s forms a la Kamen Rider Agito) and the Japanese word for tiger, reflecting the tiger salamander motif.
  • The other Riders also have meaningful names.
    • Docro sounds close to “dokuro” or skull in Japanese. Skulls often being a symbol of poison. It also has crow in the name, befitting of the crow-like Plague Doctor motif he has.
    • Malacoda, The Dragon to Vega, refers to a character from Dante’s Inferno who just so happens to be a general.
    • Verge sounds close to Vergil, Dante's companion in his trip to hell. It also refers to how he is the white darkness at the end of the world, and another word for being at the end is verge. It may, much like how Hoshi based Dante's name off a volcano themed movie, be based off Vertical Limit, a film dealing with surviving an avalanche.
    • Toris' name keeps in the theme of disaster movies by having both the Rider and his belt be named after disaster movies involving birds. Tori being Japanese for bird gives us The Birds while his belt is called the Birdemic Driver.
  • On the flip-side, Professor Minos Kain's name doubles as both a Shout-Out and a reference to the Divine Comedy. His name sounds close to Meinos Kaen, but is also connected to the Divine Comedy, as Minos is the judge of hell and the first prominent figure Dante meets that is running Hell.
  • Melt's name is very appropriate due to her powerset.
  • The Futago Inn has one In-Universe, as it's named after twins who settled a conflict between warring clans by talking. Though, in the tune of Shout-Out Theme Naming, it can also refer to the Twins, a castle in which a major character is betrayed and killed in a plot of intrigue.
• Mind Rape: This is how Jorougumo utilizes her powers, forcing someone to relive a memory they had and then showing their darkest moment while summing up what they truly are with a few words.
• Mistaken for Romance: Hoshi recalls meeting up with Setsuna and believing that Souta was her boyfriend.
• Monster of the Week: While played straight the in universe Dante fanfic and doujin, it is subverted in the actual story, as multiple Kaizo-Majin crop up every arc and never just one. That said, it was discussed with Altair why summoning only one would have been more effective. He’s just as much under the effects of the restoration powers as Altair, and as such, can only create a fully functional monster (with the help of an anchor) once every week. After a few months, however, he is able to make up to three at a time. Making about a dozen Kaizo-Majin in one go resulted in him needing to rest himself.
• Multiform Balance: Wouldn’t be a Kamen Rider story without one. While initially averted due to Dante’s Showa upbringing, it ends up being a subversion as each form is merely a patch for a previous form’s failings and as such fails on its own legs.
  • Fuji Mount, while normally a Jack of All Stats, was intended to be the only form for Dante, evoking the Showa era Riders.
  • Yellowstone Mount’s physique and high power suggests a Mighty Glacier, but Hoshi at one point compared it to Stronger’s Charge Up, using it as a means to get a power boost against the other Creations. Then it manifests into the real world and is more comparable to the Hazard Forms, if not more destructive.
  • Sakurajima Mount would have, likewise, been a Fragile Speedster, but it works more as a literal vent for Hoshi’s pent up anger and fire, especially when he let it get to uncontrollable levels. As such, Hoshi can only use its full potential if he had Yellowstone power him up, which in turn means he’d need to get extremely pissed to the point where his body could potentially burn to a crisp.
  • Toranity is the All Your Powers Combined Lightning Bruiser.
  • That said, Dante isn't the only Rider to dabble in this.
    • Yudai as Docro relies mostly on using his powers to slowly destroy his opponent, while his time as Malacoda relies more on mixing up his brutality with his mostly attack orientated Bullets.
    • Verge is two-in-one. While his Overhaul system allows him to briefly change the state of his body from Solid, Gas, or Liquid, his Blades gives him the ability to hand out Status Effects.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Hoshi heavily berates himself after a fight in which he lets his anger get the better of him and attacked Meteora, to the point where he agrees to have Kikuchihara confiscate the belt.
• Mythology Gag: Several to Kamen Rider.
  • While not outright said in the fanfic, Hoshi’s entry on the Kamen Rider Fanon Wikia shows that he is designated as Kamen Rider Dante II, with the Japanese version translating it to Nigo. Considering how Hotaro was (albeit mortally) injured and had to pass down the title of Kamen Rider Dante, this definitely mirrors the real life reason the original Nigo took up the mantle of Kamen Rider.
    • Likewise, most of Dante I’s stories regarding Hotaro’s battles with Re:Shocker bring to mind the Showa era, with the concepts of Shocker being the Big Bad, monsters being humans who are experimented upon and turned into cyborgs (with Hotaro being one himself), and even Hotaro’s mannerisms echoing that of classic Showa. The fanfic even went through a retool after its early chapters much like how the original Kamen Rider did.
    • While not directly related to Dante, the excuse of Mamika fighting a threat from the other side of the world while Melt takes over for her duties is a nod to the in universe justification for Hongo being Put on a Bus, and the implications that rise from being a fresh new recruit suddenly expected to defend the world in your predecessor's absense.
  • Hoshi’s inspiration for Dante, at least as far as he knows, is V3’s moment where he walks through fire. Once Cerebus Syndrome hits, though, Kuuga’s infamous No-Holds-Barred Beatdown, as well as the fiery preview of Kuuga’s Ultimate Form soon after, are referenced numerous times as Hoshi’s true inspiration. The picture that Setsuna drew, meanwhile, reflects Batman standing among the burning wreckage.
    • This gets an even further mythology gag as the Kaizo-Majin that Hoshi fights in the finale to Cinder Road is a porcupine-themed monster who specializes in poisonous darts, with his transformation leading to him and the monster falling through a window and onto the pavement.
  • There’s a nod to the classic Spider/Bat motif, where the first and second monsters are a spider and bat respectively. Cue Rock Spider, the first Kaizo-Majin we see (though not the first Kaizo-Majin that Hotaro or Hoshi fought) who qualify for both as he has bat wings for an upgrade.
  • Wouldn’t be the first time a duo is named after the stars Altair and Vega.
  • Dr. Gilmore mistakes Hoshi for Ichigo due to him sharing the last name as the actor.
    • He would later call Altair, who he established has no story, a devil and a destroyer of worlds, monikers that another person with no story has.
  • The reason the first part is called Cinder Road? As a nod to Dragon Road, the Showa Riders’ theme song for Heisei Rider vs. Showa Rider: Kamen Rider Taisen feat. Super Sentai. As revealed in the commentary, the reason for it is twofold: the minor one is that Hoshi ends up in an ENDLESS FIGHT while the major one is to refer to the reason why the Showa Riders battled the Heisei Riders to begin with, that their grief over the dead is interfering with their duty, and that Hoshi is their perfect argument.
  • Some of the Heisei era Kamen Riders make their debut on or around the 16th episode. Lo and behold, Kamen Rider Verge makes his first full onscreen appearence on Chapter 16.
  • The Reveal that Tachibana's father is working with Altair and was the one who summoned her fulfills a classic Kamen Rider trope of the Archnemesis Dad.
  • The GO Princess concert plotline references plot points from two Kamen Riders at once: Kuuga with the monster in-fighting (as seen between Freezing Bear and Sparking Giraffe) and Double with Rui Disguised in Drag to protect a celebrity from a monster.
  • Similarly, the plot to Chapter 25 is similar to the plot from another Kamen Rider's episode: Revice, namely #8, where an evil version of one of the main characters impersonates them in a plot to kill the main Rider at an onsen resort.
  • There's a nod towards the original plot where Altair confronts Magane and mentions how Magane could defeat her if she so chooses, with Magane offering to revive Setsuna. In the show, Magane's reality warping powers are what were needed to pacify Altair, which was done by her defying the law of Acceptance and reviving Setsuna in the process.
  • Another one to Re:CREATORS is when Magane and Souta discuss how the power system involving audience interaction can be both called Approval or Acceptance depending on the translation. ^note The fanfic goes with Acceptance in keeping with the Central Theme of the Five Stages of Grief
• Off the Rails: In contrast to Cinder Road, the Cinder Fall saga ends up shaking massive things up with the presence of Re:Shocker. Chief among them is that the circumstances of Yuuya and Syo meeting changed to be far earlier than how it went in the show, with Charon revealing himself to Celesia around the same point.
• Oh, Crap!: Matsubara says "oh shit" the moment Shimashima puts down the cue cards to address Setsuna's controversey.
• One-Steve Limit: Due to Her Code Name Was "Mary Sue", Yuna could refer to either Setsuna or the character that's based off her in the fanfic of Kamen Rider Dante. This leads to a plot twist where Souta asks Hoshi if he regrets making him kill Yuna... Only to correct him and reveal he was Yudai the whole time.
• Original Generation: Inverted. Akagi and Dr. Gilmore are the only two characters that were from actual shows. Every other Creation (including the ones made for the fanfic) came either from a media set in the universe of Re:CREATORS or were from Kamen Rider Dante's fanfic and doujin.
• Passing the Torch: Hoshi intended on invoking the trope by passing the belt to first Hanamori then to Alicetaria, only for both to reject it in their own way. He then later defies the trope due to how harmful fighting as Dante is to him.
• Phlebotinum Breakdown: How the Re:Shocker Belts eventually work. Emotions are used as a backup conduit for a Rider's powers when they run out of the appropriate elemental source. However, the more of that power is built up into the belt, the more times that Rider will feel their emotion. It's noted by Meteora that this is an unfortunate feedback loop. The only way to circumvent this is to either use a form that expends more energy in the belt than it does built up or purposefully overload the belt and destroy it like what Hoshi did.
• Phlebotinum Rebel: As per tradition in Kamen Rider, the Volcano Belt was intended to be used by Re:Shocker before Professor Minos decided to use it against them by handing it to the vengeful Hotaro. What isn’t per Kamen Rider tradition is that Kamen Rider Dante was intended to be the Author Avatar for a Revenge Fic, with Hoshi managing to take the belt and turn it into a more traditional heroic Rider.
• Poison Is Evil: Of the characters who are remodeled into poison themed Kaizo-Majins, only one was good… though her time as the only good poison-themed monster was limited…
• Poor Communication Kills: In true Kamen Rider fashion, this happens on a few occasions, namely, poor timing is what caused the poor communication.
  • Hoshi finds out about Souta’s connection to Setsuna, the deaths of Meteora’s creator and Mamika, and Magane having stolen Honoka’s phone in the worst possible way with no time to be talked to, leading him to assume Souta had something to do with Setsuna’s suicide, Meteora murdering Mamika and her creator, and Magane hurting or even killing his sister. This results in him snapping and helping Alicetaria get revenge on Meteora. Thankfully, Souta and Meteora managed to talk some sense into Hoshi before he could do serious damage.
  • Later, he finds out about the Elimination Chamber Festival just after he had someone die in his arms and still hadn’t gotten over the trauma he endured from his battles as Dante. Thankfully, this is subverted, as Tachibana and Marine are able to clearly explain to Hoshi what’s going to happen and encourage him to partake, with Hikayu giving him the further encouragement when he breaks down from all the death that has happened in his life.
  • A larger scale one plays out in Chapter 18, as the police know next to nothing about the Creations situation and one officer brings up how painful it is to be in the dark when the Yakuza are not only suddenly shifting priorities and killing their plants, but also are rumored to be full-on working with Magane. Shimashima even points out how they might come to a point where keeping secrets will no longer be necessary if their enemies keep fighting out in the open.
• Precision F-Strike: The F-Bomb gets dropped twice by Hoshi on two separate occasions, both those occasions having him express frustration towards members of Zenmetsuna. Another thing to note is that he only says the f-bomb once. The other time was in his narration.
• Rainbow Speak: The Space Battles version has this whenever the Riders and Monsters are transformed, having a color that matches the element they embody, so Dante is red, Verge is cyan, Malacoda is orange, and so forth. This also extends to Akagi when he becomes AkibaRed, with him being red and the Z-Cune being blue. A special exception comes to Hangaku and Bayard, whose names are colored purple and red respectively whenever their masters summon them.
• Reasonable Authority Figure:
  • Shimashima is revealed to be this. He's the reason that Kamen Rider Dante didn't get a cease and desist order, allowed the creation of a fandisk based off Mamika (and delay the news long enough for the process to be irreversible), and even desired to help Setsuna when the accusations came in, but couldn't due to external pressure. Though, that last part seemed to affect him a lot, as he later brings up that Setsuna's accusers are unforgivable. This soon gets subverted when it's revealed he's in league with Altair, making most of the reasonable aspect have an ulterior motive.
  • Kikuchihara is also this as well. While she confiscated Hoshi's belt due to his anger-induced betrayal, she also had it taken away because it was too hot for Hoshi to handle and it was for his own safety. Once Hoshi donned the belt once more and decided to use it more responsibly (replacing it with a more safer belt also helped), Kikuchihara let Hoshi keep the belt.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Hoshi gives one to Souta in Chapter 13 before he redirects it to a Heroic Self-Deprecation.
  “You want me to say it? Fine. I hate you, Mizushino Souta. I utterly despise you. Setsuna came to you for advice and you decided to leave her to the wolves. Then you decided to pretend that she never existed while her friends and family grieved. How long would that have lasted if this whole thing never happened? One, maybe two years before you crack and realize what you've done was horrible? While you were out trying to be blissfully unaware of her existence, I had to contend with the lingering feeling of regret. I could have defended her, but I chose not to… That's why… Of all the people I hate the most… It isn't you. It's me.”
• Red Herring: The concept of the Creations being summoned is believed to be because they were popular enough to be summoned. It turns out it's true, but not in the way that they expect. The person is summoning them because they're popular enough to cause disturbances and they can pick someone who doesn't fit within that criteria.
• Redemption Demotion: Downplayed and justified. The moment Yuichi joined the heroes, he began to feel the after effects of the Phlebotinum Breakdown, began to lessen his use of the Doc Blade, and overall became more hesitant to fight. The justications come in with the facts that: it being a natural occurance thanks to how the Re:Shocker belts work, he found that repeated use of the Doc Blade would hasten the Great Destruction, and he realized just how much of an executioner he had become.
• Relative Button: Hoshi tries this on Yuichi to disuade him from killing Izumi, lampshading how it's a nuclear option. Yuichi isn't moved by this.
• Revenge Fic: In-Universe with Kamen Rider Dante, as Hoshi wrote the villains to mirror that of the people who criticized Setsuna.
• Ron the Death Eater: In-Universe and deconstructed. Hoshi's story based villains off of Setsuna's accusers, but the one that horrified Hoshi the most was when he subconsciously wrote his friend Souta into the killer of that story's version of Setsuna when the worst he did was tell her off.
• Rookie Red Ranger: Subverted. While Hoshi fulfills the traits of this trope, not only is he barely a member of the group in the brief few days he was in it, but also ends up temporarily leaving the group, both as a Creator and a Creation. Double Subverted when he returns full-time, ready to take his role.
• Sailor Earth: The story of Kamen Rider Dante sets this trope up, as Hoshi brings up how there's eighteen belts made by Re:Shocker and that, as later scenes have shown, tap into their own elemental and emotional resource. As such, it's easy to pick an element not claimed by other Riders followed by a emotion and bam, new Rider. This is made even easier with the revelations of the Malefik, Volcannik, and Birdemik Drivers, as they were made outside the eighteen belts.
• She Is Not My Girlfriend: Hoshi insists this time and again in regards to his relationship with Alicetaria, to the point where they both say “we’re not dating!” to Honoka. This later extends to Hikayu, though Hoshi brings up that she's spoken for.
• She Knows Too Much: The reason Nagisa is graduating from the idol business. Though, her producer invokes this trope further by sending an idol stalker to murder her.
• Show Within a Show: While the universe of Re:Creators has a plethora of this, attention is drawn to Kamen Rider Dante, a fanfic turned doujin that ends up getting a live-action adaptation, Kazoku, a visual novel where Yuichi comes from its anime adaptation, and Bird Keeper Toris, a manga that Setsuna's father drew.
• Shout-Out:
  • The quote that opens Cinders and Ashes? "Through the darkness of futures past, the magician longs to see. One chants out between two worlds... fire, walk with me."
  • The name of the sagas in Cinders and Ashes are references.
    • As mentioned above, Cinder Road refers to Dragon Road.
    • The second saga is named Cinder Fall and appropriately enough, the opening quote for the saga is a quote from her.
  • The name of the form when Dante’s gloves, boots, and uniform light on fire? Endeavor. Even moreso since Hotaro’s kiai is “SHOOOTOOO!”. Adding to the nods, Souta compared Dante storing anger and flames as akin to an egg in a microwave.
    • Word of God then proceeds to joke that Docro is based off Overhaul, though it does become the name for his and Verge's state changes.
  • Hoshi’s alibi for hanging around with the government, at least from what his sister said, is that he’s in an internship.
    • A second dose of this comes in the form of Hoshi’s conversation with Kikuchihara after the latter informs him of the confiscation of his belt and how Hoshi’s lines mirror that of Tony’s when he confronted Peter and took his suit, though with the twist being that it’s Hoshi is calling out himself. Doubly so when he tells his sister about losing the internship (though voluntarily giving it up).
    • With Shindou having been inspired by Mysterio, the idea of Hoshi wanting to hand Shindou the belt has parallels to Peter giving Quinten EDITH. The difference is that, as mentioned in Expy, Shindou doesn't want to be the next Dante, only wanting to play the facade of him and that he doesn't take the belt.
    • The MCU references continue with Shimashima's speech at the end of Chapter 22 where, like Tony, he disregards the cards he was given and reveal an internal truth that changes the story. However, the truth in this case is of how Setsuna was accused of plagerism and how her attackers were in the wrong.
  • This isn't the first time a Dante mentioned that he wasn't supposed to be somewhere.
  • The first victim of Jorougumo we see has his epithet be “Some Pig”.
  • Hoshi snapping at Souta in a nightmare he had references Axel’s own snapping at Roxas, complete with the area bursting into flames. Word of God even states this might be the reason why Kamen Rider Dante has fire powers in the first place.
  • There are many nods to Kamen Rider in general, with a prominent one being that one of Hoshi’s allies is named Tachibana. Ex-Aid is mentioned in an early chapter as well as a Call-Forward to Zi-O.
  • There’s quite a few nods to Pokémon, such as the ant-themed metallic mooks being called Durants or how there’s eighteen belts and of the few seen, seem to mirror that of the eighteen types in Pokemon. Then there's the Essen Crystals, which according to the Fanon Wiki, are a clear expy to the Z-Crystals.
  • The Kaizo-Majins’ [Element] [Animal] motifs bring to mind Mavericks. Not helped by the fact that the Big Bad of Re:Shocker is named Vega and that The Dragon is a gunslinger whose name comes right out of the Divine Comedy, much like another Capcom protagonist, while the one that's named after Vergil is blue colored and uses a sword.
  • Among the voices that Hoshi hears during his time as Flaming Tigermander, one of them commands him to kill every last one of [Setsuna’s attackers].
  • Word of God reveals that Malacoda’s bullets are named Sinful Shells. Making this more of a shout out is that the bullets he’s showcased are named after each of the sins featured in the game, even the ones that aren’t part of the Seven Deadly Sins. In a subversion, Envy doesn't give Malacoda the shapeshifting powers, but rather Vanity.
  • On that same end, Verge's blades are themed after the seven Dwarfs, with some being named after Canon Foreigners like Stealthy.
  • Akagi brings up how Hoshi and him working together is their own Super Hero Taisen.
  • Takarada mentions how he wanted to give up working on his story and buy an idol CD, alluding to the Berserk meme of its creator being into The Idolmaster.
  • Altair refers to her powers as infinite and unbound.
  • Yuichi calls himself the "White Darkness at the End of the World". This refer's to CLANNAD's two wham episodes in which Nagisa and Ushio die respectively.
  • Izumi Dan is given the reputable saying that sums up his visual novels: "All Routes Lead to Doom".
  • Dr. Gilmore brings up how he was summoned to finish his story in place of his creator, bringing to mind how Conclusion: God's War began.
  • When asked by Yudai why he had to kill Yuna, Vega mentions how he would have said something like "to test the limits of your ability" back in their world.
  • Yuusuke's first transformation has a few references, from his plea for Altair to watch his henshin, to how he holds his arm before activating the Driver, to the call of "BIRD GO!". Additionally, his glitched up form it has resembles Missingno and is even referred to as Missing Nest.
  • Almost all of the Kaizo-Majin are shoutouts, sometimes to Kamen Rider itself.
    • Rock Spider borrows the idea of the first monsters always being a spider and a bat.
    • Desert Tanuki and Blaze Neko are the first two tailed beasts, with Fire Fox (on top of it being themed after, well, Firefox) being the 9-Tailed Beast.
    • Martial Panda, while obviously a nod to Kung Fu Panda, is also one to the Press Smash. Likewise, Formula Rex is based off the unused Best Match, F1Saurus.
    • Toxic Porcupine is Go-Jaraji-Da, though Word of God also reveals that a bit of it is also based off Ryuk.
    • Flaming Tigermander is Flaming Tiger, with Freezing Bear being... well, Freezing Bear. Sparking Giraffe also as a Kaizo-Majin version, but with the added caveat of the person being not just a fan of idols but also having the tendency to say "I understand", mirroring that of the Giraffe. The Shibuya battle gives us a lot more Kaizo-Majin themed after elemental Progrise Keys.
    • Frying Alpaca is the Alpaca monsters, while Thunder Ladybug is one to Tento Raiger.
    • Barracuda Blade, while not based off a monster, is based off Antonio’s weapon.
    • Yoshi’s monster form, especially once he consumes two more Essen Crystals, is basically Genocider. For bonus points, his monster form is called Strike Cobra. Naturally, Stone Rhino and Diving Stingray are Metalgelas and Evildiver. A third layer comes up, though, as Yoshi has the tendency to say “chabok”, similarly to how Arbok says its name in Pokémon: The Series. Similarly, Stone Rhino and Diving Stingray are Rhyhorn and Mantine respectively.
    • The Electric and Fire Hedgehogs are a three-fold. Electric Hedgehog is Sonichu (as his kind are usually referred to as Electric Hedgehogs) while Fire Hedgehog is the Best Match of the same name. Aesthetically, Electric Hedgehog has similairties to Raidramon and the same is extended to Fire Hedgehog and Flamedramon respectively.
• So Proud of You: Alicetaria indirectly said this to Hoshi after they teamed up to defeat Jorougumo, much to his enjoyment.
• Stations of the Canon: Quintuple subverted. The fanfic begins after episode five of Re:Creators, as we see that the government have already allied themselves with the heroes by the start of the story, and delays the events of the next episode in favor of original plots. Even when episode six ends up happening, Hoshi is only called in for the climax of the fight that happens (which occurs in episode seven), still partaking in original storylines and dealing with a loose thread. Despite this, the canon still happens as intended up until Episode 12, where it is halted for the time being while the original storyline continued until chapter 14 brought Hoshi back with the group in time for them to recruit Hikayu (very loosely following the events of Episodes 14 and 15), though very briefly before it kicks off another original storyline that eventually ensures the stations don't matter anymore. Despite this, though, some scenes still happen as they did before, albeit earlier than intended.
• Stock Light-Novel Hero: Lampshaded by Charon, who makes a subtle jab at this trope by saying he's "just as generic looking as any other teenager".
• Story Arc: The story is split into different sagas. Each saga is split into arcs.
  • Cinder Road: Covering Cour 1 of Re:Creators (Episodes 1-12) and Hoshi’s beginnings as Kamen Rider Dante, warts and all.
    • Becoming Dante (Chapters 1-3): Hoshi becoming Dante for the first time and fighting his first foes.
    • Hunting Jorougumo (Chapters 4-5): Hoshi teams up with Alicetaria to take on a spider monster.
    • Dante’s Justice (Chapters 6-11): Hoshi creates Yellowstone Mount and quickly discovers his greatest strength is also his greatest weakness. Not only that, but he finds out about Dante’s dark past that prompts him to figure out what exactly is Dante’s justice.
    • Akihabara’s Wind (Chapters 12-13): Hoshi retired to Akihabara with the intent of Passing the Torch to another person. However, the appearance of Re:shocker complicates that.
  • Cinder Fall: Covering episodes 14, 15 and 16 of Re:Creators, but mostly sticking to Re:Shocker’s emergence.
    • Return To Internship (Chapters 14-16): Hoshi is brought back into the internship with a new recruit, Hikayu.
    • White Darkness, Verge (Chapters 17-22): A new Kamen Rider arrives and he has a grudge against his Creator that Hoshi has to resolve. Meanwhile, a stalker is out murdering idol singers and has to be stopped, all while the Rider's Creator's grief comes to the forefront.
    • Malacoda's Last Stand (Chapters 23-??): Re:Shocker makes their biggest move yet as Yudai resolves to settle things with his father once and for all.
• Strike Me Down with All of Your Hatred!: Malacoda outright says this trope to Hoshi as the latter turns into a monster.
• Take That!: Matsubara, as he's telling Tachibana why having Meteora spam her newly obtained ressurection powers wouldn't work, says that it's not Dragon Ball.
• Take Up My Sword: Hotaro handed the belt to Hoshi before he died, making him the next Kamen Rider Dante.
• Tell Me How You Fight: Each of the Rider's prefered fighting styles and use of power ups brings up an idea of how that character is.
  • Dante's preference to using Rider Punches as opposed to Rider Kicks, to the point where a boxer was said to be a great fit to use Dante's powers, shows that the user (and writer) only know the basics of fighting and it's nothing more than an aggravated punch that, as Hoshi's track record has shown, can't stack up to well-trained combatants like Yuuya. The Burst Shells, meanwhile, have a rather uniform array of powers shows that whoever wrote those into existance is capturing the essense of Kamen Riders with a similar gimmick.
  • Verge's use of a sword demonstrates that the user is hardly a fighter at all. Even more so with the blades, as they only induce status effects, calling to the fact that Yuichi doesn't like to kill. The people he does make the exception for? Quick, but cold and even sadistic.
  • Malacoda's brutal fighting style and his more agressive Sinful Shells quickly shows just how abrasive Yudai is compared to the other Riders. Even his fighting style as Docro carries this same sense of brutality.
• 10-Minute Retirement: Hoshi ends up retiring both as a writer and a Rider shortly after he realizes just how enraged he was over Souta’s role in Setsuna’s death. The only reason he came out of his retirement was because Altair handed him his belt and even then he considers Passing the Torch to both Hanamori and Alicetaria. It’s only when Honoka is shot does he decide to fully come out as Dante.
• Theme Music Power-Up: As per usual Kamen Rider tradition, Dante and the other Riders have their own songs. Though, what makes this particular is that two of Dante’s insert themes, specifically Yellowstone and Sakurajima’s songs, are from Re:Creators, Layers and Brave the Ocean respectively. Going into analysis…
  • Fuji’s theme is What Are We Scared For?, a mashup using a song from Aldnoah.Zero, an anime made by the same team behind Re:Creators. One of the recurring lines in the song is “there’s no difference, you and me”, reflecting Hoshi’s situation regarding himself and the Creations who want better endings.
  • Yellowstone and Sakurajima’s songs follow the same idea as the original idea, with Layers being Altair’s song and Brave the Ocean being Selesia’s: Yellowstone is a destructive force, something that Altair wants, while Sakurajima is made when Hoshi tries to rise above the feelings of hate.
  • Toranity's song is Spark Again, with a clear line of "Playing the hero till I hit zero" and guarenteeing a victory before he goes down, hinting at Hoshi's Heroic Fatigue.
  • Malacoda’s song is Mayday, a song that’s just as brutal as the character, with the added caveat of the lyrics being what he thinks of Hoshi or even what Hoshi thinks of Souta, given how Malacoda’s human form was based off Souta.
  • Even Machine Itasha’s theme is played when Hoshi ends up combining his bike with the Itasha Robo.
  • Verge's theme is Voiceless, the lyrics referring to his hopeless situation in his world and, by extension, what he and the other Creations allied with Altair strive for.
  • Docro's song is Dark Crow, which has lyrics partaining to both Yudai ^note "Keep your precious justice to yourself, bud" and Kotoha ^note "I'm the one who makes my final call.".
• Theme Naming: A few of them.
  • The belts that Re:Shocker makes are named after disasters that are caused by the element they’re made by, Volcano Belt for the fire themed Dante, Avalanche Belt for the ice themed Verge, Plague Belt for the poison themed Docro... Played With for the Birdemik Driver since it's referring to a fictional disaster.
  • The name of each Rider (with the exception of Malacoda) are comprised of five letters, with Docro taking out the W to accomidate for it. Their names also have ties to disaster movies (save for Docro, which is just a corruption of the words "dokuro" and "crow").
  • Characters who are related to Hoshi either by blood or creation have their name begin with ho (Hotaro, Honoka, Hotaru) while characters who are rivals to him begin with yu (Yuuya, Yudai, Yuichi). Coincidentally, the Shimazakis also begin with yu (Yuna/Setsuna, Yuuto/Tachibana, and Yuusuke). The last two double as Shout-Out Theme Naming with Yuuto and Yuusuke.
• This Is Unforgivable!: Shimashima says this in regards to Zenmetsuna during a publicly recorded rant at the end of chapter 22.
• Title Theme Drop: The opening song for Cinder Road, People Game, plays out during Hoshi's final fight of the saga, using Toranity Mount for the first time to defeat Malacoda.
• Trick Bullet: Around the mid-point, Hoshi obtains a series of specially made bullets called Burst Shells for his new Volcannik Driver. At the same time, Yudai has his own Evil Counterpart known as the Sinful Shells. Yuichi, however, has a Trick Blade called Emotion Blades.
  • Dante:
    • Firefly Shell: Transforms him into Dante Fuji Mount.
    • Bombadier Shell: Transforms him into Dante Yellowstone Mount.
    • Cicada Shell: Transforms him into Dante Sakurajima Mount.
    • Tigermander Shell: Activates Dante's Endeavor, or, when combined with the other three transforming shells, gives him Toranity Mount.
    • Bike Shell: Summons the Machine Inferner
    • Final Shell
    • Lion Shell
    • Wolf Shell: Enhances kicks.
    • Leopard Shell: Enhances punches.
    • Mandrill Shell
    • Penguin Shell
    • Armadillo Shell
    • Octopus Shell
    • Kuwaga Shell
    • Chameleon Shell
    • Eagle Shell
    • Mammoth Shell
  • Malacoda
    • Lust Bullet
    • Vanity Bullet
    • Gluttony Bullet
    • Wrath Bullet
    • Greed Bullet
    • Envy Bullet
    • Empty Bullet
    • Pride Bullet
    • Sloth Bullet
    • Bike Bullet: Summons the Machine Malebolger
    • Telebullet
  • Verge
    • Doc Blade
    • Grumpy and Happy Blades: These blades power up either through absorbing another person's rage/joy or via using Verge's own rage/joy.
    • Bashful Blade: Makes the victim unable to attack Verge.
    • Breezy Blade
    • Shorty Blade
    • Sleepy Blade
    • Sneezy Blade
    • Dopey Blade: Makes the victim too weak to lift things.
    • Stealthy Blade
    • Final Blade
    • Teleblade
• Two First Names: Inverted with two characters: Hoshi and Shindou are used as surnames more than given names. In Shindou's case, it's implied that he added the dou part to his name and that his actual first name is Shin.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Had Yuuya not purposefully egg Hoshi on into using Yellowstone form, Hoshi wouldn’t have realized that Dante was his own Revenge Fic and thus causing him to have a much darker mindset in regards to his powers, that or it would have taken him longer to realize.
• Victim of the Week: After Vega appears and starts creating Kaizo-Majin, each arc ends up showing a different victim going through an emotional hangup that either makes them a target for the Kaizo-Majin or turn them into a Kaizo-Majin themselves:
  • Atsuko, a member of Zenmetsuna who vandalized Hoshi's apartment, got the honor of being the first Kaizo-Majin created in the real world and served to show how much Hoshi took his inner conflict in the previous chapters to heart.
  • Hoshi's emotional hangup during the "Return to Internship" arc is the unwillingness to go through losing someone like Mamika, Setsuna, or (nearly) Honoka. This ties into Yudai assigning Yoshi to kill Hikayu.
  • The death of Dan's friend tormented him as he internalizes all the blame and writes tragic stories to offset that, which backfires as one of his creations shows up to try and kill him, with Magane turning him into a Kaizo-Majin for the sheer fun of it.
  • During that same arc, an idol duo get targeted by a stalker who used his Kaizo-Majin powers to become a serial killer who targets idols set to graduate. During the arc, it's revealed that they have major hangups over the eldest member leaving, as well as why they're graduating.
  • Two brothers, Haruto and Isami, are in a conflict over whether Setsuna is innocent or not, which leads to Yudai turning the two of them into Kaizo-Majin so they could duke it out.
• Wham Episode: Towards the end of Cinder Road, there’s a bit of a wham arc.
  • Chapter 7 has Yuuya reveal to Hoshi that Kamen Rider Dante was nothing more than a weapon to attack people who had attacked Setsuna] Hoshi’s reaction to it confirming his theory. Not only that, but [Hoshi slowly realizes he didn’t base Dante off V3 but rather a different Rider entirely. To add another twist onto the cake, Altair commands Magane to make Hoshi and Souta suffer for what they did to Setsuna.
  • Chapter 8 even more so with a myriad of revelations: Tachibana is Setsuna’s brother and a combination of bad timing and jumping to conclusions caused Hoshi to snap and join Alicetaria in her curbstomp of Meteora, on top of fully embracing the idea of Dante being a tool for vengeance, at least until he snaps out of his anger one chapter later.
  • Chapter 10, while a break from the fight in Chapter 9, has Hoshi’s belt be taken away (with his blessings) and he finds out Souta’s side of what happened to Setsuna, resulting in Hoshi having a meltdown and crying out that he doesn’t want to be a Kamen Rider anymore.
  • Chapter 11 is more of a depressing episode where Hoshi finds out that [indeed, he has utilized Dante as his revenge fantasy and after realizing he wrote what amounts to an angry letter to Souta, decides to put his story on hiatus and leave the group, eventually heading to Akihabara. Making matters worse is that Re:Shocker has been summoned to the world, implied to have happened without Altair’s assistance. All this while Hoshi gains access to a new form.
  • Chapter 13 is a doozy and a hell of a way to close out Cinder Road, starting from The Reveal of a new Kamen Rider made to counter Dante’s powers, Hoshi getting an unconventional upgrade in the form of the Volcannik Driver which ends up replacing the Volcano Belt that got destroyed, a Zenmetsuna member becoming a Kaizo-Majin and Honoka being introduced to Celesia and Meteora, before ending with Honoka nearly getting killed by Malacoda, Hoshi becoming a Kaizo-Majin due to prolonged exposure to the belt, Malacoda being not only Yudai (Kamen Rider Docro from Chapter 11), but also made in the image of Souta, Hoshi telling Souta that he hates him, then meeting up with Dr. Isaac Gilmore and finding out that Akagi is also a Creation, and Altair having recruited the aforementioned new Rider.
  • Chapter 18 has given some massive reveals. In order, it's revealed that Tachibana and Setsuna's father, Yuusuke, wrote Kazoku's Downer Ending which prompted Yuichi to seek revenge, that Dan's backstory involved losing a friend to suicide, the police informing Kikuchihara that the Yakuza are working with Magane and know more about the situation than they do, that whatever method is summoning Creations, not only could someone use it to summon anyone they want, but also they aren't restricted by time. The final two reveals show that both Gilmore and Altair were handpicked to be summoned, the former with the purpose of finishing Cyborg 009 and the latter being summoned by Yuusuke who, despite rumors of his own suicide, is still alive and working with Altair.
  • Chapter 24 pulls two massive reveals and two status quo changes: The first two are minor, fully explaining the means of which Altair is brought forth as well as Kotoha becoming the next Kamen Rider Docro, but the other two not so much. Yudai is destroyed and Shimashima is revealed to be Yuusuke.
  • Chapter 26 (which is coincedentally the 13th chapter of the Cinder Fall saga) has Yudai give a Curbstomp Battle to Hoshi as he turns Honoka and Marine into mindless Kaizo-Majin, makes a third one that kills Shindou, and breaks and nearly kills Hoshi were it not for Magane using her Infinite Deception to fuse Souta and Yudai together. Then there's Tachibana finding out that Shimashima is his father, who then cuts his ties with the group and fully cementing his discarding of the identity.
• Wham Line: A few.
  • The first chapter ends with one that establishes how exactly Hoshi is tied into the plot of Re:Creators, resolves a plot thread that would have taken a few more episodes to address in canon, and sets up how the fanfic is going to go down.
  “My friend killed herself!”
  • While minor, Chapter 3 ends with this dialogue and is a strong indicator of who Hoshi would encounter next:
  "Alice… What are we gonna do?"
  • A conversation with Alicetaria led Hoshi to reveal a dark part about his past and begins to unravel just how dark the story would go:
  "When I lost Setsuna, I was stuck in a very dark place. I hated myself for being a coward. For abandoning her in her time of need. I kept thinking that, had I stepped in to defend her, she would still be alive. I regretted what I did and... I almost followed her."
  • Kurakuma, in the midst of begging for safety, drops a line that changed the circumstances of Setsuna’s bullying and ultimately leads to Hoshi finding out about the dark side of Kamen Rider Dante:
  "It's not Magane I'm concerned about… It's her. The woman in the black coat. […] She's acting out her vengeance on us all! It's because of what we did to her!"
  • After that, Yuuya says something that kicks off the major conflict of the Dante's Justice arc?
  "You based Hotaro's story off what happened with Setsuna."
  • In Chapter 8 of Cinder Road, this is how we get the confirmation of Mamika’s death:
  “You didn’t tell anyone about what you did to Mamika, did you!?”
  • In the same chapter, Tachibana drops a bit of a bombshell.
  "See this picture? [the drawing of Dante in the flames] My sister drew that."
  • While this was a wham line in canon, the fanfic's version of Souta's confession hits harder given Hoshi's connection to both him and Setsuna:
  "I felt the exact same way you felt... but... I also felt an ugly sense of satisfaction."
  • Chapter 11 has Hoshi go to Setsuna’s grave and, struggling to find the right words, breaks down and cries to who he thinks is Marine that he misses Setsuna. The response that tips Hoshi off to who is actually holding him?
  “I miss her too.”
  • Chapter 16 has Hoshi bump into a middle schooler who is looking for someone. That someone?
  "My classmate... Kirameki Mamika."
  • Chapter 18 has Altair drop a bombshell to Tachibana:
  " Even your father knows how deserving for punishment those monsters are. [...] Yes... Your father is alive... I should know... He was the one who brought me into this world."
  • Chapter 24 changes up the entire game as Shimashima confronts Altair when she's about to attack Watanabe:
  "He's my colleague... I'll [kill him]."
  • Chapter 25, while mostly being light-hearted in terms of people just talking, closes out a conversation between Souta and Hoshi about his role in the death of Yuna/Setsuna to emphasize that the Breather Episode is anything but:
  " No, I'm sorry... I didn't mean your Yuna."
• What the Hell, Hero?:
  • Alicetaria calls out Hoshi for writing Hotaro's story, saying that he basically made Hotaro's life crappy by emulating his own.
  • Meteora and Kikuchihara give a few to Hoshi for his behavior, namely his reluctance to fight Alicetaria and his temporary, rage-induced betrayal respectively.
  • Hoshi pulls this off half-way. While he writes a rant out to Souta about his handling of Setsuna and the Military Uniform Princess situation, he never actually sends it to him. He ends up giving a more subdued one to him a few chapters later.
  • Celesia gives one to Hoshi after seeing that Malacoda’s likeness is based around Souta. She even refuses to let Hoshi be alone with Souta.
• With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility: Deconstructed with Hoshi. While he chooses to do good with his powers and fight Kaizo-Majin, especially given how he created them via his fanfic, it shows how much responsibility is too much responsibility for one to handle, as Hoshi insisted to continue his battles despite limping from his previous one.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: Shindou tricks Yudai into handing Souta over only to clock him in the face, belieivng that he'd still attack the hospital regardless. However, he didn't realize Yudai was more than willing to keep his end of the bargain because he saw himself and Yuna in Shindou and Kotoha. This nearly resulted in Yudai attacking the hospital until Souta surrenders himself to Yudai.
• You Have Failed Me: Yudai has a Kaizo-Majin murder another one citing that the latter was the only one of the two to be beaten in combat. Later, he expected this to be pulled on him when the Kaizo-Majin in question also died, only for his leader to bring up that said Kaizo-Majin failed, not him.