So fun fact, the producers actually did release some explanations for the worlds the characters come from (I don’t remember them all off the top of my head, so I’ll wait for Fish to do his ‘also watched’ post, so I can retrieve them from the original thread). And they’re just as insane as the reveals themselves, yet still kind of make sense.

And now we look at the watch Decade said he couldn’t use.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=yl2Ulvuj8eE

“The pen is mightier than the sword, the holy sword of fire’s chosen Rider is… Saber”

And unlike Zero-One, I will go with the series theme (mostly because every other song in the series is written to fit the scene it gets played in, not giving me a lot of choice) Almighty - Kamen no Yakusoku (Promise of the Mask) https://youtube.com/watch?v=uk3ihzv9g20

Next time: Nute Gunray thought two of them was getting out of hand? Now there are SEVEN of them.

Decade VS Zi-O and Zi-O VS Decade aired back to back, so watching Zi-O VS Decade alongside this does give new meaning to some of the weird things that happen here. Decade VS Zi-O serves as a prequel though, so unlike most of us who watched them that way, you'll have the perspective to understand more about Tsukasa's intentions after surviving the Death Game. One of the 7 Zi-Os has already appeared here, Oma Zi-O, specifically Our Sougo after he became Oma Zi-O in the finale! Basketball Sougo counts as an eighth Zi-O (relative to the other 7, it's more if we include all the other Zi-Os), who sacrificed himself to save Tsukasa.

I thought Decade VS Zi-O was the more consistently good of the two spin-offs. Murder mystery is definitely my kind of genre and it kept me guessing until the end. It was nice to see Tsukasa's emotional side once more, instead of just his smug side. There were five players by the last episode. Despite Ora being the most suspicious, her alibi for Swartz's death convinced me it was someone else. I was pretty sure it couldn't be Tsukasa or Basketball Sougo. When Heure was murdered, I determined it had to be Yuusuke due to his lack of alibi! I also thought Basketball Sougo's little romance with Misa was cute.

Not just any space ninja. That was Demost from Sekai Ninja Sen!

(Fish Sandwich also watched Rider Time: Kamen Rider Decade VS Zi-O - "Decade Mansion's Death Game")

I've forgotten a lot about this series beyond how bonkers the ending was, which was the only part I remember feeling particularly entertaining. Not that I outright hated what I was seeing, so much as this one was just... kinda boring to me? Not a lot of strong feelings either way about Decade VS Zi-O, which is probably why I ended that old post by bringing up Go-Rider. It was a cheap shot, I know, but like -- Go-Rider is soooo good. (Ah man, now I'm getting distracted all over again.)

Wait, has this thread been keeping you from watching Donbrothers?! 'Cause if you need to take an extra day off every week when you get to Zero-One or something, you should maybe do that! You can watch Kamen Rider shows late whenever you want, but this is the first year in a very long time that Inoue is writing a whole toku show. Donbrothers was basically a gift to you, man; you should savor every week it's on the air! (Not that I get to dictate your viewing habits, obviously! But nosy as this is, I can't help but feel you won't regret being able to say Donbrothers was the first toku show you actually kept up with when it was new.)

Ok, decided to simply, go ahead and just share this.

I can definitely agree with Fish on putting Zero-One aside for Sentai, I think that's one of the best choices you can make :p

I also second advising Die to take a day off for Donbros! Feels like a shame to let Inoue's biggest fan to miss out on the year-long festival of watching the show live!

Yes, I third or fourth or whatever these points, Die should take off as many days as needed so he can catch Donbros weekly.

I haven't been keeping up too well (I hardly do weekly watches with Sentai) but from what I've heard it's been pretty great.

Zi-O handing Decade a Saber Ridwatch - in the midst of a pitched, losing battle - and then Decade going I Can't Even Use This is easily in the Top 5 of the funniest/dumbest things in that Vs special. Thank you for reminding me of it!

It was definitely cute! They had fun chemistry. And, actually, Sougo was my #1 suspect for most of this special, because it seemed like the most unlikely scenario.

Oh, for sure. Go-Rider by a mile. I enjoyed this one as a fun dessert to watching all of Zi-O, as well as it being my kind of idiocy. Go-Rider's definitely the better side project!

So, here's the problem. My brain is broken in a very specific way that both makes these threads possible, and also makes juggling two toku shows kind of impossible.

It's not that I dislike DonBros, mind. I like it a lot! The three episodes I watched were hitting some big Inoue Themes, which is more appealing to me than him banging out some short-run goof-off special. DonBros was talking about how the world doesn't make sense in a way that's kind of horrifying, but people don't make sense in a way that's kind of beautiful, and I like when he does that. (Or, to put it another way, the world doesn't care about individuals, so individuals better care about each other.)

But, like, these threads flex a part of my brain that DonBros also flexes, and I can't do both. One episode and post is about two hours of my day, not counting any forum reading and responding. Watching DonBros after that... it's like running a marathon, and then cooling off with a jog. It's the opposite of relaxing? It's me watching a show I love when my brain is least able to appreciate it in the way I want to?

And taking days off... no? I like the routine of these threads, for one thing. Getting back to a daily(-ish) regimen after the two-to-three per week posting of the movie rewatches, I really like it. I like it the best. Doing these less often is, again, like exercise. If you do it less often, it's harder to keep at it. You do it every day, it becomes second nature.

To do Zero-One less often and accommodate DonBros, that's like the worst of both worlds. Zero-One's harder to do because I'm taking more breaks, and DonBros has to exist alongside a lot of thought about Kamen Rider. My brain's just literally not built for that. Watching Kamen Rider, it just expands that narrative out to fill up my entire brain. No room for DonBros, sadly.

I appreciate everyone's concern, though! And slight shade at the quality of Zero-One!

Space Squad world represent! I don't think that makes any sense, but represent none the less!

But yeah, this one... I can't say I enjoyed it much? It just has a sense of lethargy in it to me, the guest cast all feel suffocated by the murderous atmosphere, until you get to the end and a lot of weird stuff happens all at once. Narutaki looks and sounds tired, and tbh, I feel that. But hey, good to see him back, still a friend to all Kamen Riders.

And don't let the naysayers drag you down, Die! Zero-One is a zero-'won'deful show!
ARUTO JA NAITOOOOOOOOOOO

He's definitely a friend to Kamen Rider Oma Zi-O, that's for sure.

One of the things I sort of liked about this special is how it critiqued the solo, post-series Tsukasa appearances, and how much less heroic he gets as the years drag on. It's almost Oma Zi-O-esque, honestly: this guy who was a hero, goes it alone, stops seeing the worth of individuals as he defends a larger scale of humanity, and eventually becomes indistinguishable from a villain. (He's pretty disinterested in the people getting murdered in this special!)

But then Team Decade pops out of a floorboard, and he's a hero again, risking everything to save all of reality from someone else's narrative and nemesis.

Like, that's Zi-O's message as a show? That we need other people to keep us in check as well as lift us up?

INOUE!