It's great that Rider history is back to what it was before Zi-O. Sad thing is, Kenzaki and Hajime are back to being Undead again.

If you never watched build or just watch this episode out of context as a rider fan, then it's pretty decent. Tsuki, decade, diend, and woz were wasted. Aqua didnt return. Woz and ohma zio are still confusing and the timeline mess is it a paradox or not? I didn't know aura really did die and now they're happy to lucky with the trio in a Build new world alike ending. Ohma zio sougo could still defeat Schwartz without tsuki intervention. Two new PB to sell. Question if ryuki/ren did it better or zio/geiz.dadsdasuot desi
Really need some expanding lore of royal family and ohma/woz, but like always they never give it to us and this series desperately needed more exposition. Pretty much ohma= all 2ndard and another ride watches, so it dwarfs grand and perhaps movie light version of ohma. The whole series is about him accepting ohma and rewrite history. We're next at square 1 with woz stalking. Vcinema and movie war might need some retcon, out if canon, or build level memory restoration. Out of all Heisei riders, only w manage to squeeze its vcinemas and movies together canon wise in nice smooth package.

Faiz and kaiza are dead like kiba. Damn, they cut the henshin poses. Did sougo cross slap tap side of the belt or just cross gesture. The same with final finisher. Like it or not, ohma zio stomp exaid, kuuga, dark kiva raw power wise and its gallery of technique is near infinite above decade and diend combine. Schwartz is just such a wild card obstacle. So his entire plan is force sougo to become ohma then steal shi power when he's still insecure and inexperience. I'm curious about the royal family world. Is it another decade shocker or ghost gangma family vibe? Tsuki and geiz transcend time and gets written by sougo as his bffs. It's weird he wipe his own memories as well.

That was a stupid plan....If he wanted Zi-O to become Ohma while being inexperienced and unsecure, It would have to be at Ohma Day...not at the end of the series. Schwartz is such a wasted character...

Also, have I said that Shirakura needs to be gone from Kamen Rider for good?
Yes I did...And I'm saying it again. Everytime that guy was in something, that thing become utter trash.

You complain about reset repeated endings and then what you want is Build's ending again. Do you know what you want?
Secondly, that even makes even less sense that Woz can just fix everything you can't just band-aid that sort of logic. It'd make more sense for Woz to sacrifice himself for his Ma-oh kinda like Phillip did for Shotaro in Double.

I think they pulled off Sougo's development in the end even if it was rushed late. Sougo realised how lonely being a king was from his older self and how tired and alone he sounded. So he chose his friends instead of his lifelong dream. It's about the journey to the conclusion, if you ask me.
The surprising thing I don't get how the time reset was a surprise for anyone. Did anyone really think we were ending with Oma-Zio taking over desolate world? Toei was never gonna do that as ballsy a move that may be..
I suspected a time reset ending after the build arc after all this being about time travel and Gokaiger being anniversary season that ended up reverting to status quo. So it was clearly bound to happen and I think they did this again because they heard ppl were happy about Build's ending because they were happy about Build overall. I will maintain this finale is better than Build's due to the action and character development but Build had better build-up.

I think they were trying to do a spider-verse storyline where the Kamen riders were the Spider-totems of each world and I liked that logic to make Tsukuyomi a Kamen Rider. Love her design but that betrayal and death was pointless. Like at least show Schwartz gullibly giving her power back to give it some reason y'know. I feel they were trying to copy the deaths off Build and to make Sougo feel alone but only Geiz should have died. That scene was well pulled off tho'

Is it me or was I the only one who saw the smokescreen that Sougo stepped out of before going Oma-Zio? It was clear Schwartz thought Zi-0 died in the blast because the smoke gave them cover.

And oh gods, no. Do you know how many rider wars we've had now in how many movies now? We even had one in the Edo era, for pete's sake. (Tho' the most interesting) we don't need Kamen Rider Taisen again or Gokaiger 2. Rather be show be unique than a ripoff but I will say the tributes could have been done better Gokaiger-style with the theme songs always in BGM instead of once or twice. That'd have helped it way more.

Zi-0 was fun goofy show with very loose time travel rules for a show and established that from the beginning. I think it was kinda clever to hide the slipshod mishmash of worlds into a plot point and use the Kamen riders as Totems. It'd have been cool to see the Kamen riders work together in a new way like Gentaro monitoring space and Kouta trying to fight the chaos of the time stream instead of just rider kicking the umpteenth time but actors don't seem to come back as much for Kamen rider sadly. Still better than build tho'
It got repetitive for a long time. Whereas Zi-0 had surprises and curveballs along the way, good or bad. That's why I'd take it over a show where you know what's coming.

There is a difference between surprises/plot twists and "we write nonsense just for the sake of "you didn't see it coming huh ?"".

I don't dislike Zi-O, but objectively you can't compare it to Build in terms of structure and plot/character development. Build felt written from ep1 to ep49 as one big thing (felt, not said it was) and every character felt like having a past that led them there. While Zi-O felt more like "so what are we going to tell this week ? oh yeah what about we go that way" and every character past is "they lived until now yo".

Just ask a random person to choose 1 single episode every 10 episodes of Zi-O (random numbers like I don't know : ep 1, ep 13, ep 28, ep 34, ep 45 etc...), and you can lose the guy because he will have a hard time figuring where we are in the show.
Just take the Geiz element "i want to kill you" => ""ok I tolerate you now" => "ok you're my friend somehow" => "no, I want to kill you again" => "i don't remember you" => "i'm dying for you".
or the sudden and random Tsukasa appearances all along the show.

You would lose anyone not sympathizing with the franchise

I'm not sure someone doing the same with Build would be lost the same way. For sure they would not understand everything (like suddenly Sento being referred as Katsuragi sometimes), but they would probably feel that some things happened in between and not just randomly shifted just like in Zi-O. And they would probably be able to guess where we are.

Awesome finale, but definitely was too rushed. It could've benefited having 2-3 more episodes.

kamen rider zi-o
 

Even if it is just 49 episodes that they have explained the prequel to episode 1 on how OmaZio got his godly power in the first place; and how Alpina and Swartz are part of a royal family who can control and freeze time be all that powerful, no explanations at all were given for these. Why does Swartz wanted to be more powerful than Alpina when he's the eldest and even got Decade's power., these two could have been the Decade and Bishium siblings in another timeline or that they really were Oma's offsprings.

Stuff Zi-O didn't bother explaining:

- Where the Time Jackers came from

- Why they were so invested in dealing with Oma Zi-O

- Why they had Time Mazine's that looked like Ghost's Iguana thing and Kiva's Dragon Castle

- What the hell is the background of Swartz and Alphina outside of WE COME FROM A FAMILY THAT CAN CONTROL TIME

And biggest of all...

What the flying fuck were the DaiMazines?

That's supposed to come up in the summer movie.

I would argue the DaiMazines are fairly low on the list of questions that could have used fleshing out.

I'm really looking forward to the movie just to see what kind of insanity from Zi-O is in store that simultaneously needs to be 'theater-worthy' but also can't actually affect the show's status quo.

That was a good enough finale for me. Could have been better but I'm fine with what we got.

Ohma Zi-O is really OP. He's the one punch Rider!

Well farewell Heisei and hello Reiwa! Hope that Zero-One turns out great.

He didn't wipe his own memories, if you can recall that while he's spreading the butter on his toast, that he's narrating "September 2018"and he still has his dreams of being king. The V cinema will reawaken their memories probably with Woz. It's worth noting that Heure was calling Sougo the King Senpai even though he's dumb. Heure even the supposed past was to be allies with Sougo and now he has this attraction to Sougo; Geiz doing his best to stop Sougo's ambitions, Ora being non nonsense, Tsukuyomi always protecting Sougo and that in the end, they were racing against time as they were running late..fittingly for a show about time.

I'm not even going to try to wrap my mind over the intricacies of the finale. Instead I'll say that the last six pages of commentary here are awesome.

Personally, I feel all of it was seriously interpretive, save for the fact that for some reason Sougo chose to Fourze all of his friends. We all get to select whether the endings for other series such as Faiz, Blade, Den-O, or even Aqua did or did not happen. Because it literally is like watching Avengers Endgame and trying to make sense of time travel in that plot. Ultimately, the answer to the game is not to play.

Things I would love to have seen as supplemental to this would have been one last .5 episode, and a V-Cinema with Tsukuyomi as a primary rider. Because her appearance was so short, and had zero action. I'd totally entertain the idea of ONE female rider world, I think it's long overdue, and not just because of PC reasons.

Was the ending a 'happy' one. I'd totally say yes. Was it a good ending to the last Heisei era series? Sure. Did it give us any Decade closure? Nope. And I guess we'll have to just be alright with that.

I'm a little curious about the episode's couple of nods to Zero-One. In addition to the 21 worlds we see at the end of the episode, Zero-One is called out as one of the attacks Sougo uses as Grand Zi-O, although the attack itself is a blur indistinguishable from (Drive?)

I realize this show had already done a ton of stuff that didn't make sense, but FFS, Sougo never obtained a Zero-One RideWatch; we didn't see one among the repaired RideWatches his uncle handed him, and it wasn't represented on the Grand Zi-O RideWatch. This feels very much like something that was added during last-minute post-production.

This episode was... meh. I guess the action sequences were fun? The overall plot of Zi-O landed with a splat, which I guess was inevitable given that Sougo's desire to be a king has never, ever felt like an actual human motivation.

I was mostly enjoying the back half of the series, but this episode was largely devoid of surprises and clever bits. That Tsukoyomi would betray Schwartz was beyond obvious. That it largely didn't matter - and that we largely didn't get to see the awesome Kamen Rider Tsukoyomi in action - was just annoying. It was annoying that Decade and DiEnd got practically no denouement. The characters who returned to life as Sougo's fellow high school students made little sense.

Between this show and Kamen Rider Decade, I'm feeling pretty confident that big anniversary crossover seasons are not a great idea. Good thing the next one is a decade away...

I just rewatched the Grand Zi-O part of the episode, but I couldn't find this anywhere. Where was it?

At least she got more screen time than Pink Necrom?

I'm surprised that I caught the final villain so long ago

It's Shift Matran which in the Drive Driver is called out as Formula 01.

Just pointing out that when Sougo reset the timeline, the Blade Riders were most likely restored to their original fate. So no happy ending for them.

Not to mention Kagami doesn't become Kabuto and Cronus is still alive.

But like, the second Rider Fight didn't happen, Aqua didn't die and the Kiva arc never existed; so overall I'd say it balances out.

If Sougo was able to warp reality to bring Geiz, Tsukuyomi, Uhr and Ora to his timeline, and his time specifically, one can easily assume Sougo changed the timeline for the other worlds too, Ohma Zi-O controls time AND space after all

after watching it again I feel like I see what i disliked most in Zi-O.
The acting.
I don't like to dispraise actors and I know it's not necessarily top notch acting in KR in general but. damn. The Geiz dying scene. I don't believe it even for a second.
And the "urgh urgh" and faces of Swartz when he is on his knees near the end. I feel like watching 7 years old kids playing police and thieves and that's exactly the kind of noises and face a kid would do when he is "hit" by a "bullet".

Best acting moments of the show were probably the scenes between Sougo and his Uncle that were always touching. Probably thanks to the uncle actor I would say.

I liked how the old final bosses got a couple of scenes showcasing their powers. Evolt's suit acting was great too. It really gave the sense that Oma Zi-O was powerful when he beat them, rather than the usual we often get with returning suit villains in that they just feel like grunts.

They really should have given Swartz a second form or something though so that Grand could beat him before he uses that. It's weird how Grand gets all this build up and in the end pretty much accomplished nothing relevant aside from beating Another Zi-O II (Another Den-O and Another Drive too, but could be beaten just with standard Rider Armors...)

Kamen Rider Tsukuyomi really feels like a last minute addition. She only appears in two scenes, with no actual battle choreography, which easily might have been added after the fact, alongside with tweaking Tsukasa's plan.

The movie actually changes the status quo quite a bit and is presented as an ending of its own, it's just that the epilogue is really vague so some people believe there might be some timeline reset going on there to make things fit (especially due to Geiz's line about Mach in the tv show), but the movie itself doesn't show that clearly.

Even in Japan, looking at 5ch, people are debating about where the movie might be placed (During the show? Unrelated AU? The end of the new timeline? Funny thing about the last one is that the world split would be undone in that case).Since in the movie the Quartzers were pushing the same fusion of worlds plot, but intending to recreate the worlds, but the recreate part is stopped and then the world is just left as it is.

No All Riders battle makes some sense since the movie on theaters is doing that, although it's still kind of disappointing when they have all old villains parading around and easily could have had all Riders facing them throughout the city.

It seems like they forgot all Riders that didn't lose their powers in the more recent arcs, who should have popped up to fight the monsters, and no follow up to the future Riders at all was disappointing too.

I think that could have been done if they were willing to mix up suit-only characters (with actual roles and dialogue, not just battle summons) with actual returning actors. Skyrider did it pretty well. It'd allow them to actually have set "roles" for characters without needing to adjust everything last minute for actors every time.

It was never happening under Shirakura though, since he dislikes suit-only characters due to how badly they were used in Black RX (which he openly criticized back when he first was hired by Toei, shortly after it aired). He only brings them out in movies because it's a cheap way to make money (but even so mostly for final battles).

I'm fine with that. It was a really great bittersweet ending.

Hey everyone, guess what time it is!

https://i.imgur.com/SGRUWh3.jpg

Time, at last, to rejoice, for the epic finale of Kamen Rider Zi-O has descended upon us!

*sees overwhelming amounts of disappointment from the rest of the thread*

...

https://i.imgur.com/RWBQIXW.jpg

Alright, to be fair, there's a lot to unpack here, and not all of it is pleasant. I guess to start upfront with my overall opinion, I was... satisfied? It's a hard feeling to describe. I'm writing this having just finished the episode, and it met my expectations well enough to leave me entertained, while also not going beyond them enough to make this quite the event I hoped it would be. Perhaps with some time and distance I'll have a more concrete opinion in one direction or the other, but I'm obviously not going to wait like half a year to make this post.

So for now, this finale absolutely encapsulates everything that was Zi-O, good and ill. There's a lot of the usual confused nonsense, and a lot of plot points that mostly go somewhere, but don't feel like they were entirely figured out before they were put to film. I still can't tell you who Woz actually is, I still don't know what the origin of his jerkier counterpart was (was he like the Woz from Swartz's world?), I'm still unsure why they made such a point of Sougo's power over time growing in the middle of the series to the point where he may or may not have been literally dreaming up the future when he spent the back chunk of it getting kicked around in his own final form... and most pertinent to this episode, I don't know why they choose to go with this whole plan on the heroes' part that required Tsukuyomi to become a Rider when she doesn't actually get to do any cool Rider things. I think the show is taking it for granted that we'll see her sudden betrayal as some big moment to get us invested in how the story will end, but unfortunately it's simply not possible, even for someone like me who loves this show, to feel directly invested in Tsukuyomi's character for this to land. I know enough about her to realize what she's actually doing, and worse yet, I don't care enough about her to be worried. It's the worst possible combination, and Zi-O's endgame could've done with a lot fewer people pretending to shift their allegiance like this. It made sense for Kaitou, because he was trying to slip in and steal some crap, but if your entire goal is simply to stab Swartz, I don't even know why you would bother with all the theatrics.

I suppose you could very cynically argue that's just Zi-O's way of paying tribute to the Heisei era's grand tradition of screwing over female Riders at every opportunity, but yeesh do I ever feel sorry for Tsukuyomi. All that distaste I had for her early on has been transformed to pity at this point. Poor thing is nominally the third most important character in the show, yet only ever got to stand around looking and sounding extremely depressed while being entirely at the mercy of other characters, not even allowed enough control over her own life to do the whole dramatic fake traitor thing without immediately getting murdered for the trouble. She may be a boring plank of wood, but she's a plank of wood I kind of want to give a hug to.

Moving on to important characters numbers one and two, we've got Geiz, who is kind of barely in this episode, weirdly enough, but his one big scene is great. It's obvious, yeah, and it can't help but remind one of Ryuki's penultimate episode, which I think had a lot more emotional complexity going on, but this is the logical endpoint for his character, and it delivers. I'm sorry if you hated Geiz, but he's right up there with Zeronos in terms of my favorite secondary Riders, and I've been waiting the entire season for him to call Sougo by his name. So to see them hold it back right up until the end? To have Geiz finally take down that last little emotional barrier as he sacrifices his own life to save Sougo, so certain of his inherent goodness after all they've been through together, that his dying wish is for Sougo to become Oma Zi-O? Can the dramatic timing here be anymore perfect? Consider my heartstrings thoroughly tugged, alright? I'm only human.

As for the main man himself, Sougo is great here, but I'm uncertain if this is the perfect possible resolution to his journey. The buildup to the final showdown is solid, and while I've said this a lot before, putting him with his uncle is a recipe for a good scene that always works, especially in this case, with the ultimate payoff to Junichirou always looking for an excuse to fix a clock.

Where it starts becoming slightly embarrassing is that Sougo immediately wastes all that hard work with yet another subpar effort from Grand Zi-O. Which is something I've also said a lot before, and man is that depressing. Granted, they finally remembered to do something cool with his powers again, and getting to hear Eiji doing his usual "Sei-yah!!", stock audio or not, wins the episode major bonus points for me, but the problem is, they finally stepped up their game to the level I want... just in time for it to be the finale, which further raises my expectations. I know something crazy outrageous like finding 40 suit actors to have every Heisei Rider versus every final boss (or nearest equivalent) was unfeasible, although I get the feeling cheating it through the usual trick of a few composite shots and then just having a few characters on screen at the same time probably would've been a completely realistic option to let them do something that awesome (in fact, I'm pretty sure that's what they did for the big Another Rider throwdown in 43), but at least summon Kuuga, for f***'s sake! Have him use Clock Up! Have the epic golden royal Rider lineup of my dreams like I was saying at the end of the Another Zi-O II arc! This is the problem with a final form that has this much potential. There was never any way they going to truly tap it, but I did expect them to get more out of it then they did. Going back to the bit about plot points in this show that only mostly went somewhere, I'm not sure what good building up the idea of him needing the Drive Ride Watch did when it didn't make any discernible difference when he finally had it.

But wait, Grand Zi-O isn't his final form, is it? Of course not. Because the show thankfully remembered to do the one thing it absolutely had to do above all else in my eyes, and actually show us Sougo becoming Oma Zi-O. They didn't cheat their way out of it. It didn't just happen in some dream sequence or something stupid. He really did it. The transformation was really cool. He really blew through all those major Rider villains like it was nothing, and the icy yet enraged tone of his dialogue really did make it feel somewhat unnerving even though he's not doing anything evil. The intensity of that entire section of the episode reminded me a lot of Gaim's final showdown in terms of how downbeat it feels. Zi-O is defeating the bad guy, yeah, but it just doesn't come off as a triumphant moment, and I like something about that. I also like the workaround the show did find to explain how Sougo could be an evil overlord in the future, but also not become an evil overlord. I can't even complain that saying it's the friends he made along the way is trite or sugary, because all his friends are legitimately from the future and a result of history being altered. They actually are the big difference between the two of them, and I think the show effectively capitalized on that in these last few episodes.

Now, about that resolution. I really don't mind it at all. There are things about the way it plays out where I think it could've been improved. I don't think it's immediately obvious from the dialogue as written exactly what the show is going for with Sougo's decision as a resolution to his character's story, and like some of the more obtuse bits of Geiz's arc, it's hard for me to blame anyone for coming to whatever conclusions they have. My read of it is that this is yet again, a Rider show pulling a "reset button" ending that actually isn't about putting things back at all, and in this particular case, I think it stays very true to how Sougo's character has developed over the course of the series. It certainly had nothing to do with Sougo giving up his dream of becoming a king, because he makes it clear he considers this a mild roadblock at worst. His last words to his once-future self are especially telling. No matter what it looks like, this was about moving forward, and trying something new. He freed everyone who was manipulated by Swartz to finally have a shot at a normal life, and the optimism he shows while doing this is the pinnacle of the attitude he's had ever since the earliest parts of the show.

https://i.imgur.com/MR6EtEW.jpg

From that speech in the second episode, to the debut of Zi-O II, to the very end, Sougo was always all about having the faith to choose the future for yourself, and to push forward on that path no matter how uncertain or scary tomorrow seems, and that's pretty much exactly what happened here. Heck, even the lyrics of Over Quartzer match up almost perfectly with the ending. So I definitely don't think this choice was a mistake. The redundancy coming right after Build is unfortunate, but in its own right this ending made a ton of sense for the show on a thematic level, and it sits a lot better with me than I expected as a result.

Honestly, if I could change one thing about the episode, I think it would've been a very nice cherry on top if the end of the episode had changed the usual "thanks for supporting (insert show here) over the last year" message to "thanks for supporting Heisei Rider over the last 20 years". Or at least maybe put it in the actual episode like it used to be instead of exiling it to the sponsor segment, please? I mean, I complained about this when Build ended too, and I get the feeling I'm the only who cares, but I liked seeing that at the end of a Rider show every year, formality or not.

With all that said, I think that's a wrap on Zi-O for now. This show was absolutely not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but for my money, Zi-O had an ability to consistently rise above its rough edges in a way that kept things from ever getting too frustrating. Way back at the start of all of this, I framed the show like this...

...and now that it's done, I say without a doubt it was mission accomplished on that front. While Zi-O did ultimately fall into the same trap of overcomplicated multiversal mechanics, in every other way, it totally succeeded in surpassing Decade, and also in erasing my early trepidation that it would turn out to be something less than great. For all the mistakes it made along the way, the things about this show that were good shined like diamonds to me. From the investment I felt in Sougo and Geiz the whole time, the human drama of episodes like the Another Zi-O arc, and the insane spectacle of ones like the Agito arc, those are the kinds of things I'm going to remember most strongly. All the terrible Inoue episodes and half-hearted infodumps in the world just can't change that. This show was boatloads of fun, and I'll always look back on it fondly, from here to the future.

You know, Fish, I may not entirely be on your side when it comes to Ghost, but I think you and me are on the same wavelength when it comes to Zi-O. Sure, it's nowhere near the best series ever, but I've grown to love it, and Geiz is seriously underrated (just because his character development isn't spelled out for us every second, it's not like it isn't there!). Tsukuyomi deserved better, especially here, and Grand Zi-O could have put up a better showing... but I'm still glad I watched it to the end, and not just for the cameos. That scene of Decade and Diend watching the new world, smiling as it goes down, is just how I feel.

I've got my own thoughts how all the multiverse stuff works, I might make a big essay on it at some point, but that's another day's problem.

I'm a bit more negative on Zi-O - though still ultimately like it - but I'd agree on so much of what you said. The high points being the main cast with the exception of Tsukuyomi having pitifully little to her; Grand Zi-O being disappointing; Oma Zi-O being an incredible moment; yeah. I STILL can't stop thinking about the fact Oma Zi-O obliterated Dragblacker in one punch -- there were definitely more impressive and powerful villains there, but the way that was shot and done just my GOD.

I think it's taken me a while to decide how I feel about the episode. Many parts of it feel rushed - Tsukiyomi actually being a Rider; Geiz even existing; Woz, Decade and Diend just sort of disappearing after Sougo shows up - and this all kinda starts to make sense when you hear that the writers felt all the stuff they wanted to do would have worked better with 2 or 3 episodes. This is actually a problem I strangely have with Zi-O -- often with Rider I feel that there's very few series that really desperately needed a full 45-50 episode run, or for all their episodes to be ~22 minutes. But Zi-O as a series feels incredibly stressed for time for everything it needs to tell, with there being practically no breathers or any space between SOMETHING significant happening; whether it be a tribute or a new toy episode or something. Most of the time the New Toy episodes are conflated with tributes, and it's hard to forget that even the FIRST EPISODE was conflated with a tribute! And then there's so much other stuff they didn't do, like a Kuuga tribute or a proper one to W. I at once feel sorry for and want to applaud the writers for doing what they could to do everything they wanted or needed to do in some fashion, but it's clear that if any series needed some more time; by god it is this one.

Regardless, I still feel very conflicted about the ending; even ignoring Build comparisons. Though to stay on them for just a second, this definitely at least feels slightly more... morally acceptable than Build's, I guess? Like at least there weren't people running screaming from Sento's Combine The Worlds wave, or the visuals and explanations of it all making it look like a whole universe just died.
But something about the whole thing still feels sorta... off. I think the big thing for me is that Geiz, Tsukuyomi and the Timejackers are now plucked directly from their timestreams and worlds with no decision or knowledge on their part, for reasons that feel almost like Because Sougo Wanted It. I know they were almost certainly going for "everyone gets a happy ending", but something about it just feels so wrong and selfish on Sougo's part that I couldn't fully get into it. Uhr and Ora in particular almost feel like their personalities have been forcibly change to remove their worst aspects, and all of it feels just a bit creepy to me.

Zi-O as a whole though? I really can't say I disliked it, and if I can hate Build's ending yet still consider it my second favourite series; I certainly can't say Zi-O's ending lets down the series for me. The stretch of 17-28 of Future Riders, Another Zi-O, Zi-O II and Geiz Revive is still an absolute thrill, and the second part of Ryuga/Zi-O II in particular is not just my favourite Zi-O episode, but also one of my favourite Rider episodes ever. Many of the tributes had so many things to enjoy -- how well they played with the legacy in that Kuroto Dan works extremely well for an OOO foil; how much I can respect the sheer audacity of focusing a Hibiki tribute on redeeming Kiriya no matter how well I feel it's done; the absolute fun of Den-O that shows exactly why that series never left; basically every microsecond of Agito that showcases a great love of that series; and the incredible mix-and-match fun of the Dark Rider arc are all things that are sticking with me. The first ten or so episodes and the Kiva tribute aside, I really fail to name a bad tribute this series had.

Like... I dunno. I feel this is a series that had a very large amount of positive pieces to it; but aside from that middle section I consistently praise, it rarely ever felt like it truly came together cohesively for me. Even Decade at least was consistently confusing, so it came together in... some bizarre way. It's why I'm not rating Zi-O too highly, but it's certainly got too many good moments and too much fun to truly call a bad show. It was a good ride, in many ways a good way to send off the era; but I'm quite happy to move onto a new story now.