So let's start off with some small stuff.

Man, Tsukuyomi continues to not be good at decision making and planning, like I get what she was going for here but it did not work out in the long run if I'm being honest. I don't mind this appearance of the Kamen Rider Tsukuyomi suit too much because we are going to be seeing a lot more of it. And compared to say something like Kivala who also shows up last minute, they really make as much use as possible of Tsukuyomi's Rider Suit in future project.

Also Grand Zi-O here was definitely operating at 50% capacity when it comes to its abilities. Not as insane as it could be but it was definitely its best showing since its debut and I appreciate them going a bit all out with it for its last in show appearance.

That being said, I remember mentioning in the Decade thread that something caught me off guard when seeing that'd pop up way later. It was the stock footage of the dark cloud flying out into the city that Daguva made here, that I forgot was in Decade first. Toei reuse at its finest. It was also nice seeing a healthy platter of Heisei Final Bosses even if most of them were Phase 2 and more recent than not.

It was also incredibly satisfying watching Oma Zi-O tear through all of them with ease. Especially Evolt, ESPECIALLY Evolt! Dude was such a cockroach during Build and like the endgame surrounding him that it felt satisfying to see Oma Zi-O pretty much punt him out of existence.

I really loved Geiz's scene and while the execution was a bit muddy, him finally calling Sougo by name was real good, and it's then when I realized I really loved him as a Secondary Rider. Like I liked him before but that moment of him telling Sougo to become Oma Zi-O and that he believes in him, is so, so good. I love it.

Speaking of Oma Zi-O, let's start talking about him or rather Sougo 2068 who during these final episodes has made me appreciate him a lot more than usual. And it's also why I really dislike when people boil him down to like a plain Saturday morning cartoon villain in their depictions of him. He's an excellent antagonist though, a well intentioned kid who wanted to save the world, become a King. Shit went wrong, the memory of the Heisei Riders was erased, and all that was left was a large monument that depicted him the person who seemingly destroyed the world alongside 19 other armored random people.

Because let?s be real, it's clear he was never in control of the Dai Mazines with what we learn from Over Quartzer and the show doesn't bother to touch that plot point so this is what I'm going with. But that's how people viewed history as it was, it being Sougo 2068's fault because he was the only super powerful person left. So Sougo 2068 just took all that hate and became an Overlord over what remained of the Earth. And like, in these last episodes beyond all the bravado, beyond all of his boasting.

I see a man, a tired and worn out man who likely has some regret in how things turned out. Like we joke about him being a helicopter dad for Sougo but like, he didn't have to confront Sougo. If he was fine with Sougo going on the path he was now he could've just avoided him entirely during the trip to 2068. But Future Sougo chose to meet his younger self, chose to act with all the bravado he could, despite knowing that Sougo likely wouldn't take it well at all. He even risked his entire existence on a choice Sougo would make, and while he was certain that Sougo wouldn't give up his dream, he had to have been aware their meeting would have made some impact on his younger self. And he pushes and nudges Sougo again, and again, barely, but just enough. And by the time Trinity beats him, he figures that enough has changed for Sougo to change the outcome once destiny runs its course.

And see, that's the thing about why I'm calling him Sougo 2068 and Future Sougo, that's who he really is. While Oma Zi-O is easier to short hand and very much a way to tell us who is who, Oma Zi-O isn't a person, isn't an ideal, isn't a scary future that Sougo may choose. That's Future Sougo, not Oma Zi-O. Oma Zi-O is an inevitability, a power that was destined to be Sougo's from birth and something that Sougo would one day obtain. But that's the thing about power, it can go either way and it's up to the person with their experiences and interactions with others, to choose how to use it. And at the end of the day, Oma Zi-O is a form title, a power that Sougo will obtain. How the future goes from there, the future of Sougo 2068 that everyone was trying to prevent, is now up to the present Sougo to decide. And because of his experiences with Team Zi-O, every other person along the way he met, and a better understanding of Heisei Riders by just a bit, we see what Sougo chooses to do with his powers.

Now we already did a reset ending of sorts with Build, but I feel like, given post series specials, Zi-O still does it better than how Build handled it in the end. But like, the ending of Sougo deciding, I'll give up my dream to be King, this power, if it means giving everyone a chance to start over without all of this time nonsense, is like the most Sougo thing I can think of him doing. Is it selfish, in a sense yeah? Could he have given himself the ability to butter toast better? Yes.

But I ended up really liking this ending for Zi-O, how Sougo was able break the cycle by his experiences dictating what he'd do once he obtained the power of Oma Zi-O.

Wow, that was a lot. Um, here's a music video I made and posted to video to celebrate the end of Zi-O!

https://vimeo.com/357276939

Apocalypse Time! It's Episode 49.....

-Before I rewatched this episode, I could only remember the bit with Sougo and Oma Zi-O and the high school bit, as well as some fuzzy memories of Geiz's death, and thought of this episode pretty fondly.

-..................I remember why I seemingly didn't want remember anything before that, because oooooooof. I didn't vibe with ta good chunk of this episode at all.

-The "Tsukuyomi betrayed us?!" twist feels so deeply insulting than I'm struggling to find the words to express my dislike of it? It'd be one thing to do the pledge of alleganice to Swartz, and then cleverly cut around the boys' conversation afterwards to imply something else is up, of course, but this....Hearing Geiz say "Why you'd do it, Tsukuyomi?!" with earnest geniunely made my heart sink? Like seriously? Now, of all times? When we literally did this bit a couple episodes ago....????

-I don't care any of the spefics of our heroes' plan because it's all thrown away with that big "Earse Timeline" button, but like.....If all Swartz wanted was Ohma Zi-O's power, what was stopping him from just going to 2068 and doing it there??? I guess you can make the argument that teenage Sougo who's all emotional and doesnt have a full grasp of his new powerset yet is a easier target, but........In any case, I don't think anyone any gives a damn about Swartz or last minute Time Nonsense when all the character stuff is good and sweet, so let's not waste any more energy on that!

-That line from Sougo about the hands of a clock, where they're seemingly in a loop but steadily heading towards the future...I adore that line so damn much, it's a simple yet powerful statement.

-However brief, Uncle's moment in this geniunely hit? When he came out with all the watches I felt the biggest smile creep on.

-Woz looking over the kids as they head into school, watching over from the shadows....there's something a bit bittersweet about that, isn't it? Being potenially the only one who fully remembers what happened and all that. It kinda shows how far the guy's come, from meddling with this and that in order to bring out Oma Zi-O, to stepping back into the role of the unseen observer to see what kind of future Sougo and the kids will create.

I don't like anything that happened in this episode and it makes me boiling mad to think about literally any aspect of it.

But whatever, you and the thread don't need me to go on another tirade- HE WAVED HIS HAND AND CHANGED EVERYTHING INTO A HIGH SCHOOL AU WHAT KIND OF ENDI Sorry, at least that much had to leak out. Thanks for another enjoyable thread, reading your thoughts on Zi-O in real time was pretty fun and interesting, as was the excuse to chime into conversations about this show! Further congratulations to having watching twenty years worth of television within a short-ish amount of time. You have the burden of having Rider permanently engraved in your mind, just like most of us now...

Sogo: Don't get caught up in your past. Live in the present to work toward a bright future.

Also Sogo: *rewrites time itself to serve his own wants specifically*

Great... great moral there, Zi-O.

Man, I don't wanna give my full thoughts yet(and I'm not), but I will say that, for a show that I was really digging at first, with a main character who I was also really digging at first, the endgame makes alot of things feel ultimately hallow for me. Not like, Faiz tier hallow, but it's definitely a sour note on the entire thing.

But, with us at the end, it is also time for the final piece of my bit.


I think this might be the first time in Rider that my favorite character ended up being a side character. Whether you're talking about Rento/Kikai or Uncle, these were both characters who took me completely by surprise in how much I gelled with them.

Rento is my actual favorite, but if we're counting him as something separate, then in the end, it's definitely Uncle. Similar to my feelings on Shotaro, while his character is relatively simple, he's also never messed up or wasted. He's consistently funny, full of charisma, and alot of the scenes between him and Sogo are genuinely sweet and touching.

And really, that's all I needed. It's all I feel any character "needs" really. Some might say that's shallow, and sure, I can see that, but in the end, the thing I'm looking for most in any story is a good time, and a well done character, basic or not, is a very big key to that


Oh, and before I forget, the star of this episode to me(other than Uncle), is Oma. So, to quote what I said in a discussion I had with a friend about him after I watched the finale:

He is still a dark future version of Sogo to be sure, but he's very much someone who's been broken and beaten down over time, dulling alot of his emotions(likely due to some version of Schwartz). And I also choose to believe that he purposefully set things up so that Geiz, Tskuyomi, and Woz would go back in time and set things right.

It made for a very interesting outlook on someone who's first scene on screen is blowing up an entire battlefield with the wave of his hand, and while I don't think of him as highly as alot of other viewers do, I do enjoy him.

Man I hope my final thoughts post doesn't end up being incoherent babble later this week.

One more thing I want to say unprompted: I did in fact for real cry at this scene the first time. Any time I cry after that it will be because I'm wishing this scene was in a better episode AND A BETTER SHOW Okay, that's all. Zi-O's so fun and nice, we all love it, yaaaay!

Broke my heart that Sougo was too enraged to shout CIAO as he obliterated Evol(t). Wasted opportunity!

Yeah, it's different enough from Build's take on a New World that I don't mind Kamen Rider doing it two years in a row. This version wasn't about the hero taking on some Terrible Weight and sacrificing everything for their friends, even if those friends would never know it. It was a kid who saved his friends from sacrifice, and built them all a world to live in together. It's the exact opposite of Build's use of the plot, which is why it works for me.

Ha ha, it is a pretty bad middle section! Just this brilliant Sougo plot surrounded by dumb plot mechanics (I love that they saved the Swartz'z World Is Dying Because It Doesn't Have A Rider thing until the last goddamn episode) and baffling anti-drama. Geiz saying "Sougo" is worth a million points, though.

Thanks! There's still a week left of post-show content to cover, and a couple wrap-up posts, but it feels kind of weird to have watched 20 full seasons of Kamen Rider. It was a goal I set for myself not even a couple years ago (I want to say it was probably late-summer of 2019?), and now it's done. Crazy!

I think his line about clock hands moving even if it looks like they've stayed in place is relevant to this read? Like, he built the world he wanted to see, and he did it to give everyone the best shot at creating their own future. It looks like he's regressed, but he's actually changed for the better. I think it works?

It's okay if you didn't like the finale! Much like Sougo, I am just as happy to see people expressing themselves in opposition to me as I would be in support, as long as they care enough to fight for their viewpoint.

So, the ending. Apparently all I really remember about this is the ending with everyone together in high school, including all of the characters that shouldn't have been born yet. I'm pretty sure there was some kind of ploy with Tsukuyomi, who gave Necrom Pink a run for her money in terms of Kamen Riding time. I don't remember anything about the final battle or how it played out, or if Ohma Zi-O came back for one last fight or not. Geiz died, I guess? Bummer.

But no, I mostly just remember the very end, which was... fine, I guess. Timeline logistics aside, I thought it worked as a more upbeat version of Ryuki's ending. All in all, though, just not something that left a very strong impression on me.

That's fair! I think there's some memorable stuff even in the messiness of the middle (a stern Sougo demanding that Woz IWAE, for example), but it's hard to say that the strangeness of the ending doesn't overshadow everything.

And plugging in the Time Jackers... I really love that detail? I like that Sougo's best world specifically allows for things like redemption. That's exactly what I want that kid to do.

So fun fact: the older version of Sougo when not in the suit has been played by Seiji Taikawa, as a send off to him, as he decided to step down from being the main suit actor, in favour of it cycling through whoever gave the best audition. Though given how two out of three of Reiwa’s leads have been suit acted by Yuya Nawata (who previously suit acted Genm, Taiga as Cronus and Geiz, except for these last three episodes, with a stand-in doing 47-8 and 49 having Geiz’s actor in the suit), and how Zero-One made a big deal of casting Taikawa as the final boss so they could do a passing of the torch, it comes off as the only reason Saber had Kosuke Asai (who previously suit acted regular Cronus and a slew of Sentai Reds) was due to COVID slowing down production.

And also, we get the ultimate culmination of Uncle’s fix everything gag, by finally not just having him fix a clock, but having him fix a full stand of really weird ones.

And finally, while everything’s going great for Team Zi-O and the Time Jackers (though given the last scene starts off reenacting the first episode until Geiz appears, Sougo probably erased the guy who beat him up back then from history), and the separation of the 20 worlds means things are going great for some of the phase 2 Riders (Takumi Katsuragi gets his fake name and one-sided bromance with a straight man back, Kouta ascends back to Fruit Jesus, Eiji trades in a lucrative politics job for trying to revive a birdman), it’s not so great for the phase 1 Riders (Takumi and Kusaka go back to being dead, Kenzaki and Hajime are still avoiding each other due to the Undead’s influence, Kiriya and Kagami don’t get their closure), but eh, it was nice to see those characters again.

And to close off the main series reviews, a look at the watch from the end card.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=WYVAoRs-Jvo

“Using Progrisekeys, the Rider imitating numerous animals is Zero-One”

And rather than tease his theme song (Not a fan), I’m going for what is probably the best of some admittedly pretty bad inserts, Find a New Life https://youtube.com/watch?v=yYbyUqteakg

https://youtu.be/elW1khAWD58
Here's also zero ones battle theme

Oh dang, you guys are almost done? Ohh. I missed a lot.
It's the reset ending! I definitely liked the part too when Sougo's uncle managed to somehow repair all the watches. It's so touching.

So, technically Sougo separated the worlds and undid all the time mishaps caused by the Another Riders and the Time Jackers, that most likely mean things like Kenzaki and Hajime losing their undead attributes did not happen. Or maybe not, I don't know, but Sougo puts everything back the way it was to enable everyone to move forward to the future much smoother, with everyone able to live relatively peaceful lives. All at the cost of his own memories and powers, giving up the kingship dream.

Except that's not exactly it. I like that the despite Sougo's act, he's still one day destined as the king of time, Ohma ZI-O is an inevitablity.

Onto Ohma ZI-O, I'm not exactly sure where it was said, but apparently back in episode 1, when Ohma ZI-O erased the people from a wave of a hand, he didn't actually kill them? He sent them somewhere safe, it just looked like they were killed. I don't know if this is real, something Shirakura said, I could've sworn I read it somewhere. Maybe it's a retcon, but I'll take it since it's this reframing of Ohma ZI-O as this tragic king who took on all the world's evil at a terrible cost and only wish for people to remember the Heisei Riders that came before him.

Back to the finale, /Our/Sougo was Ohma ZI-O was splendid. Something about this form's re-debut reminded me of Kuuga Ultimate somewhat. A black/gold red-eyed form appears before the final villain, with a transformation process so shockingly simple. Granted a giant lava timey-wimey thing appears below Sougo, but the transformation just him pressing the sides of the belt reminds me kinda of Kuuga Ultimate.

Could the ending have been better, mmm yeah? But I still had fun with this, since it still culminated in the stuff I wanted to see. A reset ending and Sougo making use of Ohma ZI-O.

I think the fun thing about the ending is that well... it's very vague on what Sougo did aside from what we see happen with his High School AU. Like we don't have specific worlds being labeled as "world of (blank)". And we don't know if certain Riders are together in them still or not. And I like how purposely vague it is because it gives a lot of flexibility going forward.

It's an ending that basically allows future writers to do whatever they want in regards to continuity moving forward since there is no strict like "one world" thing that a lot of Phase 2 was trying to imply.

No problem. Us writers should help each other out!

Well the events of Ghost did last 6 months in universe, despite the show running for a year as usual. So now that you mention it, I guess it's possible that the events of Decade started later in the year considering how each episode leads in to the next without any implied breaks.

My own headcanon for Tsukasa and Sougo is a little different, where Tsukasa fuses the worlds which therefore creates the possibility for Oma Zi-O to exist at the center of those worlds, by inheriting all those powers (in other worlds, Oma Zi-O is also Decade's fault). But the outcome of those mechanics is similar to what you've suggested.

Remember, Geiz already called Sougo "Sougo" before, when he and Tsukuyomi were fading away in Over Quartzer. However, this time in the finale was memorable as well, I thought it showed amazing acting from both Okuno and Oshida, they really sold those emotions with Geiz leaving behind his grudge against Oma Zi-O and giving his blessing to Sougo to become that man, believing he won't become the same evil demon king as the future Oma Zi-O, since this is the Sougo he knows, the one who cares about his friends and wants to become king to create a better future. Arguably, you could say that Sougo succeeded, in a very weird way....

The future of Rider Time Zi-O VS Decade! Look forward to that! :D

Oh and I guess I should congratulate you. IWAE! Kamen Rider Die has finished his journey through the Heisei Era, in only a quarter of the time it took me to reach that point earlier this year!

There was a lot of hype for Kamen Rider Tsukuyomi in the finale, but damn, she quickly succumbed to that Female Rider Curse, barely doing anything important, before being killed by Swartz. Tsukasa gave a poor explanation for why Kamen Rider Tsukuyomi is supposedly such a big deal and while she may have been the solution to the whole timeline collapse problem, the execution of it, like everything else in that Swartz subplot, feels so lacking!

They don't call him the Greatest Clock Repairman In History for nothing!

It's not like our Sougo ever knew the Myokoin family, so does Geiz like have totally unrelated parents now? Tsukuyomi's name was never Alpina? Everybody's suddenly calling each other with honorifics? Honestly, these questions aren't even important, since the most shocking part about all this is that Geiz doesn't have his collar anymore! Someone call Tsukasa to destroy this broken world!

I do tolerate this ending better than Ryuki's though, since at least it's not a return to status quo. Another way of thinking about it is that our Sougo is like Amazing Sougo and he just created the Ultimate Sougo universe or something. Maybe the best way to approach this new universe is to try and dissociate it from the one that created it. However, I still think Build creating World C is the best reset ending I've seen in KR.

I feel like this is only fair to the seasons that came before, restoring them to how they were prior to the Time Jackers' meddling and their interactions with Team Zi-O. But I recall the moral Sougo learned in the Gaim arc, that people are capable of taking care of themselves. Like, maybe it'll take a little longer for Kiriya to grow in to his role as Hibiki's successor. Maybe Kanzaki will finally snap and restart the Rider War. Even without the events of Zi-O, I think some of the development we've seen with the Legend Riders could still happen anyway, with obvious exceptions like Takumi and Kusaka. Shirakura actually pointed out that Sougo obtained the Double Ridewatch in canon through an event similar to HG Forever, but not exactly the same way. Our Sougo may have failed to become king in the main timeline where Over Quartzer didn't happen, but he passed on that dream to the New Sougo. Someday, some iteration of Sougo will become king, he will make that dream a reality!

I held off on my thoughts, because I needed to consider this line. And find how it's almost accurate to put it that way, unless the final arc was changed almost completely.

Is this a great finale? No, not at all. But is it a good (enough) ending for this show? Honestly, that depends. For me, I'd say it's better than what I was thinking, not quite as good as it could have been, but not a bad way to end it.

I feel like Geiz's death somehow reminded me of Ryuki? Be it Shinji's death in the mains series, or Ren's death in the 13 Rider special, I somehow found myself looking back to this series and seeing his sacrifice something akin to that. I don't know if I can really put into words, or if I'm completely misremembering, but that's how I look back on it.

Oma Zi-O's debut transformation is great, maybe could have been done better, but getting to wipe out Swartz and his backup buddies (boy did I enjoy seeing Evol show up just for the heck of it) was fun to watch, and how Sougo even does boss Woz around to give him his speech, like a true Demon King he was feared to become. What I truly love about Oma Zi-O's debut is how you can tell he's a threat you probably can't defeat, a future that will happen no matter what, it felt like an event that both the heroes and villains can't prevent, and that's something I liked about Zi-O, that it didn't matter how pure and innocent Sougo was, there would always be the event he would become Oma Zi-O.

Swartz is not a good villain in many ways, and there are only perhaps a few positive things I can attribute to him, but his role as the final boss is not even a question. But, as I mentioned early on in this journey, the Uncle is my favorite character in this season next to Woz. Both are great supports, uncle moreso, but the fact that while his schtick was to be the guy who owns a clock shop that gets almost no customers whatsoever, he was always there to support the heroes even if he had no idea what was going on, even fixing the Ridewatches, and that's why he's a great guardian figure and supporting character. While Woz was just so much fun to see every time he showed up on screen, and how involved he became with the cast as the series progressed.

Overall, Zi-O, much like real history, isn't perfect, nor can everything in it be considered all good or all bad, it has both, and while it tries to make the best use out of it's themes and plotlines, I wouldn't call this a bad season, or even a bad anniversary. But neither can I say it's a great season either, as it's biggest storyline has an almost laughably bad quality in some places, and it honestly loses itself more than losing itself in the anniversary aspects (funny enough), to me at least. But it's not a bad season all things considered, I still had fun, and I wouldn't have minded rewatching the season with everyone here, but seeing how well my memory held up was interesting to say the least.

Now if I can just get around to the rest of the Zi-O stuff...

Very interesting! Thank you!

Yeah, there're elements that can't really be the same, since Team Zi-O doesn't really exist for Oma Zi-O, but I like the idea that Oma Zi-O's origin was similar to Sougo's: a kid who took on the mantle of King Of Time to save the world from an active apocalypse, and then became despised by the people he'd saved. He views himself as a Good Despot, because half of the world survived, but his lack of empathy (due to having no one in his life to call a friend) makes him the villain. There's a tragedy there, for sure.

It requires a little bit of squinting, though, because a) he definitely killed a whole bunch of people in the first episode; and b) the remains of humanity live in the Misery Fields of 2068, and that's not exactly beyond Zi-O's powers to fix. His origin might be tragic, but he's not exactly a sympathetic figure in the narrative.

Yeah, I don't know that this ending dooms Kenzaki or Takumi or whomever. No reason that Sougo couldn't make alterations to help those guys out.

It's a great moment! I don't love some of the middle section, but they completely nailed that scene between Sougo and Geiz.

The important thing is that we all reached this future together.

I'll get more into this tomorrow night, but I feel like A Fun Group Of Characters That The Plot Frequently Lets Down is about as on-the-nose of a Heisei Rider season as you can get. I really liked these kids, eventually, and that made it a success for me. There were episodes -- especially in the last stretch -- that just murdered my enthusiasm, but they just ended up being bumps in the road. Not a perfect year, not the best year, but maybe the best anniversary season we're likely to get.

KAMEN RIDER ZI-O: SERIES WRAP-UP

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/zio/wrap1.png

Creating an anniversary season to Kamen Rider has such an insanely high degree of difficulty that it’s amazing they’re even intelligible, let alone any good. A regular season can be considered a success if it manages to tell a thrilling, thematically-rich story around its recurring cast. An anniversary season needs to do that, AND craft individual outings for returning actors that honor their past work in a way that both new and old audiences can appreciate, AND create an overall statement about the span of time the show is meant to celebrate. It’s nuts. It’s maybe too big of an ask?

That’s a quote from when this thread kicked off a couple months ago, right before I started watching Zi-O. Not to take the fun experience of watching an entire Kamen Rider season and make it sound routine, but things went pretty much how I expected. Kamen Rider Zi-O was a show that succeeded for me in spite of its anniversary elements, not because of them.

I did appreciate what this show was trying to do with its Heisei tributes, though. I liked how it tried to take 19 individual lessons about growing up and arrange them into a road map for a poorly-socialized teenager. Some of the installments stretched the original shows’ themes a little bit (I don’t know if the OOO one landed very well?), but we more or less got stories that drew inspiration from a specific show in a manner that helped Sougo on his path to becoming a hero.

But the cavalcade of guest stars never really meant that much to me, regardless of how heavily they were used in an episode. Whether it was someone like Chase doing a speedrun of his character arc, or Kouta handing over a couple Ridewatches and peacing out, the most I could normally manage for the Big Guest Star moments was Hey Neat. I don’t really care? It’s not a series that’s about furthering those characters’ stories across a season, you know? (I am so grateful we didn’t have to see nineteen Legend Riders show up in the finale to back up Sougo!) They were like the Victims Of The Week: cool if they could be interesting, but they shouldn’t be as memorable or important as our regular cast.

That regular cast was ridiculously enjoyable to watch, and occasionally just plain ridiculous. Sougo’s growth from Actively Repellant to Brightest Star In The Heavens is the main reason I can’t ever quit these shows, no matter how unevenly they might begin. He was a character that grated on me, until I tolerated him, until I enjoyed his ingratiating enthusiasm, until I loved his hard-fought optimism and undying commitment to giving people the chance to find their best selves in their best futures. He smiles a lot, for a Rider, which was so weird at the start. It came off as flippant, which it sort of was. But then he just kept smiling, and it read as a port in a storm; the one thing you could be sure of was that Sougo was happy to see his friends, and he was happy to get another chance to go on an adventure.

Most of those adventures were with the Time Orphans, and I sort of love how one-note they ended up being. Tsukuyomi never really grew beyond being a Time Mom, despite the show trying a couple times to add complexity to her character. Both attempts sucked, so I can’t really blame them for sticking with the proven Time Mom role. (I think Tsukuyomi’s actor is great, but both the Kill Sougo and 2058 plots were among this show’s low points.) Geiz has charisma for miles, so it’s easy to miss how little his performance changes over the season. There’s a lot of depth added to his motivations – how his relationship to Sougo matches the viewer’s – but he’s hilariously taciturn throughout the entire show, and entirely unconvincing in his attempts to hide his affection for Sougo.

Deeper into our cast we had two characters that could’ve been comedy-only goofballs on a lesser show: a wacky uncle who accidentally turned his repair shop into the requisite Heisei Cafe; and a gloriously theatrical hype-man, variously spouting exposition and acting eternally suspicious. Uncle and Woz were so much more than that, though. Each actor found the requisite humor (Uncle in particular had what I’d swear were some scene-stealing ad-libs that busted up the actors, since they land right at the cut), but they also brought a warmth to their responsibility to shepherd someone, while they tried to let him find his own way. They cared enough for Sougo to let him make mistakes, but they were always at his side to let him know that it wasn’t worth giving up. As support characters go, they were all-time.

If only the villains were as nuanced! The Time Jackers never really came together as a series-long threat, and I actually just laughed when I realized that they were the series-long threat. Oma Zi-O exists as a larger plot complication and a staggeringly powerful metaphor, but the Time Jackers – and their Another Riders – were who our heroes spent a year locking horns with. They were… not good. Some of my least favorite villains, full stop. Their schemes never made a ton of sense, and their utility to the series was minimal at best. Pinning the entire endgame to Swartz’z ambitions and Ora’s duplicity and Heure’s safety was a fatal miscalculation, and I assume the stink of it lingers for fans more than the sweetness of this show’s heroes. The Time Jackers are barely coherent as a threat, and rarely entertaining.

Oma Zi-O, though. Heisei villain for the ages, if you’ll pardon the expression. If every Heisei show from Kuuga through Build was about teaching children how to grow up, it’s only fitting for the final Heisei villain to represent the fear of growing up into someone you don’t like. Reminding kids (and viewers of all ages) that they have to work daily to be their best selves, and that it’s okay to be scared of the future so long as you never let that fear define your choices… just great lessons for a Rider show to codify into their anniversary season. Beyond that read, it’s fun to think about the other stuff Oma Zi-O might represent: addiction, depression, isolation, a fear of vulnerability; the sky’s the limit for how you want to view Oma Zi-O as a metaphor. Legitimately a villain I can’t stop thinking about.

So many of the characters clogged up my brain for the last couple months, but I can’t say I expended much brain power on this show’s Time Nonsense, or the rapidly shifting landscape of its series arc. This thing’s a mess, even for a Heisei Rider show. It starts off as a time travel show, and then sort of abandons that for a more straightforward Legend Rider showcase, and then goes hard into a multiversal apocalypse. There were points where it felt like the show was trying hard to course-correct – watching each week’s episode and recalibrating towards only the parts that were working – but then the ending is even more of a disaster, plot-wise, than the beginning. The line-graph of this show’s plotting quality was a sine wave. For every clever character beat, there was an infuriating/opaque/infuriatingly-opaque episodic or serialized plot.

But, really, that’s what makes it such a perfect Heisei tribute season? I can’t even count the number of these seasons that I’ve ended feeling burned by the series plot, but wistful for the character beats. It’s just these shows, man. Their plots are all kinda dumb, and most of them have a tough time telling a complete, coherent story over 40-odd episodes. If this thing didn’t make me roll my eyes at Time Nonsense, or grit my teeth at a dumb twist, or resent a ludicrous villain plot taking up valuable screen time, it wouldn’t really be Heisei Rider. That stuff is as integral as a whole cast of characters that I’m 110% invested in, or outstanding fight choreography, or great music, or evocative cinematography, or or or. I dislike parts, but I almost can’t imagine these shows without them.

Kamen Rider Zi-O isn’t the best season I’ve ever watched, for sure. Too uneven. An endgame that leaves a sour taste, despite a final scene that’s one of my all-time faves. But by trying – and largely succeeding – to tell an original Kamen Rider story alongside a tribute to nineteen previous seasons, it was easily the most Kamen Rider season I’ve ever watched.

That’s enough for me.

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/zio/wrap2.png

I don't have much to say other than, I'm really glad you enjoyed the characters. Honestly after hearing how you weren't really a fan of like Legend Rider stuff I figured the main thing that'd win you over (it was never the plot) would be the Main Cast (sans Villains) and I'm glad that they ended up landing for you.

Seeing you baffled by Sougo and then learning to love him and his infectious attitude was really great to see over the course of these like couple of months. And it was always fun like chiming in ever now and again too. Also getting to record a couple of commentaries with the Memory of Heroez gang was also neat.

Overall I had a fun time here!

I mentioned at the beginning of the thread, that on my feelings on Zi-O were....Complicated, on my first watch, and I was rewatching to properly straighten my feelings out about the show.

When I first watched the show, the first time around, I didn't know what Zi-O wanted to do for its audience: did it want to purely celebrate the last 20 years through sheer fanservice, to be this reflection upon Heisei Rider (both sublety and overtly, the good and the bad) before the franchise takes a leap into a new future, or just tell a story about its own characters like any other season, because it was obviously struggling to do those ideas indiviually, much less trying to do it all simulateously! As a result, didn't have much fun with this show.

Now, at the end of my rewatch......Well, Zi-O didn't magically get better, it's still sorta this goopy melting pot of half-baked and overcooked ideas? But! I feel like a have a much better understanding of the vision, and it's lead to a deeper apperication of what the show was trying to do, as messy as it was.

Overall, I wouldn't say I necessarily like or dislike Zi-O as a season, I respect it for what it is. I like these kids, Uncle and Woz all very much though, so I wouldn't mind re-watching some arcs in isolation though!

Some assorted thoughts.

-Sougo! I've mentioned this before, but not having a proper grasp on the kid absolutely soured my experience with the show on the inital watch. I did grew to have some vaguely positive feelings towards him, but those moments were really few and far between in the show proper, the bulk of my positivity on Sougo relying on a certain piece of post-show content. The kid still baffles me at points, but I Get Him Now, so he's bumped up from "eh..." to "alright" in my book!

-I'm sure everyone and their grandma will say that Zi-O turning out the way it did reflects Heisei Rider's......quirks, better than any flashy all-star Rider Kick of celebration could, and I agree! It truly ended up encompassing all the delights and defects of that era, more or less. Reiwa is still in its infancy, and I'm sure some folks will say it's currently "More Of The Same" for KR, but rewatching Zi-O gave me a reminder of the gap between the two, the different traits and whatnot.
(And of course, it's a conversation for another time, but I'll be interested to see your thoughts on Reiwa Rider's own little assortment of quirks when we get there, Die!)

Me, too! And we've still got a week to go! Here's the current schedule:

THURSDAY: Final Stage
SATURDAY: Geiz Majesty
SUNDAY: Decade vs Zi-O
MONDAY: Zi-O vs Decade
WEDNESDAY: Thread Wrap-Up

Still some more to dig into, even if the series itself has concluded.

I really love him. It's such a cliche, me starting a thread being like Eff This Dork and ending a thread being like I Would Die For Kamen Rider Puppy Dog, but I will never lie to you people. There's a point when he's smiling at Uncle in 49 (when Uncle's like Bring Everyone Home For Dinner) that is maybe the purest joy I've felt in the last three years. That kid's smile hits some pre-language part of brain, and I have no defense against it.

Every piece of Lovekov merch I see is like Sougo's Smile times infinity. I can't wait to see what Reiwa's like!

TL;DR: I end up being very split on Zi-O as a whole. It's got some really major highs, but also some equally bad lows that leave me mixed on the entire thing.

Zi-O is a show that almost feels like it struggled to find its footing for the entire show?

Every act feels like a retool done to try and please everyone, but in the end(based on what fan reception I've come across, atleast), pleased only a select few. As a Power Rangers fan, I am no stranger to this sort of thing.

I think I'm one of the few that really liked Zi-O's' early game? Getting a glimpse of what past Rider's' lives might've been like had they never become Kamen Riders made for some really interesting storytelling, and having our cast essentially grow along side those characters made for some nice moments and developments.

Plus, the natural charisma of the cast shined the brightest there. From Sogo's' constantly getting catchphrases and poses wrong, to Geiz's' constantly staying guarded to the point of literally wearing a collar 24/7, I was having an all around great time with a show that I had up until then really only heard negative things about, even in this very thread!

...And then Decade showed up.

Look, my cheap running gag aside, that really was the point where the natural flow of everything got disrupted for me. Because it was the part where it seemed like the writers felt as though they needed to start adding needless complexity to the narrative, which in turn makes me ask very basic questions that never followed up on, such as: Why does Decade get to keep his powers and memories if his Ridewatch already exists? How did he get a Zi-O card? Why is he allowed to interrupt a coronation? Why is his Ridewatch different from the rest when no other important Rider, like say Kuuga or W, work different? To me these are all very basic things that the show ignores in favor of time traveling rules that are never held consistent.

There's of course still good things along the way. I genuinely enjoyed most of the Future Rider stuff(Kikai especially!), what few character quirks were kept were always enjoyable(Woz being the most obvious), and most of the tribute arcs were, if not enjoyable, atleast miles better than their Decade equivalents. But then of course, for all the good, there is the bad, such as Rider Time Ryuki and the ever (in)famously related arc:

https://i.imgur.com/LLlH0gg.png

Yeah, out of all the "development" to come out the cast, the bit I most certainly didn't like most was the show deciding that Sogo needed a sort of "edge" when we already had Oma Zi-O looming on the horizon. Him becoming a massive hypocrite due to the overall message that the season decided to go with didn't help matters either. "Hiryu, it's wrong for you to be so focused on your past, instead, focus only on the now so that way you can make a good future. Nevermind the fact that I have a time machine and have fixed multiple people's' pasts and that if given the chance I would rewrite time for my own benefit. Like gosh man, can't you just get over it?"

Whether or not that angle and its execution is bad is of course subjective(as has been discussed with the posts on the Ryuki arc), but for my personal tastes, and what I personally wanted the overarching theme of the show to be? Fell short.

The short of it all is that I felt that the characters really suffered for the plot, and it's always a shame when that happens for me.

And while I did make my bit throughout the thread be dedicated to characters, as I find them the most important aspect of any story, I do feel that every other aspect also should be taken into consideration as well. Yes, how the Anniversary aspects are handled is also important. Yes, the action, the suit design, the music, the direction, everything is a piece of the bigger picture. It's just that I find characters to be the most important.

Heck, I really liked the Armor Time gimmick, and while I get that it's just kinda how modern Kamen Rider works ever since Wizard, I was so sad to see the starting gimmick just get replaced by super modes. I would've gladly sacrificed so many of the suits we got and the Rider Time specials if it meant we got a Ride Armor for every Heisei Rider.

I can't really think of anything else to say that I haven't already said in previous posts, so I suppose I'll just it here by saying that Zi-O is definitely a very polarizing show, and I can see why. Personally, I'd say that I ultimately like it, but there are certainly alot of aspects to it that I'm not exactly gonna rush to defend, and as such I feel like it ended up being a rather even-handed experience for me. Thus, I give the show a final rating of 3/6.

Oh, and because I do this for every season of Rider I finish, what song did I decide to associate with Zi-O on my Kamen Rider playlist? I ended up going with "Everybody Wants To Rule The World" by Tears For Fears, a song that has been interpreted alot of different ways throughout the years, but I'm choosing to take it almost entirely literally here, and I think it fits what I felt was a big motif for the show for alot of its run.

With that, the movie commentaries were alot of fun, and I hope to see you all again soon!

I think that's a fair assessment. It's definitely a show that's either refining a good idea that was explained badly (if you're feeling charitable), or a show working year-long triage on an unworkable premise (if you're feeling uncharitable). The fact that the time travel show gave up on time travel about halfway through is a thing I will maybe never stop finding funny.

But, I find it funny, not frustrating or aggravating or annoying. Much like Sougo's remarkable ability to graduate from school without seemingly learning a single useful thing, I think this show's chaotic production and clumsy attempts to reinvent itself are kind of a hoot, in retrospect. That's probably not a good thing! I don't begrudge anyone for writing this show off! But I'm still feeling charitable, so I think its unevenness is a little adorable.

Zi-O is the first Rider show I followed from the beginning (although, I haven't seen much of the later stuff), it was my first experience watching a Rider show from the beginning on a weekly basis all the way through (again, barring stuff like Geiz Majesty). As far as Rider shows go, this is by no means perfect, but as far as Rider Anniversaries go, I'd say this one might be the best from Rider (unless Revice takes that spot, but I don't feel like it really counts?).

Why say that, when I've not even seen some of those past seasons? Well, exactly because I didn't. This show manages to keep the legacy appearances to minimum knowledge, a bit like Decade, in how the most it'll tell you is the premise and maybe some abridged details from the show, making it pretty easy for a noob like me who has yet to see Kabuto, Faiz, Kuuga, Drive, or Den-O.

It brought in as many returning cast as it could, it tried to tell its own story, and might not have struck a perfect landing, but it wasn't bad at all. I enjoyed what this show had to offer, it's not Decade Season II (if people were wondering why I spelled II like that, look no further than one of Zi-O's forms), though sometimes it did feel like that, the cast and themes are completely different from Decade, Sougo being almost like your typical Rider protagonist, whilst Tsukasa wasn't a For-The-Good-of-Mankind kind of hero, I feel like both pulled off what their heroes faced in a way that worked. Tsukasa in finding a place to belong, even when the world was against his existence, and Sougo got to achieve his dream of being a King (if only temporary), but also found something more in the Time Orphans and the people he met along the way. Both embraced their dark destinies, and both went their own way afterwards.

I don't regret anything in Zi-O, even if the villain was kind of stupid, the story went convoluted, or lost its themes along the way, it's a show that holds together so many ideas and legacies, but not manage to lose its own identity, even if it couldn't balance it at times, it wasn't a bad show at all. I may not have seen every Kamen Rider show leading up to this season and this show might not have been the best I've seen, for what it was, it was a journey I felt glad to be a part of.

For now, actually Ohma Zi-O is finally defeated, for now, likely for good if Sougo can keep Ohma Zi-O power later and still be good. But Ohma Zi-O surprisingly accepts his defeat well to appreciate his younger self's decision, that current Sougo still had much of his kindness and would utilize Ohma Zi-O's power that way, thus ending the loop, creating different timeline and erasing Ohma Zi-O from existence for good. This shows that power itself isn't good or evil, the wielder determines. Sougo using Ohma Zi-O's power for good and breaking the loop has a Kuuga reference, that the ending had the main character implied to be corrupted after gaining ultimate power (and it had happened for Sougo in his future self), but turns out that they aren't. Both cases had them managing to not lose control of themselves to darkness (and after Sougo's being really vengeful too), which means Daguva and Ohma Zi-O failed in their goal to corrupt Yusuke and Sougo.

Here, Geiz's belief in Sougo has further increased (and likely Tsukuyomi's too, if taking into account of her plotline with White Woz, to entrust both worlds into an already Ohma Zi-O Sougo), to directly tell Sougo to become Ohma Zi-O, the very thing he had tried to prevent. So for this timeline, not only that Geiz became Sougo's comrade, but Geiz was the driving factor of the rise of Ohma Zi-O himself, Geiz's friendship with Sougo caused the biggest irony of the series has, or that the situation has become so dire that Geiz can only rely on the very demon king (+newfound trust).

Tsukuyomi's chance to strike Swartz was when he tried to flee, of which happened after Geiz's death. But otherwise, it's a karmic fate for Swartz, as Swartz had been manipulating others constantly, yet he ended up getting manipulated by his younger sister, the person he hated the most, by playing on his universe-sized ego, so she has to suck up to Swartz and thus Swartz would think those who praise him are on his side, as they're pleasing him. But of course, her Rider showing is the definitive female Rider curse, to never properly fight as for now (like Ghost, the female Rider was only sent against the biggest threat), even though she successfully fooled and (literally) backstabbed him, unlike Ora before, the stab probably can be done without being a Rider.

You've talked about personal preference before, but yeah they wrote Swartz's downfall to be his ego and pride, other than Tsukuyomi exploiting it above, he had to learn the hardest way that, evil artifacts are not a toy. In this case, Ohma Zi-O's power cannot be stolen or controlled by anyone but Sougo. And their ensuing fight is a good reason that Another Decade cannot do anything to Ohma Zi-O, as Ohma Zi-O cements himself as the strongest Rider on the entire franchise by far and everyone fear him for a good reason, even the endgame villains of the series, including Daguva and Evolt, die only in 1 attack. Though Daguva only used its fire ability and likely didn't go full potential, likely to keep Sougo alive so he becomes Ohma Zi-O, but though the spectacle is good enough, I kinda wish that Sougo takes both himself and Swartz to another world (like Fourze Cosmic's portal, Gaim's Helheim crack, or Ex-Aid's Stage Select) where Sougo (or Daguva and likely Swartz) can go all out using planet-busting levels of powers or something, even if the outcome would be still Ohma Zi-O curbstomping. It's a karmic death for Swartz to be killed by the very powerful creation he created to steal from, and after Swartz killed both his close friends.

Other than the little breakfast scene, it's shown here as expected, Junichiro can... repair Ridewatches, because it's a clock-like device which is Junichiro's speciality. So... even among the people closest to him, Junichiro's potential is also wasted, as Sougo and everyone opted to keep his Rider identity a secret. As turns out here, Junichiro can practically help out in combat too by taking care of Ridewatches (he previously did that in DenLiner too).

As Sougo makes good use of the enormous power of Ohma Zi-O to instead repair the damages caused by everyone, he seems to also take advantage of its power to make a decision based on his own happiness as well, to grant himself friends based on the reincarnation of his past friends... and enemies (Heure for most of the series, but especially Ora). But I don't feel that it's the Geiz, Tsukuyomi, Heure, and Ora we know at the school, for now, though they have some glimpse of their previous personalities. And as said there, Woz is the only one that still remembers previous events as he didn't die, for the other consequences like Takumi or such, will save that talk for later. Note that this episode shows that, if Woz goes IWAE and hypes out a Rider's entrance, it actually means it's only ordinary. What's exceptional is when Woz is so stunned that he goes completely silent and forgetting his IWAE, so that means Ohma Zi-O's entrance is the actual 'awesome' one. Oh btw, like Ankh from OOO, the original plan of the series was actually Woz betraying the team to be the final antagonist, but his popularity had it being canceled, but dunno if Woz becoming the final antagonist can make the final conflict more interesting than the more generic showdown between Sougo and Swartz.

Technically she had succeed in her objective, she successfully fooled Swartz and (literally) backstabbed him. Only thing that prevents it working is the power Another Decade has (it'd be anticlimatic if he died by simple stab from ordinary Rider, Ohma Zi-O is the strongest in entire franchise though). Actually Tsukuyomi accomplished greater than the ruthless Ora here in their conspiracy against Swartz. Ora got nowhere, while Tsukuyomi did give the manipulator who has spent the entire series playing the cast like a violin, a taste of his medicine, being the one who got manipulated by the person he hates the most.

No offense, but that's very much whitewashing of Ohma Zi-O/Sougo 2068. Note that this doesn't dumb Ohma Zi-O down as Saturday morning cartoon villain (and I disagree with that too), but Ohma Zi-O is still very much evil.

Firstly, while it's true that the Dai Mazines and Kasshin were made by Swartz, doesn't mean Ohma Zi-O did nothing wrong, attacks aren't only Dai Mazines/Kasshin assault, like they're only flies to the strongest Rider in entire franchise so far, Ohma Zi-O did use his newfound powers to establish a so-called military rule by causing worldwide destruction, killing billions and turning earth into a desolate wasteland for him to control what remained of humanity, forcing the survivors to live in ghettos, and he personally annihilates the resistance that was formed to combat him.

And it's true that, including for Over Quartzer, Ohma Zi-O does let Sougo act on his own for most part, though he did send minimal influence, like Woz, who Ohma Zi-O recruited to serve as a corrupting mentor to the younger Sougo. Ohma Zi-O does meet his younger self, but it's to motivate him following the same path as him, becoming another genocidal tyrant, what Ohma Zi-O wants is to see which timeline his younger self would destroy and how he would go on about it. Actually Sougo not choosing the path of destruction which leads to Ohma Zi-O fading out from his existence is his defeat, not some noble risking his existence for younger self's sake. Ohma Zi-O's defeated (for now) by having him fade out of existence instead of monster's explosion, just that Ohma Zi-O accepts his defeat well. Ohma Zi-O failed to corrupt Sougo, like how Daguva failed to corrupt Yusuke in Kuuga, with how he planned to let the Ultimate Form's power corrupt him (as black eyed) if he's defeated. E̶v̶e̶n̶ ̶S̶w̶a̶r̶t̶z̶ ̶d̶i̶d̶ ̶t̶r̶e̶a̶t̶ ̶T̶s̶u̶k̶u̶y̶o̶m̶i̶ ̶r̶e̶s̶p̶e̶c̶t̶f̶u̶l̶l̶y̶ ̶w̶h̶e̶n̶ ̶h̶e̶ ̶t̶h̶o̶u̶g̶h̶t̶ ̶s̶h̶e̶'̶s̶ ̶o̶n̶ ̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶s̶i̶d̶e̶ ̶b̶y̶ ̶a̶s̶s̶k̶i̶s̶s̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶h̶i̶m̶.̶

Actually for Tsukuyomi it's both, she's later would be refered as "Alpina Tsukuyomi". Though other than status quo or not (Ryuki's like that as there were no time travel), even Sougo also didn't really relinquish his evil powers here though either like Shiro in Ryuki ending (making use of his power to revert the damages done by his war). Sougo makes use of his power to revert the damages done too and even granting him some personal benefit in giving himself friends on school based on previous friends (and enemies) by that. Sougo here didn't let the damages occur, by relinquishing his Ohma Zi-O power and didn't do anything or such.

So, Kamen Rider Zi-O.

I am, broadly speaking, not a fan. I will freely admit that I am absolutely one of those viewers that was here for the legacy tributes, not the show itself. Zi-O as a standalone story very quickly wore out its welcome with me. Sougo, admittedly, did grow on me over the course of the story, but he started off in such a bad place, with the whole king malarky, that even at his best I still just kind of tolerate him. Tsukuyomi has slightly more personality than wallpaper, Geiz's constant flipping between "must kill Sougo to protect the future" and "meh, don't feel like it right now" made him very frustrating for me, and while Vanilla Woz could be fun, I found his counterpart to be a constant exercise in lazy writing. The Time Jackers are so unmemorable that I honestly thought they were new characters when I watched the first episode of the Zi-O vs. Decade (or possible Decade vs. Zi-O) miniseries. The concept of Ohma Zi-O is intriguing, but the show's overall story just kind of flails and falls apart.

I still think it's more generally coherent than Decade, though.

As an anniversary season, I still thought it was a mixed bag. I very strongly dislike the early cameos with the time travel erasure gimmick. In its worst moments, it felt like the show was just bringing back old actors to play new characters. That's a big part of why I think the tributes in the back half were by far the best episodes of the series: they built off of the original shows and tried to tie the characters and themes into what was going on with Zi-O's story. I wouldn't say these episodes redeem the entire series, but they put some really nice bright spots into what I otherwise consider to be a very lackluster, but not terrible show.

Yeah, I think this is a nice encapsulation of a very tricky show. I'm glad that it was a show you could appreciate, even if the nostalgia was sort of lost on you. I think, at its worst, it's still a pretty fun show to watch?

I mean, it's not like Team Zi-O needed Ridewatches fixed every single week? I think Uncle contributed pretty consistently on this show by supporting these kids, feeding them, and putting a roof over their heads. He also rebuilt the Den-Liner, so it's not like they're leaving him on the bench for a year.

It definitely took this show a minute to figure out the best way to integrate the Legend Riders. I also did not love the Theft/Amnesia take on the first half, and greatly appreciated a take where the actions of Team Zi-O are more about carrying someone's burden than stealing their past.

KAMEN RIDER ZI-O: FINAL STAGE

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/zio/stage1.png

I was all ready to enjoy a fun stage production of Kamen Rider Zi-O, since I liked both the Zi-O TV show and the previous year’s Build stage show (the latter quite a bit), so imagine the disturbingly loud UGHHH that I uttered when I became aware that this stage show:

• was a sequel to Over Quartzer, a film I very much did not enjoy
• starred Hiryuu as its villain, a character that would be laughable in his one-note stupidity if the show would finally lean into it instead of continuously presenting his MY PARENTS ARE DEAD characterization as worthy of consideration
• involved hunting for collectibles that celebrated Showa, a thing I do not truck with

So, yeah, this thing was working at a deficit, and I’m not sure it ever really moved into the positive. Even by the lowered standards of a Kamen Rider stage show, the plot in this thing is dumb. Hiryuu has the power of the Quartzers SOMEHOW. He brainwashed Woz and Tsukuyomi SOMEHOW. The Another Riders are running around SOMEHOW. They drop Showa Ridewatches SOMEHOW. Nothing in here feels tethered to any story logic or continuity, making me feel entirely like an adult who is stuck watching children’s entertainment. I like to think of Kamen Rider shows as smart about dumb things, and dumb about smart things. This was just Dumb, pretty much from curtain to curtain.

But does anyone care? I mean, the people making this definitely didn’t, and the intended audience clearly didn’t. It’s a stage show, and I feel like the occasions where those are clever (Build) are the exception. Most of them are just 30-odd minute chances to watch suit actors wrestle each other while lasers and smoke machines dazzle a group of children. That’s it. Why pretend there’s some higher art to it all? There’s a part where kids get to shout to rally the Kamen Riders; this is where we’re at.

What little thematic work there is ends up being sort of sweet, this big-hearted embrace of Kamen Rider and repudiation of pointless divisions. Showa, Heisei, Reiwa… it’s all just Kamen Rider, so why draw lines? (This message is only for children; adults are totally justified in disregarding decades of celebrated storytelling just because they find the aesthetics nauseatingly janky.) It does it in a charmingly complex display of Heisei versions of Showa guys, and by pointing out that Zi-O’s Heisei-powered cast will still be fighting in the Reiwa era.

That gag, the convoluted "Heisei’s Showa Riders" thing, is what I wish this production had more of. It’s pretty straight-faced, all the way through, and I find that uncharacteristic and dull. Kamen Rider Zi-O’s a goofy show, and this stage production only really leans into that energy in the final few minutes. The cast breaking the fourth wall is a highlight, and gets some of the biggest reactions in the entire play. Like, the stage show is a chance to bring a live energy to this franchise, but this show feels choreographed within an inch of its life. (It really doesn’t help that it’s suit actors for about 90% of this thing.) I wanted something that used the live audience and the stage to say something new with the cast and characters of Zi-O, but this show was just Kamen Rider Zi-O On Stage.

By some very reduced standards, this thing was fine. A ton of suits, a new Armor Time, a few Legend Rider suits, an actual Legend Rider voice cameo (TAKAYAMA JIN IS FOR THE CHILDREN!!!), and a whole bunch of smoke machines make for an entertaining enough half-hour. But I really hoped for more with this thing.

Ah, well. At least Hiryuu was forever-murdered for the crime of loving Showa more than Heisei. That’s winning me over a bit.

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/zio/stage2.png

Since this is the end of the Heisei Era of Kamen Rider, I think it's appropriate to repost My Complete Heisei Rider Ranking:

1) Faiz
2) Build
3) Fourze
4) Ghost
5) Wizard
6) Double
7) Kiva
8) Blade
9) Decade
10) Drive
11) Kabuto
12) Den-O
13) Ryuki
14) OOO
15) Zi-O
16) Hibiki
17) EX-Aid
18) Agito
19) Kuuga
20) Gaim

There's a lot of stuff I loved about Zi-O. The warmth of the characters, the clever concepts like Miriders, the most enjoyable Tertiary Rider ever, one of the best summer movies, Inoue coming back to write an arc. Honestly, if the show wasn't such a convoluted mess with one of the worst final arcs, I totally would've put it higher up! Similar to Hibiki, while there are shows I like more, Zi-O is still a show I feel strongly about, regardless of whether that's good or bad. Sure, I feel like it could've been a lot better. But like the moral of Over Quartzer, every show is different and yet they're all part of the same package. So I respect this show for celebrating the Heisei Era while also striving to be its own thing. I maintain that Zenkaiger is the best anniversary show overall though!

There are times when Sougo smiles to feign happiness though, as Uncle Tokiwa scolded him for pretending everything is okay. It's Sougo's coping mechanism, to fool himself and others in to believing it will work out. His optimism has a dangerous side as well, like at the start when he shrugged off the demon king part of becoming a king, since he was more excited about the king part, something that Oma Zi-O was also oblivious too. However, Sougo eventually learned to express his emotions in a more healthy way, like when he refused apple pie due to him grieving for Yuko. I agree that Okuno has a very warm smile though!

(also that cobra plushie you linked to is a literal devil, so don't trust his smile too much!)

Oh yeah, I remember you had some creative ideas about Oma Zi-O's potential. While his debut in the finale was awesome with how he 1-hit all those final bosses, I think the backdrop was pretty generic and not very regal like I'd expect from someone as powerful as him. Like how about taking the fight to that ancient looking place with the white pillars, where Fueki hosted the Sabbat?

I just looked that up and I'm not sure what's more surprising to me, that Tsukuyomi is now her surname (which means her parents in this world are also Tsukuyomi!), or that Alpina can actually be spelled in kanji! Thanks for the information.

The Sougo who created that world and the Sougo who lives in that world aren't the same Sougo though. New Sougo gets the personal benefit of living in that world with all his friends, while Our Sougo exists outside that timeline, the same way Kanzaki exists outside reality. But unlike Kanzaki, Sougo, in all of his iterations, is destined to become Oma Zi-O as long as he lives. It's not a power he can relinquish or run away from. The only thing he can decide about that is how he will use that power. In the case of the finale, that world was screwed due to all the paradoxes being escalated by Another Decade, to the point where Tsukasa admitted the best action was to destroy it, making it similar to Build's scenario. In Kanzaki's case, a lot of people died, but it wasn't a point of no return the way it was for Sougo. So that's why I support Sougo's decision, even though the world he created isn't exactly the way I would've made it.

Yeah, the actor does an amazing job of letting the eyes and the smile do two different things. The smile's always 1000 watts, but the eyes sometimes are like This Is Killing Me. It's a great performance, even when the conception of the character is a little tough to invest in.

Special Time, On Stage!

-Ah, this is the first KR stageshow I've ever watched, I think? I rewatched it a bit just to drink in the techinical/visual aspects, it seems like it'd be really fun to watch live?

-Overlady Tsukuyomi and Red Woz is a super fun gag to me. If Geiz and Sougo had their own Wozes, no reason why Tsukuyomi can't either? (Tsukuyomi's embrassed reactions to that post-brainwashing is also very fun!)

-If you wanna get real techinical about, the Heisei Era offically began in 1989, so Black RX and the 90's movie trio are Showa's Heisei Riders, if you think about it?

-I'm finishing up Amazons S1 right now, so Jin literally popping out of nowhere to threaten this (presumed) crowd of kids to yell harder or he'll kill them is certainly something else.

-It's a nice little special, and that's it really. Not partiuclarly trying to do anything for themes or follow up on anything in a meaningful way, just another excuse to see these guys and these suits in action again, on the stage this time! I have no reference for what Final Stages typically are like, so this was a pretty fun romp for me.

-The bit near the end, where the actors are like, half-in character, it's very cute! These actors are a real fun bunch, yknow? Woz's actor getting carried away with lipsynicing to Over Quartzer was a nice bit.

-Next time, my favorite piece of Zi-O media!

I think Androzani84 brought up the possibility that the Amazons cast was going to get a tribute story in Zi-O, and the consensus was that it would've been a hilariously bad idea, tonally... so here's Alpha and Omega at a live show for children, with Jin screaming that he'll hunt them all down if they don't cheer loud enough. They are using every part of the Heisei, no matter how unappetizing it might appear!

(I mean, Jin's one of my favorite Riders of all time, so I laughed like an idiot at his cameo.)

It's the part that has the same bonkers energy of the Complementation Project, which is exactly the level I want these stage shows to operate at. I like it when it feels like the cast is having fun.

(Also! Like I mentioned a few times in the post, Build Final Stage! It's outstanding!)

This was my first Rider stage show, and my gripes about Hiryu's' wasted potential aside, I had alot of fun with it. S'all I need, really.

Better than Over Quartzer if nothing else.

So yeah the reason I mentioned watching Over Quartzer and Final Stage together at the end was because, well, those two make up an alternate timeline as they specifically state in the Final Stage.

Anyway this was fun and this made me basically crown Hiryu as Zi-O's best villain purely because he ended up not learning from his defeats and just pushing it as an era problem and becoming a Showa Boomer. It's so ridiculous that I end up loving it?

That being said I think my favorite part was at the very end where Woz is explaining the difference between My Overlord and My King and how it rolls off the tongue better.

Not my absolute favorite Final Stage, but a pretty enjoyable one tbh. I think Gaim might end up being my favorite in terms of those. But still it was a fun time.

So this was the 4th stage show I watched and the 3rd Final Stage (the other three were Drive’s final stage, Ghost’s final stage and the Zangetsu Kachidoki show). Definitely a fun little thing.

One thing of note is that this is the first stageshow to release its exclusive item as an exclusive, rather than promoting a DX item to official form (Ghost Shinsengumi Damashii) or or leaving it until the CSM (Maja). So without further ado, let’s present a Ridewatch Playlist - special version.

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

“Taking a vow of loyalty to Zi-O. The third Rider is… Woz”

And I’ll use the same song I used for regular Woz, Black and White https://youtube.com/watch?v=qxgIPCTqNdM

As for why Red Woz instead of say, Grey Woz? In the Middle Ages, the material black chess pieces were made of proved incredibly rare, so they started making red pieces instead. But the red pieces were low quality compared to the black ones, hence why they switched back.

(Fish Sandwich also watched Kamen Rider Zi-O - EP49)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEhjjG4PCoc

I don't think this track was used anywhere except for the very final scene of the show? I don't know if it was specifically composed for it or not, but I definitely feel like it's pretty rare for a Rider show to pull out new background music right at the end. Because of that, this track left a pretty big impression on me, but I also just wanted to share it because I think it set such a great vibe to leave the show off on? I adore those last moments of the finale. Woz literally closing the book on Zi-O, as we leave these characters finally in charge of writing their own destiny... it was pretty much everything I could ask for from the ending to this show. (I'm pretty dang fond of Sougo's final speech to his future self, too.)

I'm pretty proud of my post about it from the time, if that isn't weird to say? Like, I don't know, reading it back, there's not much I could say any differently now, and I especially think it's adorable that you can even catch the origins of what I will eventually properly coin as The Tsukuyomi Zone, a term I am still way too enamored with. And while it isn't the level of deja vu Die's post about Build's finale gave me, you can even catch some more inexplicable similarities between his discussion of the episode/series and mine, right down to bringing it all back to quoting our thoughts from the start. Kinda freaky!

(Oh, and speaking of which, that old post is also part of why I put so much emphasis on Sougo's speech from the second episode and how I felt about that scene initially when Die got to it. I wanted to make it clear when we got here that me using that screencap had a sort of secret personal weight behind it. I used to think those words from Sougo meant nothing, and there I was a year later, using them to defend Zi-O's finale, because I thought they meant a whole lot. It was just like how Geiz finally called Sougo by name... maybe!)

But yeah, Zi-O. I really do love it to bits, if that hasn't been made abundantly clear by now. To quote Sougo again -- what's so wrong with a bumpy road? So it stumbled out of the gate. So the endgame makes some odd decisions. So lots of other decisions they made didn't totally pan out either. ...So what? Plenty of that stuff bothered me every bit as much as it did other people, but that was all part of the journey, and in the end, it just makes Zi-O that much more precious to me. I wasn't linking all these old posts this whole time just because I could; every bit I wrote about Zi-O was another step in that relationship I built with the series, and I wanted to try and communicate that. The toku shows I end up loving most are rarely if ever the ones I love at first sight. Zi-O had loads of glaring flaws, and it's precisely because I learned with time to love the show *for* those flaws, as much as I did for its qualities, that I can say in the truest sense, that I love Zi-O. There have been Rider shows I became instantly enamored with for their "perfection", and that's ended in heartbreak before. But when one comes along that I can accept in its entirety -- good and evil; light and dark -- that's a show I'll always want to keep with me in the future.

...

I rather enjoyed that Final Stage when I got around to watching it last year, by the way. You can only imagine the triumphantly excited OOOOHH~ I uttered when I became aware it was about Over Quartzer, Hiryuu, and Showa. Those are three of my favorite things! The only way it could've been better is if Jean made an appearance, so we could finally do that belated Kuuga arc!

Also, someone please remember to tell Die if that Special Event ever gets subbed. I watched that recently after being made aware of its existence through this thread, and I thought it was more fun and clever than the Final Stage proper. Lots of good silly antics wrapped around a tale focused on Sougo's existential angst after graduating school, showing a surprisingly strong grasp on how Zi-O's storytelling works at its best.

https://i.imgur.com/E51aRJO.png

Okay! I'm always a little conflicted about lowering my expectations for certain projects (if this was an episode of Zi-O, I might never have forgiven them), but I always seem to shrug at corny stage productions. They're usually not good, but maybe I shouldn't expect them to be.

He's extra dopey in this one, which isn't a bad choice, narratively. I HATE YOU AND YOU LOVE HEISEI SO NOW I LOVE SHOWA AND HATE HEISEI is as pathetic and childish a motivation as I can remember in Kamen Rider, so it absolutely should be Hiryuu's motivation here.

Neat! Thanks for the info!

I mean, it's a time travel show. The producers may have forgotten about it, but we sure didn't!

And, yeah, this was a good show. I'm an all-day sucker for these shows, they got my number, so there was almost no timeline where I ended this season unhappy. There's always going to be dumb plots or frustrating character development or abandoned premises, but I like watching Kamen Rider. I don't ever end up caring about those flaws, even if they drive me insane as I watch them.

It's... it's like Sougo talks about in the (very dopey) Final Stage show: do you want to hold onto resentment and disappointment from your past? Or do you want to find some happiness in the present? All I ever remember from these shows are the good times, where even the bad times get recast as so-bad-it's-good times. Swartz'z boneheaded plot is as delightful to me now as any scene of Sougo getting a Rider's catchphrase wrong. (The only thing I miss from the Armor Time era of the show was that bit. It's a good bit!) Why hold onto bitterness, when happiness is within your grasp?

That sounds completely up my alley! Yes! Please let me know if that gets subbed! And, like, in general, if there's some piece of content from any of the Heisei shows that gets subbed in the future, please shout out this Cubist monstrosity!

KAMEN RIDER ZI-O NEXT TIME: GEIZ, MAJESTY

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/zio/majesty1.png

Wow. Total home run.

It’s funny to think that we never really got Geiz’z But Why Heroism moment in the entire year he was on Zi-O. There’re a few explorations of Geiz’z turn from Grim Executioner to Devoted Friend, but we never really delved into his motivations outside of the Marry/F**k/Kill options of his relationship with Sougo. We never knew what Geiz wanted beyond Saving The Future, you know?

With the future more-or-less saved – or at least the imminent Time Apocalypse forestalled – we’ve got a little bit of space to get into Geiz’z larger worldview, and this movie does an exceptional job of both coloring in Geiz’z hopes and dreams as his own character, and giving us the Team Zi-O camaraderie/nonsense we’ve fallen in love with. It’s the absolute perfect balance of warm nostalgia and forward-thinking character development. It’s literally the best possible continuation of Kamen Rider Zi-O.

Mostly because it’s just the first two episodes of Zi-O, but Starring Geiz. Which… I mean, I grew to love Sougo, but I will always feel like the first couple stories in this show would’ve been immeasurably improved if they’d been from Geiz’z perspective. He was the guy with the most legible motivation in the early cast, since Killing Time Hitler is an easy sell, even in a kids’ show. Sougo’s vague desire to be a king, coupled with his naivete surrounding his role in a future genocide, took a few stories to really come into focus. But Geiz’z steely determination and grumpy reluctance to treat Sougo as anything other than a future chalk outline, that had a clarity that an early premise requires. So setting our first post-finale story around (a) Woz showing up to present Geiz with a Ridewatch and Driver, while mysterious assassins from the future attempt to close off a timeline he doesn’t even want? That’s good! That works!

It works because it’s way more fun, and I guess we can thank the King of Time version of Sougo for that. About half of this movie features the best-ever versions of our cast – a bunch of lunatic high-schoolers – and it’s enormously entertaining. I literally didn’t care if any superheroes ever showed up. The easy comedy of our cast isn’t dimmed by impending doom; it somehow flourishes beneath its weight. I would happily watch another season of Zi-O with this version of the cast. SWARTZ AS A TERRIFYING HIGH SCHOOL PRINCIPAL! That is in the Top 10 of Kamen Rider ideas for all-time. I can’t believe how much better every single character is in this thing.

And it’s all still the characters we knew, despite the new reality. Geiz is still a kid who’ll readily accept failure as his birthright, even as he never gives up. There’s no sense of the universe owing him anything other than what he can win, which is both refreshing and sort of aggravating. It’s the same old Geiz thing of focusing on situations as Victory or Defeat, instead of as Helpful or Unhelpful. Outside the context of a grim executioner from the Misery Fields of 2068, we get to see that he’s kind of just as focused as he ever was, to the exclusion of a wider sense of self. He’s dedicated to being a judo champion, but he’s completely forgotten why he ever wanted to do it in the first place. The lesson he learns here is to think about what you’re doing, but to care about why you’re doing it. Being the best at judo originally mattered to Geiz because he wanted to protect people; he’d let that get buried under years of competition, but it was always inside of him, waiting to be unearthed.

That’s the lesson of a lot of Secondaries, you know? The title hero usually has an easier path to heroism; a resolve that marks them as deserving of power. Secondaries usually come at it from a different angle. They’re darker, more conflicted versions of the title character. Their path is one of self-discovery, or even self-acceptance. They have a chip on their shoulder, or a fatalism masquerading as pragmatism, and the arc of their character is to see outside of their grudge/vendetta/selfishness/Kusaka and understand the point of view of the hero. They become the best versions of themselves (well: Kusaka) by their proximity to another hero, and start to see themselves as heroes as well.

So, yeah, I loved all of the cameos? After crabbing about Accel not showing up for any of the various tributes, look who offers good advice while sternly rebuking questions from teenagers sent specifically to ask him questions: It’s Terui! And AKIRA DATE, the best Birth! And KUSAKA, who I guess just heard me getting a shot off on him! And KAITO! And they’re all here to let Geiz know that it’s okay to have your destiny altered, which is (Kaito aside) the fate of all Secondaries. All these guys reminiscing about how horrible they were, before they learned to use their power for something other than their own emotional shortcomings or selfish goals. To see Geiz in the same type of lineage as Sougo did in Zi-O… pretty great use of all these guys?

(One of my earliest favorite moments in Zi-O was Brave sort of ignoring Sougo to try and get Geiz to see past his anger and do something heroic, so this story for Geiz is a very long time coming.)

Tightly-written movie, too. Every time something weird would come up, like Hat Woz still existing, there’d be a line of dialogue a little later explaining it. All the characters are in the story for a reason, and contribute something to the plot. Despite the large roster, there’s never a sense of this not being Geiz’z story, front to back. This is his time to become the hero, and he’s bringing all his friends (and Woz) along for the ride.

And, man, what a ride. I’m a little bummed that there aren’t twenty more of these. It was smart, funny, thrilling, and poignant. It honored twenty years of Secondaries (and Garren). It fleshed-out Geiz’z character, filling in the blanks left after a year of being in someone else’s shadow. It moved the focus, expanded the scope, and zoomed in on the details.

It was majestic.

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/zio/majesty2.png
https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/zio/majesty3.png

NEW TIMELINE, WHO DIS?

Back for a final anniversary commentary, it’s Androzani84, DreamSword, Name, and ZeroEnchiladas! The five of us grappled with this movie, judo-like, using nearly Geiz-levels of skill and power, and I think it went well. There were very few injuries! Please enjoy our goofy asides and off-the-cuff analysis, as we close out the Heisei era of Kamen Rider. Thanks for listening! And keep detonating monsters!

One of my favourite V-Cins and probably one of the best -- and that 'one of' qualifier is only there because of the surprising competition it received later; otherwise I'd say this is easily the best yet! I love the sheer dedication to the new timeline; I don't wanna be that person who has to drag another thing down to bring another up, but where Build's V-Cins frustrated me for undoing so much of the good ending the series had sought for a vague sense of a new status quo; this one was deadset on delivering on the world you see at the end of Zi-O. It's almost surprising, in fact, because that ending isn't exactly one you expect to see fully fleshed out; and yet here it is, as you say, portraying perhaps the best versions of these characters. I recently went back and rewatched it because I was rewatching all of OOO's content, and I was happy to see how much it still held up for me. Just an awesome, solid, down-to-earth movie that's an absolute treat for Zi-O fans

What If Zi-O Was Fourze is the best sequel idea ever, and I'm so glad the producers of this spin-off realized it. What a colossal bummer it'd've been for everyone to be all melancholy over sacrifices and betrayals and whatnot. Just let these dumb kids have crushes and worry about college! That's all I want!