I get that Ora's actor is older than the character, but it's still an ENORMOUSLY gross look for Swartz to get all turned on by her when he's trying to do his job as an educator and teach a bunch of high school students who are terrified of being devoured by monsters that they need to start pairing off and oh the men could also just physically and emotionally dominate the women to make things faster.

It's all gross!

what about sougo's cute little festival, tho

That's always cooler to me than some gigantic explosion or CGI fight scene, when a character has to improvise their way out of a jam.

I mean, I got the context for his stated motivation, but his actions are way beyond what I consider acceptable on the Tsukasa spectrum of grumpy disregard for other people's feelings/safety. I'm pretty sure that he let loose a bunch of Inves on just, like, normal high school kids? Who definitely weren't going to become Oma Zi-O? And are now dead forever?

Forgot that happened! Was pretty cute; thought it was pretty characterful of him

(Fish Sandwich also watched Rider Time: Kamen Rider Zi-O VS Decade - "7 ZI-OS")

I really didn't enjoy this one. I mean, you only need to click that link to find out, but yeah, I didn't like it, and worse, I liked it so little I felt completely okay just tearing into it and even now, I don't think I said anything that was uncalled for. The only things I really strongly like from this whole project are all the things except the series themselves. Complete Form 21 is brilliant. Inside-Out is a great song and I love that we got versions emphasizing both Decade's Latin sound and Zi-O's Indian one. (<-And it is officially Indian, by the way! Probably should've looked that up before I got it wrong at the start of the thread.) Plus, like I said in that old post, it was legitimately neat that everyone had a second chance at grabbing a Neo DecaDriver! And it's cool that Saber got a Ride Watch! And... uh, okay, I guess I can at least bring up this follow-up post where I tried to be a little more positive:

So these things weren't totally devoid of merit, by any stretch, but in a way that just makes it all the more frustrating they couldn't build that into something that felt cohesive and worthwhile? I don't even have a problem with Inoue doing some completely random nonsense, but I need to feel like he's got a story he really wanted to tell, and this didn't feel like that at all. These things came out recently enough that I've been waiting ever since I watched them to see what Die would have to say, considering his whole deal with Inoue. Like, if anybody could draw out some hidden deeper meaning to the story here, it'd be him, right? But uh, yeah, I guess "straight downward slope, but a fun one" is about as good as I could've realistically hoped for.

There's a thing I've said about Inoue's writing a bunch, and it's that I think he always does best with casts he creates himself. Let me put it this way:

With one episode of Donbrothers, Inoue took characters I've never met and made me fall in love with them and their story within 24 minutes.

With Decade/Zi-O VS Zi-O/Decade, he took characters I've already loved for years and made me feel completely apathetic towards the story they were in.

But -- and I'm sure Die knows this better than anyone -- I suppose being on that rollercoaster is just the fate of those who call themselves Inoue fans. Or something.

I'll just refer everyone back to the comment I made when Mirror Sougo (that's "Dark Sougo" on your list, I think?) showed up. It's more relevant in 2022 than it was back in 2019!

EDIT: Oh, but speaking of alternate Sougos -- I do genuinely love Teddy Bear Sougo! It's a lot harder (but not impossible) to stay mad at Zi-O VS Decade whenever I remember Teddy Bear Sougo!

Man, did you think this at the time and I forgot? Because you have no idea how nice it is to hear someone else say that

With pretty much the exact same words, no less!

I mean, it's basically just the truth, you know? That suit has a concept it's going for, and it is utterly nailing that concept on a level few suits can. It's everything that was commendable about Complete Form at the time, adjusted for another decade of Rider costumes becoming more and more willfully strange in the wake of the original. Like a king come to reclaim its rightful throne. (And I say all this as someone who's never been super fond of Complete Form!)

I never finished the vs. miniseries. The Decade murder mystery one I just never got around to finishing due to apathy, but the other one really turned me off from the start. I found the surprisingly high levels of gore to be off-putting and some of the high school stuff with Ora was deeply unsettling (even once I realized who she was; like I said earlier, I had completely forgotten that she and Heure were characters from the show). I was also kind of weirded out by how cheap the Zi-O suit looked. I'm not sure if that was from the stage shows or what, but it was really obvious that it was not the full quality suit from the series.

Decade Vs at least has the sense that it's leaning more into Tsukasa Is Not Doing Great to sort of create a kind of allegory to what's happening: Tsukasa can't see beyond the high-level multiverse stakes of his character - the character that doesn't get a narrative of his own anymore - to treat individual lives as having much value. So we get this small story of individuals in jeopardy, but Tsukasa doesn't truly get involved until the stakes become multiversal. Like, it's a special that wants to talk about how Tsukasa's spent ten years moving from a guy looking for where he fits in, to a guy that can't relate to regular people anymore.

But this Zi-O Vs thing? Man, I got nothin'. It's all cribbed from the Zi-O series, but faster and dumber. The new characters are one-dimensional gags, the stakes are hard to care about, and the end of the story makes it all seem pointless. If anyone's got a single theory on what this story was about that isn't just pointing out episodes of Zi-O it's referencing, I'd love to hear it.

He does a better job with his own casts, sure, but: Blade. Ryuki. Those were good stories! He had some winners as a guest-writer!

I wasn't sure if I was imagining this, so thanks for the confirmation. It's definitely a cheaper-looking suit. The metal watchband that drops down from the Driver is sewn in, instead of being a plastic piece on top. And you can see some of the stitching? It doesn't look great up close.

I found it most noticeable on his watch holders

Zi-O vs Decade is a story that's all about exploring yourself as you grow up.

Hobbies, interests, friendship, sexuality, the works. Not just in how you take things into yourself, but in the interactions you see from others as well.

Sogo literally gets to meet and experience other lives that he could've lead, and they all get him questioning various aspects of himself to the point that he begins to think that maybe his dream of being a king might not be the sort of thing he's into afterall: Literally hearing himself talk gets him to reflect on things.

The closed off world of the high school represents his own inner world, where he's at the center and everyone else orbits around him. New Sogos coming into this world represents new ideas on who he could be.

There's alot of talk throughout the three episodes about the "True Sogo" which in turn is reinforcing the idea that, whatever phases you go through in life, whatever challenges you face, one day you will look inside and discover everything you need to. The goal of both Tsukasa and Oma is to literally bring out what they think is the best (in) Sogo.

True to life too, it's all one big and confusing mess. Whose advice do you follow? Whose feelings do you return? How do you handle social situations you were never expecting to end up in? Do your friends or teachers always know what's best for you? And how do you handle it all when life continues to come at you so fast(represented here by the Inves swarm)? In the end, it seems as though the end message is to try it all out to see what sticks and what doesn't; It's a journey to find the best version of you for you.

That all aside, I think the thing I liked the most in this special was Heure's' crush on Sogo. Representation is nice and all, but I'd say that, for the most part, this was actually pretty well written and good gay rep. I really did love how Sogo wasn't grossed out or against the idea of Heure's' love. Plus, Geiz's' "He's MY man!" moment was really funny/cute. And all throughout, it's very obvious that Heure is going through his own struggle with finding love, and that we are meant to sympathize with him, just as any straight crush plot in a show like this would be presented.

So uh, with all that said? Do I think that this special was good? Eh, not quite. While it did feature a nice handful of things that I really did enjoy, it still has a ton of problems(the plot being the biggest offender), so I really wouldn't try to argue with anything who felt this fell flat for them. But did I get alot of enjoyment out of the character interaction and comedic bits? Absolutely, and in the end I feel that made watching it worth it, unlike Decade vs Zi-O.

And yes Tsukasa dying didn't hurt anything either.

This was a thought I'd had earlier about this special, and forgot it before it came time to write anything, so thank you for both reminding me of it, and putting it more eloquently than I'd've done.

Yeah, this is definitely Inoue getting at his themes of self-actualization and the irrelevance of labels. Maybe not nearly as coherently (or, for most, entertainingly) as he's done before, but this all doesn't feel a million miles away from some of his Faiz stories.

Thanks for the solid analysis!

KAMEN RIDER ZI-O - THREAD WRAP-UP

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/zio/wrapup1.png

And that just about does it for KAMEN RIDER DIE WATCHES KAMEN RIDER ZI-O!

As always, thanks to everyone who participated in this thread, whether you came prepared with a series-long gimmick, or just popped in when you couldn’t resist commenting. I’d be enormously grateful just to be tolerated for my weird thoughts on Kamen Rider, but y’all are constantly making these threads a fun party. I can’t ever thank you enough, but I’ve got a few more threads to give it a try.

There was a window where this might’ve been a collaborative thread like Decade was, and while that didn’t happen, I think it maybe did in a better way? Decade was a series of one-on-one discussions, where I’d chat with another fan about a specific story, and then move on to another fan and another chat. With Zi-O, it felt like everyone was coming to this thing with their own perspective, and their own set of goals for the experience. I think that’s more Zi-O than trying to rehash the Decade thread?

Zi-O was a show about how we each individually need to figure out what the future means, and work daily to get there. But while those things are up to us, they only become valuable if everyone gets the chance to do those things, and is supported in their attempt. So a thread where it’s two people taking apart a story, and then they’re done… that’s not this show? This one needs a dozen people working in tandem to explain their perspectives, and share their insights, so we can all benefit from the effort. Everyone showing up with their bits, or their links, or their breakdowns… kind of the ideal way to approach this show, honestly.

I had a really good time with this thread. Decade was a ton of work, and then the holiday break movie thread was, inexplicably, even more work. Getting back to a weekly show and daily posts, it was nice. Felt good!

I don’t know if it read good, though? (Beyond my conversational writing style; see “read good”.) There’s some stuff I liked writing about – Oma Zi-O as addiction metaphor was the thing I was maybe happiest with – but I never really felt like I said anything too insightful or trenchant. Most of my analysis felt facile, and not terribly original. Didn’t– didn’t much feel like I was digging into these episodes in ways other than how everyone else dug into them a few years ago. Maybe it was fun to read, though? I don’t know, I’m the last one to judge that. I hope it was fun!

Regardless of my thoughts on the quality of these posts, I got myself a treat!

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/zio/shfzio.jpg

SH Figuarts Kamen Rider Zi-O! Finally get to open this guy up, since he’s been sitting in a closet for a few months. (He needs Ridewatch stickers reeeeeally bad.) I also recently snagged Woz and Zi-O II, with Geiz and Geiz Revive on the way. Planning to add Oma Zi-O, Grand Zi-O, Trinity Form, and Woz Finally to the collection, but that’ll probably be it. Never was too crazy about the Armor Times, and a movie-only form isn’t something I need to see in the cabinet right now. Maybe someday, though.

Haven’t done this in a minute, but how about a Watch Thread word-art?

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

It’s the 200 most-used words in my episode posts, all arranged in a nicely regal crown shape. If anything in there reflects your Zi-O experience, please call it out. “Swartz Something Nothing” is so true it’s painful.

I’ll still pop into this thread if people have thoughts to share, but this is the end of any daily work on it from me. I’ll be going on a brief hiatus, where I both let my brain reset a bit for the next show, and just generally catch up on the many things I’ve avoided over the last couple months. DonBros, for sure, need to get caught up there. (I also heard there was an OOO movie? Any good?) I’ll try and spend some time fixing broken images in older threads, but I’m not sure how far I’ll get. (I’ve got a bunch of non-Rider projects to work on, so I’m not sure I’ll be able to fix more than a thread or two.) Other than that, I’ll be back in mid-June for KAMEN RIDER DIE WATCHES KAMEN RIDER ZERO-ONE (XXX XXXXXX XXXXX). Tentatively planning on Thursday, June 16th, but it may be later that weekend. This summer’s going to be a bumpy ride, scheduling-wise, so we’ll have to play it by ear. Definitely going to be back in under a month, though, promise.

Thanks again to everyone who shared their thoughts in this thread, or just lurked in anonymity. I’m very grateful, and I think of you all as friends. You can’t see it, but I’m typing this with a smile that’d make Sougo look depressed.

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/zio/wrapup2.png

The End of Time!

-I think I mentioned this at the beginning, how I've read through many of Die's other watch threads, but this one was the first one I was able to input and dicuss things as the thread began. I'm not quite the best at expanding on my thoughts in detail and sometimes felt like my posts often didn't add much to the dicussion, but I had lots of fun writing and reading others' posts anyway!

-As we close the door on Heisei for now, I'd like to vaguely talk about Reiwa Rider as a whole, since I feel it'd be weird to stick this onto Zero-One's first episode? Consider it a teaser, or something like that:

-I can only speak for my experiences and the other fans I've encountered, but it definitely seems like the reactions to this era of Rider have been very.....mixed. And that's fine honestly, we can't always be Megamax-era Rider or Kuuga-Agito-Ryuki, esp not with the shadow of a worldwide diaster that's *still* looming over our heads! But I feel like people aren't giving this era of Rider enough credit, yknow? If I had to condense the vibe of Reiwa (half vaguely concerning the actual story content of these shows, and half about my personal obseverations about the sentiments of creative team) into a single word, "ambition" probably comes to mind! There's lots of interesting decisions Reiwa makes to distinct itself from Heisei Rider, and I'm excited to look back when it started with the 01 rewatch while simulateously observing how it further solidifes its own idenity as news about the 4th Reiwa Rider will probably start trickling out by the time we start.

-Anyway! Hope you have fun catching up with Donbrothers, as well as the OOO specials! Donbros has nothing but fantastic so far personally and I'm really looking forward to the Birth special coming out later in the summer.

I appreciate you jumping in on this show! Some of the fun of doing these threads has been when we hit a show that's someone's favorite, and they go from lurking to posting, and it's like making a brand-new friend. I love it! Always very fun to see which shows people have a connection to.

And, honestly, you did a great job sharing your feelings on Zi-O. I know I always had a good laugh at your asides, and your enthusiasm for different aspects of this show helped me better consider the, like, totality of Zi-O. I read every post, and they definitely added to this experience!

"Hope Stuff Man"

i thought we just watched zi-o not wizard

I haven’t gotten around to watching it yet, but it’s reportedly a movie that made some… decisions.

Bless you for managing to find some humanity in that story. I don't think I ever even considered considering the idea Inoue might actually be trying to say something with all those Sougos running around, so I genuinely, deeply appreciate seeing someone give Zi-O VS Decade a much more fair shake than I turned out to be capable of. Seriously, few things warm my heart as much as when I get to be the one getting told there's at least a bit more to a Rider thing than I'm giving it credit for.

But hey, DreamSword isn't the only person I'm here to congratulate today, so, without further ado:

*clears throat*

祝え！

Critiquing all Riders that he trucks with, analyzing nearly two decades of television content and beyond, his name is Kamen Rider Die, and we now bear witness to the moment in which he completes an era!

(...I doubt that was as good as the real deal would give you, but unfortunately, we don't live in a world where everyone gets their own Woz.)

A little under three years since you started doing this with Ghost, huh? Obviously there are plenty of shows you watched prior to joining the forum, but still, that's about 12 and half entire Rider shows you've been writing about all in that time? It felt this way after Decade too, but man, crazy to think how far the need to vent about one series has ended up carrying you. And the thing is, Zi-O's not even any real ending. I mean, just when you've got the number of Heisei Riders left down to Zero, One more of these threads is already right around the corner! はい！アルトじゃぁぁぁぁ～ oh wait I should maybe save that shtick for when you get there

At any rate, let just me assure you once again that it's always a pleasure to read your thoughts on these shows, and be a part of all the discussion that generates. (A whole lot of discussion in this case too! This thread has dethroned Faiz for the most posts one of these has gotten!)

I'm naturally looking forward to you finally catching up to the era you started making these in, but just to celebrate the one we're leaving behind, I'd like to remind everyone that, well, Heisei Rider is never getting left behind. And there are few better testaments to that fact than this MAD I am utterly infatuated with, taking Over "Quartzer" and a whole load of memorable quotes from these shows to make just about the most touching tribute to Heisei Rider I've ever seen. 日本語わかれば絶対感動すると思う。But uh, if you don't know Japanese, I have no clue how much the effect still comes across. Still though, whoever made this video is clearly some kind of prodigy, and it only feels right to spread the word.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJyRNmEnO5Y

Although, in the event you want something a little more universal, this has also reminded me I meant to share this eternal masterpiece from ~2011 back at the end of the Decade thread.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJ18ARyBMVw

(I'm glad I didn't get into Rider earlier than I did, because I don't even want to imagine how much lamer being a Rider fan was in a world where this didn't exist yet.)

With all that said, allow me to leave off by reiterating that I'm always excited about the next one of these threads from you, Die. It's sure to be as great a time as it always is.

https://i.imgur.com/x8xhrnc.png

Well here we are folks, the end... of Zi-O.

This was a lot of fun and honestly I consider this thread a success for me purely because Die managed to something I was hoping for despite how messy Zi-O can be... and that's...

Loving our Main Cast of characters and sort of just digging into them and how they're pretty enjoyable and really make the show. Hell even a character who shows up so little and seemingly doesn't have much on the surface (Oma Zi-O) is littered with tons of stuff via context clues and the way he acts. Over all, if there was one thing Zi-O succeeded at, it was making an enjoyable cast that I'll definitely miss.

Or not really because I've been with these characters for 2 years at this point thanks to writing a RWBY and Zi-O Crossover. But hey, I wanted to be a bit sentimental. And because Fish here decided to share a video, and because I already shared my MV for Zi-O in the post for 49, here's a MAD that I really enjoyed that someone made of Zi-O.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3penQapZvQ

And well, that's it I suppose. But don't think I was only going to stick around for this. You're absolutely stuck with me for Zero-One for sure, Especially for Saber, and Especially Especially for Revice. I'm not going anywhere!

I have no real gimmick for any of those shows but I will talk about things! Oh boy will I talk!

Welp, that's all folks!

Well I don’t have an MV, but I do have a final production fact.

The reason Diend is reduced to a voice-only role in Decade vs Zi-O is because he was supposed to get a bigger role, but his actor’s mother was sick (and since he’s an only child and she’s a widow, there was no-one else to look after her), but he did give permission for them to reuse some voice lines from Zi-O’s finale.

Anyway, I’ve finally decided on a thread post theme for Zero-One. Given how popular showing off toys and hypothetical forms was here, I’ll just keep that up.

This was a neat read. Nice to see someone experience ZI-O as well.

...

What? I don't have something insightful and deep to say! I suck at those and it's been years (4 years?!) since I watched ZI-O. You just have to take my word of it that it's one of my beloved despite its flaws.

Look, here, take this pic of my SHF Geiz Revive. I sold ZI-O, to replace with one of his super forms down the line, and Base Geiz and Woz are boxed, so he's the only one out right now.

He's not the most eye-catching, nor the most solid and fun to play around with b, but he's one of my favorite figures. I bought him because I love the form and character.

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


...Wait that's not a bad way to describe ZI-O.

I don't think I'd want to live in that world! Wozez seem real clingy, you know? Sure, it's fun to get an IWAE every time you do something for the first time, but then they're subtly manipulating you into fulfilling a destiny you might not want; betraying you; faking betraying you to teach you a lesson; getting into metaphorical battles with their alternate selves over how best to support the people you admire; getting into actual physical battles with their alternate selves... it's a lot! They seem like they'd be difficult to integrate into my life.

I think I've officially written up more shows for the forum than I watched before joining, actually. Eight and a half before, and twelve and a half since. (Plus a whole bunch of post-show content.) Weird to think about! And, god, yeah, three more Reiwa shows to catch up on, then a gigantic break, and then... man, who knows? I've got some thoughts, but we'll see where everyone's interest lies next year.

I didn't mention this, but Woz'z little coda on the Zi-O Vs special... it sorta keeps coming back on me? Not the dialogue - I legitimately don't remember what he said - but just the feeling of this being the last Zi-O thing, for the most part. I mean, there'll be the Zero-One winter movie for me in a month or so, but a dedicated Zi-O project, with the Zi-O cast? That's basically it. The closure on that, I'm sort of still processing it?

Aw, that's very sweet! I'm glad that he missed it for a nice reason.

That's plenty! Short but sweet! I'm glad you had a good time!

It's over? Already? Huh. Okay. Well...

So, I never did get around to some of the post content of Zi-O, though I'm going to be watching Zi-O Vs. Decade/Decade Vs. Zi-O over the weekend, but even barring it all, the series and movies are usually enough for me in those regards (I've only ever seen the post Build content, should really get around to the Ex-Aid Another Ending and others), it's still a satisfying conclusion.

It was fun to, once again, go off memory, even if I might have gotten episodes mixed up along the way, or even forgotten the best parts of the less than stellar episodes. It's always nice to see returning cast, even if I've not seen their respective stories, I had fun looking back, learning something new, and even getting a better appreciation for this series' low points.

I do have to say, I too, need to get back on track with things, like DonBrothers, which I'm only halfway through now, and other movies and specials I neglected, or never found. I hope you enjoy your break, and I'll be seeing you again for Zero-One (who knows, I might be rewatching this with everyone or something)!

Also, that is a very nice crown.

It was a pretty fun show; but then, they're all pretty fun shows? I'm glad you had a fun time thinking back to Zi-O! And definitely make sure you watch "Geiz, Majesty"!

I have returned for Geiz Majesty! (I'm just going to be filling in the rest of the Zi-O timeline here, since I'm currently watching them)

Anyway, in short. The best V-Cinema I've seen thus far! Cross-Z may have had my favorite character and a magnificent suit, and Grease had some fantastic moments and another fantastic suit, but this one just hit all the right notes, and told probably the perfect epilogue to Zi-O.

So nice to see the Battle Doctor, the Scumbag, and the Speed Cop altogether, and so many neat details. Like Terui dragging the gunsword, though not as labored as it was in W, really showing how he's gotten used to lugging it around, even swinging it doesn't seem as taxing to him, or DiEnd being chaotic, or even how Geiz Revive Shippu looks similar to Another DiEnd, and just Chad Woz being the best support, while Sougo gets excited when he gets the Ridewatches despite having no clue how to use them (love that boy).

But, of course, the star here is obviously Geiz. Even without his connection to the future, he fits the protagonist role perfectly, almost as if he were the real protagonist, and his whole arc in this movie is just brilliant. Also, funny how he came from the future to defeat the future king only for someone to come from the future to defeat him (before he was a demon, he was the Terminator), the one who would save the future. It all works too well.

And Geiz Majesty is a great suit! I know people weren't fans of the Ridewatches slapped everywhere, but I liked it. It just worked for me, and given Zi-O, it was almost too good not to do. His Henshin Jingle is also superb, as expected of a Grand Zi-O style powerup for Geiz, which I love how it was all Secondary Riders featured in this special (I know Eternal showed up in the series, but I'm glad we got more W in this Anniversary), and French Woz being the antagonist, which makes perfect sense that if your chosen one fails, just become the hero yourself.

Overall, this is a great V-Cinext, and a great movie to boot! Now to watch through Decade Vs. Zi-O, Zi-O Vs. Decade.

Yeah, Geiz'z role in this movie... like, it's about Secondaries, and their motivations, and their proximities to other characters, but this movie never really treats this story as anything other than Geiz (and Friends). It's not a story about Sougo at all, in any way. The whole thing is about Geiz'z arc and Geiz'z heroism. He handles it pretty well!

So my internet was down when you were finishing this and I never got the chance to comment live, so to speak.

One thing where we differ is that I like that fact the Swartz's big plan to steal Sougo's powers are basically pointless. It makes sense. He purposely created this basically god of time arrogantly thinking he could just steal his powers, but he turned Sougo into A GOD OF TIME!!!! Of course he was going to be too powerful to steal from. It's a laughinly obvious outcome.

But then again it does highlight just how bad of a villain he is, which is a problem. His entire plan was so obviously flawed that most children would be able to see that creating an all powerful god of time and then trying to steal from him was going to have the obvious result.

Yeah, it's a real Step 3 > Profit sort of plan, where you'd hope that Swartz would have some way of containing Sougo and stealing his power, instead of just making Sougo incredibly mad and incredibly powerful. Without some hidden and fool-proof mechanism in place from the start, I'm not sure why Swartz would ever do things this specific way.

Before continuing on other movie/extra watch, gotta post this first as both Zi-O thread and this news is recent:

Tsukuyomi's actress Shieri Ohata disappeared from both the Avex Entertainment agency as well as Instagram, without any news on the reason up until now.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CeVD_LYv..._web_copy_link (foreign language, but perhaps can be translated)

That sounds similar to what happened to Sengen Yoshiko a few years ago, which is concerning. I hope Ohata is okay.

Don't know if this'd mean better movies are non-crossover ones (other than Zi-O inherently featuring past characters, in this case secondary tributes).

Actually, I'd think characters not having much motivation beyond of what fantasy goal they have based on their alignment happens quite often. Just that there's probably a double standard that only characters that inherently can't contribute much (like being a normal person) got bashed as lacking motivation, being mocked as a waste of space for that. And characters that are favorites ironically also often had single motivations, especially characters that aren't compartible for normal life, and doesn't exist for that, like Woz who only wants to rise Sougo as Ohma Zi-O. But it'd be still nice to have their motivations on daily life being explored, however (continued below).

I feel that, I do like and want to see how those characters that spend most of their time in war got to live their daily life, but, I don't feel like it if all of them have their memories wiped, including Sougo himself. It'd be more like an entirely new cast, but just happened to have similar personality (not alignment for Heure and Ora) as well as being played by the same actors (though there are parts in Zi-O where Sougo restarts his interactions with his friends at ep. 41-43). So to me it doesn't feel as if it's the characters trying to live a different life, but like similar but different separate characters (except Sougo). Though of course if you'd view personalities as sufficient in this setting, yeah the characters still have similar personality.

Like how Tsukuyomi is still empathetic and altruistic, but was on serious side on the series, thus she'd be a honor type and ought herself and others to apply proper manners to daily lives, though perhaps that'd be what behind her bowing and thanking any help she can get from anyone like Date, Terui, etc (i̶n̶c̶l̶u̶d̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶J̶u̶n̶i̶c̶h̶i̶r̶o̶ ̶d̶u̶r̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶h̶e̶r̶ ̶"̶k̶i̶l̶l̶ ̶S̶o̶u̶g̶o̶"̶ ̶p̶h̶a̶s̶e̶), no matter how slight it is. Her being a honor student to become a doctor is one big contrast to the lazy Sougo and Geiz in their ways of helping others. A reminder though in how despite that Tsukuyomi wanted to become doctor genuinely to help people, doesn't mean that anyone becoming doctor (or any other noble professions, like police as in what Terui suggested to Geiz) are that kind of person.

While Heure, the childish one previously, was the upbeat, talkative, and eager one to spill the beans of his friend's gossip for more talk, which leads into, an abuse from Ora, who's still aloof and haughty, not the most pleasant person even without her Time Jacker powers/occupation. Actually I'm kinda sick of the abuse slapstick type of comedy Ora does where girls always get free pass from all the shit they pulled, but I'd tolerate this one as Ora was downright sociopathic before. It seems that Sougo's reset, other than giving Riders happy endings like Kusaka below, also was a double edged sword to bring back Swartz too, denied his fate of being handed karmic demise unlike others.

Though this actually lowkey puts the world into potential danger again that Sougo is reverted into his early self without his memories, and unlike series such as Ryuki, Rider powers never faded away in Zi-O, so he actually had a potential to turn into the tyrannical Ohma Zi-O at this point. Sougo really should've kept his memories and the lessons he earned here.

And for the main one in this movie, it's said here that Geiz was a bully hunter in the past who defends picked kids, but due to what I said above of this being likely alternate version of the character due to the original version dying, perhaps real Geiz had different backstory, as he was a member of the Resistance in 2068, so perhaps Geiz didn't have a normal childhood (Ohma Zi-O also started his conquest long ago). Albeit the backstory fits his personality well, of which for this movie, Geiz seems to resemble his developed counterpart later (despite the secondary Riders recounting the moments when they're still dark), but without impending doom, seems that Geiz can still be grumpy and temperamental, having his tsundere behavior back to lash out at Sougo at times like when talking about his goals, but is openly concerned towards him in danger.

I wonder if Geiz forgetting why he wanted to become a judo champion is also related into him becoming more standoffish, where he was perhaps more pleasant in the past when he started judo, and it's unkown why he turned grouchy now. His lesson here seems to be different too with the original Geiz, who was also well-intentioned (like here to protect people as strong judoka), but he had darker traits of possessing black-and-white mentality and also was extreme in achieving his goals, that having good intention can still have you being someone dark (and there are actual villains due to good intention), how you achieve it also matters which he learned, both to Sougo and later Another Riders.

Regarding Geiz Majesty, seems that his ability is more limited than those who can summon Riders, that he can only exclusively access the secondary Riders' weapons, when there are other abilities they have without weapons, like G̶e̶i̶z̶'̶s̶ ̶t̶w̶i̶n̶ Knight's Trick Vent. And, the series has established White Woz as being someone who presents a desirable outcome, but in reality is only self-serving, I guess this one gives even more detail of his plans of him wanting to become the "savior" himself to rule the remaining humans, and was like Swartz that he wanted to absorb Geiz's power? Seems that this is his proper closure before Black Woz practically eats him, but his real plan here to envision his world would be more simplistic than I expect.

I don't know how the primaries have easier path on heroism. The title hero are usually the straight hero type (except for some series like Kabuto where it's reversed) that means they have a lot to fulfill, like acting contrary to the impulses to be nasty to those disliked, the dilemmas they have to face in dire situations that have them potentially committing unpleasant things against their wishes (it's their version of being conflicted), making sure that they can use honorable methods, without taking shortcuts or giving up to temptations, not expecting reward even if they deserve it, etc. Those clearly show about how upholding good can really make you suffer too. And actually, taking shortcut like doing something wrong to achieve something fast is the "easy way", that secondaries can pull out because many are more morally grey as anti-heroes and they'd look down into the primary Riders' ways on that.

A̶l̶s̶o̶,̶ ̶w̶h̶i̶c̶h̶ ̶K̶a̶i̶t̶o̶?̶?̶ ̶Y̶o̶u̶ ̶a̶r̶e̶n̶'̶t̶ ̶b̶e̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶c̶l̶e̶a̶r̶ ̶e̶n̶o̶u̶g̶h̶.̶

All hail the Rolex. :lolol

Well, you may or may not be aware that Bandai announced a set of Reiwa Ridewatches for next year, alongside some reissues of Zi-O’s DX toyline.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...8/IMG_3776.jpg

Aside from seeing it as a chance to finally get a Ziku-Driver so I can use my collection of (currently) 5 Ridewatches, it also gave me an excuse to revisit my old feature from this thread.

Ridewatch Playlist: I couldn’t think of a good name for this Mix

Update: Replaced the picture with an actual video, now that they’re out.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=yUSyDVN5...2kqj-VExycevGZ

Gotta catch all the Chemies! The Alchemist Rider fighting with cards is… Gotchard

And since the show is still fairly new, the only real choice I had was the theme song, CHEMYxSTORY by Back-On.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=qiK2lc37...IyzNTB9jbWQaE_

Winning the Desire Grand Prix for a wish, the fox Rider is… Geats

Since I’m not too keen on Trust Last (I’m sorry, aside from Change My Future, I don’t find Kumi Koda that good a singer and not even the return of Shonen No Kaze could save the song), I’m going with his image song, Star of the Stars of the Stars

https://youtube.com/watch?v=a65vOOL9...ZLYGd2SIXYil3O

The Rider using Vistamps with the power of the ultimate lifeforms is… Revi

And since I can hardly use LiveDevil for only one of this pair, I instead opted for their image songs. For Ikki, that would be Kimi wa Sono Mama de (the song that played over his final battle with Vice)

https://youtube.com/watch?v=eOHmRKiu...E6ks9cx_bxStdn

Contracted with Revi! The partnered Demon Rider is… Vice.

And for Vice, that would be #GekiyaVice (which played in the clip show episode)

https://youtube.com/watch?v=ojopweFS...iNt6A9qpJC0OFt

I had heard this, yes! And, unfortunately, I'm sort of the target audience for this set, as I just got a Ziku Driver (and a bunch of Ridewatches) off of eBay recently!

It's a fun Driver, that one. After falling hard for DX stuff in Zero-One and Geats, I've started grabbing older bundles of DX toys off of a terrific eBay vendor. (A Ziku Driver and 10 Ridewatches for only $95, shipped? And it got here in about a week? Crazy!) I've really enjoyed the simplicity of the rotating mechanism, how it's the obvious precursor for the Desire Driver's whole Plug In And Spin Around thing. As Androzani's many videos have shown, the Ridewatches themselves are fun to fidget with, fun to play their little jingles. It's a neat play pattern.

And it's especially fun to see them continue to incorporate Reiwa dudes! Much as Decade continued to add newer heroes to his card collection, I like the idea of Sougo (holy shit i almost had to look up his name YIKES) getting additional powers as the next generation of Riders debut. It's cute.

So, yeah, as a newer Ziku Driver owner, very excited to see Bandai marketing to me and only me on this four-pack of Ridewatches. You're all welcome to share in my good fortune, though!