These tribute episodes are pretty bad imho. The only two actors that I liked so far are Riho Takada from OOOs and Kento Handa from Faiz. Shu Watanabe might be good in the next episode. I also wish that they brought back Yuria Haga from Faiz and Kiva. She looks hot in Girl's Blood. ;)

Nah, if anything he's progressing towards being a king consistently, like giving orders to Woz and manipulating Geiz last arc. Rather than becoming a more normal person, he actually seems to be becoming more eccentric and controlling through these episodes, which is a great direction for his character considering how bland he was initially in spite of his stated goal.

Yeah, I've gotta say Sougo is in an interesting place for me.


It's like he's so deep into idiot hero territory that he's literally incapable of seeing how much his actions raise tons of red flags for his allies. And him aligning himself, albeit temporarily, with Dan Kuroto of all people is simultaneously hilarious and frightening.

EDIT: Also, a fun little detail I noticed, and I'm not sure if it's been brought up. But the hawk on Another OOO seems to have been replaced by the Shocker logo

I thought "maou" means demon king? Sougo keeps saying he wants to be a good "maou", is there such thing as "good demon king"?

Yeah, it does, but Sougo is an idiot who chases his dreams. Back in episode 1 he went "Well being evil in the future sucks but I'll be king!"

Yeah, something that's been very consistent about Sougo is that he's extremely unfettered. I assume that's the secret to how he could end up being evil in the future. He just kind of walks into things without giving them too much thought or properly considering the consequences.

Obviously we've seen him come up with plans and the like, but I don't think there's any other Rider protagonist that's quite as impulsive as he is.

Take note of how little effort he used in order to beat Geiz as well, it was pretty clear that he was flat out toying with him, considering he just gained his powers unlike Geiz as well.

It would be quite fun if this ended up actually being the rider show where the main villain is just the main character, and someone else ends up having to be the hero in the long run, saying how he will become a "kind" overlord is also honestly a bit unsettling overall.

But yeah I doubt it, it is not impossible, we do have precedent for the main rider not ending up being the one up against the final boss.

She was 16 back then but I always thought she looked older than that like, if the story told me that she was 20 or 21, I would believe it without a second thought. I think her looks matches her age now that she's 24.

Really liked the episode. Interesting how Sougo has grown too, and how predictable he's seen Geiz is, to the point of using him to get in good with Dan. That henshin was glorious too. This show is really getting some nice little twists in it.

Borderline is starting to feel like Woz is getting played too with how Sougo is picking up on their traits.

Also really liked the emphasis on OOOs and then Kurot-O and how that seems to be symbolically pushed onto zi-O.

The 9.5 was awesome. Loved that "toy company" remarks. And the extra quick praise to Kiva was very xD.

Lot of back patting buffered in these episode and the 9.5 but in a fun way. Especially extra funny with the puppy remarks at the end with the playful Woof Woof. This show is really quickly becoming one of my favorites, but damn there's a lot of backstage self-wankery going on, but done in really fun ways that feels really cathartic too.

Looks like we're starting to see the rise of Oma Zi-O, but I think there's still more we're not seeing. Sougo still has strong empathy and wants to help and talk things out. Only fighting back when pushed. So I think there's some stronger stuff coming up that'll push the Oma Zi-O elements further, or how that diverts from the current timeline. This episode seems to really highlight that Sougo is playing his own chess match while the rest are busy playing other games and jumping to assumptions/conclusions.

That's kind of complicated and a long story in itself. Not all are that bad though. A few of them are some really cool people and great artists of their fields, but a few vocal areas drown those reasonable cool ones out and give the group a bad name because of the flagrant arrogance/ignorance mixed, and sadly, is one of the reasons they lost an area that kept an eye on them for Toei/BoJ. So they're kind of stewing in that too. A select few names are still kept tabs on though for various future work reasons. But the arrogant/ignorant ones aren't exactly happy about that and still trying to embed themselves deeper when they're the ones holding the group back as a whole.