Hard to say if something hasn't been fleshed out if I haven't watched the rest of the show (it may et elaborated on in Episode 2, or never elaborated on at all), but there are plenty of opportunities in this episode for Sougo to give his But Why Monarchy speech, and the closest he comes is vwing to be a good despot. The couple times a normal person tries to understand why he'd want to be something so ridiculous/unhealthy, he sort of shrugs his shoulders? It's not that it seems like his motivation is hidden -- which would be fine! -- it's that it seems like he isn't motivated at all?

Wow, that's super weird! She comes across as a genuinely good person with an actual strategy, which makes her one of the most interesting characters in the premiere.

Every single time someone suggests that Demon King is somehow better (or different! In any way!) than Good Tyrant, I just want to post this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2c-X8HiBng

Like, declaring yourself to be King -- Demon or otherwise -- is a very bad thing! It's like having a dream of owning a sweatshop. It's not the impossibility or the anachronistic parts that bother me, it's that it's an immoral thing to want to be.

(opens Oma Advent Calendar and gestures dramatically)

IWAE! Sharing opinions and bringing the Kamen Rider community together, the one who will review every episode of every season of Heisei Rider. His name is Kamen Rider Die. And he has now reached the final installment.

....

But before I can give my thoughts on Zi-O, I have a promise to keep from the Decade thread.

Blade King Form and Armed Hibiki both destroyed the same giant monster with a single blow. However, Blade's finisher was more stylish (most Final Forms are more stylish than Armed Hibiki), so I ultimately have to agree with you here. Blade is the most qualified for this specific fight.

And yeah, that means I have now watched all 20 Heisei Rider seasons!

If you're updating the threads in reverse-chronological order, then why did you skip Den-O?

I mean, there's a lot of free estate in Antarctica. If Sougo moved there and claimed a piece of land for himself, he could declare himself king. Sure, none of the major countries would take him seriously, but maybe that's his best shot at becoming a king, other than using the power of magic watches?

Regarding why he wants to become a king, well there is a reason for that. But Sougo isn't always the most open about his feelings and doesn't really feel the need to justify his intentions to people he just met. What's important though is that becoming a king is Sougo's dream, no matter how absurd it sounds. So when he replies to the revelation that his future self is a demon king, by saying he's going to become the greatest kindest demon king, I think that's just his way of saying he's going to follow his dream, which can be a symbol of heroic determination. There's a hint of sarcasm to his declaration, like he's rejecting what Geiz and Tsukuyomi are saying as he believes in the altruism of his dream and that giving up his dream isn't an action befitting of a future king. It's like he says, he was born to be king, so it isn't really a choice, or an action that some time travelling weirdos can make him reconsider. It's something he feels like he just has to do. He lives in the moment, so he's not going to let their dystopian future get in the way of his present.

Haha, yeah, she does that.

Anyway, there's a cool and macabre detail at the end of the episode where Geiz Ghost Armor Time summons the Parka Ghosts to fight Zi-O. One of them is Takeru's own soul, Ore Parka. Which makes sense considering that Oma Zi-O killed all the Riders.

It's a catchy song! I like how Faiz is the first Rider visible in the foreground of that time-frozen shot. Regarding the bikes, you really have to take whatever bike action you can get in this show.

Literally forgot! I was a few posts into fixing Kabuto before I went Wait The Train One. Definitely felt like Yuuto wiped the Den-O thread from my brain.

That last line of your Sougo defense would probably be the first line in my prosecution of Sougo. Him disregarding the potential intensely negative consequences of his actions is-- is bad! Is very bad! To have a character start down a path that could lead towards genocide for reasons that amount to A Gut Feeling, and look two people in the face and go Sucks To Be You? That's not what I want from my title character in the first episode! Anything but that!

(Like, the problem for me with Sougo continues to be that his reactions are all massively minor. The show goes to steps to make the stakes of this story crystal clear, and Sougo's, like, Meh. He doesn't seem to be treating this series with the same concern as literally every other character, and I really dislike it. Hopefully that changes!)

She's also the 'wooden' type of character (outside of impersonating Sougo bit) which is the one that can be accused as having "no personality" (in reality there's no such thing as that), opposite of the likes of Woz which is the over the top type. The intro even only had her walking and staring... compared to Sougo checking up on the clock or Geiz being battle-worn and wiping up the blood and torn clothing. I̶ ̶a̶l̶s̶o̶ ̶h̶a̶v̶e̶ ̶t̶a̶l̶k̶e̶d̶ ̶a̶b̶o̶u̶t̶ ̶h̶o̶w̶ ̶s̶h̶e̶'̶s̶ ̶a̶b̶o̶v̶e̶ ̶g̶e̶n̶u̶i̶n̶e̶l̶y̶ ̶g̶o̶o̶d̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶'̶s̶t̶r̶a̶t̶e̶g̶y̶'̶ ̶r̶e̶l̶a̶t̶e̶d̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶s̶a̶i̶d̶ ̶m̶o̶r̶a̶l̶.̶

I refer to something like y'know, Dark Kiva, the name and quite the design quite screams the evil counterpart of Kiva or such, though it's true with how King used it. But then Dark Kiva is used by Otoya and Taiga after redemption, who used the form for good, but the name and the design stays. Also even Kiva itself stands for King Vampire. Dark Kiva is far from the only example of power that looked demonic/dark outwardly.

That part is about appreciating and praising her btw :p.

Personally, on my "Stuff I Didn't Like About Zi-O" and "Stuff I Liked About Zi-O" lists (and yes, the latter does exist), Tsukoyomi is... kind of absent from both. I always tend to think of her "inoffensively present" most of the time.

Yeah. Her main issue is that while they have an arc for her, it depended entirely on a design for ?the resolution? and it took them over half the series to settle on one, at least according to an interview with the writer and producer in the official Mook.

Zi-O is a really special Kamen Rider series to me for a lot of reasons. Er, uh, well I guess they *all* are, but you know what I mean. I'll try and reminisce about as many of those reasons as I can as the thread moves along, and to start off with, I'm introducing my own regular feature for this thread -- a little something I like to call...

(Fish Sandwich also watched Kamen Rider Zi-O - EP01)

See, one of the biggest things about Zi-O that gives it such a big place in my heart is the experience of posting my thoughts every week in the episode threads at the time. I feel that was more or less where I truly started solidifying how I like to write these sorts of things. I posted in every Ex-Aid episode thread, but a lot of those were just bullet-pointed lists of whatever minor thoughts. In Build's case, I ended up skipping out on a solid handful of episodes. But for Zi-O, I made it a point to really try and dig into the show each week as best I could, and you'll see that as the show went along, I generally got more thorough about it.

...And you'll see it fairly easily too, if you're already reading this, because just like above, I'm planning on making a link to those posts with each episode Die gets to. There'll be some orphaned references to chatter from other users here and there, but I don't know, just take that as an excuse to dig through the entire thread or something. I mean, if you actually care what my raw impressions of Zi-O from 3+ years ago were, you'd probably find everyone else's interesting too.

The funny thing is though, I don't at all remember why I was so eager to attach myself to Zi-O from the outset? Off the top of my head, the only thing I vividly remember about the pre-airing hype window of the show was how profound it felt when I realized that Zi-O -- the guy with "Kamen Rider" literally written on his face -- seemed downright plain after the designs we had been getting in the back half of the Heisei Era. More specifically, it made me realize how far Ex-Aid had actually pushed things. Basically no lead Rider design reveal could ever faze me again.

Perhaps I was simply caught up in the whole end of an era hype or something. I do know a lot of things about the series seemed extremely interesting though, and I was definitely excited to see where all this madness was going. As such, I really enjoyed the premiere. Me and Zi-O got off on the right foot, for sure... but I wasn't too sure about that Sougo kid.

Die, I'm not going to push back too hard on your opinion of the premiere, because I was actually in a similar position too, but I will say, while the kind of things you're asking for would've made for a much better premiere, I firmly believe they also would've made for a far less unique and interesting series. All that weird stuff about Sougo, it's part of his mystique. Your critiques of him are things I would unironically praise (*especially* the contradictory nature of being a good evil king), and hopefully you'll learn to see that other side of him in time too. I've got a feeling this'll work out! ;)

Oh, and while this won't necessarily be a regular thing again, there's one particular thing about Zi-O I know I was *super* hyped about, and that's who was doing the soundtrack. Toshihiko Sahashi helped create this era of Rider on Kuuga, he continued that work on Agito, applied his musical talent yet again to Hibiki, gifted Den-O with an incredibly distinctive tone, and finally, he saw the Heisei Era of Kamen Rider to a close by providing the background music for this show as well. It's great. It's Sahashi, so of course it is. And right now, I'd just like to share Zi-O's basic theme music, and note how perfect it is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9EBSb-9NfQ

Sahashi nailed the whole maou vibe by giving Zi-O's motif that distinctly Egyptian sorta sound that instantly brings to mind a sense of royalty and grandeur, and more than that, the thing I utterly adore about the tracks directly associated with Zi-O is that they basically completely eschew any sort of traditionally heroic sound entirely. It was especially glaring coming off of Build, too, how rather than triumphant and energetic, Zi-O's fight music is often more foreboding than anything. Like, I really can't stress this enough -- it's pretty much an ideal musical summation of the sense of simultaneous wonder of Sougo's present, and the uneasy dread of his future.

Gonna say, yeah, he currently doesn't understand the severity of his ambitions are for the moment. It's not until a certain guest rider does he do that

Yo I know we're really all excited to start Zi-O together, but I think we need to cool down a bit? This post and some others are really pushing the boundaries of the "no teasing/no spoilers" rule, yknow?