One thing I forgot to mention, Another Fourze is modelled after Radar Button, a monster from Uchuu Tetsujin Kyodain, the 70s Toku show from which the villains of Fourze’s movie were inspired.

For Fourze's English cover, I had to go with a bit of a compromise here. Remy does a lot of English covers, but he takes a LOT of liberties with the lyrics, and by a lot I mean he basically seems to write brand new ones that fit the same basic themes and ideas. I am not found of that and will not be using him much if I use him at all past this.

But he got an actual music band to perform this one and it's the only one to sound anything like the original, so I'll give the lyric issues a pass for this one.

You can definitely find others that are going to be more accurate though.

Skip to the 3 minute mark if you want to go straight to the actual music There's a silly skit at the beginning. Links to specific parts of the video apparently don't work in imbedded form.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTei...index=4&t=182s

That was the idea, but he couldn't find enough volunteers.

Another way of looking at Sougo's offer to the gamer dude of becoming his official royal technical advisor or whatever, is that he wants his kingdom to be built and run by good people so that everybody can be happy. In the future we saw, Oma Zi-O is unrivaled, but he is also alone and probably unsatisfied with how his life turned out. So Sougo offering people employment could be considered as a compliment as well, in his own quirky way, to make sure that he really does become the greatest kindest demon king and not the typically evil one that Geiz believes.

For sure, I like Ohsugi and those neo-humans and all, but they can't compare to real important guys like Takumi and Kusaka. Some of the returning cast for these shows can be a little unexciting or even unwelcome, sadly.

Shun and Miu graduated in 2012. Not confirmed for the others, but most likely, Gentarou, Yuki, Kengo and Ryusei in 2013 and Tomoko and JK in 2014. Unless any of them got held back or something.

You mean like trying to talk to people IRL about Tokusatsu? I think I've been in Sougo's position many times!

(Fish Sandwich also watched Kamen Rider Zi-O - EP05)

I kinda feel like this episode was a big moment for Zi-O, in retrospect? Like, you had two episodes with Build's main two Riders, and two episodes with Ex-Aid's main two Riders, and then, you know, if you're making this series, you've immediately hit that wall where you can't just have the stars of the previous shows back guaranteed. And the viewers know this is going to be a problem, and everyone knows it's why Decade, a show that only had half as many Riders to deal with, avoided putting focus on returning actors. You've got to do something to assure the fans a concept like "a Fourze tribute with no Fourze" can somehow make for an entertaining episode, so what do you do?

Get Fourze's main director to give it the right visual flair, and write an episode with a clever twist waiting in the wings where Another Fourze blows up at the end only to reveal he's also Another Faiz.

It's really not a bad way to prove Zi-O can still do interesting things without having main stars to play with. I mean, yeah, the episode also promises more antics from Takkun and Kusaka by the end too, but I think it's also making it a point to expand the creative possibilities of the format so that the show's plots can gradually stop leaning on that sort of thing. All in all, I remember this episode feeling like it was continuing a notable upward swing for Zi-O's quality, Sakamoto's explosion-heavy fight scenes are always fun, and yes, as a Faiz fan, it is hard to say no to the prospect of more Takkun and Kusaka. Another thing I also dig looking back is that, yeah, this one makes it a point how lonely Sougo is without Geiz and Tsukuyomi, and I appreciate the groundwork the show was continuing to lay down. I was still warming up to Sougo when I first watched this one, but like a lot of things in the early episodes, I kinda realize know just how important this stuff ended up being to why I enjoy these characters so much.

Heyyy I can finally start my bit!

When it comes to any story I experience, the biggest thing I look out for is characters. How they're written, how they play off one another, the works.

Their importance to how much I enjoy any story is huge, and Kamen Rider is no exception. I might not've made it through Decade if not for Diend, afterall. As such, I find it really cool that Zi-O put in so much effort in getting people to return.

So I figure, what better way to honor that than to talk about my personal favorite characters from each season in accordance with whatever arc the show hits at the time? I unfortunately couldn't do anything for Build or Ex-Aid, having not seen those yet. But Fourze? I sure can! As such, my favorite there is...

https://i.imgur.com/jCwb8N8.png

Tomoko Nozama, or as I like to call her, Spooky Chick!

She was by far my favorite member of the Kamen Rider Club(if we're not counting the Riders themselves), loving every second that she was on screen. Her two-parter was the first one in the show that I outright enjoyed, she consistently made me laugh, and her chemistry with Ryusei, my other favorite from the show, was icing on the cake.

Unpopular opinion I know, but I ended up not liking alot of the characters in Fourze. JK nearly gets everyone killed multiple times, Shun was a clown, Miu ended up being really shallow, Yuki was just there, and Gentaro... well, I found him to be the type of guy who makes acquaintances, not friends. Kengo ended up being pretty decent, atleast.

But Spooky Chick? A+ material anytime she was around. And I knew I had to get that specific screenshot of her when I decided on this bit, because that was probably the hardest I laughed throughout the entire show.

Helped that she had a really good character arc, too. Faiz will get done when episode 6 gets covered.

Oh, neat! Thanks!

Yeah, I think they really nailed the sound of the original? I'd've probably made it a lyric video, if I were them, but that was still pretty fun! Thanks!

I goofed on them a little, but I was actually really excited to see 2/3rds of the movie mutants and Ohsugi here. Anything from Fourze's going to get my enthusiasm, much like a lot of the eventual tribute episodes. I like seeing these folks again! Any of them! All of them! (...All of them except Jean!)

I think the problem I had with them in the last episode is just that the show devoted as much time to them as it did to the Build characters or the Ex-Aid characters, and I think that's a mistake. Maybe calibrate your Legend Time towards the level of guest star? Like, Takumi and Kusaka? I don't care if you gotta bump Team Zi-O for a week, you give them two all of the time you possibly can. But if our Gaim tribute is just DJ Sagara and Peko, I think we can do a quick cameo and move on.

OH NO! Much like Sougo's discussion of his kingly ambitions plays a little better amongst people who are inclined to take him seriously (the Time Orphans, who take him incredibly seriously), it is probably better to keep your enthusiasms to a place like TokuNation.

As I mentioned in this week's DonBros thread, I am all about characters having weird emotional problems that predate and supercede the events of the show. A little runner about how Sougo is so incredibly weird (he really is!) that he's got basically no one in his life to hang out with -- so he is very excited to spend some quality time with his potential executioners -- is absolutely a story I'm going to enjoy watching.

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/legend/megamax8.png

We don't overlap a lot in our interests (I think we both love Tsukasa from Decade, that's it), but I'm glad to see we're in agreement on our appreciation for Tomoko. One of my absolute faves from Fourze. Her and Ryusei are one of the few Kamen Rider (on-purpose) romantic pairings I bought? They had chemistry, for sure.

Also, your favorite character from Ex-Aid is Kiriya and your favorite character from Build is Gentoku.

I'll be sure to come back and see if this hold true when I finally watch both shows in like three years.

Uh, I didn't say they would be, I said they are. Case closed! Watching those two shows, while rewarding, is now irrelevant. Like Sougo, I am a time saver.

Schwartz: You don’t get a say in this.

Delta is so powerful he can bring this joke back from the dead, but not powerful enough to get a mention in Episode 5 despite being two dead guys making it in. Sad times.

But yeah, Fourze episode. It's good! Fourze Armour looks sick, and combining the two tributes into one like this was probably the first sign, to me at least, that Zi-O was a little less beholden to formula than, say, Decade. It's predictable, but not afraid to throw you a curveball.

Yeah, it's fun to see them starting to acknowledge that, once you get into Phase 2, Heisei shows stop being these discrete, concluding stories for our heroes to drop into for a fortnight. Phase 2 is messy! Shows overlap, characters get endless epilogues, etc. Decade could do stories that siloed off other shows, but Phase 2 isn't really like that, production-wise.

Also, it's neat to treat Heisei as a giant mix of themes and aesthetics, rather than Decade's view of it as individual worlds. Feels more like my experience watching these shows, honestly?

Delta's so powerful that even the Time Jackers are afraid to resurrect his power. Better to lose endlessly than unleash the constant victories of Delta.

I guess I have and I've done that at times when I was little too. Though dunno if this counts but this is about talking about the same thing over and over again when talking with them but not necessarily about steering things. Actually I can feel like I'm the one at fault to not be able to converse well if they talk about something I don't know well, and if I got rebuffed for talking something at start I can feel small (now I'm more avoiding talking about my interests) though what I got was about them telling being bored to talk about that topic (if we had mutual interest only). I guess still while it can be annoying it's far from the top of my shit list, there are far more worse shit, as it's a flaw that is disastrous (to life quality) so gotta still tolerate it and those have to be treated fairly too.... l̶i̶k̶e̶ ̶S̶h̶ ̶R̶a̶n̶g̶e̶r̶ ̶c̶o̶n̶f̶e̶s̶s̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶a̶b̶o̶u̶t̶ ̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶t̶o̶k̶u̶ ̶e̶n̶t̶h̶u̶s̶i̶a̶s̶m̶.̶ I guess for Sougo iirc others didn't directly point out about them not being interested hearing his hobby talk, now I wonder what'd happen if they point out that they aren't interested hearing Sougo's talk.

Otherwise wdyt about my previous comments here?

It wasn't seen on how Sougo worked his way up to become Ohma Zi-O before.... Sougo would likely still be his goofy self who wears his heart on his sleeve I guess in said Ohma Zi-O's youth and thus can invite his friend to become his staff, but dunno. And while this isn't about becoming king.... Sougo's offer to his friends seems similar to certain successful people who also tried to make cooperation with their friends back then and/or can be looked down or underestimated with their goal declaration.... b̶e̶t̶t̶e̶r̶ ̶w̶o̶r̶k̶ ̶h̶a̶r̶d̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶s̶i̶l̶e̶n̶c̶e̶.

I think this is the only one I had anything for? Sorry! I read 'em all, but I don't always have something to say that'd expand the conversation.

I guess I don't see Tsukuyomi that way? She's shown herself to be a confident and outgoing person (she definitely is fine talking to strangers and/or getting Sougo thrown off of a bridge), so her reluctance to befriend Sougo feels like it comes more from I Might Have To Kill You, then it does from any personality conflicts.

And, man, she does like that kid! She's smiling because she thinks his enthusiasm for Time Missions is cute! She's used to working alongside Geiz; the fact that someone's not a human-shaped frown in an oversized collar is probably a pleasant change of pace!

KAMEN RIDER ZI-O EPISODE 6 - “555-913-2003”

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/zio/zio6a.png

I think the most Faiz thing this episode does is to make sure that the Ryusei School kids suck.

God, I hate them. I’ve always hated them. All that school did was churn out charmless martyrs and remorseless killers. Every single time one or more of them would show up in Faiz, it meant the story was going to get bogged down in earnest pleas for characters to immolate themselves on the pyre of generational warfare. It was always a bad sign, and this episode – for its faults – stays true to that repeating disappointment.

I don’t care about Karin and Sakuma in this story. It’s bloodless melodrama. Sakuma’s feelings are histrionic and unconvincing. He’s just sweaty, constantly, as though that fills in the blanks of his relationship with Karin. Karin, naturally, is no better. She’s desperate to sacrifice herself for Sakuma’s freedom from guilt, and she’s beatific in her weird particle dispersal (?). None of it feels like a real person's behavior or actions; either of them, both of them.

The idea of a story built around sacrifice – that it’s easier to die for someone than live for yourself – is something that feels more indebted to the Ryusei School dinks and their mascot, Delta, than it really does for either Takumi or Kusaka. It’s not really how I remember either of them? Kusaka dies from his sacrifice, sure, but it wasn’t exactly a series-long motivation. And Takumi… Jesus, it took Takumi most of a season to even fight for people, let alone care enough to sacrifice for them. (I mean, there’s the iconic If Fighting Is A Sin, Then LET ME BE DAMNED speech, but I always took that as more about society’s judgment than, like, death.) The idea of trying to ground a story of sacrifice in two of the most aggressively antagonistic and homicidally opposed Riders in all of Heisei (and that counts the ones from the battle royale seasons) is… what? No. No, I’m not seeing it.

Same thing for Sougo trying to land the episode’s themes on Team Zi-O? He’s all like We Have To Stop Sacrificing Ourselves For Each Other, but none of them were doing that? It was a pretty straight-ahead Time Mission, and most of it was with split teams. Geiz and Tsukuyomi were putting together clues, while Takumi and Sougo were doing some Time Orphan-style surveillance by just standing around Karin and talking about her lack of bathroom breaks. No one in this story on the hero side was doing anything extra sacrifice-y this episode?

That inability to tie everything together thematically, while trying VERY VERY HARD (that stupid Uncle speech about fixing radios!), sort of tanked the episode for me. Every speech a character gave rang hollow, and the two Ryusei dinks were flat as hell for me. It’s a good message, moving forward with your life and all, but it felt completely misapplied this episode.

It wasn’t a total loss, though. The action was phenomenal, especially/exclusively the Geiz/Another Faiz fight. I don’t love the Faiz Armor (the cellphone shoulder pads are a bit of a shrug, design-wise) but the fight choreography was really fun to watch. There’s a lot of lateral movement in the blocking, making the one-on-one brawl feel like a fighting game. There’s also… there’s this shot when the RIDER mark shoots onto Geiz’z mask, and the camera pulls in with it, that I really liked. Fun action photography!

And, hell, I can’t ever be too mad at an episode that tips in a bunch of goofy Faiz details: Takumi being unable to drink something hot; the dry cleaning points card; Takumi having Keitaro’s dream (!!!); Kusaka being a grim weirdo who makes everything worse, always, forever. I don’t even much care that they’re just Playing The Hits, you know? It’s probably not even as good as their emotionally-destructive reunion in the Heisei Vs Showa Taisen movie, really. (It’s hard to top Kusaka coming back from the dead specifically to tell Takumi to kill himself!) This is just Reunion Special stuff; low-impact. But I love Faiz, and I don’t care a whole lot if these guys want to just goof around for a week.

This wasn’t… it wasn’t a very good episode? The thematic stuff is trying way too hard, which means it’s not really working. The new characters are either badly-acted or badly-written. Most of it doesn’t apply to Team Zi-O, despite the first part being a lot about their weird friendship, or lack thereof. It never really coheres in a convincing way, across its multiple storylines.

But, FAIZ. I can’t be too upset!

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/zio/zio6b.png

—

KAMEN RIDER ZI-O COMPLEMENTATION PROJECT EPISODE 6.5 - “THE SECRET OF FOURZE 555”

I’m not sure which gag I liked better: that Takumi and Kusaka are collectively so untrustworthy and abrasive that Team Zi-O bails on them without even saying goodbye, or that this installment just relentless buries the Faiz Legend Riders and worships at the altar of the Fourze guys who were too busy making Bleach to guest-star in this series.

It’s great, though. Takumi and Kusaka’s increasingly thin attempts to connect Faiz and Fourze are a delight, nearly reaching the point of suggesting that cellphones send signals through space, and Fourze is a space Rider, so they’re totally connected. I could watch the two of them unconvincingly bullshit about Kamen Rider shows forever. Good bless these two lunatics.

And look at that final (cursed) image!

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/zio/ziocp6a.png

Yeah, I'll be honest I never really cared about the main plot of the Fourze & Faiz episodes when all was said and done. The first half did a good mystery but the second half was just weird. All the little nods and character moments was cool though.

But Geiz's fight against Another Faiz was really good. It was a fight I absolutely enjoyed and replayed constantly upon finishing the episode.

But yeah, next up is well... self explanatory in terms of the BGM Swaps as we're back to one for now.

Zero's Legend Episode Previews Corner - EP 7 Preview:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7uodxtXv5M

It does a good job tying together all of its loose ends -- and the dual-timeline duel is pretty great -- but it never feels like it says anything valuable about Team Zi-O. Like, even for a weird attempt at trying to compare the Faiz/Kaixa dynamic to the Zi-O/Geiz one... okay, a) don't ever compare your two Riders to them two unless they are actively trying to kill each other on a weekly basis, not just threatening it; and b) Geiz leaves in the middle of a fight to do his teamwork in a way that is socially and emotionally isolated from Sougo. It's weirdly more impersonal than it was before the Ex-Aid story, not less. This was a story that started being about Sougo needing real emotional connection and support from his captors (normal thing, totally), and then it ended on I Guess It's Cool Friends Hate Each Other.

Didn't really come together, you know?

I may or may not have turned off my brain when it came to the plot of this episodes Has it actually been four years since this episode?! Anyway, I mostly the nice sunset shot of Sougo looking by the ocean and the great fight that was Geiz's debut in the Faiz armor. Him just not looking as Another Faiz explodes is gggrrreeaaaaatttt.

I also think Geiz gets the better armors, him being red and his armors being mostly black makes his suits blend in well. I would've honestly loved a SHF of his Drive Armor. Sadly he only got the useless Genm armor.

Immediate 0/10, nobody threw the Faiz Ridewatch at anyone's head.

.......But seriously, this is probably one of my least favorite arcs in Zi-O, purely how.....disjointed it feels?

Legend Rider content... Takkun just kinda quietly follows Sougo around, piping up here and there. Which, to be fair, that's very characteristic of him, and there's cute callbacks here and there, so its not all bad. But the Ridewatch handoff was an immediate step down after Ex-Aid's kinda soured it. (More on that later) Kusaka....is it bad that I saw Another Fourze/Faiz go for his throat and immediately went "Go for it!"? It's a callback that they didn't necesarily even need to do, but it's hilarious that they went for it juuust a bit. Anyway, I know the point is that Faiz's cast are kinda standoffish and all, but the way they were used just didn't work for me.

-"The cycle of scarifice needs to end": cool theme for a MOTW story, but I can't really connect it at all with Faiz or what the Zi-O kids are going through? Like the only "sacrifice" for someone else I can think for the Zi-O kids is Sougo risking serious injury by throwing himself down the stairs, and he didn't even need to do that! The total lack of connection between either our Legend Riders and our trio makes Sougo's Big Speech fall kinda flat, and in turn Takumi's Ridewatch handoff.

-I got jumpscared by the high quality Faiz footage, and giggled at the show trying to pass off adult Takumi(his actor wouldve been 34 at the time?) as his teenage self. Not gonna lie, for a show that doesn't want to concern itself about what happens after Rider Erasure, you'd think they'd pick a scene where Takumi loses Faiz to be, idk, not one where someone's clearly in mortal danger? Like yikes I hope the Time Nonsense got somehow got Mari out of that situation!

-I think the biggest thing for me, is that....it just kinda threw any kind of themes from Fourze or Faiz it could use to connect with the Zi-O trio into the garbage can? And as someone who adores Fourze and enjoys Faiz, that kinda sucks as a tribute arc? Like it wouldve probably not been spectacular but I think if you stuck with the friendship stuff from the first half of the arc, you could've salvaged it.

So yeah, this arc didnt do it for me, as a tribute story or a Zi-O story. At least 6.5 was really good, do maybe it makes up for it?

I gotta tell ya, the Armor Time stuff just isn't doing it for me, as far as form changes go. They're fine, they look like the show/Rider they're homaging, but I really don't care about them. (I've never really been much for Legend Rider form changes, honestly? The Ghost/Ex-Aid ones, probably, but not a lot of others.) Every single Build form change was one I wanted to see as a Figuart; with Zi-O, I'm probably just going to get main Riders and that's it?

Yeah, I think we had the same experience. The plot as a whole hangs together fine as a time travel story (I sincerely love that Geiz and Zi-O have to simultaneously defeat the same villain in two different time periods), but its attempts to be About Something feel distressingly forced.

It... honestly, it's pretty much exactly like the Takumi and Kusaka stuff from the 6.5 short? Them going harder and harder on Actually Fourze And Faiz Totally Are Connected, until you just want them to stop trying so hard because they've ruined it? That's the problem with Episode 6. It really really wants to land this big Sacrifice theme, so it just keeps telling you about it until you either give in and agree or give up and tune out.

Well, for the first time, we have two episodes in a row of…

Ridewatch Playlist: Miscommunications Mix

https://youtube.com/watch?v=f4W23DnRfRc

“The transformation code is 5-5-5. The rider who transforms with a cellphone is… Faiz”

And like Ex-Aid, rather than going with the theme song, I’m going with Dead or Alive, purely because I wanted to include it. https://youtube.com/watch?v=5iLkJyNOKmc

“Start Up! Faiz has progressed to a super acceleration. Faiz, Axel Form”

And there was only one choice for this one, The People With No Name https://youtube.com/watch?v=q6Qc09XRQSA

“The ultimate crimson body. Pushed to the limits, Faiz Blaster Form”

And this time, I went with Justifaiz -Accel Mix-, ie the remix themed around Blaster Form (despite what the name implies https://youtube.com/watch?v=3nZZH_TX2qU

“The transformation code is 9-1-3. Faiz’s rival Rider is Kaixa”

And from here on out, I went for the song album for the rest of my choices, with such punny titles as Existence - KAIXA-nized Dice https://youtube.com/watch?v=tlLOJunid7M

“Consumed with the combative instinct, the dangerous Rider is Delta”

And here’s one with a slightly less nonsensical title, DELTA STRIP- White Ring https://youtube.com/watch?v=wOq49DnxjZ4

And we have a considerably smaller list of the unreleased (Faiz Axel was our 5th winner, by the way, making Faiz the only Rider to have all of his forms available as DX watches)

Kamen Rider Psyga
Kamen Rider Orga

As for the compare and contrast, Whereas Takumi’s creed was “I don’t have a dream, but maybe I can protect them”, Sakuma was sacrificing schoolgirls to preserve his girlfriend’s life, essentially destroying other people’s dreams to keep his own alive. And whereas the Ryusei students he killed would likely have trusted Sakuma due to him looking normal, the ones Takumi tried to save as the Wolf Orphnoch ran away from him because he looked like a monster. Design-wise, he has a rib cage that looks like an Orphnoch.

And as someone pointed out, besides tying in with this episode’s plot, the stereo also serves as a parallel to what everyone’s trying to do with Sougo… they’re also replacing the parts (ie changing the details of history) to create a new timeline to their liking (also the radio appeared in Faiz all those years ago).

Yeah, like I said, first 6 episodes weren't particularly good and at that time of their release I was getting quite frustrated with the show and ready to accept that it'd be an anoying year from now on.

But now we are actually entering the part of the show I legitematly like and there is only one arc in the entire show left I dread revisiting. I gotta judge a bit how much of what really drew me to Sougo I'll lay out in the enxt arc or if I should wait a bit longer. We'll see.

This is episode is one of my favorites in all of ZI-O. I love the "conncection" between Faiz and Fourze being a Ryusei. It so silly and desperate but also clever from the writing I can't help but love it. The tone of the episode I feel is appropriate for a Faiz themed episode very melodramatic snd filled with angst to contrast how the Fourze tribute had a more cheery outlook in compairson.

https://brendenraysblogs.files.wordp...d26.png?w=1024

But this right here is why I fell in love with ZI-O on the spot this scene to me speaks so much about Sougo and Geiz. Two different individuals across two different timelines declaring the same desires to stop a tragedy 15 years in the making. It speaks how at the end of the day these aren't so different but at the same time there not thwre to hear it from each other. And all of it was possible with Sougo giving the Faiz Ridewatch to Geiz so he can go to 2003 for this to all begin. And in this moment of great action, use of music (Over Quartzer is very hype song to me) and how badass Faiz Armor and it (accurate) finsiher from Geiz all makes for scene that made me go 100% on board from ZI-O till the very end.

A lot of that stuff just feels real thin to me, though? I appreciate your ability to draw out parallels, but none of it feels like anything the show is commenting on or highlighting. Like a lot of the problems with this episode's inability to cohere its themes, we're really getting into some Fourze's Middle Syllable Is Coincidentally "King" territory. Even that Stereo speech is weirdly belabored, and not exactly emotionally relevant to Team Zi-O.

I don't think you're wrong to find those parallels (I think it's neat!), but I don't think it's something that the episode is leveraging at all.

That's great! I'm psyched to see how this show evolves its storytelling.

It's a really great climax to the episode, for sure. I love the idea of Zi-O and Geiz fighting separately for one goal. I, uh, would've loved it better in a story that better supported it thematically, like maybe Ex-Aid's?

Pretty much. Our Sougo and Oma Sougo at this point in time would be pretty similar, with Geiz's and Tsukuyomi's arrival being the variable. The tragedy is that while Sougo was born to be king, any events that occur before his coronation are up to destiny. In the Oma timeline, his only way to become a king was to become an evil overlord. It can't even be called bittersweet for how much he loses to obtain his dream. Regarding the offer, yeah, it's nice but too incredulous to take seriously, since the gamer dude's employment hinges on the remote possibility of some random guy he just met becoming a king. Better to keep his options open.

I actually think Takumi's and Kusaka's reunion in this arc is a lot more meaningful than mere fanservice. Like Takumi's line, "I hate you sometimes, Kusaka, but you're my friend!", you joked about it, but it shows that Takumi no longer holds any hard feelings towards him for everything he did. It fits with his philosophy in Kamen Rider 4, about living by your own means and dying with pride. He wants to stop Kusaka from throwing away his life the same way he used to.

Fourze also has a cellphone!

https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/4mEAA...7yC/s-l640.jpg

Yay, friendship!

Even though I prefer Zi-O's black suit on its own, I agree that Armor Times generally look better on Geiz's red suit. He also has the most Armor Times at the start, which I think highlights Zi-O's growing power as the tables start to turn and Geiz becomes more desperate to prevent the Day of Oma.

The whole concept of defeating an enemy in the past to make them vulnerable in the future reminds me of certain boss fights from Final Fantasy XIII-2, so this is probably the first arc where I'm not complaining about how everything is so convoluted. I agree that this is definitely an establishing moment for Zi-O's story at this point and Geiz's epic speech to Ora is the first sign that he's more heroic than he appears on the surface. Over Quartzer makes it even more memorable, especially since I don't recall any other episodes using it as an insert, which is crazy, like, why only do it once?! I even manually inserted it in some later fight scenes to compensate.

While I felt this episode was a tad bit weaker than the previous ones, I'm mostly with GrandComplete on this one. Heck, this moment alone justfaized the entire episode for me:

https://i.imgur.com/F9X5fob.png

As for who I felt the best character in Faiz itself was, well...

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

Yuji Kiba, or as I liked to call him, the real main character of Faiz.

I was drawn into Yuji and his story right from the getgo. One theme in stories that I'm a huge sucker for is Duality, and Faiz had that in spades in its early days, instantly making me really into it for the first two acts. Yuji being a main protagonist while also being the "bad guy" in that he was the Horse Orphenoch was a great hook, and I really dug his arc on trying to hang onto his humanity despite almost everything in the world telling him not to, even going so far as try and bring peace and unity to both sides.

Add onto that the wonderful interplay he had with both Takumi and Faiz; Being a couple as Yuji and Takumi(they were so into eachother, don't even try to tell me otherwise), yet fierce enemies as the Horse Orphenoch and Kamen Rider Faiz... it made for some really great stuff!

...And then the third act of the show hit and undid all of that great atmosphere and character development onto of adding on a "moral" that the idea of peace and unity is for suckers and that true peace can only be brought about via the complete annihilation of the opposing side, to the point that Yuji goes crazy for very little reason and I was just so completely done with Faiz at that point.

Despite my personal hang ups with the third act of Faiz though, Yuji is a character I'll continue to look back on fondly for those first two acts. Wonderful stuff.

Oh, sure, and it's also letting Sougo see that Geiz can hate him but still be his friend, so Sougo gives him the Faiz RideWatch. (I don't... god, I don't know if Geiz or Sougo should look to the Faiz Riders for a template on friendship! I feel incredibly uneasy about Sougo and Geiz learning lessons about friendship from these two 30-something weirdos!) I don't know that it improves upon Kamen Rider 4, or pushes its themes/messages forward, but it's nice to see the lesson stuck with Takumi.

One of the things I sort of disliked about this Faiz-centric episode is that, with Yuji's actor no longer with us, we get these recurring Takumi/Kusaka stories, and they just feel a little shoehorned? Like, Takumi and Kusaka didn't have a great, emotional character arc; Takumi and Yuji did. Doing these stories where Takumi and Kusaka have a hilariously mean-spirited frenemy relationship is fun, sure, but in a perfect world we'd be dealing with Yuji's love for Takumi and vice versa.

I will always enjoy seeing Kusaka again, but I'm not as thrilled about them trying to draw him and Takumi closer together.

I get that. For me though, I was willing to roll with it mostly just due to the whole "alternate timelime" deal Zi-O is going with in these stories. Had this been the Takumi and Kusaka of the "main" universe of Faiz, then yeah, I'd call foul. But as a simple and fun what-if take? I enjoyed it.

I guess Takumi's and Kusaka's toxic template on friendship is the only one comparable to Sougo's and Geiz's dynamic. It's smart how this isn't just a pure Fourze arc cause that probably wouldn't have worked at this point in the story, where the two Riders are still a long way from being anything resembling friends. By using the Smart Brain Riders as an example that friendships aren't always friendly, it might give Sougo some hope that maybe Geiz will start to see him for who he is and forgive him for the sins of his future self. This is one of several ways that Geiz is like Ren, telling himself, "I need to kill this man", but his conscience usually keeps him from going too far.

Oh, I mean, I enjoyed it: it's Kusaka and Takumi immediately brawling enough for a suspect to get away! What is there not to like?

I guess that's one of my problems? That it's more of a Ren equivalency -- I Have To Kill A Sweet Person And I'm Conflicted About It -- than a Kusaka equivalency? Kusaka isn't pissed off at Takumi (historically) because Takumi is an Orphnoch or because Kusaka is a pragmatic hero; it's because Kusaka is controlling sociopath who resents anyone who tries to puncture holes in his bubble of self-delusion. That's not even a little what Geiz and Sougo's relationship is like?

KAMEN RIDER ZI-O EPISODE 7 - “MAGIC SHOWTIME 2018”

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/zio/zio7a.png

I think this is the first episode with zero Legend appearances?

It’s not a deal-breaker or anything, since it lets the show devote more time to the (incredibly unhealthy!) Geiz/Sougo “friendship”, but it’s still weird. This is the most Decade-ish story this show has done, with the specificity of previous episodes tossed aside in favor of a more generic Magic Monster story.

There’s definitely some Wizard themes at play, but they’re a lot more subtle than I’d like. Hopelessness is the main emotion of the Another Wizard host, Hayase. He’s desperate to cling to some sense of stability, rather than try and reinvent himself. His world is moving on without him, and his need to keep everything the same has him spinning out of control.

It’s the same thing for Geiz this episode, and his relationship with Sougo. Everything’s more difficult for Geiz, because things aren’t how they first appeared. Sougo isn’t a despicable despot, he’s Kamen Rider Puppy Dog. Geiz’z plan was to be a grim executioner to Oma Zi-O, not his teammate and bestie. Geiz needs things to be black and white, and the pressure to fit things into neat boxes is causing him to be even more headstrong and violent than usual.

That tension between Geiz and Sougo is the main thing this episode has to offer. There’s nothing in the way of Legend appearances, and the Time Mission is sort of bland. (The show’s really having a tough time sketching out its one-story characters in a compelling way? They don’t really pop, you know? Adequate at moving the story along, but pretty two-dimensional.) While it’s fun to see how differently Sougo and Geiz approach an investigation – Sougo and Tsukuyomi talk to people and put together clues, Geiz runs around Tokyo until he just runs into a monster, which is actually SUPER Wizard – we’re not really in a tricky storyline or anything. It’s a bit wide-open, probably so we can start to resolve/progress the relationship of Geiz and Sougo.

Which… it’s an incredibly weird relationship! Sougo and Tsukuyomi make a lot of sense as teammates and friends. She’s empathetic and hopeful, which complements his worldview perfectly. With Geiz and Sougo, it’s way more dysfunctional. Geiz is specifically there to guard all of time against Sougo’s potential ambitions. The second Sougo starts to turn evil (by whatever personal scale Geiz uses), Geiz is going to murder him, because Sougo will eventually rob Geiz of everything he cares about. This is the backbone of their relationship. This is the foundation of their “friendship”: Geiz being both jailer and victim.

It makes Sougo’s cheerful optimism and ingratiating camaraderie into something a lot sadder, and worrisome. This isn’t Sougo taking a grumpy teammate and trying to get him to turn that frown upside-down. This is Sougo asking his executioner why they never just talk. It’s totally normal for Geiz to be weirded out by it! I’m only watching the show, and I’m mostly weirded out by it.

I think it works for Sougo’s character to not understand why he and Geiz can’t be friends, though. There’s an obliviousness to Sougo’s character that vacillates between Troubling and Adorable, and it’s way more on the Adorable end of the spectrum this episode. Like, Sougo and Geiz are teammates, and they can be friends. Geiz’z insistence on making things easy for himself by being intractable and stubborn is a defense mechanism, and Sougo’s right to keep pushing back against it. Much like Hayase's frustrating need to cling onto a theater no one else wants anymore, Geiz would rather vilify Sougo forever than open himself up to the possibility that Sougo is redeemable. It’s hard to risk that certainty, even if it makes you sadder and angrier to keep it.

It’s tough to have hope.

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/zio/zio7b.png

—

KAMEN RIDER ZI-O COMPLEMENTATION PROJECT EPISODE 7.5 - “WHO IS THE WORST EXPLOITER”

While I feel for these kids (a whole day for Geiz to film a three second reaction shot that got cut!!!), I didn’t see a single bit of unused footage that would’ve made the episodes better. (The Uncle gag was fine, but it worked against the scene a little.) They can get mad at the directors all they want for wasting time, but they should thank the editors for dropping so many unnecessary shots. Like, yeah, you 100% cut the twenty seconds of Sougo navigating his bike down a flight of stairs. That’s a boring, pointless shot! Get rid of it!

All that said, I love how much real passion Tsukuyomi and Sougo bring to their aggrieved depression. That is some lived experience right there! Method acting!

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/zio/ziocp7a.png

The beginning of the Wizard arc is so different from what we've gotten since it 99% ZI-O story with a 2 second cameo to hype up next week. And I like it just seeing cast sit down try to have a fun day all the while Woz is being creepy and cryptic. There still a dressing of a Wizard story but it honestly feel like a ZI-O stpry which isn't a bad thing at all.

Yeah, it's mostly what I'm here for? Seeing a Good Despot and two Time Orphans navigate their fraught relationship and try and become emotionally healthy adults? At least for a story every now and then.

Man, it's gonna be hard to keep my Sougo opinions at bay till at least episode 8 right now, especially since you are simultanious correct about Sougo and oh so incredibly wrong about him at the same time, as the show currently intens you to be I might add.

Your review on 8 will be very, very interesting for me given it was my turning point for the show and how I felt about it!

I'm looking forward to it! Sougo's been a weird character to pin down, so any direction the show goes in with him could be really entertaining.

Episode 7, please!

- I think this is the first episode where they occasionally start dialing the tribute stuff back in order to focus on what our main cast is doing? And I love Wizard, I really do, but I think this was a good decision for this one?

-Woz! I think the scene with him and Geiz is one of my favorites in the show? It establishes their dynamic and history so well. I think it's funny that he's On Edge about what befriending Tsukuyomi and Geiz could do to Sougo, yet still opened up with "Hey so like the overlord's taken a liking to you, maybe it's time we reconcile, be on the same page?" At least Sougo can't say he didn't try lol!

-Geiz is really raring to go this episode, huh. He's in peak "Not Here to Make Friends" mode! There's definitely a real impatience he has in this episode: Sougo is so Frustratingly Nice and Kind! He's invited them to a fun magic show!........but that's really mucking up the whole "Kill Oma-Zio to bring peace to the future" thing, yknow? It really says a lot about Geiz where his response to Sougo is to get more aggressive and divert his frustration onto something else (beating the shit out of that Another Rider), instead of maybe letting his walls down juuuuuust a bit?

-Oh this might be a reach, but I love we're doing the "Geiz and Sougo have different ideas of how to handle the MOTW" in the Wizard arc? Yknow, Wizard's whole thing being that he protects people and their hopes first and foremost, so that they don't go off the deep end and give birth to a monster? And in contrast, Geiz's actions just push Hayase further down in a spiral of paranoia instead of actually helping? It really makes that "You're not worthy of the power of a Rider" line feel a bit ironic to me, lol.

Ha ha, yeah, Geiz is really in a Phantom mode in this episode, isn't he? Dude is all about humiliating and terrorizing some guy until he becomes the villain Geiz needs him to be. Good catch!

Here we are, twice in one day (from my perspective):

Ridewatch Playlist - I can’t believe it’s not Magiranger mix

https://youtube.com/watch?v=q8g5hHdL_XY

“With the magical rings, it’s showtime. The jewelled Rider is… Wizard”

And we’re giving him his theme song this time, Life is SHOW TIME https://youtube.com/watch?v=VSAT4U8Vj7Q

“4 elements become 1. Wizard All Dragon”

Surprisingly, they actually made a song for this form, Alteration https://youtube.com/watch?v=HojyO8aX5mU

“The magical stone that shines forever. The seriously amazing magician, Wizard Infinity Style”

And I’m being boring with the descriptions this time, because I can’t think of what to say. Here’s Missing Piece https://youtube.com/watch?v=WYv3zNHFvG0

“Fighting with the power of beasts, the golden lion Rider is Beast”

First time I’d heard of this song, BEASTBITE https://youtube.com/watch?v=OTuS0Usr0fo

“The time has come to awaken the blue lion, Beast Hyper”

And now, the list of the unreleased (no winners this time)

Kamen Rider Wizard (Water Style)
Kamen Rider Wizard (Hurricane Style)
Kamen Rider Wizard (Land Style)
Kamen Rider Wizard (Flame Dragon)
Kamen Rider Wizard (Water Dragon)
Kamen Rider Wizard (Hurricane Dragon)
Kamen Rider Wizard (Land Dragon)
Kamen Rider Wizard (Special Rush)
Kamen Rider Wizard (Infinity Dragon)
Kamen Rider Wizard (Infinity Dragon Gold)
White Mage (Wiseman)
Kamen Rider Sorcerer
Kamen Rider Mage (Amber)
Kamen Rider Mage (Blue)
Kamen Rider Mage (Green)

As for the compare and contrast, you’ve already pointed out how Hayase falls into despair easily, but I’ll also point out that he’s misusing his magic for personal gain, contrasting with Haruto using it to bring hope to people (and also, his “belt voices” exclude the “please” at the end). His monster form is basically “What if Dragon managed to send Haruto into despair successfully and taken over his body”, with some cracks on his face reminiscent of a Gate.

As for the episode, the show about Gates gets homages with focus on Geiz. Given that Toei studio has been blown up and the screenwriters have cut Sougo out, someone has to take over.

Episode 6 kind of broke my heart. I was never a big fan of combining two tributes into one two-parter (not the show's most controversial move for me, but we'll get there), but when you can't get any of the cast from a show, what else can you do (we'll come back to that, too)? Besides, I figured that some sacrifices in screen time for Takumi and Kusaka would still be worth it when we got to see them pull out their Gear and get into the action alongside Sougo/Zi-O and Geiz/Also Geiz. I've never hid my love of the Kaixa suit, so getting to see that in action again was going to be a huge thrill for me.

And then it never happened. Takumi never got to even touch the Faiz Ridewatch, much less use it to get his powers back. Kusaka didn't even get a vanity watch like Banjou's that did nothing but disappear forever after one scene. They just leave, pausing only to swing by the .5 episode on their way out. The idea that the show was going to do something like this, bring back old characters but not letting them get in on the action, really bummed me out. It may be shallow, but even by this point there was one main draw for me with this show and it wasn't the new characters. This episode, along with the whole "Riders were erased from history, but we're cool with that" nature of the Ridewatches are big factors in why I started getting such a negative view of Zi-O from pretty early on.