Don't forget these beautiful renditions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfiK3HWTXU8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koI277qPZBI

Glad to see people are finally on the same page as me when it comes to this show’s soundtrack being nothing but remixes.

Anyway, the first major takeaway from this episode was “Imagine if Ryotaro transformed with Deneb”*. The second involves the fact that Yuto was initially “still dead” because “Ryotaro didn’t know him at the age where he died”. That’ll be important later.

Kai’s two flunkeys for this episode are voiced by the VAs for Ura and Ryu, pulling double duty.

Despite what it looks like, the red card Yuto has to use now (I really hate this show’s habits of effectively replacing past forms with new ones) is NOT a repaint of his regular green cards. Namely, it can’t be turned around to give a different form.

* Speaking of hypothesis, remover that question you asked in the last thread? About “moments you want to disavow from canon because you hate them so much”? I’ve finally found my answer to that question.

Oh, this is basically the philosophical Trolley Problem isn't it? Kai thinks it's okay to sacrifice Yuto's life since it improves the lives of so many others? Well, that's logical, if you count lives as merely quantitative data. But I agree with Ryoutarou's perspective here. Even if it makes a hundred lives better, it's wrong to make someone else suffer for that goal. That's not what a Kamen Rider does. Life is invaluable so any attempt to justify sacrificing others for the "greater good" is placing an arbitrary value on it and contrary to the principles of being a Kamen Rider. Yuto can be an ***hole sometimes but he has the same right to exist as anybody else and a world without him, regardless of how objectively better it is, wouldn't be right.

Yeah, Zeronos memory stuff somehow finds a way to make even less sense than it already did. Yuto just keeps pulling these memories out of his a** to make the cards and now he's all rusty which I think is maybe supposed to represent sepia, the filter used for flashbacks to show that it's related to memory. It's definitely a weird way for a Rider to get a new form and it's difficult to get invested in that plot or relate to Yuto's problem when all of the stakes are so vague and confusing. But sure, at least the scene looked pretty and appropriately depressing, I guess. It does what a new form episode is supposed to do, although I still prefer his default Altair Form.

0_0

I'm going to have to disagree with you here. Sure, the Imagins aren't super talented singers but I love it anyway. I think there's a strong feeling to hearing them sing the theme so passionately which makes it awesome to me. In the full version, Ryutaros even gets his own rap solo!

Thanks. Will watch.

Yeah, the fact that Cosmic Rust Form transforms Deneb into a gun (who can't give out candy or change back right away!) pretty much precludes, like, Emotionally Scoured Vega Form, with Commiserating Shoulder Guns or whatever. There's always the hope that SIC will surprise us with a design! It would probably be hilariously tragic!

It's such a delight that, for Kai's philosophical discussion, he picked the absolute best example of how the world can be approved without someone in it (Yuuto, a person that no one but Deneb wants to get along with), but he applied that argument to literally the least receptive audience in Ryotaro. It moves the argument from Right And Wrong to Is Anyone Being Harmed. It really clarifies the difference between Yuuto's horrifying pragmatism and Ryotaro's hardfought optimism.

While I'm okay with the idea of the Imagin singing along in principle, the execution here just felt off-putting to me. The instrumentation's change to a more aggressive, Rocking arrangement pretty much soured me on the whole experience, and the goofiness of the contributing Imagin was the extra twist of the knife.

Oh man, I completely forgot that the show did a remix of the theme song. Probably a repressed memory, considering how very not good it is.

Also not a big fan of Zero form. Not as a concept; it actually leads to a good story that is the last specific plot I clearly remember from the series. I really dislike the aesthetics, though. I know it's just a red version of Altair form, but I like the green and gold version a lot more.

I honestly didn't think the second version of the song is that bad. The first version is unquestionably better, though.

Rusted to be exact but yes, a shame it was pretty much a color palette swap. It would have been great if they gave him some different threads or at the least minor extra armor. They could have given us something where he retained the Altair form head and had bits of the Vega form armor added to it. A missed opportunity indeed.

I don't really have any particular preference between Altair and Zero, but I really love how Zero Form, despite being a simple recolor at a glance, actually has a rougher texture all over the armor to make it look that much more like gross rusted metal.

And as for Climax Jump DEN-LINER form, I will say that I did grow an appreciation for it when listened to on its own; it's the very specific context of being used for the show's opening that I actively dislike it in.

And understandable considering the show probably was starting to wrap up. And I was fine with it but after seeing Switchblade's comment it got me thinking too bad the suit did not have some extra flare cause budget probably was drying up by then.

Yeah, on an aesthetic level, I prefer Altair. Agreed on that. (Vega has them both beat, but that's not this discussion.)

But, narratively... I like that they're doing very different things? The green and gold has a more soothing feel to it, where Zerenos's appearance in a fight feels like a saving grace. Zero Form (yes?) definitely has the opposite effect; things feel more chaotic, more reckless, This Just Got Personal but as clothes.

That's always my preference for at least one Rider's power-up, having it feel both more powerful and intensely regrettable. Build Hazard is (and always will be) the high watermark for an enhanced form that represents a philosophical failure in the user. So the way Zero uses its red, uses the iconography of corruption and instability, I like that a lot.

I just think the green and gold is prettier. Not rushing out to buy a Zero Form figure!