Kamen Rider Zi-O Episode 24- "Best Friend 2121!" Discussion
 

The mysterious hero from the future, Kamen Rider Kikai, may hold the key to victory against the TimeJackers. Can Sougo and team prevail in this fight?

This was a fun episode. :D
It was nice to see Sougo get slapped by Kikai. Sougo's outfit is really nice so far- the jacket with the dress clothes. I especially liked his episode 16 outfit with that robe.

And the thought of Sougo's finishers actively causing the mechanoids to explode, as opposed to Kikai simply shutting them down, is chilling.

Tsukuyomi seems like she's pulling a face-heel turn, having her suspicions about Sougo now that he's got Zi-O II.

I'll agree that rewinding time to not kill Tsukuyomi was a bit of a downpour on those who want the Time Jackers to become a legit threat, but I don't mind. Kinda. Keeps us on our toes.
But I do wonder if there will be a situation that always turns out the same no matter what Sougo does, no matter how many resets he does, it's all the same...

Also,"BE THE BFF" is the best password ever. :P

Interesting reveal. So Sougo isn't simply dreaming about these future Riders, he is creating the future in his sleep.

The Tsukuyomi death reversal was an unexpected scene. I was honestly surprised when it happened.

Great action, Quiz Kikai is pretty cool and I loved the triple henshin. Looks like the status quo is shifting even further. Tsukuyomi is becoming antagonistic, Geiz is being roped into becoming Revive against his will and the drama between the Time Jacker's is growing steadily.

Interesting to hear from Sougo's Uncle that Sougo didn't have many friends when he was younger because of his odd dream... Makes him more relatable in a way, and the scene where Geiz and Tsukuyomi walk away from him all the more lonely.

Exciting turn of events next episode with Another Zi-O.

Tsukuyomi's heel-face-turn is just...bleh. There's nothing about her in the beginning that would justify her sudden antagonism, she even helped him run away from Geiz!

And now she's more determined than Geiz to put a stoup to Sougo? What gives?

Haven't watched this episode yet, but, yeah, Tsukuyomi being all antagonistic because Sougo accepted the dark part that was inside him is completely stupid.

That only proves that Sougo is human and knows the risk!
Sougo always knew and that's why he told them that he counted on him to make him be a good Overlord.

When Sougo re-accepted his belt, he practically screamed at Geiz to step up and be his equal and stop him if he turns evil.

That is amazing self-awareness and humility there.

Exactly that, so it makes no sense for Tsukuyomi to be against Sougo.
At the very least, Geiz is a little bit less antagonistic...

It gives her an actual role. Previously she lacked any means of being plot relevant due to being unable to help Zi-O. Her role as a person from the future was already taken by Geiz, who although somewhat antagonistic still hanged around with Zi-O. She was just "there".

She was for Sogo, but due to being so separate from the action, and lacking any special unique connections to the plot, she was sidelined most of the time and didn't get most of the bonding moments that Geiz got, which made her connection fairly superficial. So, when presented with Sogo now having time powers like Oma Zi-O, she flipped around due to how superficial her position was in the first place.

The thing is, there's a different between her getting an actual role and character consistency. For the majority of the series, she's been adamant that Sougo can change and not be Oma Zi-O. Episode 22 gave her doubts cos of Zi-O II, a power Oma Zi-O has. But apart from that, there wasn't particularly any lead ups to her being on the "Kill Sougo" team now. Sure she now has a bigger role to play in the series but it came out of left field. I do think White Woz had something to do with it with his book.

I don't think it's White Woz's book (although I'd be willing to buy it as the explanation if they revealed that it was White Woz's doing)

To me Tsukiyomi's current behavior and saying "he had the potential to be Oma Zi-O all along" feels most like the "naive kid raising the wild animal" situation:

She went back to 2018 thinking if she just teaches Sougo that enslaving people is bad, he might completely change and the nightmarish future goes away. Only for him to turn into Zi-O II despite all her efforts.

Now replace that with "Girl finds baby mountain lion while hiking, adopts it, brings it back home, and raises it. Only for it grow to up and violently maul a burglar to death."

And you get the exact same result. Tsukiyomi/the girl is now realizing that even if Sougo/the mountain lion grows up into a morally upstanding guy/animal, his time powers/fangs and claws make him way too dangerous to be left alive/in the city, and she's freaking the f$&k out.

Futuring Kikai being able to control innocent people into doing Woz's bidding is amazing. Of course nobody other than him would use a power like that, and I genuinely love that he still counts as a 'good guy' trying to save the world from the evil Zi-O. (Yeah I know some people are thinking that isn't actually the case, but as of right now I still don't have any doubts his future isn't exactly as he said it was.)

Puppeteer Dopant from Kamen Rider W Series also have ability to control people just like Woz Futuring Kikai....

I meant none of our other riders would do that because they're not shady jerks like Woz is.

Hey everyone, guess what time it is.

https://i.imgur.com/LdETjU8.jpg

Time for Woz's beauty sleep. As far as I know he doesn't have any exams to study for, so let's just give him some peace and quiet, okay?

This episode was another huge win for me. Zi-O is knocking it out of the park as far as its twists and turns are concerned lately, and I can't get enough of it. Once again, the more standalone aspect of the story (Kikai) is tied flawlessly into the ongoing plot, with the revelation at the end being particularly impressive. Sougo was great here and his interactions with Geiz gave me some awesome Gaim and Baron vibes with how they clearly have this strong mutual trust even though they're frenemies at best. For the most part I'm loving all the other characters again too.

Well, Lame!Woz is still a total question mark, but this episode has me a in a good enough mood to play the apologist and say Tsukuyomi's current trajectory is working. Just barely, mind you, but they did a better job here showing her thought process, and how her actions right now are primarily motivated by the fear of the bordeline omnipotence Sougo is reaching rather than any change in his personality. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, after all. I still don't like her all that much, but accusing the show of bad writing for this change is totally unfair in my book. To say she's pulled a complete 180 also shows a bit of a refusal to see any nuance in the situation. I mean, what are you guys always complaining about Geiz for again? It's possible to have conflicting feelings on things, and it seems clear to me Tsukuyomi's whole problem is that she doesn't know what to believe anymore.

At least right now, everything that's happened with her has been reasonably justified. Sougo has made ripping the timestream a new one into a regular hobby at this point, and while it's easy to sit here as a viewer, secure in the knowledge that he's literally the hero of the TV show he stars in, I think it's pretty understandable why seeing all this would freak someone out a bit even if they knew him personally. This episode's ending even suggests Sougo accidentally dreamed the entire problem of the last half dozen episodes or so into existence, which lends credence to the idea that this is no longer a question of his character.

Loved the episode, and Hora has fully put herself in the FUCK YOU role, Uhr is likely seeing that his so called allies are flat out assholes that will kill or permanently control him as a slave with zero issues, I do wonder how that will go.

Meanwhile, I am still very sure White Woz is manipulating the situation with his book, it can do push the future towards a certain spot so writing anything that would effect a persons mental state or views if it is a minor push is likely possible, but we will see, the fact he uses innocent people to attack with, likely getting them hurt in the process (( I assume anyways )) does not exactly give him the moral high ground in this war of the throne situation.

I still say White Woz will likely be murdered by either the heroes, or by someone else, and Black Woz will inherit the driver, though them becoming one entity is still a possible option.

Overall the season is not perfect, but there is a lot to like about it I would say.

I can see Uhr as the buttmonkey pulling out a Tranza revenge in the future.

So Sougo create the future from his dream ? The password swap was a weird thing. I think the password from Sougo always indeed 'King' but from Kikai perspective it was 'BFF', as Kikai came from Sougo subconscious. Anyway that's again another busted ability in the show.

Man, Woz and I have the same reaction when a new episode of Zi-O starts.