Kamen Rider Zi-O Episode 34- "Heisei's Oni, Reiwa's Oni 2019!" Discussion
 

A new era dawns as Sougo seeks the powers of Kamen Rider Hibiki.

I can't fucking believe Kiriya is the first Reiwa rider

He was already an oni so really, it would be a form change at best.

Would that not be Kamen Rider Brain though ?

Edit:

AH NO ! He was the last Heisei rider, my mistake. For some reason I believed it aired after Heisei ended.

Another awesome episode. Zi-O has been on a roll.

No, it's not as good as the Agito tribute. They had everything lined up for that one. But based on the actors they could get back, they did a hell of a job with Hibiki as well.

We got our first heart-to-heart between tertiary Rider's with Woz and Todoroki and it was fantastic. Woz's "training" as his apprentice is hilarious and I love how Todoroki mentioning Zanki and how important just being around him was helps Woz find his motivation to celebrate Sougo's birthday. I feel from the dialogue that Zanki was the reason Todoroki wouldn't have an apprentice, but by the end he seems ready to move on and begin looking for one. Aside from that, it's nice that he finally accepts Kiriya after seeing his determination and later we even get a reference to Hinaka, implying that they finally ended up together (and I suppose that's the only way to do it, since the actress unfortunately passed away; RIP Miyuki Kanbe).

As for Kiriya, he got his redemption of sorts. We see him being a stuck-up dick at first, but through Sougo he remembers that even in failure, he found joy in teaching Tsutomu, who looked up to him. With that motivation, he manages to become Kamen Rider Hibiki via the RideWatch.

Where did the Hibiki RideWatch even come from? Good question. Doesn't really matter, the way these MacGuffin's work makes little sense at this point. What's important is we got to see the original Hibiki suit in action, using his finisher in modern CG with "Kagayaki" playing in the background. That's two-for-two returning insert themes. I hope this trend continues onto Kiva's tribute and beyond. Woz and Geiz getting turned into watches while untransformed was hilarious.

A big theme in Hibiki was finding your own way, and Kiriya was stuck trying to be just like Hibiki and failing miserably. But by taking Tsutomu as his disciple, he found his own "beat". So he passes on the power of Hibiki, instead vowing to forge his own path. There is finally character growth for this disliked character and I do think it's redemptive. He failed where Asumu succeeded and now, 14 years later, he has realized what it means to be like Hibiki-san.

What I like the most about this is, much like the Fourze tribute, it's a fantastic format that respects the original show even without the principle actors. So props to the writers for respecting the source material.

Sougo celebrating his birthday was appropriately bombastic, ending the episode off on a joyous note. We get to see our next legend through a cool splash of Kiva hanging upside down by a full Moon, broken chains dangling around him. Missed that imagery.

Kind of wanted hibiki to return as a suit to save kiriha in silent and just pass on his rise watch offscreen care freely. Kiriya gotten so much hate for stealing asumi's limelight in second half and double down on that near finale when asumu won't be getting his henshin like hbv. Looks like drive, kabuto, and kiva won't be getting their lead back as well. Deno? Zeronos naomi might not come back considering grease/otoya and garu/todo. It'll be confusing

Subs out. I feel like the earlier tribute were so disrespectful to lore of each series while now it's trying too hard to push cinematic universe. So, is hibiki dead or there's two now? Hibiki offscreen Gave him his powers? he will continue training to be his own hibiki? Secondary and supporting riders and even Showa riders doesn't matter. Woz like Dan became a butt joke and a running gag now. The teacher and disciple scenes at end was nice and all, but within two episodes there's barely any flashback or encounters that carries a decent conversation between two. We suddenly bring in another zio and then another friend of sougo. It would be odd that the two that supports eachother haven't seen eachother for a decade. The series so far really haven't really in depth touched upon the epicness or the tone of the opening and series sypnosis. Tsukiyomi finally gain some op powers like misora, but it's still background character running around pointlessly and acting suprise during battles. Honestly, the hyped forever movie wasnt that good compares to last year as well. I'm curious how they'll finish the tributes and tied in with the rest of the series and the summer movie. Kiva, drive, kabuto, and deno left. The speed and time riders. Are singularity point relevance again. Now we established this series is using a paradox or loop and not multiverse or dbz avenger time travel rules, it's hard to imagined how Showa rider is recon and the same with villains and secondary riders. So much merchandise priorities. The show keep contradicting itself in so many ways. Now inoue is coming back to write an arc. Yikes for how the series will end. Having nearly every Heisei main riders back is nice and all, but the execution and believably is Low.

As is to be expected, haven't watched Hibiki so there was a lot I didn't really get.

That said, it was a reasonably enjoyable episode. Might have worked a bit better if original Hibiki was actually there.

What seems to be the case is that the Ridewatch will automatically 'pick up' the power of a Rider, so once he became worthy it suddenly became a Hibiki watch. I genuinely don't remember if they gave him a blank watch or not but they have canonically done that off-screen a few times. Though that in turn raises the question of why it didn't just turn into a Kyoki watch.

He will train to be a great oni, like Hibiki, but he won't be Hibiki.

Hibiki's status was kind of odd though. It sounded like he was either retired or even dead, but they never outright said anything.

Nah, this was something specific to these episodes and he was back to normal by the end. There's nothing "running" about it.

The issue is that this arc had much lower stakes in general. Sogo was initially going out of his way to keep the Another Rider around even since he wanted to know more about the situation. It's not like they needed help to beat the Another Rider.

We've seen many secondary Riders though? Showa Riders haven't appeared, but it's a Heisei anniversary... You're talking like Zi-O is the first time we're seeing all Riders in the same Earth when all crossovers after Decade have done that, including tv series episodes, like the videos shown in the beginning of Fourze, and even Decade only confirmed a multiverse for its new AU Riders. It never really explained what was up with the original ones.

To be honest, I really doubt we will have any Showa Riders in Zi-O series.

Since beginning, Zi-O series are more prioritize for Heisei Era Anniversary.

And I getting bored to any Showa Riders and Showa Villains in some movies because that's become repetitive and boring.......

Hey everyone, guess what time it is!

https://i.imgur.com/woZ9OuH.jpg

Probably time for me to preemptively apologize to Switchblade for the blasphemy I'm about to commit to writing, but these episodes were fantastic.

It's actually the perfect way to follow up the Agito arc. Instead of bombastic action, we get a really introspective, character driven story that's a lot more quiet. Perfectly befitting Hibiki, of course, and that's even before mentioning what the plot is actually about. Hibiki was a drama about masters and students and that's exactly what we got here.

I can't believe I'm saying this, but having Kiriya be the one in the spotlight was a great choice. He's a walking symbol for everything that went wrong with Hibiki back in the day, so Zi-O gets my respect for tackling that head on and having the guts to try and redeem his character in a way that completely gels with his original portrayal. I have to imagine if a lot of fans were given the chance to write this arc, the only role Kiriya would've had would be an offhand mention of him dying horribly offscreen, and as fun as that could be, I find it's infinitely more satisfying seeing an unpopular character made into something more worthwhile than to see them thrown out like garbage. He even specifically gives up being Hibiki after the one time (and as Xtreme RX points out, it's great how true that is to Hibiki's message), so just relax, okay? Let the guy have his break. It's not his fault he was being written by Toshiki Inoue.

Todoroki's presence was, of course, very welcome to begin with, and despite not doing much but sitting around talking, he's also used to great effect. Which I figure is a decent enough segue into talking about the actual Zi-O characters. Woz's plotline here was awesome. Woz has always been strangely adorable, but these episodes took it to the next level. It also stuck out to me how Sougo goes out of his way to set him and Todoroki up despite not fully grasping what Woz is even worried about. Between that and how he talks to Tsukuyomi towards the end of the Agito episodes, it's occurred to me that Sougo actually is exactly the good friend the show's made him out to be before. Like he's pretty much constantly doing stuff like this. It's no wonder Geiz gave up on the whole "I'll totally kill you" thing. Besides, if Sougo dies, who's going to have hilarious reactions to all the comedy bits in this show? Toei would have to go back to putting overdone sound effects over everything to tell us what's funny, and frankly, that's not a future I want to see.

But yeah, Hibiki's an extremely special show to the point I'm not sure anything Zi-O could've done would do it justice, so it's impressive how satisfied I find myself with these episodes. And Kagayaki played for a bit, so even if it wasn't a new remix or anything, I did more or less get my wish to hear Toshihiko Sahashi's old soundtracks mixed in with the new stuff.

It's probably too much to ask for a full-on Tetra-Fang reunion next week, though, isn't it? At least play Supernova? Pretty please?

They played the opening theme. And even honored a character whose actress have passed away a decade ago. This is how they should have done the tributes.

I hope they will be change some of Zi-O OST into previous Kamen Rider Music in Blu-Ray version for previous Tribute episodes......

Imagine if they are using this music in Blu-Ray version like:

- Be The One music in Build Tribute
- Excite music in Ex-Aid Tribute
- Cosmic Mind music in Fourze Tribute
- Etc

Well, Hibiki was a bit of an issue either way, if I recall right no one wants the original actor anywhere nearby so.... Yeah, that was not happening.

Other then that I really enjoyed the two episodes, we are heading towards the endgame though at this point, the collection is nearly complete.

Other way around. Shigeki Hosokawa was very public about his unhappiness with the show's retooling. I'm honestly not surprised that he was unwilling to return.

Allegedly Hosokawa has been difficult to work with due to his power harrassment. This is the only article I could find so far that supposedly talks about this.
https://www.asahi.com/articles/ASM3C4W4PM3CUCVL015.html

Okay, fair enough. Honestly this is the first I've heard about it and I cannot read a lick of that article.

I read an english recap of one of these a few years back, but hard to find honestly.

Okay, finally watched the episode. I'm still not down with Kiriya being the focus for the Hibiki tribute (and I'm really not down with him getting to wear the suit, even if briefly), but I liked it better than part 1, at least. I really liked hearing Kagayaki again during the final fight scene. I don't know why they waited so long to start incorporating music from the older shows, but it's been a real highlight of the last two episodes.

My favorite parts were the bits with Todoroki, of course. The quick mention of Zanki was nice, but I thought it was really touching that he referenced Hinaka. First of all, it's nice to think they would still be together. Mostly, though, it's a nice tribute to the late Miyuki Kanbe. That was a very nice touch.