Kamen Rider Zi-O Episode 41- "World Reset 2019!" Discussion
 

After a climactic battle, Sougo finds himself back in 2019- and the timeline has been distorted, meaning his closest friends are now his fiercest enemies...

Well, it looks like we got a tiny glimpse at both Another Drive and Another Decade:
https://scontent-dfw5-2.xx.fbcdn.net...a5&oe=5D819FC4

Wow, good spot. Didn't see that first time around.

That doesn't look like another drive it kabuto you can see the horn. I only see another Decade.

Well, given that Another Kabuto has a spike on is right shoulder and a giant horn on his helmet, I think it's safe to say it's Another Drive.

https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/...20190526003947

Clever use of the powers instead of cropping out the obvious actions scenes from ooos. I really thought he lost his ultimate form when he deck out zio2. From the raw, drive seems to be dupe because he didnt "earn" it yet or just ohma corruption. Are we following avengers and dbz multiverse time traveling where ohma can killed sougo without affecting him since he's just one of many timelines created. Grand zio possess a whole library of weapons, summoning gallery, and powers combination, it's endless and yet undeserved and underuse.
Another zio=zio2
Another zio2=debut inexperienced grand zio?
Another zio already feel like zio2 from like 15 episodes ago with time manipulation, prediction, and dual wielding weapons.

And also, he can summon Another Riders and not the same way as when he was Another Zi-O.

So basically, The Drive Watch being Oma Zi-o makes him unable to use it properly but he doesn't loose is Grand form.

Woz....hu....so basically Our Woz stayed with Oma during the Timeline changing?

Basically we're back to square one with Tsukuyomi and Geiz...Ok why not.

I'll wait the subs because there are a lot of thing that I didn't get.

That Woz with Another Zi-O...Is he our Woz or Another Woz?

I didn't like this ep that much. Having the world reset was dumb and throws everything off track. Why do we need another Zi-o 2 it just wasteful in the show after Sougo already beat him before. I don't like the actor who Zi-O 2 he boring. This show was doing so good with the other rider actors from Kiva and Den-O but, now it feels like a slog. The writers could not do a different plot or a longer battle against Oma Zi-O which I wanted to see happen in this show already. Next ep look a little better so maybe they wrap this up and move on.

There's only possibly 8-9 episodes left from historical average. There's no way it'll be decent closing arc. Even worse, See the finale in vcinema or Decade alike movie war. Reiwa might shake things up again possible with streaming service nowadays. Every big companies are doing mcu and Netflix niche. There's already spoilers about the next "tribute arc" repeats even if certain characters getting chance to shine again and connect with future.

Also....isn’t Tsukuyomi aware that she is Schwartz’ sister since her trip with Tsukasa to her past in the future ? Why is she surprised in the next episode preview?

This episode was weird, Sougo wanted to help that other guy who became Another Zi-o 2 and this guy is pulling off a Sasuke because «*muuu not forget past*»
Am I the only one having troubled by this ?

Man, Grand Zi-o got curb-stomped a bit didn't he? And after he had such an epic debut too.

What, just because it's not Gaim level?

I have to agree. For Grand to be such an impressive introduction one week and then fall utterly flat due to V-Cinema/Movie needs is just anticlimactic. But it does address the usual trope, "if you have the strongest power, why not just take out the largest bad buy right then and there, but wait, you still have a few episodes left, so you're going to lose anyway." (whew) Also, lets not forget the "you didn't get that power, it was given to you", and "your motivation is lacking". OldGo totally pwned Younggo again, like Charlie Brown with a football. Nice use of the effects and suits though. I'm hoping the finale is going to be next level when it happens.

I think the reason for this episode is more the interaction between Sougo and Tsukasa. It's that point where Tsukasa points out that Sougo's motivation to be king or overlord stems from his wanting to have his friends there with him. Instead they should be following him. It's also reflected in how Woz turns sides to the more powerful Zi-O. He's got a spine, otherwise he wouldn't have gone straight to taking on Oma. But he lacks the fire that Oma has to do what needs to be done, whatever that is.

Is Another Zi-O II necessary? Well, it makes it interesting to see someone else use the power in a corrupt way. But since we've completely thrown out power levels/equivalencies in Zi-O (and really, does it matter?) I'm just watching and waiting.

The production team making Drive's funny car horn noises sound so evil and intimidating is absolutely fantastic.

Eh, it follows. Base Another Zi-O was already as strong as Zi-O II, so a further upgrade being on equal footing with a further upgrade of Zi-O's makes sense.

(Ignoring Trinity for this because that thing is not really a "normal" upgrade or part of Zi-O's expected, natural form progression)

Don't like being too negative, but I've got to say this: I'm severely disappointed by how lazy they got with Grand's power and shocked by how quickly it happened.

Last episode not only made me love Grand, it put it on the track to overtaking even Cosmic as my favourite final form. It was an extremely clever idea to literally pluck Riders out of specific points in the timeline for attacks; them doing the exact same motions they did in their series but in a different context without them even realising they're there. I was hardly expecting them to go quite as grandiose and overwhelming as they did against Another Den-O until the last couple episodes, but I hoped this basic idea would keep up.

Here all that uniqueness is gone and he's just Diend. I don't think the cool little time gates showed up; he just hits the statue and Build is here or Den-O is here and they're not doing any specific action they did in their series, they're just another suit in the fight. There wasn't even any specific forms like how we saw Gatakiriba and Suika Arms last week; it's... just Diend summons. It's hugely disappointing and inconsistent.

Soooo, I'm not the only one to be disappointed.
That means that there was something really wrong with this episode.
Who wrote and directed it?

If it was Gaim level then he'd be praising it for not having a satisfying ending cause if we're gonna be very real Gaim's ending sucked.

It's easily above Gaim level. Not sure if it's particularly great, but I'll wait till the finale to cast judgement.

Okay really liked this episode, for the start of one of the end arcs of the series, this was pretty good.

They clearly address Drive, we get to see glimpses of Another Drive and Another Decade. We're continuing with Hiryu's story and I'm glad to see that he really is still bitter about what happened, even more so thanks to his defeat by Sougo and Geiz.

Like I was wondering if he was really just going to quit with Swartz just using Another Zi-O's reconstructed Ridewatch later in some scheme. Glad to see that even if Sougo tried to get him to move on, he can't. Really feels good that we don't have a villain that ends up resolving their issues and leaving good.

Also I just like the idea of "Our hero gets to his highest point only to have it all ripped out from underneath him to truly test him."

Like Sougo lost everything, his friendships, the only family he had, even if he has a powerful final form, that mental state is not good for anyone. So it makes sense that Grand Zi-O isn't performing in top gear. A lot of people only think of power levels, when mental states are also an important part of fights.

And let's not forget that Another Zi-O was matching Zi-O II back in the mid to late 20's, it took both Zi-O II and Geiz Revive to put him down temporarily. So Another Zi-O II having big rewriting abilities and being a match for Grand alongside being Grand's first opponent after a debut makes sense.

So yeah pretty good episode overall, can't wait to see where we go from here.

Hey everyone, guess what time it is!

https://i.imgur.com/qya7LRw.jpg

Okay, I've been holding back for a good month or two now to see how it played out, but it's time for me to talk about Sougo. More specifically, how he seems to have taken all his advice on fighting fate from Kouta Kazuraba despite having also met Kazuma Kenzaki.

The second Sougo decided his goal was to collect the remaining Ride Watches after the Blade arc, I got extremely worried, but I held out faith that Sougo, a character constantly shown to be way smarter than he looks, was not genuinely planning to beat Oma Zi-O by doing exactly what he wants and then trying to fistfight him in the future after he's already done the things Sougo wants to prevent.

But no, that's seriously what he tried, like a complete doofus, and it really bothers me because this feels like a huge regression for Sougo. All his character development so far has been about him accepting that becoming Oma Zi-O is a real possibility, but given his dialogue late in this episode where he theorizes about why history has been rewritten, he seems to be back to blissfully assuming they're two completely different people again.

I have to say, I was let down a bit by this episode. After the bombastic fun of the Den-O arc, I was expecting from the premise here a very character-driven story that would really get to the meat of Sougo's motivations and the growth he's had by putting him in the worst position he's been in the entire series. Thankfully, that is more or less what we're getting here, so it's far from a bad episode, and is in fact, quite good in a lot of ways. The idea of pulling the rug out from Sougo like this is a very necessary plot to do, because Hiryuu is absolutely right that he's had it easy. Sougo has never been any sort of underdog. He's literally destined for greatness and has power handed out to him like candy. So showing him having all that torn away, and presumably showing how he has learn and grow as a person to work his way up from nothing back to where he was, it's wonderful.

But I thought Kento Shimoyama was Zi-O's head writer.

I've gone into detail before about the differences I feel Nobuhiro Mouri's episodes have in style, and after his last set of episodes came to a literal Grand Climax, I was expecting Shimoyama to step back in for the final stretch and give us the more intimate character development he was doing in the middle of the show, especially since Another Zi-O is back. The upside of this still being Mouri is that the high concept stuff in this episode is great, with some serious Paradise Lost vibes in the setting and the way Geiz straight up tries to kill Sougo for real and these other cool moments, but outside of episodes 15 and 16, I just don't think his grasp on the characters is quite as strong or nuanced as Shimoyama's became after an admittedly rough start.

Granted, as we've seen with Tsukuyomi, it's entirely possible I'm wasting my breath talking about something that will make more sense in retrospect (since we don't totally get into Sougo's head here), but something about this episode gave me a bad feeling even though I otherwise loved it the same way I've been loving Zi-O since the start. Just to end on a positive note, I'll also single out that Hiryuu not having forgiven Sougo at all actually totally matches up with his reaction to that speech at the time and is far more interesting than if he did. The Another Zi-O arc is still the pinnacle of this show to me, and Hiryuu and Sougo were such great foils I'm happy to see the show taking advantage of the potential their dynamic has.

Honestly, a really interesting episode.

Loved the brief Oma Zi-O vs Grand fight, and they acknowledge the Drive RideWatch conundrum. Though it makes sense, it does seem kind of pathetic that Grand Zi-O would be defeated by Drive in Type Speed, but alas that is Grand's weakness for now. With this much emphasis on Drive's power, I'm starting to doubt his involvement will be movie-only.

The actual plot of the episode had me intrigued. Seeing the war-torn Japan made for a change in tone (at least for Zi-O, Build was pretty much this all last year lol) and bringing back Hiryu as a villain was a good move considering his relation to Sougo (what a petty guy though, holy). While I know a lot of people are bugged that this reset kind of retreads familiar ground with both Geiz and Tsukuyomi, I'm kind of okay with it because it's giving Geiz importance again after being relegated to the sidelines for the last few months.

Another Zi-O II is seriously OP, being able to rewrite history. It's kind of sad to see Grand getting his ass beat so fast, but the last fight made up for it, especially with the dual-wield sword finisher and Agito kick.

Tsukasa's involvement is interesting, it almost feels like he stepped into an AR world like in his own series based on his first appearance this episode. And him saving Sougo using a rifle is gold. Of course, he's the one who has to talk the sense back into Sougo, and of course he has to be a dick about it as well. But that's why we love him.

And yeah, I caught that glimpse of Another Drive and Decade. Fingers crossed that we'll see them before the show's run is through.

The Urobucchi ending or final episode with Kamen Rider Jam ending?

More onto the episode itself (I watched it late since I was planning to binge it till 43 but decided not to), this episode made me loathe Hiryu. Granted he is the designated villain, but for him to do this just because he thought he was further humiliated by Sougo makes him such a terrible person.

I'd argue both but Jam is worse

Hiryu's biggest problem is how underdeveloped he is. When this was his third episode then of course he's not going to impress anyone

It's amazing how even with a backstory and motivation a character will still be terrible if they're underdeveloped.