[Fish Sandwich]

Hey everyone, guess what time it is?



Time for the strongest episode of Zi-O since episode 15.

I freakin' loved this whole two-parter. Everything about it was just great. I mentioned I had a problem with the Quiz episodes right before this because the writing was thinner than I expect from Zi-O, and while that probably doesn't make sense to anyone who doesn't like this show as much as I do, these episodes are the perfect example of the opposite of that. Ordinarily I feel Zi-O is great about making the most of its runtime and making sure every scene accomplishes something, and that's exactly the case for this arc.

There's just a ton going on here, and for the most part it's actually really well thought out. Shinji is only in like four scenes, but by the end here he's had his own little character arc, taught Sougo something important, AND had a reunion that's guaranteed to make anyone who loves Ryuki smile. Not to mention the way they handled Ryuki's somewhat convoluted continuity. Shimoyama is in full-on Go-Rider mode here, clearly acknowledging the events of Ryuki's finale by having Woz explicitly mention Shinji not remembering being a Rider, which seems like business as usual until you remember there is no Another Ryuki, so clearly that's not the reason why. The decision to use Ryuga instead was kind of a stroke of genius in terms of how much it spices the story up, and while I'll admit you can probably poke some holes in all of this if you want to, I'd just ask you to remember how low the standard for tributes to past Riders used to be even just five years ago before you do so.

The actual main cast here was great as well. I somewhat inexplicably love Geiz, but these episodes showcase the big reason why. He's just blatantly way more of a hero than Sougo is and for all his shortcomings as a character, that twist on the typical formula is really fun. Note how Sougo expresses confusion as to why Geiz would be upset at himself for merely thinking about doing something bad. He's already doing the thing Sougo takes the entire episode to figure out.

Speaking of which, I also adore the idea of using the Mirror World to do a plot where Sougo has to reflect on himself. It's a clever way to make use of Ryuki's gimmicks, and flows effortlessly into the debut of Zi-O II, a form so awesome I can't believe I thought it looked ugly when we first saw catalog scans of it. Now I can't stop thinking of ways it rocks. The addition of gold to the color scheme and the longer watch bands bringing things closer to Oma Zi-O. The sweet, doubled-up transformation, or just the simple fact that the fight scene we got here was awesome, and massively improved by the use of the same insert song from back in episode 16, which, after the way Ex-Aid and Build just kind of threw out all their insert songs shortly after they were first used, it's nice to see one getting used as a proper motif.

This post is probably a bit more rambling than I'd like but I honestly just enjoyed the episode that much. So much I actually immediately went back and watched both parts of this arc together after finishing this one the first time. The only "complaint" I can think of is that the bar for form debuts in this show is probably set too high now.