[Fish Sandwich]

Hey everyone, guess what time it is!



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?