[cosmicrescend0]

Immediate 0/10, nobody threw the Faiz Ridewatch at anyone's head.

.......But seriously, this is probably one of my least favorite arcs in Zi-O, purely how.....disjointed it feels?

Legend Rider content... Takkun just kinda quietly follows Sougo around, piping up here and there. Which, to be fair, that's very characteristic of him, and there's cute callbacks here and there, so its not all bad. But the Ridewatch handoff was an immediate step down after Ex-Aid's kinda soured it. (More on that later) Kusaka....is it bad that I saw Another Fourze/Faiz go for his throat and immediately went "Go for it!"? It's a callback that they didn't necesarily even need to do, but it's hilarious that they went for it juuust a bit. Anyway, I know the point is that Faiz's cast are kinda standoffish and all, but the way they were used just didn't work for me.

-"The cycle of scarifice needs to end": cool theme for a MOTW story, but I can't really connect it at all with Faiz or what the Zi-O kids are going through? Like the only "sacrifice" for someone else I can think for the Zi-O kids is Sougo risking serious injury by throwing himself down the stairs, and he didn't even need to do that! The total lack of connection between either our Legend Riders and our trio makes Sougo's Big Speech fall kinda flat, and in turn Takumi's Ridewatch handoff.

-I got jumpscared by the high quality Faiz footage, and giggled at the show trying to pass off adult Takumi(his actor wouldve been 34 at the time?) as his teenage self. Not gonna lie, for a show that doesn't want to concern itself about what happens after Rider Erasure, you'd think they'd pick a scene where Takumi loses Faiz to be, idk, not one where someone's clearly in mortal danger? Like yikes I hope the Time Nonsense got somehow got Mari out of that situation!

-I think the biggest thing for me, is that....it just kinda threw any kind of themes from Fourze or Faiz it could use to connect with the Zi-O trio into the garbage can? And as someone who adores Fourze and enjoys Faiz, that kinda sucks as a tribute arc? Like it wouldve probably not been spectacular but I think if you stuck with the friendship stuff from the first half of the arc, you could've salvaged it.

So yeah, this arc didnt do it for me, as a tribute story or a Zi-O story. At least 6.5 was really good, do maybe it makes up for it?