[Kamen Rider Die]

KAMEN RIDER ZI-O EPISODE 47 - “2019 - VANISHING WATCH”



There’s a thing we do, at the comics shop I co-own. If someone asks how a book is, and you don’t like it, you don’t say “It’s bad.” Bad’s objective, and unhelpful. Art’s subjective. It’s better to allow for that subjectivity by saying something like “It wasn’t for me.” Saying it that way acknowledges that your own personal likes and dislikes might’ve colored the experience, and someone else might take more out of it than you did.

This episode wasn’t for me.

Beyond the innate pleasure of seeing Tsukasa and Kaito be toxic and charismatic, I’d’ve happily skipped this installment of Kamen Rider Zi-O. The character-driven details we learn are enormously unhelpful and poorly staged (that kid who played Teen Swartz is maybe running neck-and-neck with Ryuki’s Shiro for Most Wooden Performance Of All Time), while the plot details are baffling in their disarray.

Tackling the second one first, because that’s how unnecessarily convoluted this series has gotten: You can do a multiverse story, or you can do a time travel story. You cannot do a time-traveling multiverse story. This was a show where characters met Kamen Riders by traveling back in time, or by meeting them in the modern day. Now, at the eleventh hour, we’re told that this has really been a multiverse story, where Sougo’s been tricked into leaving other worlds defenseless by stealing their Rider’s powers.

It– he met Shouichi by going to his restaurant! Sougo got jumped by Takeru! They weren’t constantly going to other worlds! You can’t have a show where both the past and the future are in flux, because a) it means that you can’t follow the logic of any two scenes; and b) it means your metaphor is nowhere. The whole point of this show, as evidenced by Sougo’s many (very good!) speeches is that our ability to value our past should always be in balance with our hopes for the future. We can’t risk falling into the comfort, or despair, of our pasts. We need to use that history to envision a better future, and then work daily to make it the present. If every single story is now some alternate reality that never worked for this show’s timeline, I don’t even know what this show is trying to say.

Because, we already did a show about disparate realities and the Kamen Rider who protected them ten years ago. It was called Kamen Rider Decade, and I know this show has heard of him, because he’s in this episode. I will probably never understand why this show opted for an endgame that might as well have only featured Decade and Diend, and I honestly don’t care to puzzle it out. It’s a weird choice that muddies an already-disjointed narrative.

And, outside of a perplexing endgame, there’s really nothing else here. The “emotional” content is just Sougo and Tsukuyomi returning to the Misery Suburbs of 2058 to get some hard evidence regarding Swartz’z most-recent absurd claims, and I was actually excited about this plotline at first. Team Zi-O has been almost permanently reactive in the series arc, so a more serious Sougo opting to investigate a wild claim instead of accepting it at face value is a nice development!

Too bad there’s nothing substantial waiting for him that we either didn’t already know, or couldn’t’ve surmised. Swartz is – are you sitting down? – a guy who cares more about power than protecting his sister. I know! Stunning! Well worth the trip! Literally everything about his relationship with Tsukuyomi is stuff the character already told her several episodes ago, so I don’t know why the show would waste time reiterating it. The info about how Swartz is planning to destroy everything is new, but it also makes zero sense.

Swartz’z plan is to combine all worlds into one, and then destroy them. (I don’t… why would his be left? Why does it matter how many timelines exist? Why is any of this happening, and why would it matter to his timeline if he’s not around? Couldn’t the more powerful Alpina keep that timeline intact?) It’s a ludicrous explanation from this show, because the very first scene of the very first episode contradicts it. Oma Zi-O exists in the future of Sougo’s world. If Sougo’s world is destroyed in 2019, Oma Zi-O and the Misery Fields of 2068 can’t exist. Even allowing for the idea that Swartz’z plan negates that potential future, that future only exists because of Swartz’z plan. It– none of this makes any sense.

(My favorite Nothing Means Anything moment in this episode was Kaito using the Another Zi-O II Ridewatch to turn back time and revive Tsukasa, despite the terrible consequences of using it… instead of Sougo using the actual Zi-O II Ridewatch to revive Tsukasa with zero consequences. Like, what the complete hell.)

There was nothing for me in this episode, beyond the tawdry nostalgia of guest appearances. (Fun to see Chase again, at any rate.) I said at the beginning of this thread that the stuff I care least about are the anniversary elements, so let that help you understand the depth of my disappointment. The exploration of the series arc was horrifyingly incoherent, while the character development was facile and obvious. Exhausting to see a show so dedicated to evaporating all of my goodwill.