[StardustWhip]

- Hey, we finally got the OP! Really cool trippy visuals, and a nice song too. Though I'll admit, I never expected an official Kamen Rider OP to have the lyric "be the GOAT."

- So it turns out Paranormal Affairs is getting turned into this off-the-record department working in an unofficial capacity (an Unofficial Squadron, if you will), presumably with even less of a budget than they already had in Episode 1 and 2. Like, I expected that the police would just go "whoopsie daisy, turns out the paranormal stuff is real, we're reinstating your department!" But it'll be interesting to see how the Paranormal Affairs duo works in this capacity. (Though it does admittedly make me wonder how much Fujimi and Nagumo are getting paid...)

- It's always funny to me when we get these scenes early on in a Kamen Rider season, where the main Rider gets introduced to all the colorful toyetic extra gear he'll be using outside of Rider form. And especially here with Zero then transitioning from that to reminding Baku about the form change items he can get from his gachapon machines.

- The action was pretty nice this episode! The cinematography for the practical fights was top-notch, and the CG parts weren't half-bad either; really fun use of the early-series CG budget to make it feel like Zeztz is really infiltrating dream worlds.

- I'll admit I'm kinda disappointed that Miyuki was the Dreamer, if only because I thought there was some interesting potential in Ippei as the Dreamer; like, maybe he'd have to accept that Miyuki had moved on, and move on himself as his friend suggested to him.

Though I don't wanna judge the story we did get until it's actually complete. It might seem kinda predictable at the moment (Miyuki set for an arranged marriage, pining for her childhood friend, calls the wedding off and lives happily ever after with Ippei), but I was also pretty convinced that Fujimi's dream was to be the hero cop stopping the bomber. And even if we don't get a big surprise in terms of the plot, how the story's told is the most important thing, I'd say. (Besides, I'm sure this would be a lot of Japanese kids' first experience with those old tropes.)