[GoldenXtreme]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fish Sandwich

I loved this episode, and everything it portends, but I can't shake the feeling the indecisiveness of the previous 11 episodes has let it down? There are just so many things that were never properly framed as mysteries, but were also never sneakily made out to be clear certainties, either. I can't quite be shocked ZEZTZ is possibly powered by bad dreams because I never had any preconceptions of what ZEZTZ was to begin with, beyond what Baku chooses to do with that power. This ended up coming off less like the shocking recontextualization of a story I thought I knew, and more like the story of this show has finally started after three months of waiting? I love that I'm getting to know characters like Fujimi and Baku so much better, but I love it in nearly the same way I love finally getting to know NOX better, and I thought only one of those characters was supposed to be the mysterious one?

You put it so well here. I think this was a really good episode, We are learning more about the cast and our cool rival character has transformed. But when I actually stop and think about how poor the setup for all of this was in the prior episodes I just feel disappointed. You can't really build a twist around these characters or some reveal about the setting when everything was so vague in the first place. CODE was never really presented as being anything specific and neither were the Capsems, so having them turn out to be a real organization and powered by Nightmares respectively didn't really change my perception of the plot! Still, since Zeztz definitely feels like it has been getting its footing lately, I'm hoping by the end of the show I can say I enjoyed it in spite of a rough beginning.

Anyways, some other stuff about the episode itself. First of all, I really appreciate how Baku has been trying to learn more about people in the dreams so he can try to track them down once he is awake, it's just a nice touch that he is actively getting better at this Agent stuff in real life. Fujimi and Nasuka are also both continuing to be very interesting characters. Nasuka is finally accepting the true nature of Black Cases after seeing them and Fujimi lately has been showing a somewhat concerning side to his fanatic personality with his refusal to accept the possibility that NOX and Odaka could be the same person. NOX also finally transforms! I really liked the suit when I saw it in the next episode preview last week, but after seeing it in action more extensively I am not a huge fan. The loose, shiny fabric just does not look all that good in motion.

To speculate a bit on where I think the story is going, I suspect Takahashi is aiming for some kind of twist where the "real" world is actually a dream, with the dream world being dreams within that dream. Dreamception. It would explain why the supposed real world in this show feels so bizarre sometimes.