[StardustWhip]

- I like the old-fashioned Showa-style plotline with Baku helping out a kid who dreams of going to space. I guess it isn't too different from the more modern style "victim of the fortnight" formula Zeztz has been following for the past few months, but it's cute, and fun to see something with less of a mystery to solve. Especially with how much else is going on in this episode, and presumably next week's episode too.

- I think Nox would have much better luck getting Baku on his side if he stopped being so cryptic and just led with his later revelation. IDK, maybe his powers come from the Rule of Cool. /j

- Maybe I'm imagining it, but Zero's "good luck" feels more serious in tone this week? Which I guess is fitting considering what goes on later.

- Fujimi's taking the revelation of "your old BFF has turned to the darkness" as well as I expected. I have to imagine he won't quite believe it until he eventually sees Odaka as Nox right in front of him.

- So the whole "1% chance of a meteor hitting Earth in 2030" line got me curious enough to pause the episode and google if this was actually true IRL. Thankfully, it's only a 0.0000096% (1 in 10 million) chance.

- Seems I was right that Minami would find out about Baku's secret soon, after the close call last week. Honestly, this is the revelation I'm probably most invested in. Like, what I'm looking forward to most about next week's episode is seeing Minami confront Baku about his newly-discovered secret identity. Especially with how protective she can be of him, I can't imagine she'll take it very well, at least not immediately.

- This fight between Zeztz and Nox Knight is probably my favorite fight of the series thus far. Clearly visible even in darkness, mostly practical effects with surprisingly little CGI for a new (pseudo-)Rider debut, and a showdown between two characters with similar powersets at a just-about-equal power level. This is the kind of thing I love to see in Rider vs. Rider fights, even if Nox's shiny new nighty Knight form isn't technically a Rider. And even if he did ultimately kill off my favorite of Zeztz's alt forms thus far. Which leads into my next point:

- Finally we get to see how Zeztz's powers link to the Nightmares, in signature "Rider heroes getting their powers from the same source as the villains" fashion. Though I'm surprised that the collectibles are seemingly the source of the evil here; I was expecting something more like, the group that presents itself as CODE are actually/are affiliated with the ones producing the Nightmares that Zeztz fights every week. Which I guess could still technically be true.

My first thought was that Zero's explanation will be that the Capsems are sealing away the powers of Nightmares, or something like that. But then that wouldn't explain why Zero was being so secretive about it, or why Zeztz kills/"banishes" the Nightmares rather than sealing them in collectible Capsem balls. I guess I'll just have to wait and see what the actual answer is.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fish Sandwich

Wait, so Baku's assumption this whole time was that CODE existed because he somehow made it exist?

Like, that makes as much as sense as anything else, probably more sense, even, it's just... was that ever made explicit, or was I just not paying attention? Because I was assuming up until now it was the opposite -- that Baku believed the organization he dreamed of being part of had turned out to be real, and thus he became a real agent. This sort of thing is as simple as having an exchange early on where Baku expresses amazement that's he managed to dream Zero into reality and Zero just sorta looks off to the side or changes the subject or whatever, but I don't recall anything like that happening?

So I went back to Episode 2 to double check, and Zero's exact phrasing (in response to Baku's "am I really a secret agent now?") was "with enough belief, your dreams can come true." I don't think the subject of CODE being real ever comes up again, but from that brief conversation, I think it would make sense that Baku's takeaway was "my dreams came true and made CODE into a real organization" rather than "CODE was a real organization all along that slipped into my dreams." Though I guess you're right that they never really came out and said that was what Baku thought, at least not in this episode.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fish Sandwich

It also bugged me back early on when Baku ran outside to see if his belt works in reality only to not answer that question outside of a situation where everything was going nuts anyway, which ended up blurring the issue enough that I'm now a bit surprised this week to see him use Barrier outside of his dreams here.

- I guess I sorta figured we got that answer when Baku transformed IRL in Episode 3? I could understand how one might see that and think it only worked because of the Nightmare invading reality, but it was the one time we saw Baku even trying to use his Rider powers outside of dream land, as himself rather than as Seven.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fish Sandwich

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?

- To me, the lower-stakes stories of the past few months felt like they were necessary to establish a status quo for Baku/Zeztz, and this episode is leading to a major shift in that status quo.

Like, it hits harder for Baku to find out that the Capsems run on Nightmare power, and CODE is actually really shady and keeping secrets from him, if he's just been taking it for granted that he's a good guy, a heroic agent of CODE who uses the power of their Capsems to save people from Nightmares. Even if we haven't had a scene where they come right out and say what CODE and Zeztz are, the real important thing is Baku "knows" they're fighting for the side of good.

And personally, as an audience member, I feel like Zero's been acting suspiciously enough to make me wonder what's the deal with him and CODE, even if it wasn't explicitly framed as a mystery within the series itself.

As for pacing, I feel like the story's already been moving forward at a pretty decent pace for a Rider season, or an episodic superhero show in general. Like, we've already had Fujimi and Nasuka joining Baku, the revelation that Nem is missing IRL and trapped in dream land, we've found out about Fujimi's missing old partner who subsequently turned out to be Nox...

Maybe it isn't moving at the breakneck speed of something like Build or King-Ohger, but it's not as though the past nine episodes have been entirely filler either.