[Fish Sandwich]

There's a real tragic irony to ZEZTZ telling the Disaster Nightmare it doesn't belong in the waking world, because this whole episode is about how Baku ends up finally bringing Seven fully into reality exactly the same way -- a bad dream that's come true. He sets out to avert a disaster, and brings about a catastrophe instead.

Like, I think this is easily some of the absolute most powerful drama in this whole show so far? There's even more irony that Nem finally starts calling him "Baku" just in time for Baku to stop recognizing his own worth as a person. She's there to give voice to the doubts viewers such as myself will have about this course of action, but he's simply too broken to be deterred. It's an episode where the hero convinces himself of the righteousness of killing a man, and then decides to kill himself, because he doesn't know how to live with that.

It's all horrible, but it's also delivered beautifully. Dreamlike visuals such as NOX lying dead even in Baku's innermost mind, reflecting the same truth that comes through in his tears, and corrupted bits of series iconography like the slot machine triple seven itself collapsing, the moon that's always represented the dream world being used as a bludgeon to destroy that very world, Seven standing within that same sort of destruction at the end -- they all work immensely well to not only sell the story being told, but to add to it, framing things in a much richer way than just the writing itself can.

Despite this, we also have stuff like the real world debut of Seven scored with the theme song, and shots framing him in as a cool a manner as possible, which is the kind of contradiction I've really come to absolutely adore about this show. The vagueness of the plot is a seperate topic, but the emotional vagueness -- how ZEZTZ isn't always interested in imposing one particular viewpoint on the audience -- I think thats making for a narrative that's *way* more complex and interesting. Even within those scenes with Nem, it's not as simple as Baku no longer being a hero, so it does make a lot of sense for the show to still allow itself those sorts of indulgences even with everything else here telling you this isn't good. It's three-dimensional in a way you just don't see every day?

If I might send my own mixed messages, I'm still not actually sure how much of a fan of ZEZTZ I am? I like to think I "get" this show a lot more now, but like, even next week seems to be doing at least one thing that'll prove I don't know everything about it yet. But I think I'm getting to the point where that isn't an issue? The show is pretty much right on the edge right now where I've seen it do so much interesting stuff that I thought worked great, that even if the whole back half were to somehow squander this momentum in my eyes, I'd probably forgive it? Right now, I'm finding ZEZTZ to be both unique and well-done, but it's the unique part that I've come to care about more.