[Fish Sandwich]

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Originally Posted by DreamSword

I'm starting to think that Zeztz isn't for me anymore. And that makes me sad.

If that's the bad dream your mind wishes for, perhaps it will come true.

I will say, judging from the way you're describing this feeling of yours, your disappointment seems to be based on the implicit assumption (as in, I know you probably aren't trying to say this) that the show's own creators somehow would care less than you about their own work up until that point being something to simply disregard in favor of a new direction? Which just seems needlessly ungenerous? I think it's a pretty basic good faith thing for criticism to at least operate on the basis that the people creating these worlds and characters also have some level of emotional investment in them, unless there's evidence that actively points to the contrary.

In other words, I don't have a problem with you thinking the show is heading in a direction you can't get behind anymore, or even necessarily with you thinking it's just a plain bad direction, but I'd strongly caution against any line of thought that leads to the conclusion the staff are making decisions maliciously. That's just not a headspace where you're going to see anything very clearly. Again, I don't actually think that's where you're at right now, to be clear! But consider this my own, much wordier NOX warning, I guess.

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Originally Posted by Sh Ranger

He should've used Plasma for sure.

Don't you dare say that! Riders should always use their base forms!

Seriously though, I was really happy to see Impact make a prominent appearance here. Stream showing up in 18 had me believing for a second that the lead up to Catastrom would involve at least the main four forms making at least one more appearance each, but that unfortunately turned out to not be the case at all. That was disappointing (Esprim's standby jingle even sounds like RPG music! Recovery as the party's White Mage was right there!), but the show is still ~just about~ meeting me halfway with at least having the base form. The real test is once we get into the 30's and 40's though.

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Originally Posted by Sh Ranger

I usually don't like when they skip the cold open, but considering who narrates the cold opens for Zeztz, it's an immediate reminder that Baku is basically dead.

I did kind of expect some emotionally deadened "I'm code number Seven" narration to really rub it in, honestly, but yeah, just not having the narration at all accomplishes the same overall goal.

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Originally Posted by Sh Ranger

I remember how Baku had that "how to be an agent" guide on his closet door, saying that a handkerchief is for wiping a girl's tears. Really does emphasize that this Seven who would walk past a crying girl is not the Seven that Baku dreamed of becoming.

It's one of the most heartbreaking moments in this episode, for sure. Like, literally the first ever thing the show tells us about Seven -- before it even gives us a clear shot of his face -- is the line "Trust those tears to me." It's really incredible just how far he's strayed from that dream of being a suave gentleman agent throughout this one.

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Originally Posted by Frontier

I think there's still stuff they were deliberately leaving out of Lady's story like what her ultimate endgame with the Nightmares was and what world she sought to create by destroying it with the Nightmares she was creating.

Yeah, again, none of that stuff is probably anywhere near as big a deal as I made it sound. It was how I was feeling in the immediate moment, but the more I think about, the less it seems all that far off from business as usual for ZEZTZ.

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Originally Posted by Frontier

I think he did remember Nem beneath everything, though, because knowing Lady was her mother and Nem didn't want her to hurt him was the only thing that held him back and undid Catastrom.

Oh, he absolutely remembers. That's one of the things that makes this arc so interesting to me. Rider fans are inclined to process it as being in that whole genre we have now of the berserker form, and if you take him at his word, it sounds almost like some dissociative episode with Seven "taking over", but it seems pretty clear looking at a lot of his reactions to things that everything we see here IS in fact just Baku as we've always known him. He never had a split personality to begin with. It's less that there's some outside influence making him this way and more that he's desperately forcing himself to act this way, ironically thinking it will stop him from making more mistakes.

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Originally Posted by Frontier

Like thinking on it, all the vague stuff NOX was always alluding to might have meant a lot more than we ever took at face-value.

There's definitely a ton of NOX stuff people will think differently of on a rewatch, for sure. I was really excited to finally see that book again last time, for example, because we hadn't seen it since episode 5, where the camera focused on it as NOX talked about how all things would eventually break down. And you know, 20-ish episodes later, sure enough, that word choice was probably no mere coincidence!