[Fish Sandwich]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Frontier

Does Baku even remember where his comatose body is supposed to be from the dream?

Worst case scenario, he can always remind himself by using Projection to watch his ZEZTZ Blu-rays again.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DreamSword

Let it be known that I hate Dawn.

Like, actively.

Easily my most hated Kamen Rider character in a long time.

And I highly, highly doubt that's going to change throughout the rest of this show.

At the risk of sounding like the character you hate, you could at least try and have some fun with your bad dream. Make a crack about how Sledge's monster prison in Dino Charge was *way* cooler, or something, you know?

Quote:

Originally Posted by DreamSword

I find him to be a stock, one-note, cliche psychopath villain that I've seen about 100 times across various other shows

Kind of the flipside of what I was saying last week about assuming he's the best thing ever to happen to this show, but I'd wait a little more than two episodes to make that judgment myself! I can definitely see how it would run the risk of becoming a tired gimmick if he's still just doing some wannabe Joker shtick 20 episodes from now, but the signs aren't really pointing to that yet?

"To be burdened with sin even before birth... That's one unfair bad dream."

"Don't falter. Don't suffer. Enjoy the bad dream. That's how you change the whole world."

That scene right before the opening here was personally the most interesting I've found Sieg so far, because it definitely seems like it's in the episode specifically to speak to as-of-yet untold deeper facets of the guy?

When he talks about Nem's circumstances, it kinda sounds like he's also speaking about his own -- like his interest in Nem, much like his interest in ZEZTZ, is a sort of twisted kinship he feels with his fellow children of bad dreams. Which could itself suggest someone who, consciously or otherwise, wants to feel a sense of connection to somebody, or to just feel understood by them. A very Rider-esque loneliness or some other such thing that would add at least another note to his personality.

When he gives that little spiel right after, combined with that flashback, it sounds like a sort of mantra that was either beaten into him by CODE, something he started telling himself to make sense of his life, or some combination of the two, all of which speak to a past there's still a lot to learn about. Talking about changing the world also suggests some sort of desire beyond simply taking pleasure in the suffering of others for its own sake, which, again, would be at least one more note.

I'm pretty sympathetic towards your overall position here, but I don't know, even if I'm wrong in my specific readings here (as I often seem to be with this show!), it definitely seems like the show wants to move him into being a more rounded character eventually. After all, there turned out to be way more to NOX than just his poetry skills, right?

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Originally Posted by Mesnick

NOX seems to be the best at manipulating dream space, since even Dawn can't catch him.

And yet Five could! I guess CODE's guard dog really knows how to sniff a guy out!

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Originally Posted by Sh Ranger

Missed opportunity to call this episode Back, as the previous one was Play.

This reminds me: has it actually been clear to everyone that all the episodes titles are specifically verbs? Some of the English translations they choose make that less obvious, which I'd maybe be more bothered by if I knew *why* the episode titles were all verbs.

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Originally Posted by Sh Ranger

Agent Zeztz, huh. Now that I think about it, Zero mentioned how the Zeztz Room manifested from Baku's subconscious, so I guess that name was something Zero appropriated on his behalf

Either that, or the name and the room were things they subliminally programmed into Baku's mind the same way they did everything else. I think this is going to be relevant to Sieg, too, but there's been strong implications CODE has been manipulating some of these people for a very long time as part of their plans.