[Xtreme RX]

An alright episode. It definitely felt rushed, with the continuity being pretty inconsistent, unlike last week's fairly well edited episode.

I really feel like Faiz needed a two-parter. Last week's Fourze tribute was fantastic because it captured the feel of the show even without the lead actors present. With this episode they had both Takumi and Kusaka and they got sizable roles, so it sucks that it was only for one episode. I did like the little character callbacks, like Kusaka being a total creep and Takumi being a nekojita and talking about his dream while presenting a business card for Keitaro's laundromat. But like, so much missed opportunity. I wish we could have seen the Kaixa suit, and more of Faiz. The short flashback to episode 02 of Faiz with Mari was welcome but it was so obvious that it was old footage. And using Over, Quartzer as the insert instead of Justifaiz is so disappointing.

I did like how the twist was that the two kids who were essentially repeating the last 15 years were Ryuseiji like Kusaka, which was a red herring from Woz's cryptic advice from the previous episode. And it's a nice reference to Faiz as well, subtly respecting its history. But the plot has so many issues. I think it stems from the whole 15 years repeating. What was Takumi doing during this time? If she was the one who asked Kusaka to help her, why did she seem so defensive both times? Not to mention the randomness of Another Faiz giving Sakuma the ability to steal life energy of extremely specific girls. The whole thing is convoluted and falls apart as you think about it.

But at the end of the day, you do get a sappy love story with bad communication between characters who like to sacrifice their lives to protect others, so I guess it really was a Faiz tribute through and through.

Faiz Armour was pretty cool, I really liked the use of the Faiz Phone X and the return of some of the original gadgets. If there is one thing I liked about this episode, it was the fight scenes.

The acting is still bad though. Geiz is probably the best actor in the main cast, but Sougo is just.... ugh.

Lastly, the .5 episode was excellent, as usual. They mention how they failed to get Fukushi and Yoshizawa back because of their schedules and you get some fun references to Faiz and it's characters and how they relate to Fourze (though they could all just be false at the end of the day). Plus they end it with a line blaming Shirakura for the everything, lol.

And my favourite line - "Why do you make it sound like I have too much free time"
-Kento Handa

Next up, Wizard! And we get a little Haruto nod, though we know he won't be returning. But at least Beast is!