[Double]

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Originally Posted by FreshToku

You know, I wouldn't even mind the reset ending if the context of it was juuuuust a little different. I get the sense I'm suppose to feel like Sougo is 'sacrificing' his great dream of becoming a king in order to make the world a better place and bring his friends back, but it really fell flat for me.

What would have made the drama at the end work for me is if Sougo decided that to save his friends, he would erase himself from time, but then Woz interferes with his own power. Sougo would be all 'no Woz lemme do this' and Woz is like 'no waga maoh you deserve better'. Considering all the other nonsense that has happened in this show, I'm certain most people could accept that he can just do that.

The end result is that instead of Sougo's initial intention to just erase himself, it ends up making it so that Sougo still exists just without his memories like everyone else thanks to Woz, but Woz himself just continues to live in this world with no place for him, basically making him like Sento and Banjou in Build's finale.

You complain about reset repeated endings and then what you want is Build's ending again. Do you know what you want?
Secondly, that even makes even less sense that Woz can just fix everything you can't just band-aid that sort of logic. It'd make more sense for Woz to sacrifice himself for his Ma-oh kinda like Phillip did for Shotaro in Double.

I think they pulled off Sougo's development in the end even if it was rushed late. Sougo realised how lonely being a king was from his older self and how tired and alone he sounded. So he chose his friends instead of his lifelong dream. It's about the journey to the conclusion, if you ask me.

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Originally Posted by Xtreme RX

Well, here we are. The official end of the Heisei era.

No matter how much you try to change the context, the "merging worlds" plot is way too close visually and conceptually to Build's finale last year. You get this feeling that you've seen it all before. The justification for it is kind of convoluted too. Tsukuyomi and Schwarz's world is disappearing because it lacks a Kamen Rider, so by turning Tsukuyomi into a Rider they manage to create a Rider world and can merge it with Zi-O's. Tsukasa even mentions that the world they are currently inhabiting is Zi-O's world. This just complicates the time travel aspect of the show in a way that's just ridiculously convoluted and I'm not even going to get into it.

Speaking of Tsukuyomi, obviously we weren't going to get anything substantial from her Rider form but it was still disappointing to see just how little screentime it got.

Oh and Geiz's death. Great acting, mind you, it seemed like a scene that was planned to happen but they couldn't fit it in logically. Geiz comes out of nowhere to take that hit and Schwarz waits patiently for like 4 minutes while Sougo says his goodbyes. It just doesn't feel earned at all.

And then Sougo just resets the whole timeline/splits the whole Rider universe back into their respective worlds? The continuity is just... bah why should I even care at this point.

The epilogue is boring. The time reset storyline has been done before and it's been done better. Build last year was better. Even Ryuki was better. Here it really lacks impact. . I get that Oma Zi-O's powers were not only to destroy but to also create, so that would explain why Tsukuyomi and Geiz can exist as students in the new timeline, but like all time-reset stories, it cheapens their big death scenes significantly.

This is more a personal disappointment but I am bummed that we never got any returning actors from Kuuga. Here would have been a perfect place to have that cameo. As a finale to Zi-O it has its own set of problems, but as the end of the entire Heisei era in a show dedicated to bringing back legends? I know its a tall order but it could have been a lot more bombastic? Like I wanted to see an all-out Rider war. The return of the 20 main suits. The future Riders - would have been cool to see them contribute in the final battle instead of being forgotten about. Maybe some more legend faces in a montage like they did for Gokaiger? The main thing that kept me and many others invested in this show was the anniversary element of it. They tried with the core Zi-O story but it definitely isn't enough and it shows really badly here. There's no excitement, nothing to get hyped over. Well, except Oma Zi-O.

The surprising thing I don't get how the time reset was a surprise for anyone. Did anyone really think we were ending with Oma-Zio taking over desolate world? Toei was never gonna do that as ballsy a move that may be..
I suspected a time reset ending after the build arc after all this being about time travel and Gokaiger being anniversary season that ended up reverting to status quo. So it was clearly bound to happen and I think they did this again because they heard ppl were happy about Build's ending because they were happy about Build overall. I will maintain this finale is better than Build's due to the action and character development but Build had better build-up.

I think they were trying to do a spider-verse storyline where the Kamen riders were the Spider-totems of each world and I liked that logic to make Tsukuyomi a Kamen Rider. Love her design but that betrayal and death was pointless. Like at least show Schwartz gullibly giving her power back to give it some reason y'know. I feel they were trying to copy the deaths off Build and to make Sougo feel alone but only Geiz should have died. That scene was well pulled off tho'

Is it me or was I the only one who saw the smokescreen that Sougo stepped out of before going Oma-Zio? It was clear Schwartz thought Zi-0 died in the blast because the smoke gave them cover.

And oh gods, no. Do you know how many rider wars we've had now in how many movies now? We even had one in the Edo era, for pete's sake. (Tho' the most interesting) we don't need Kamen Rider Taisen again or Gokaiger 2. Rather be show be unique than a ripoff but I will say the tributes could have been done better Gokaiger-style with the theme songs always in BGM instead of once or twice. That'd have helped it way more.

Zi-0 was fun goofy show with very loose time travel rules for a show and established that from the beginning. I think it was kinda clever to hide the slipshod mishmash of worlds into a plot point and use the Kamen riders as Totems. It'd have been cool to see the Kamen riders work together in a new way like Gentaro monitoring space and Kouta trying to fight the chaos of the time stream instead of just rider kicking the umpteenth time but actors don't seem to come back as much for Kamen rider sadly. Still better than build tho'
It got repetitive for a long time. Whereas Zi-0 had surprises and curveballs along the way, good or bad. That's why I'd take it over a show where you know what's coming.