[Fish Sandwich]

This was about what I expected, which isn't exactly a bad thing. You've got a super fun, lighthearted plot about what a great duo Ikki and Vice are, that is also laying it on real thick precisely for the purpose of forming a contrast with Jack Revice's debut. And that's a pretty good way to go about this, I think! We've obviously ended up a bit of a pattern at this point with Rider shows having some form debut in the mid 20's where the main guy loses control, but considering in this case, it's just the other 50% of the main guy taking over, they've found a decently fresh spin on this. Plus, Eitoku totally gets to say he was the suit actor for a primary Rider now, so that's pretty neat! I'm kind of a sucker for all of these forms to begin with, so it's not too surprising, but yeah, I'm digging Jack Revice right now. Shibasaki's direction also very clearly pays off in the visuals for the transformation and everything, too.

I'm also perhaps even more excited about the other form changes here, though. I'm not sure I'll ever get tired of seeing the Zero-One finishers recreated, and I was pleasantly surprised to see Kong and Megalodon getting in there for a second. I don't want to get my hopes too high, considering we're not even quite past Revice's halfway point yet, but I'm really appreciating how many forms are getting time to shine right now.

And what was even more exciting than all that might actually be the brief scenes with Tamaki here? I kind of like how you read into Aguilera's decision to cut ties with him at the start as her way of sort of protecting a powerless Julio from getting caught up with Olteca, assuming she had already made the decision to team up with him. Or maybe she really is just being a jerk who only cares about her own goals, right? It's nicely ambiguous that way, but what isn't ambiguous is how adorable a heartbroken Tamaki still walking around with those melted ice cream cones is. Good on Sakura for taking the poor guy in; he's had enough things going wrong in his life lately.

(Also, Fenix director dude is making the worst possible choice expecting Daiji to fill the void left by Hiromi. When you're running some secret evil scheme, you want a guy who doesn't overthink things the way Daiji does in that position. You just know he's going to ask one question too many at some point.)