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Originally Posted by Androzani84

As for the whole Riders erased by Another Riders. I’ve seen some people complain about it, but I personally like it. It adds some actual stakes for the bad guys and some actual consequences for the heroes (Or did you think Geiz got the Ghost Ridewatch off the back of a cereal box?) and I much prefer it to how Gokaiger handled de powering it’s heroes (after spending 3 minutes beating up mooks, every Super Sentai decides that they’re losing and decides to do a combined energy attack. Which accomplished little in the long term, since the army that sent the mooks came back anyway).

This gets into one of my biggest problems with the show and one of the things that really put me off about it initially. I like the idea of the Another Riders stealing the originals’ powers and subsequently erasing their established history. It’s a good gimmick for an anniversary season that has a time travel element as it gives the hero a purpose behind all of these crossovers. The part that never sat right with me, though, is that the show doesn’t go with the logical extension of this idea, which would be having Sougo get the Ridewatches and restore the original timeline. Instead he just keeps the powers for himself, leaving us with stuff like Sentai and Banjou: Ordinary Dorks.

I suppose, on reflection, that it does tie into the idea that Zi-O may not be the hero you expect him to be. I?m kind of just realizing that as I type this. In hindsight, that does fix some of my issues from a narrative standpoint. It doesn’t fix my issues with the way some of the earlier guest appearances worked, though. I’ll dive into that more in a few episodes, though.

Anyway, this episode does properly introduce my least favorite aspect of Zi-O (technically, it was in the first episode, but not in the way that makes it really stand out). I’m talking, of course, about Geiz’s tactical dickie. I am not a fan of Geiz’s battle jammies at the best of times, but then he showed up at the end of this episode in normal civvies but still wearing the fucking dickie, buckles and all. I don’t know if the producers thought kids wouldn’t recognize him or Tsukoyomi without a piece of their normal costumes, but the fact that Geiz wears that thing with every outfit is ridiculous. It is the dumbest fashion decision in all of Kamen Rider, and this a franchise that includes both Shunpei and the 1970s. I have a lot of issues with Geiz, which I have mentioned before and will do so again in this thread, but the tactical dickie is by far the worst element of the character.