[Fish Sandwich]

(Fish Sandwich also watched Kamen Rider Zi-O - EP08)

I'm kinda not even sure what to say about this episode, besides that it was a pretty major turning point for my opinion of Zi-O.... something that seems to be the case with a couple people in here already. Which, you know, the more the merrier, right? It made me really happy to see the twist at the end land for you, Die. I've mentioned in a couple of those old posts how the dynamic of being a viewer watching Zi-O kind of has some broad similarities to how Geiz, you know, watches Zi-O, and much like he realized Sougo is capable of far, far more than he was giving him credit for, this plot made me start to consider the potential of this show as more than just hypothetical.

The difference being, of course, that as a viewer, I got to just be excited about that revelation.

I'll also mention here, because it seems like a good spot, how much I love the Dopant model of Rider monster? It's just my taste in heroism, I guess, but I like seeing evildoers stopped, rather than outright destroyed, and as Zi-O's Another Riders have already demonstrated a few times, including here, it lets you do stories where the villain is also one of the people the hero is trying to save, which is an interesting dynamic, and just makes things feel so much more human and intimate. Wizard accomplishes something very similar even though the Phantom/Gate formula is obviously not quite the same, and I thought these episodes of Zi-O did a fantastic job capturing that same vibe, where it's all about a Kamen Rider giving everything he's got to protect something very small in scale. Again, very strong outing for Zi-O.

Plus! I feel like gushing about Sahashi's music again right now, so here's the track that plays during that climactic phone call across time:

The visual split is cool enough already, but the BGM in Zi-O just adds so much to the series. Even the tracks for the quiet moments, like this one, often have this sort of ethereal vibe to them that makes things feel so grand. What also impresses me is that like, the whole aesthetic of Zi-O's music is often so different to Sahashi's other work, and it fascinates me how much he's kept evolving his style over the years. You would never immediately peg this as being from the same guy who did Kuuga.