[Kamen Rider Die]

KAMEN RIDER ZI-O EPISODE 10 - “HAWK, TIGER, AND GRASSHOPPER 2010”





I sort of saw what Sougo was going for last episode, so this one didn’t surprise me a lot with its motivations or reveals. He wants to learn what not to do as an overlord, so he decides to spend time with Kuroto. The surprises were in how they’d walk back some of Sougo’s more villainous activities, and how the Time Orphans would forgive him.

I was definitely surprised by how bad the answers were?

Like, last episode let everyone see that Sougo’s goal-oriented mindset is maybe more immediately problematic than everyone feared. Geiz and Tsukuyomi thought they had a lot of time before there’d be any warning signs that Sougo might be on the wrong path; they were not expecting it to be in the fifth story of the season. Sougo was acting as the (hilariously) cheerful henchman to a (hilariously) bombastic villain, and real people were getting hurt. This isn’t just something Sougo could say My Bad to, and it wasn’t something that Tsukuyomi and Geiz could just overlook.

So, naturally, Sougo says My Bad, and the Time Orphans overlook it.

I wouldn’t say it squanders the intriguing character work of the previous episode, because Sougo’s explanations have such specificity and flavor to them that it’s hard to call this chapter a failure. His definition of Good Despot as someone who’s, like, an elected king (ridiculous!) is a little bit more reasonable than some warlord who everyone likes. He’s talking about the Magna Carta, but for Kamen Riders who control time and space. The idea that he’ll know he’s being a good person as long as he can take criticism and guidance is a pretty neat one. It’s a way of talking about history as something that doesn’t have a static value, but becomes good or bad based on people’s insights. That’s a nicely thematic way of framing things for Sougo.

(If anything, I think Eiji’s role as Man Of The People is more crucial to his role in this story than the OOO catchphrases or whatever. The thing that Sougo’s talking about being, a kind leader who serves at his subjects' request… that’s an elected official! That’s someone in representative government! Just run for office, kid!)

But the details of this episode are DUMB. They’re so dumb! The big two problems are in Sougo’s defense, and the Time Orphans’ forgiveness.

Sougo commits a whole bunch of terrible acts in the past two episodes – injuring Geiz, assisting a man who is turning innocents into monsters, imprisoning dissenters – and yet he keeps assuring his friends that he hasn’t done anything wrong yet. HE HAS! HE COMPLETELY HAS! We’re well past some hypothetical moment where Sougo could possibly maybe do horrible things in pursuit of his goals. He did them! Last episode! And he doesn’t really seem to think they’re worth more than a Mea Culpa! We don’t get some huge realization that he’s in over his head, or a stern rebuke from any of the other/actual good guys in the story. He’s just like Changed My Mind, and smiles his way through everyone’s incredulity.

And that incredulity is frustratingly short-lived, especially in Tsukuyomi and Geiz. They’re both acutely aware of Sougo’s possibly villainous future, but they seem to think this brief moment of adjacent villainy was some weird bump in the road… while we’ve been told from Episode 1 that it’s the path they’re most afraid he’ll take. I don’t – for a single second – understand why this wouldn’t be the breaking point for the two of them. I get why Sougo would behave the way he does, mostly, but I don’t understand why Tsukuyomi and Geiz would think he’s worthy of another chance.

It makes for an episode that has a few really fantastic scenes (Sougo’s speech at the end to Kuroto; Sougo excitedly running to meet Geiz so Geiz can kill him; Hina using her super-strength multiple times, just for me), but makes its characters view really big moments as small, insignificant blips. I liked the way it expanded Sougo’s character, but I wish it didn’t come at the expense of the Time Orphans’ believability.



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KAMEN RIDER ZI-O COMPLEMENTATION PROJECT EPISODE 10.5 - “MOURI VS SHIMOYAMA”

Ha ha ha, MAN, I was apparently not the only one who thought this story didn’t work out great for the series-long arcs of its characters!

This one basically goes It Was A Guest-Writer, and just throws that dude under the bus. I was, weirdly, kinder to the last two episodes than the cast and crew of this .5 episode? I thought it had some interesting moves for Sougo’s character, with a troubling lack of repercussions, but this short starts with Sougo going Why Did I Do Any Of That. That is… man! Cold blooded!

I mean, not totally out of hand, though? If it’s by a guest-writer, I can see him not totally getting the boundaries of Team Zi-O. He gets Sougo pretty right by the end, but Sougo interning for a warlord should probably have been a red line for the Time Orphans. Things get a little too zany, and it hurts me to say that.

I may not’ve loved all of Episode 10, but I appreciate 10.5’s honesty.