[Fish Sandwich]

(Fish Sandwich also watched Kamen Rider Zi-O - EP14)

I once again find myself lacking anything in particular to say about these episodes, which is hilarious, because as The Ghost Ones, they were one of the sets I explicitly put on my list back when Die was planning to do this thread the same way he did Decade. I mean, I'm sure it'd be different if I had just rewatched them, of course; there's definitely a lot going on here. Between Ghosts galore, Zi-O's greatest weapon, and Tsukasa being himself, I recall this being an extremely satisfying outing for this show.

Using Decade as a straight up antagonist really was the best, dare I say only, possible choice for his role in Zi-O. One of the things about Tsukasa that makes him so special is that, of the 20 main protagonists of Heisei Kamen Rider, he's literally the only one who you can treat as a villain and have it make complete sense with little extra effort required. There's a part of a me that sort of misses the genuine emotional vulnerability Tsukasa got to display on occasion when he was a younger hero on a quest to find his identity (he literally cries in his show's opening every episode), but at the same time, there's just no denying how much this sort of role works for the guy. I mean, he's not the protagonist here, right? We're seeing things from the perspective of the Zi-O crew, and this is probably just how Tsukasa always comes off to all the other Riders he meets.

Although, despite the usual attitude problems, Tsukasa is already giving off those major stealth mentor vibes handing out powerups to the heroes. The Decade Armor is another one I'm legitimately pretty fond of, by the way. It's sheer clunk factor is something I can't help but find endearing, and it has a really inspired gimmick to it. Again, it's sort of the obvious thing to do, but I'm really glad they didn't pass up the chance to make Decade just a tiny bit more special to Zi-O than the other Riders are.