[Fish Sandwich]

(Fish Sandwich also watched Kamen Rider Zi-O - EP15)

This episode was such a great turning point for the series, to a level that reading even as minor a criticism as "a little one-note" has me defensively thinking "IT'S A REALLY GOOD NOTE THOUGH!!!"

Definitely an episode that does a lot to start refocusing Sougo's character, retroactively justifying his early attitude in the show by making it intensely clear how much him not taking his future seriously was always the point. The whole prophetic dream thing, by the way, is something I think ended up adding a fair bit to the themes of the show, but I suppose that's all I should say for now.

And speaking of Sougo's character, one of the coolest things about this one is just that it was a great way to bring Oma Zi-O into the spotlight as a proper character. Everything about him is just great here. I love how his response to Sougo saying he thought he'd become the bestest goodest king ever is just to go "I am that", which really exemplifies the whole problem with Sougo's dream job. If you're the ultimate authority in the world, then you know, as long as you think you're doing alright... Basically, Oma Zi-O is just a really neat idea in general? That design already seemed cool before the show even started airing, but then you hear Koyama's imposing voice for him, and they find space like this to loop him into an episode plot in a interesting way, and he starts to genuinely feel like as big a deal as the other characters make him out to be.

And while Geiz's "Zi-O" is a favorite of mine, and Woz's "waga maou" is iconic, I also love how Oma Zi-O always refers to Sougo as "wakaki hi no watashi", which rubs in that, yes, they really are the same person, no matter how much Sougo doesn't want to believe it, but on top of that, it has this affectionate tone to it that really enhances their whole dynamic. Just that one bit of word choice implies so much about how Oma Zi-O views the Sougo of the present.