[Fish Sandwich]

(Fish Sandwich also watched Kamen Rider Zi-O - EP16)

I love this episode sooooooooo much. I don't think anything I can say about it would properly get across the extent to which I adore it, so I'm really glad people seem to be in agreement that this one nailed it. Pretty much every Rider show since Double gets its little "season finale" at the end of the year, and for me personally, this one is way up there. Most of it comes down to Sougo and Geiz, of course. It's great character development for both of them, their arcs are intertwined in a way that's super compelling, and honestly, I would go so far as to say it makes all the initial hurdles the show faced with developing Sougo worth it. I mean, it got us here, didn't it? As amazing as this two-parter is, I don't think it would mean anywhere near as much to me if it didn't represent the growth of the series itself at the same time it was doing that for its main Riders. Mouri did real good writing these ones. We came a long way from those OOO episodes in a short time, and a longer way from that premiere in a slightly less short one.

There's also a particular thing about the episode I love, which is just how the belts are used? This goes back to why I liked the Fourze plot in Movie War Ultimatum so much too, but, at the risk of stating the obvious, the whole point of the series is to convince you that belt is real cool. You *want* that thing. It's the whole nature of being a merchandise-driven show. But that isn't necessarily a curse, and I always really appreciate when they do something clever with the inherent demand that a Rider's transformation device needs to be a focal point of the narrative. For instance, one of the most hype things that ever happened in Ex-Aid is in the midpoint two-parter where Genm finally gets taken down, and Ex-Aid does that using Kiriya's Gamer Driver, after Kuroto trashes his own. So like, in spirit, Kiriya is right there, evening the score after the worst Christmas ever. (And this is before even mentioning the whole Reprogramming thing with Maximum Mighty X, of course. That was a really good Ex-Aid episode!) It was a really fresh thing to see in a Rider show, where for a stretch after that, Emu just kept using that belt, and even though he was the same Ex-Aid as always, his transformation device was now also like a symbol of friendship, and that was awesome.

So then you get to this episode of Zi-O, that does both the Fourze and the Ex-Aid thing in one fell swoop, and both of them work just as well as ever. I respected the heck out of Sougo for not hesitating to give up power if having it meant people got hurt, and the fact that from this point on, Zi-O and Geiz are both transforming with Ziku Drivers they gave each other is just... I mean, that's so perfect! Geiz made Zi-O again, right after finally getting rid of that problem. That scene between the two of them is one of the highlights of the entire series for me, and one of the reasons I adore this duo's dynamic so much, and just like with Ex-Aid, I also adore that both of them are always wearing that little reminder of this episode in every fight they get in from here.

And because this episode really was just the best Christmas present, it gave me one of my favorite insert songs in all of Kamen Rider:

I seriously considered writing up a translation of the lyrics for Zi-O Toki no Ouja (that's "ruler of time"), much the way I did for the Message trilogy back in the Kiva thread. A quick search around didn't turn up any existing ones I'm at all satisfied with, but then, I'm not sure I could do *that* much better. But, uh, I'm getting ahead of myself here.

This is just like, the most absolutely perfect theme song for Sougo imaginable. It was composed by Toshihiko Sahashi himself, and as such, it stays true to what I said before I liked about his motifs for Sougo. This is more or less a rousing heroic anthem for Zi-O, but -- especially for an insert theme to be used in fight scenes -- it's not all that upbeat or energetic in tone. There's a sort of ponderous weight to the whole thing, befitting a Sougo who's going through this internal struggle, where he has to decide to press on and believe in himself, even knowing now exactly how severe the consequences of his actions may end up being.

This is all further brought out by the fantastic lyrics, courtesy of-- well, I mean, if you've seen me gush about toku songs enough, I probably don't even need to say it. But yes, believe it or not, I'm extraordinarily fond of the words Shouko Fujibayashi put to this music! They're just super duper poetic and beautiful, and capture so, so much about Sougo. As is usually the case, it feels almost like she knew the characters more than the writers even did at the time, because the impression this song gives of Sougo only becomes more and more fitting as the series moves along.

So again, one of my favorites ever, and its use fits this particular episode so well. Especially because of how unique its vibe is, it's one I find myself singing all the time too, even years later.

...

Oh, and while I'm here! I really need to take time to explicitly mention how much I love the .5 episodes. Probably one of the least controversial opinions I've ever had, but Net Movies are great, and after so many years without them, it felt so nice seeing Rider have an outlet again for goofy meta humor mixed with production trivia. It hurts that they only lasted as long as they did, but at the same time, it really is hard to imagine them keeping up that steam for an entire year, and if you're going to have to call it quits anyway, the year-end break definitely makes sense as a spot to do that.