[Fish Sandwich]

(Fish Sandwich also watched Kamen Rider Zi-O - EP17)

He talks like he's just here to make the future a better place, but I have my doubts about this new Woz. Only a true villain would ever go out of their way to prevent there from being bike action in Kamen Rider!

Anyways, yeah, it's sort of tough to say a lot about this episode as an episode, but as a launchpad for a whole new arc, I think this one does an amazing job introducing yet more clever concepts to drive Zi-O to ever greater heights of wild and exciting storytelling.

...Which is maybe an overly pretentious way to say Shinobi is really cool! And not just because he's portrayed by the actor who played my favorite character in one of my absolute favorite Super Sentai shows! (Or even because his catchphrase is legitimately the way I remember how 忍 is written!)

Once again, I love how Zi-O opens up these possibilities for itself. This is a show with a format that demands there be a Very Special Guest Star every week, because it also demands there be a tribute to some Legend Rider every week... but this is also a show about its own cast, and one about time. So in comes an episode paying homage to a show that doesn't exist yet, and Zi-O suddenly has a way to give itself loads more freedom from the past, just by offering a glimpse into the future instead. It's such a natural concept for the show to explore, and an opportunity I'm very glad they didn't pass up. Much like Zi-O nailed that sense of concluding a chapter in the previous episode, it kicked off 2019 by picking a great way to shatter the expectations of the viewers, mixing up the formula in a manner that somehow sticks to the established rules at the same time it's gleefully breaking them.

It's the same story with the other Woz, of course. He's a dude who came from the future to hype up an important historical figure in his younger days, and that statement is equally true of either version. Apparently a very early concept for Geiz was that he would be a sort of rival wannabe-king for Sougo, also from the present, with Woz as the judge of their competition, and while much of that obviously got changed around, I think they found a very neat way to do something broadly similar which works with Geiz's finalized role as a conflicted maybe-assassin. I say as much in my post from the time, but "Geiz gets his own Woz" is a plot point that can't help but excite. Like, it already sounds great on paper, and the execution got off to a very fun start.

Kamen Rider Woz also has some really neat background music associated with him, so I'll take this opportunity to share some of that:

It's another example of how much range Sahashi has, because this particular track has a vibe that's not all that far removed from a typical Kuuga rock piece, and yet, in spite of that, it still comes off totally different due to the digital-y, future-y sound of the whole thing, which obvious fits the character concept well. (I'm still not any good at describing music, by the way.)

On a mostly unrelated note, I also just really like the title of this episode? I'm all about super thorough and consistent formats to those -- something that reflects the show's overall style -- and while Zi-O doesn't put ~too~ much emphasis on that, it generally sticks to these really blunt and evocative short phrases, which fits a series that's always trying to leave an impact. Especially with the gimmick of having a year in every one, I find them pretty charming.