[Kamen Rider Die]

KAMEN RIDER ZI-O EPISODE 22 - “STRONGEST ZI-O! 2019”



My favorite version of this show is when it pushes Team Zi-O through another show’s themes and morals and lessons. Not the whole Legend Rider Gives Advice part, as nice as that is, but when the production team tries to move Sougo and the Time Orphans through a whole different set of emotional or philosophical problems, drawn from another show’s obsessions and interests. When Zi-O treats all of Heisei as a road map for becoming a better person, that’s when I’m at my happiest.

So, yeah, I loved this episode.

And not for the Zi-O II stuff, although I imagine that’s what most people are going to want to talk about. I think it’s a neat costume, the designers just doubling everything up: two sets of watch-hand antennae, two sets of watchbands forming a tabard, all of it. I like how it feels like a step towards Oma Zi-O’s design, this slightly more regal appearance of Sougo’s. I mostly like how it’s Sougo himself becoming more powerful, since this isn’t some other Rider’s power he’s stacking onto his own. It’s just him, getting more unstoppable.

But all of that was a distant second to me, after how this episode worked the Ryuki themes around its recurring cast.

Ryuki was a show about how difficult it can be to truly know other people, but how necessary it was to try anyway. We become better versions of ourselves by seeing things from other perspectives, and trying to understand other people. Learning why someone else values something can have us examining our own value system. Discovering someone’s hidden traumas can help us to understand our own unresolved issues. Asking questions is more important than getting answers, because there are always more questions to ask. It was a show that never wanted people to settle for certainty, because there’s no such thing as being absolutely certain.

So we get this wonderful story about how the Time Orphans have grown as people thanks to Sougo, but still manage to get blindsided when he’s more complicated than they thought. They’ve seen his outward actions – his generosity, his enthusiasm – and put him up on a pedestal. Sougo’s always good. Sougo always does the right thing. Sougo’d never consider harming someone for the greater good. Geiz and Tsukuyomi can put all of their faith in Sougo, because he’s the best of them.

Which is exactly the sort of thinking that gets us, y’know, genocidal despots. When we stop seeing people as people, and start seeing them as paragons of justice, we lose perspective. We stop asking questions of their motivations, of their goals, of their limits. We stop acting as barriers to their darker impulses. The Time Orphans saw one side of Sougo, and didn’t think he could be hiding anything.

But we all hide things. Sougo’s confusion at Geiz being down on himself for contemplating killing Shinji is reasonable, you know? Defeating Ryuga seems impossible, and here’s a possible solution. Both Sougo and Geiz immediately discard it, because it’s evil, but they’re not evil for considering it. Sougo’s a three-dimensional character in this story, even if he isn’t always portrayed that way in others. He always does the right thing, but that means discarding the wrong thing first. He won’t let Geiz sacrifice himself, but he knows what stopping Geiz means as far as defeating Ryuga goes. He can be good, because he’s overcoming his own capacity for evil.

That’s a universal thing, even if it isn’t much of a Ryuki theme. (Maybe the movie? There aren't a lot of Mirror Selves in the TV show, unfortunately.) Our reflections aren’t some alternate version of ourselves; they’re just us. We’re complicated, and it’s okay to be complicated. You’re allowed to think bad thoughts, or doubt yourself, or feel like you can’t be the version of yourself that you imagine. But the point of all that is to confront it, and then choose the better outcome. Give up on grudges like Shinji does, because they’re poisonous. Be okay with how messy you are, like Sougo, because there’s value in the messiness. Take everything that’s in you, and let it help you be better tomorrow than you were today.

This was a good Ryuki episode, and a great Zi-O episode.