[Fish Sandwich]

(Fish Sandwich also watched Kamen Rider Zi-O - EP23)

So, first of all, after a few years, it's just now occurring to me what the real commonality between the Miriders is, and I'd just like to take a second to walk everyone through this all at once:

- Shinichirou Shirakura and Naomi Takebe were producers on Kamen Rider Zi-O, which was written by Kento Shimoyama and Nobuhiro Mouri
- Shinobi is played by Hideya Tawada, who had a starring role in Shuriken Sentai Ninninger, which was produced by Takebe and written by Shimoyama and Mouri
- Quiz is played by Katsuhiro Suzuki, who had a starring role in Tokumei Sentai Go-Busters, which was produced by Takebe and written in part by Shimoyama and Mouri
- Kikai is played by Jingi Irie, who had a starring role in Kikaider Reboot, a movie produced by Shirakura and written by Shimoyama, and which had a promotional crossover with Kamen Rider Gaim, produced by Takebe, in an episode written by Mouri.

*Whew*! It's all one big conspiracy theory, I tell ya'. Toei only has five actors, and even fewer writers and producers!

Anyway, getting to the episode at hand, my post from the time is a real microcosm of some general feelings I had toward the show at the time, a lot of which seems rather quaint to my present self, in retrospect.

- I mention how I was actively critical of Zi-O despite enjoying it a ton, and really, that was always all according to plan. In my experience, Rider shows I start thinking of as perfect right out of the gate end up leaving me feeling a little burned by the end (I have very complicated feelings about Gaim!), and that had just happened a tiny bit with Build as Zi-O was starting, so I think I made it a point to try and... well, actually, now that I think about it, it sort of overlaps with what EP22 was about thematically? Rather than put Zi-O up on some pedestal to be shattered later, I figured I'd enjoy it more if I was actively embracing the complexity of its quality from the start, rather than ignoring any potential faults. Not that I was thinking about it that consciously, I'm sure. That decision was probably inspired, more than anything, by how much nitpicking I constantly did with Ex-Aid, embittered Ghost fan that I was, which was itself a conscious decision to prevent that show from becoming another Gaim for me. Ex-Aid fought hard and won my unfailing respect by the end, becoming one of those series I only ever seem to like more the more time passes. I gave Zi-O the same treatment, and here I am a few years down the line, translating insert songs and reminiscing at length about the halcyon days of the show being on the air, so, once again -- all according to plan.

- Die went with calling Tsukuyomi "Time Mom"; I went with calling her a plank of wood, which I still feel a little bad about. I also don't think I was out of line with that remark. Tsukuyomi is a character I always felt the show struggled with making particularly interesting, and it got the point where I named an entire concept after her -- The Tsukuyomi Zone. It's basically the pet name I gave to this weird pattern of thinking I've noticed in myself, where if I feel the right sort of sustained apathy about a character or whatever else, it eventually becomes pity, and that pity in turn becomes genuine affection. Prime examples of other toku characters located firmly in The Tsukuyomi Zone for me include Mihara from Faiz, as well as Yui from Ryuki, who probably would've been the namesake of this phenomenon if I had realized it was a thing prior to 2019. I'm uh, I'm not sure what all this says about me as a person or not, but at any rate, I kinda like Tsukuyomi now! Some of it is for reasons Die has yet to get to, but just, in general, I don't know, I really softened up on her over time. All of this is sort of irrelevant to how I feel about her role in this particular plot though, which is going to lean on the negative side either way. I was honestly 100% on board with the concept of what's going on here, but like I mentioned at the time, and just like Die noticed too, the crucial problem for me is that Tsukuyomi's feelings about Sougo basically immediately stop being about her. It's a rather glaring disservice to a character who so faithfully serves so many others despite never being rewarded for her tireless efforts... kind of like a mother...

- I talk about how excited I was about the prospect of only seeing Zi-O II a bunch at the expense of the base form, and that speaks volumes about just how much I loved that previous episode. It's borderline out of character for me to ever being saying something like that, and now that the show is over, one of the things I really love about Zi-O ended up being how much it keeps the older suits in action. This was right after Build, as well, where Sento went between episode 30 all the way to the finale without using RabbitTank a single time, so again, I appreciated the change of pace. And Zi-O II didn't even end up being my favorite Zi-O form in the long run! But that Ryuki two-parter was just *that* good, that in the moment, I basically couldn't think of anything else.