[FreshToku]

It occurred to me that I didn't actually remember what my first impressions of this set of episodes were, and its because I've never really stopped thinking about them until a long time after they aired.

It's a shame that Tsukiyomi is kind of just a plot device. It's a shame that Hiryu's elaboration on why he hates Sougo is pretty weak. It's a shame that the Time Jackers still take up any screentime whatsoever.

But it's honestly easy for me to just put that all aside when I'm that invested in the most important thing in this story (and in the whole show, frankly), that being Geiz and Zi-O. And it sounds like you're doing the same thing!

That the new ridewatch will only work if Geiz wants to kill Zi-O badly enough is admittedly kind of a cheap way to get across that he's absolutely serious this time, but... it works, doesn't it?! What's important is that once again, it feels inevitable that all this damage will keep piling up as long as Zi-O remains, and so as much as it hurts him, Geiz fully and tragically believes that the only right thing to do is to follow up on his promise made back in episode 16.

And as for Sougo's side of things, although I don't think the whole 'embracing light and darkness' speech from a few episodes back hit all that much for me, I can readily accept at this point that becoming a king is a dream of his that he just cannot and will not give up, and so he comes to this equally tragic understanding that Geiz has to fight him, so he has to respond in turn.

And I'm always reminded of how much I love tokusatsu when they work in these major story and character moments into the debut of a new DX toy!! The slow transformation into Geiz Revive brings in White Woz hailing il salvatore, and sone new, absolutely awesome theme music! The music does a lot for this scene, because it's this unabashedly heroic-sounding and beautiful piece to go along with the hero's newfound resolve (it also uses the motif of Geiz's character song but that song basically doesn't exist in the show so whatever).

Because of that, there's this deliberate dissonance I love about how that triumphant music flares up as Geiz Revive is getting the upperhand on Zi-O II. All conventional sense tells you that you ought to be cheering for the savoir defeating the overlord, even though at the same time, nothing about this fight is something that should be happening (at least I hope most viewers at this point of time don't actually want Zi-O to just get destroyed!!).

All these elements come together to make Geiz Revive one of the most memorable form debuts in this whole franchise for me, and definitely the most memorable in this show. Most of my love for this pair of suits comes entirely from how much I enjoyed (the back half of) this episode, and really that's ideally how it should be in these shows!

Also random oberservation, this is like the third year in a row we have a toy that lets you switch between a red (orange is close enough) suit and a blue suit, after the Gashat Gear Dual and the Fullfull Bottle, which is funny to me! I'll also mentally throw in Accel and Accel Trial for the fun of it.