[Kamen Rider Die]

KAMEN RIDER ZI-O EPISODE 28 - “OUR GOAL 2019”



This one… hmm.

As someone who only really cares about these shows when I can invest in the characters and their relationships (even if it’s just some random one-off story with guest stars), the epic conclusion to this story about Sougo and Geiz’z really real friendship was delightful. It’s a hard-fought effort to stop looking at haunted pasts or doomed futures, but to focus on the support and value of the present. There was a semi-healthy friendship that Geiz was blowing up because of what might happen in the future, and that’s a terrible way to live your life. It’s also a great way to get yourself killed, if you think so little of Right Now that you’re willing to use a deadly power-up just to save an uncertain future. Everything with the two of them in this episode worked for me.

A lot of that is just… it’s two really fun actors? Geiz’z almost performative frostiness, obscuring a lonely boy’s need for friendship. Sougo’s loudly-stated need for friendship, clearly communicated and now thoroughly unstoppable. It’s massively vulnerable, and both actors nail the strange mix of emotions that need to stabilize into something warm and sustainable.

Where this episode lost me, naturally, is in the Time Nonsense.

Up front: I don’t care about it, but it doesn’t ruin this episode. At worst, it keeps this episode from greatness by diluting its focus. There’s a bunch of time spent adding more mysteries, to take the place of the few resolved mysteries from the last couple episodes. All of that time, honestly, would’ve been better spent on longer scenes for Geiz and Sougo, even if it meant less Tsukasa. (I love Tsukasa! But he added nothing to this episode! Other than helping to set up Diend’s arrival! Sort of! But not really!) It’s this episode trying to do Big Plot Stuff and Big Character Stuff, but doing it separately instead of simultaneously, so it feels like the two sides are fighting each other. There’s not a lot of flow to this episode, and that’s a drawback.

The other drawback is more slight, but I found the resolution to Tsukuyomi’s crisis of faith to be hilariously obtuse, with her basically saying that they should believe in Sougo because the Time Jackers might be up to something. This is– this is not new information! The Time Jackers have been up to something since literally the first episode! We still don’t know what, exactly, Swartz is up to, so Tsukuyomi reverting to Episode 24 Tsukuyomi as the result of more questions than answers feels hopelessly insufficient to the recent shift in the status quo. (I mean, there’s also Tsukuyomi seeing an 8-year old Sougo use his Time Powers to save lives, but: also not new information.) I probably laughed harder than Geiz and Sougo at her 11th-hour arrival to defuse a defused situation, since she might as well have arrived from an earlier, better point in her character arc.

Another Zi-O didn’t really become anything worth caring about (the show never found any nuance to his grudge that’d help it cover four episodes), but he certainly allowed for an epic battle! The fire of Geiz and Sougo’s reaffirmed friendship (shut up, Geiz, you were already friends) was so hot it melted a snowy parking lot, which is pretty goddamn special. Their teamwork through the Another Rider battle royale was exquisite, with them coordinating attacks and sharing power-ups. Just a great front-to-back action sequence of two Rider Bros overcoming the odds for a well-deserved victory.

I’m more excited for the future than I am for this episode, which is maybe the exact wrong lesson to draw from it. (Sorry, Sougo!) I love that Team Zi-O is back together under one roof, and that Woz is officially part of the team, and that Geiz hates it. The road to get here was bumpy, though, so I don’t love that part. The Time Jacker stuff is still nebulous, Hat Woz is still vaguely untrustworthy, Tsukasa is still the Wild Card who coasts on charisma in lieu of a coherent strategy, and the last four episodes of Tsukuyomi’s arc is something I am going to erase from my brain at the end of this sentence. But Geiz and Sougo’s friendship! Boy, that’s worth at least four uneven episodes.