[Fish Sandwich]

(Fish Sandwich also watched Kamen Rider Zi-O - EP28)

My past self is going to contradict me on this later -- and not without good reason -- but looking back, this is probably my overall favorite single episode of Zi-O? I mean, it's so so hard to choose, with how many amazing concluding chapters this show has to different arcs that are entertaining for such varied reasons, but when it comes to episodes of Zi-O that have just stuck with me constantly ever since I first watched them, this one might just be at the top of the list. At the very least, this four-part arc was literally number one on the list I gave Die back when this was going to be Tokunation watches Zi-O. And given what Die has said about the choices people made, that probably wasn't a contrarian pick for once!

And good thing, too, because I don't know how much I could hold myself back if people started talking too much smack about an episode this obviously amazing! Even the alleged Time Nonsense and Another Zi-O himself are big winners in my book. The idea that Swartz basically maliciously set Sougo on the path towards becoming Oma Zi-O fits beautifully with the overall themes of the series. And it's also why I'm genuinely quite fond of Hiryuu Kakogawa as a character, as well. He's extraordinarily petty by design, because he lacks a strength that our two heroes have. He wants to take down Zi-O, just like Geiz does, but unlike Geiz, his motivation lacks anything deeper behind that. He's got a tragic past that shaped his life in a major way, but unlike Sougo, he makes no effort to prevent himself from letting those events consume him. You can call Hiryuu lame and shallow all you want, and I'll agree, and tell you that's exactly why I like him. He's doing darn good work throughout these episodes as a foil for the true Riders here. Despite the emotional impact for these ones landing where they did, my excitement for these episodes began with the idea of how fun Another Zi-O sounds as a concept, and I did not at all find myself disappointed.

But yeah, at the end of the day, we are here for Geiz and Sougo, aren't we? Still not much I really feel like I need to even explain to anyone who's seen the show, so I'll just talk about Sougo in particular a bit, instead. I feel like from this point onwards is where he's truly become a fully fleshed out protagonist. We saw him find the courage to not let his future define him earlier in the show, and now, with the backstory we're given here, we also see his determination not to be weighed down by his past, and those two things together, I think they get you the real core of Zi-O's goal as a hero. Den-O was the Kamen Rider who fought to protect time, but Zi-O fights to create it. To live in a present he's decided for himself, and to make sure everyone else gets the chance to do the same.

I don't know, I guess I should cut myself off soon, because I could ramble about this one for ages, so I'll just mention that, as you can probably tell from that last paragraph, Sougo's speech to Hiryuu is a scene that's always really stuck with me in particular. Sou Okuno absolutely nailed the delivery on those lines, I fundamentally love seeing the hero just making such an earnest plea for an antagonist not to waste their life, and as FreshToku has mentioned already, it's the scene that debuts what might be my favorite track of the show, combining with the new battle theme from the (amazingly fun!) Another Rider All-Stars showdown to make Toki no Ouja into a backbone of the show's soundtrack for the rest of the run.

Gaaaaah, this episode really is just too good! The whole reason this track stuck out so much to begin with, too, is in huge part thanks to how sparingly a lot of the dramatic scenes here use any music at all, relying on the performances of the actors and the stellar visuals from Tasaki to carry the emotions instead. And they can do that *handily*. This was such a wonderful climactic turning point for Zi-O! I'm going to stop talking about it for real this time though! Honest! (Until I inevitably want to talk about it more later, at least!)