[Switchblade]

When I heard who Zi-O was bringing back for its Agito arc I had one very specific thing that I needed to have included. It's a small but very important detail. I needed to hear Rina Akiyama say "Shouichi-kun." It was about 20% of her dialogue on the original series and it would have been an absolute failure on Zi-O as an anniversary show if it had been left out. Thankfully, the writers knew better and, while it's not the main contributing factor, it is definitely still part of why these two episodes are basically tied with the Blade arc as my favorite tributes.

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

I thought this did an amazing job tying Tsukuyomi?s need for a backstory/relevance into an Agito homage. It?s more directly related to Team Zi-O than the Blade story was last time, while still managing to feel like the Agito cast has skin in the game. Another good episode in this new era!

I loved this about these episodes. As much as I generally give, at best, zero fucks about Tsukuyomi, it was really nice to see the writers recognize the parallels to Agito and use them to not only pay tribute to the original show, but to also help move this show's story forward. You really get the sense that the writers have been doing their homework on the older shows and it pays off with some really great moments (including, in the next episode, my single favorite moment in all of Zi-O).

I don't know what went on behind the scenes during this phase of Zi-O - I imagine that's a question for either Fish or Androzani - but the decision to rework how the anniversary elements function was absolutely a stroke of genius.