[Kamen Rider Die]

KAMEN RIDER ZI-O EPISODE 37 - “2006 - NEXT LEVEL KABUTO”



Ha ha ha YES.

YES.

This was such an on-point Kabuto tribute, and I’m not even talking about the Special Guest Stars. (But I will! I definitely will!) We’re in a version of Zi-O that wants to talk about Hidden Histories and Evolving Powers and Secret Families, all while moving at a breakneck pace. We even got about four notes of maybe my favorite Phase 1 opening song, enough music to make me shout I’M SORRY WHAT to absolutely no one, before the show transitioned into Over Quartzer. (I’ve really come around on Over Quartzer, but, like, man. You cannot tease NEXT LEVEL like that! Almost any other song is going to feel like a huge letdown!) This series has really nailed how to make each of their tributes evoke a specific show’s pace and storytelling, which is such a welcome treat. I felt like I was watching a Kabuto show starring Team Zi-O, if that makes any sense.

This was a real Asking Questions episode, which isn’t my favorite thing in Kamen Rider, but I thought the fleetness and humor and fan service of this episode made it more palatable. We don’t learn anything new, but the series is reminding us that, hey, it is a little weird that the Another Riders aren’t overwriting the Riders they’re based on anymore, and OH also Shibuya was leveled by a meteor 19 years ago technically. (I kinda love that Sougo, whose one scholastic focus is History, is like Maybe Shibuya Was Leveled By A Meteor Before I Was Born But Who Can Say For Sure. I feel like it would've come up in school, my dude! Probably would've been in a book or two about Japan!) The things that Sougo doesn’t think matter are maybe clues to this whole series, and I thought this episode used the Head/Heart team of Tsukuyomi and Sougo to explore some of those mysteries without stopping the episode dead to do it.

And lord knows the episode can’t afford to stop when there are SO MANY GUEST STARS.

Kagami looks exactly like what I thought he’d look like, thirteen years older. He looks like a middle manager, and he carries himself like his dad. Kagami’s in this interesting space of feeling neither like he’s lived up to his potential, nor squandered it. He’s aged, but I don’t feel like he’s grown or regressed. He just, like, got thicker, and that’s it. I’m not sure if that’s to any Kagami superfan’s taste, but it made sense to me. Kagami’s goals were always sort of nebulous, and small: protecting people, being a good guy, that’s about it. It worked great in the context of being Tendou’s sidekick, because anyone living in Tendou’s shadow was going to need to be more reactive and less driven. On his own, Kagami’s just Some Guy, and it’s actually kind of sweet to see a Kamen Rider turn out like that: normal.

Because HA HA HA Yaguruma and (the late) Kageyama! Clearly reaching back in their closets to get ready for the My Chemical Romance reunion tour, and as laughably nihilistic as ever. Building this Kabuto story around Yaguruma becoming a Shitty Kabuto and defending a manipulative fake Kageyama, because the only thing better than a devoted sycophant is a devoted sycophant who everyone wants to kill… like, YES. YES TO INFINITY. If I squint enough, I can see how it ties into Tsukuyomi’s story thematically (both stories are about people needing connections from their past even if -slash- especially if they hurt them), but who cares. This isn’t, like, a Thematic story. Maybe eventually, but that’s not what this episode is focusing on.

This one’s a blast of an episode, overloading you with cool bits of Clock Up action and tons of guest stars (Tsukasa!), so you maybe don’t notice how nothing gets resolved and almost none of it means anything. It’s bits of business, setting up things that are going to be very important to the show in the future. It makes for an overcrowded episode, even if it’s not an unpleasant one. By the time our cast is dealing with the Hell Figurative Brothers, a series of increasingly large meteors, and the Misery Suburbs of 2058, it’s hard to imagine any set of themes that could properly encompass this sprawl. But nothing wears out its welcome, and every thread is compelling, so it’s all still a success.

Of course, everything’s a success when you’ve got the cast of Kabuto to lean on.