[Kamen Rider Die]

KAMEN RIDER ZI-O EPISODE 40 - “2017 - GRAND CLIMAX!”



This is an episode that I liked pretty well, without it really connecting with me.

It’s not a bad episode, by any stretch. The Legend Rider aspects went over great. The Takuya storyline has an earned sense of melancholy, and does a great job of looping in Den-O’s pervasive feeling of regret to create an affecting story of grief. Grand Zi-O’s nearly half-episode long debut is suitably epic; a movie finale in miniature. Tsukuyomi even gets a couple lines!

(Bound to happen when a guest cast is this massive, but, boy, they really downgraded Tsukuyomi in this episode. Why doesn’t she get to go back to 2017 and help out? I guess they needed someone to help Uncle fix clocks this week?)

It’s just… I don’t know, nothing really hit me emotionally, despite the overall quality being more than sufficient. I think it’s that the various elements of the story never seemed to have much particular buy-in from Team Zi-O. They’re committed to helping Yukihiro, and obtaining the Den-O Ridewatch, but the big emotional beats of this story don’t really involve our heroes. They’re present, but they’re not participating, if that makes any sense. This wasn’t a problem that taught Sougo anything about himself, or tested Geiz’z resolve, or troubled Woz’z confidence, or remembered to include Tsukuyomi. It was a Den-O problem, and they all got to play-act as the Den-Liner crew for a fortnight.

I did like it all, though. The actor who plays Takuya really nails the sort of grief that could motivate someone to go on a temporal rampage, but crumble in the face of a sibling’s graceful final wish. It’s a neat story, how we find it easier to blame someone than accept that tragedies occur. That’s a story that overlaps pretty smoothly with both Den-O and Zi-O. The pacts with Imagin and the candidates for Another Ridewatches: it’s all just people who want to avoid some element of their fate, and can’t accept the things they can’t change. Thematically, I don’t think this episode had anything to apologize for.

But why am I talking about Themes and Character Development when we’ve got Grand Zi-O to salivate over?

It’s a hell of a debut. Probably one of the most stunning and grandiose upgrade debuts I’ve ever seen. Much like the impossibly shiny suit, it’s a clean debut, for better or worse. There’s no sinister darkness to Sougo’s new power, nor is there a catharsis to his achievement. He just, like, collected them all. Den-O’s Ridewatch was a little tricky, but it wasn’t an insurmountable hurdle. While it’s fun to have a debut that we can all just enjoy, no strings attached, it felt a bit hollow to me. Zi-O II came about because Sougo acknowledged his capacity for evil, all the better to overcome it. Geiz Revive was an arrival that heralded a duel between Geiz and his friend, a duel neither of them wanted. Grand Zi-O, though… it’s just, like, time for it? No pun intended? It overwhelms with spectacle, but I found myself wanting there to be more weight to it all.

That spectacle, though! The cleverness of Zi-O plucking Heisei Riders from their historical finishes to inflict them on his target, freezing them in mid-air to line up the perfect cascade of devastation, and getting coached by his own tiny idol? Amazing. The show promised a lot with the tease of the Grand Zi-O suit, and this episode's entire act devoted to it did not disappoint.

And, yeah, I’m not disappointed. I wish this episode hit me harder emotionally, but I had a blast just sitting back and enjoying the party of it. In every way, this story was a climax, from start to finish.