[Kamen Rider Die]

KAMEN RIDER ZI-O EPISODE 42 - “2019 - MISSING WORLD”



It’s sort of interesting how small and personal this story ended up being.

We’re in a Darkest Timeline story, where the whole world is changed, but this entire story is about how the bond that Sougo formed with his friends is because of their own innate qualities. It can be obscured, or severed, but it can’t be erased. We’ve got a villain who’s taken over the world and vowed to crush our heroes, but this story just wants to focus on the warmth of friendship.

I like it, even if there’s a whiff of a missed opportunity in this installment. Hiryuu’s plan is just to destroy/humiliate (it sort of depends on the scene) Sougo, so we never really get a sense of what this new world has to offer. Like, even in the endless supply of films where Shocker took over the world, there’d be some weirdo detail that added to the experience. Cart racing, or whistles, or whatever. Here, it’s barely even implied. I guess the Another Riders are attacking people? And I guess Hiryuu is the king because of that? The specifics of the world lack even the saturated filters that hint at the ecological ruin of the Misery Fields of 2068, lending everything a sort of shrug of menace. It’s the Darkest Timeline because Sougo’s lost his friends, and that’s about it.

But that’s a good story to tell? It’s nearly on the level of a clip show, the way it sort of races through the Geiz/Sougo story. It touches on Sougo’s other friendships, but it’s basically dedicated to exploring his friendship with Geiz by recounting their crazy journey from adversaries to uneasy allies to friends.

Tsukuyomi’s friendship was always an empathetic pragmatism: befriending Sougo was a way to alter his destiny, help build a lonely boy into a powerful hero. Woz’z friendship was first and foremost a dedication to a regent; as soon as the title of Overlord changed hands, Woz’z loyalty (if not his admiration) went with it. But Geiz’z friendship was like pulling teeth. It was earned through months of fighting, both at each other’s sides and at each other’s throats. Getting Geiz to be Sougo’s friend in just a few scenes is, maybe, the most difficult quest of Sougo’s life.

This is one of those episodes that kind of lives or dies by one scene. It’s not a big reveal or huge debut. It’s not a Legend Rider thing. It’s not even a big, melodramatic showcase for an actor. It’s, like this whole episode, resolutely low-key and intimate. We get a nice scene where a perplexed Geiz wants to know what he was like in the previous timeline, and how he ever ended up being friends with a kid who wanted to be a time-conquering overlord.

The details are… I mean, they’re just details. Even describing the scene sort of robs of its magic. But if you’ve been watching this show for 41 episodes, it feels like a reward. There’s nothing to it, other than Sougo cheerfully telling Geiz that they were friends, and Geiz slowly coming around to the idea. It’s just a really warm scene, a fun encapsulation of this weird dynamic that’s powered a whole series.

I don’t know if this show works without you buying Geiz and Sougo as friends? I feel like that’s a pretty crucial buy-in. This isn’t a series designed by its central pairing, like a Build or a W or an OOO. But the ability for Sougo to win over his own executioner, to instill a sense of optimism and faith in a pessimistic grump, that’s a plot that connects all of these other stories. It asks the viewer to give less weight to a fearful future than a happy present, and that’s such a fun message for a show like this to slowly spin up.

So, yeah, the Geiz/Sougo stuff was a big win for me, despite the, like, plot being so threadbare yet cluttered. It’s a lot of things happening, but nothing really moving forward. Nice to see Diend, even if Stopping Time To Swipe A Ridewatch doesn’t seem like the sort of task that would’ve been beyond the Time Jackers more generally. And Decade’s in this, leading to my favorite Zi-O gag in forever:




It’s a fun enough episode, even if it’s really just on the back of some funny jokes and a home run of a Sougo/Geiz plot. Two parts in on this story of Team Zi-O’s dynamic being tested and, while I like the concept, it’s not a group of episodes that feel like it’s doing more than an in-series version of fan service. I like Geiz and Sougo! But that’s not new information!