[Kamen Rider Die]

KAMEN RIDER ZI-O EPISODE 44 - “2019 - AQUA’S CALL”



This is an episode that starts with a runner stumbling at the finish line, and, man, I really hope that choice of imagery doesn’t come back to haunt this show!

As it is, it’s not a terrible start to this show’s final arc. There’s a ton of ground to cover, and I think everything important gets handled smoothly throughout the episode. We catch up on Tsukasa, post-depowering, and he’s taking it as unimpressed as you’d think. Tsukuyomi is confronted with her potential time-meddling, as is Geiz. Swartz shows off his new Another Decade form, and it’s very Final Arc Villain in its design. Heure and Ora possibly get integrated in Team Zi-O, to some positive effect. There’s a Legend Rider who feels for all the world like they wanted to get the kid who played Drive Type Next but had to settle for Aqua instead. (He just doesn’t really fit in this story that great?) Even Uncle gets a fun scene to teach the kids how to cook.

All of that feels like it's trying to distract from the lack of urgency to this final batch of episodes. We’ve got a villain to fight, in Swartz’z Another Decade form, but we don’t really have a scheme to thwart. Team Zi-O isn’t actively looking for Swartz in this story, because they don’t really know what he’s planning to do, or what exactly he hopes to accomplish beyond Win. Similarly, there’s no sense of Swartz using his newfound power set to actively target Team Zi-O; he mostly seems like he’s trying to scoop up Heure?

It’s really this episode’s Achilles Heel, how there’s no explicit goal or tension to what’s happening here. We’ve got heroes, and villains, but there’s kind of no conflict happening here? Swartz takes a shot at Zi-O and Geiz by the end of the episode, but it all feels slightly undercooked, like a fight that’s happening due to proximity more than design. So much of this episode feels weirdly like an epilogue, with folks considering leaving and other folks considering a change of environments, which is a super weird energy for the start of the final six episodes?

Still, it’s not like this wasn’t a fun episode to watch. Aqua’s a super-weird Movie Rider, in a story that has a few Movie Rider suits in it. (They… didn’t think to do the Movie Rider tribute in the recently released movie?) His whole story was that he was a bit of a coward; or, at least, someone for whom bravery didn’t come easily. While Aqua Vs Another Drive doesn’t have the same allure as, say, Drive Type Next Vs Another Drive, the fact that Aqua is the one Movie Rider who will find an excuse to leave combat for the relative safety of exposition is actually a huge boon for this episode. He gets to nicely ask Tsukuyomi to leave 2019 before she absolutely wrecks it, and it’s a development that… again, this feels like an epilogue! She and Geiz 100% can’t leave while Swartz is trying to rule all of time, if she even still had her powers. It’s a weird plot to lay out? It’s maybe too big of an idea – Geiz and Tsukuyomi are hurting more than they’re helping – to exist alongside a bunch of other stuff in this episode. It’s an interesting concept, but the details are a little too vague for the amount of emotional weight that a consideration to leave 2019 might have to deal with.

Other than that, we’ve got Heure joining Team Zi-O, maybe, and it’s cute. I will always love Sougo’s commitment to people who fight for their future, even if they’re fighting against him. He’s clear that Heure has some atoning to do for, uh, an entire season of wrecking people’s lives, but he’s also more than willing to give Heure that shot at atoning. Seeing Sougo get excited over another friend moving in with him… man, that is the best. Easily the best scene in this episode.

It’s a light and enjoyable episode, honestly. That’s normally a great thing for this show to be… if there weren’t only five more episodes to go after this, and a villainous plot that no one’s even tried to explain. I need this show to start delineating its threats a little better!