[DreadBringer]

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

KAMEN RIDER ZI-O EPISODE 44 - ?2019 - AQUA?S CALL?

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.

Heure is talked upon below, but regarding Ora, I actually kinda cheering with Geiz's no-nonsense approach to kick them out from 9-5 about how they feel entitled to get help from the enemies they victimized despite what atrocities they have done before. Geiz has become someone better throughout the series, but he draws the line much faster than Sougo for obvious reasons. Though as shown before, Sougo's the cunning manipulator here while Geiz is the gullible one though opposite to usual portrayal, so Sougo can be trusted in this decision. Continuing with Ora, as shown here, she's the one actually entitled, to be whiny and not having single feelings of gratefulness of having to help at 9-5, despite that she got a new place to stay now. Furthermore, not unlike Swartz, Ora was Another Drive, implying that she's scheming against Heure, despite Heure being concerned against her. After all, this is someone who had shown to pretend to care about someone else, including Heure at Kikai 2-parter, but in reality is just a manipulative scumbag.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

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?

What I want to talk about this episode is mainly the one below, but they do imply about how Swartz is taking advantage of the damaged timeline, partly unwittingly caused by Sougo, but actually, there are already multiple fractured timelines due to multiple time travelers going to the past to change the timeline, like how there are rule changes like multiple inconsistent timelines coexisting (White Woz's future where Geiz Revive won, and Riders coming from the future like Quiz despite how the future was ruined by Ohma Zi-O), and rule changing (such as Another Rider coexisting with the original Rider unlike the beginning). So this is admittedly, a slow buildup yeah regarding Swartz's method, and this'd be a spoiler at this point, but this one focuses on the timeline as a whole and how Swartz affected Heure and Ora first, and I don't know if you'd want the show to display Swartz anyway, this one seems to be damned if you do/don't situation for you.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

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.

I don't know if actually it's known that you better focus specifically on what you want to tell, and this episode does focus on what consequences that can be done by time travelling (but surprised that you actually liked this episode). While time travel stuff may be utter headache to discuss, it's something that can be quite inevitable that interfering with the past to change it would actually create a time loop that repeats over and over, causing the event you want to prevent instead (and then going back to prevent it, but it happened instead, and going back again). One of the reasons is that you would not be able to change any events in the past, because your future self would have already caused them to happen in the way that they did. No matter your intentions, everything that you did would only fulfill the past. Other than time-related stuff, this is also related into self-fulfilling prophecy (earliest form of time-loop too), when attempts to prevent it from happening can instead fulfill the prophecy, as expectation about something can affect a person's behavior in a way that leads those expectations to become a reality, an example is if investors think the stock market will crash, they will buy fewer stocks, prices will start to decline, and the market will actually crash.

In Geiz and Tsukuyomi's case, their self-fulfilling prophecy is ofc about how their attempts (or even... mere existence) to prevent Ohma Zi-O are actually a path of creating Ohma Zi-O instead, it causes time loop in the following (this is all Decade's fault though as usual! ONORE DIKEIDO! The Decade in question is Swartz):

1. Swartz got livid over Tsukuyomi being chosen as the heir over him and dumped her on another timeline and erased her memories.
2. He began his grand plan by going back in time to indoctrinate someone to become king, orchestrated a bus crash in 2010 to test who is worthy.
3. However he had a confrontation with surviving Tsukuyomi in said bus, and that caused Swartz to damage the bus in a way that caused it to crash the way it's seen in the series and had Sougo being chosen by him as a result.
4. Sougo developed an obsession to become king, and successfully became one but turning into unstoppable tyrant Ohma Zi-O.
5. Then the Resistance sent Geiz and Tsukuyomi to the past to stop his tyranny.
6. Time Jackers are going back to the past as well due to how unstoppable Ohma Zi-O is.
7. While the other 2 wanted a puppet king that they can control, Swartz had his own differing reasons in doing so (he won't replace Ohma Zi-O as the king he needed, but at 2068 he's plain unstoppable)..
8. Go back to 1.

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

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.

Yeah, this was what I meant when I talked about Yuko's death and Sougo's reaction to that (which was you thinking it's more about him specifically feeling heartbreak), Sougo's someone who is so accepting to anyone, he's not having that reaction to Yuko due to how he picked favorite for her (or Sailor Girl) that he mourned someone only because it's someone he loved, but he's someone who cares about everyone. He had similar reaction to Heure here as with Yuko's, sympathy towards enemies if he thinks they're in low position (Yuko being betrayed by Ora, her cruel manipulating aside, and now Heure is dumped by Swartz, and he didn't have a home unlike Geiz). Though I'd think the part of how Sougo acknowledged Heure and Ora's crimes aren't done well here with him lacking the proper ferocity to point that out (only that part, before trying to help Heure later). It's more of a passing moment, but there's probably something a bit similar in Tsukuyomi protecting Heure as well from Another Drive (a.k.a Ora)?

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Originally Posted by Androzani84

As for some etymology, Tsukuyomi's real name, Alpina, refers to Alpine watches, which are known for their high quality that will last much longer than other watches. Kind of like how she had stronger time powers than Schwartz.

I̶t̶'̶s̶ ̶A̶l̶p̶i̶n̶a̶ ̶t̶o̶o̶,̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶b̶r̶a̶n̶d̶,̶ ̶d̶o̶n̶'̶t̶ ̶g̶e̶t̶ ̶m̶i̶x̶e̶d̶ ̶u̶p̶ ̶w̶i̶t̶h̶ ̶"̶A̶l̶p̶i̶n̶e̶"̶ ̶w̶h̶i̶c̶h̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶a̶n̶o̶t̶h̶e̶r̶ ̶b̶r̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶a̶s̶ ̶w̶e̶l̶l̶!̶ ̶:̶o̶

Alpina relates to a white moth (Eudonia alpina) which fits her dress too. And Swartz had similar theme naming too as families, whose name is based on Swatch, another brand of Swiss watches, but his name is also a portmanteau with the term "quartz", the mineral used to regulate the electronic oscillator installed in clocks and watches.