[Kamen Rider Die]

*rolls up sleeves*

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Originally Posted by DreadBringer

So Swartz had the Time Jackers create Another Riders which had Sougo and friends deal with them and getting themselves Ridewatches in the process, and push Sougo closer towards becoming Ohma Zi-O, and an extremely powerful powerset for Swartz to steal. It's how Time Jackers was important to Swartz.

This is a real Personal Preference type of thing, but I've never liked plots that are about a villain tricking a hero into getting super-powerful -- more powerful than even the villain -- and then somehow stealing that power and securing total victory.

It's the "somehow" that always drives me up the wall. If you're powerful enough to steal that hero's powers, why do you even need them in the first place? And what if you aren't powerful enough to steal the hero's power? Aren't you just creating your own defeat?

It's so dumb.

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Originally Posted by DreamSword

But yeah the plot is completely screwed at this point, and the only real personal enjoyment I got out of this episode was them (inadvertently or otherwise) saying that Decade's' entire premise/plot structure is bad and shouldn't be followed.

So, predictably, I'm gonna push back a little on this.

I think the problem isn't that Decade Is Bad, it's that Decade and Zi-O have two different central metaphors that their story structure is built to support. Decade's a show about trying to fit in and discover your potential, so it makes sense to do that in a multiverse. Zi-O is show about making the best decisions each day to ensure you reach the best future possible, so it needs to be a time travel show. (Obviously, the themes were likely decided after the settings, but work with me here.) (Also, there's another very specific thematic thing Zi-O is doing that I'll talk about in a few days.) If you start mixing a multiverse story with a time travel story, you're handicapping yourself thematically in a way that's totally unnecessary.

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Originally Posted by Androzani84

Though I will say, I prefer Schwartz as a villain to most of the post-Gaim villains, (save Ghost?s), in that he has a plan that seems logical given his background (I still do not get why the CEO of a game company wanted to conquer the world) and an actual reason behind his plan (which far too many of those shows relied on to V-Cinemas for).

His plan might be ridiculous and nearly impenetrable, but I think Swartz has real presence as a villain.

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Originally Posted by Sh Ranger

Apparently, a world without Kamen Riders is doomed to collapse, without reason. Even though Tsukasa literally visited one such world before, the World of Shinkenger. And that world was totally fine without Riders. Narutaki's whole point to Tsukasa in that arc was how Riders inherently make worlds worse, not better. Swartz's timeline contradicts everything we've been told and shown in Decade!

CURSE YOU, SWARTZ!

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Originally Posted by cosmicrescend0

Anyway, yeah. I thought i was mistaken in my inital memories of the show but the show's plot does kinda fall apart at the seams, if you think about it for a second. Wouldn't be an issue at all for me if we got some good character moments to distract from that, but unfortunately that isnt the case here.

Yeah, I can forgive a lot of Time Nonsense if the character beats still land and the actors are given something meaty to work with. (Like, please get along with Yuuto.) Here, it's just Woz going TIME DISTORTIONS a bunch and Sougo learning things we all learned weeks ago, and that's lame. The best bits of characterization were between Diend and Decade, and they are guest stars. Not great!

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Originally Posted by Enchilada645

Cause like if the takeaway from this set of episodes is "Oh Zi-O and crew have just been jumping worlds this whole time" then uh yeah, no. I don't want to firmly say that's wrong. But there's more to the words being said here and you need to look beyond them and at the positioning of certain characters in certain points of time. Like I'll admit the last six episodes of Zi-O are messy plotwise. But like, this isn't them trying to make a big reveal of this actually being a world hopping multidimensional story, this is them referencing their prior one.

This all just feels like a needlessly convoluted conclusion. If we're dealing with twenty divergent timelines instead of twenty alternate Earths, I don't know that that's a better, more thematically coherent plot? This was a show that did its best work in the present; by grounding existential dread and crushing guilt in moments of support and catharsis; by cutting through the four-dimensional knot of causality with a keen view of real emotions. It landed its The Villain Is Bringing In Villains From Formerly-Doomed Realities story on a poorly-socialized grim executioner who wishes he'd been nicer and more honest with his best friend. I know this show can get out of its own way to make memorable stories out of its weird collection of Time Nonsense, because I've watched it do it. It's frustrating to not be able to see them do it here.

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Originally Posted by Fish Sandwich

But putting the how and why of everything off to one side for a second, I think the concept of reality basically collapsing into this nightmare apocalypse of every Heisei monster ever is pretty dang appropriate for the climax of the final Heisei show? I can't deny the Time Nonsense going on here, but I can't deny how much fun I was still having with the show either!

I never ever ever want to rewrite a show I'm not liking. I feel like the only fair thing to do is confront the art you've been given, not the art you wish you'd been given instead. If you want, that's what fan fic is for, and plenty of people make great art in that field. Don't criticize a show for not doing the story you wanted them to do.

However.

I briefly thought the beginning of this show was setting up Swartz bringing every Heisei finale into Zi-O's time, and I thought that was brilliant. Making the anniversary guy defeat every Big Bad, in nineteen overlapping apocalypses? What an endgame!

Instead, it's a bunch of random monster suits and a neat cameo, the end. Not as fun for me, and that sort of tainted my enjoyment.

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Originally Posted by Fish Sandwich

(Oh, and here's some trivia: this episode apparently aired on the exact day Die joined the forums! ...I'd like to think that even in an alternate timeline where Die didn't decide to watch everything else first, and feel the need to vent about Ghost as a result, he still would've made an account at the same time, just to vent about this arc instead.)

Ha ha, really? That's neat! I hope my weird thoughts about Ghost helped provide some distraction from this show's rapidly disintegrating clarity.

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Originally Posted by FreshToku

And I know Zi-O has one of those too, its why I got so invested in the first place and why I care (i.e. complain) so much! But it's nowhere to be seen here in this episode. Instead, it seems what the show cares about at this critical point so near the end, is waxing nostalgia for a completely different show that aired ten years prior. Swell if you're a fan of Decade (and Chase), I guess. Not so swell if you're a fan of Zi-O.

The Sougo/Tsukuyomi plot in this one is such a bummer, and kind of emblematic of this endgame's shortcomings. It's a plot that could've given us some new insight into Swartz, or Tsukuyomi, or Sougo, but instead it just regurgitates information we already knew and barely allows our heroes to push back in any meaningful way, because there wouldn't be any point. It's an entire episode that strands the two most invested characters in a narrative cul-de-sac.

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Originally Posted by Switchblade

It is patently absurd for Zi-O to start its endgame with "So there are 19 separate Kamen Rider worlds..."

It's an incredibly distracting detail in Swartz'z convoluted plan! It would be like if Geiz casually mentioned to Woz, mid-fight, that he'd returned from the future where he'd learned that every Rider ever was also a Sentai in disguise. You can't just toss that stuff at the audience and not expect way too many questions!

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Originally Posted by Daikaijuman54

It's this final arc where Zi-O starts to slowly fall apart, sure you could say it's the Decade arc, but I also feel like even that could have been done better. Swartz isn't a really good villain, and it just becomes something of a mess overall. It doesn't feel like an Anniversary plot (despite how much it leans into that territory) nor is it really helping the Zi-O plot, which makes the bridge between the endgame and finale a bit of a slog.

The thing that makes it not really a Decade arc, in my mind, is that it misses the demonizing of the hero, and for good reason. Tsukasa had a core group of people who supported him (and Kaito), but he was tasked with destruction by the universe. He was viewed with suspicion and fear by other Riders. Sougo was never that kid, nor should he be. The point of him is to be the opposite of Tsukasa: a kid whose optimism and empathy convinced total strangers to give over their power.

You can't do a Decade arc on Zi-O just by trying to convolute an impossible choice for Sougo and having a bunch of multiverse stuff show up. It's not really sufficient?