[DreamSword]

Zi-O vs Decade is a story that's all about exploring yourself as you grow up.

Hobbies, interests, friendship, sexuality, the works. Not just in how you take things into yourself, but in the interactions you see from others as well.

Sogo literally gets to meet and experience other lives that he could've lead, and they all get him questioning various aspects of himself to the point that he begins to think that maybe his dream of being a king might not be the sort of thing he's into afterall: Literally hearing himself talk gets him to reflect on things.

The closed off world of the high school represents his own inner world, where he's at the center and everyone else orbits around him. New Sogos coming into this world represents new ideas on who he could be.

There's alot of talk throughout the three episodes about the "True Sogo" which in turn is reinforcing the idea that, whatever phases you go through in life, whatever challenges you face, one day you will look inside and discover everything you need to. The goal of both Tsukasa and Oma is to literally bring out what they think is the best (in) Sogo.

True to life too, it's all one big and confusing mess. Whose advice do you follow? Whose feelings do you return? How do you handle social situations you were never expecting to end up in? Do your friends or teachers always know what's best for you? And how do you handle it all when life continues to come at you so fast(represented here by the Inves swarm)? In the end, it seems as though the end message is to try it all out to see what sticks and what doesn't; It's a journey to find the best version of you for you.

That all aside, I think the thing I liked the most in this special was Heure's' crush on Sogo. Representation is nice and all, but I'd say that, for the most part, this was actually pretty well written and good gay rep. I really did love how Sogo wasn't grossed out or against the idea of Heure's' love. Plus, Geiz's' "He's MY man!" moment was really funny/cute. And all throughout, it's very obvious that Heure is going through his own struggle with finding love, and that we are meant to sympathize with him, just as any straight crush plot in a show like this would be presented.

So uh, with all that said? Do I think that this special was good? Eh, not quite. While it did feature a nice handful of things that I really did enjoy, it still has a ton of problems(the plot being the biggest offender), so I really wouldn't try to argue with anything who felt this fell flat for them. But did I get alot of enjoyment out of the character interaction and comedic bits? Absolutely, and in the end I feel that made watching it worth it, unlike Decade vs Zi-O.

And yes Tsukasa dying didn't hurt anything either.