[Fish Sandwich]

I've kind of fallen behind on actually posting in here (rest assured I'm still reading along even if you can't see me!), but seeing as you've gotten to episode 19, Die, I must not shirk my sacred duty to point out that 19 and 20 are directed by none other than Hidenori Ishida.

And that was actually sort of a big deal even beyond my particular fondness for his work on Rider! This was actually the first set of TV episodes the guy had handled since Drive, around half an entire decade earlier. He kept busy with stuff like Hyper Battle Videos and Amazons, so he never really left, but like, the dude who ushered in Heisei Rider as we know it didn't even touch Zi-O! That's sort of wild to think about, and it was definitely nice to have him back.

It's no doubt that his direction is part of the reason this is actually one of my favorite episode sets of the whole series. There are a lot of particular touches in the execution that really breathe life into the script. Fuwa and Horobi's chat is like, extra moody, with the room having much more extreme lighting than I think it has in other episodes; you've got the super exaggerated title cards and everything flashing up on the screen; and Arayashiki's whole performance comes off to me like Ishida just kept telling the actor to push it as much as possible, and then push it even more, a choice I think ended up suiting the episode's overall style super well. I'm sure if I were to go back and watch the episode again, I'd find even more fun things to call out, too.