[Enchilada645]

What a fantastic two-parter.

It's funny how years later I've come around on both Saeko and Kazu as characters when I didn't either notice them too well before, or just plain though their conclusion was a bit off. Did not expect Saeko to win me over like that with her final sacrifice, it's very fitting for her and I do like the touch of Shotaro coming across her before he goes to take down Utopia.

Kazu and Foundation X, they were this interesting potential revival of the idea that something like Shocker could persist in the Heisei Era. Maybe if this was Reiwa, Foundation X would've stuck around a lot more solidly. But I'd say Kazu gives us a good run nonetheless.

Utopia's a beautiful Dopant suit, and its kind of incredible seeing how stoic he is the entire time, even when he's upset at Saeko. And then it all just breaks once Shotaro thoroughly demolishes not only his plan but any attempt of Utopia trying to overwhelm the detective. He's got a more delirious way of speaking, he's legitimately yelling while fighting W Xtreme.

He also might just have my favorite villain death despite its simplicity. Just him talking about counting up sins while relating it to his situation. Himdissolving and pressing his Gaia Memory for round two only for it to fall out of his hand as is his habit with W even getting ready for round two too. Real memorable stuff.

That being said Shotaro, the man stepped up big time to help out his friend out in that final request, and it could not have been easy in the slightest. Really shows the strength of heart Shotaro has to stay composed for as long as he can.

I also enjoy the brief parallel between Shotaro and Philip here in these stories. Shotaro breaking past his fear caused by Terror to go to Philip, and Philip breaking past the despair of Utopia's rampage to go to Shotaro once he realizes what's going on. I'm unsure if it was intentional, but I thought it was a nice way of tying these two stories together.

But listen, I knew what happened, I've seen the scene a couple of times previously. But even then, a little over a decade later and I still bawled at battle's aftermath and the subsequent ending scene where Shotaro opens Philip's gift.

On a brighter note though. I forgot that they had saved Extreme Dream for the climaxes of these past two mini-arcs. And of course while I was surprised at the Acoustic Edit for Cyclone Effect making an appearance earlier than expected, this is the scene I know the Acoustic Edit for.