[Fish Sandwich]

More pre-ZZZ, post-ZEZTZ quick thoughts from memaybe this is my thing this year i dunno:

I think what most stood out to me with this one was how charming the characters are? Baku and Minami's actors did a darn solid job playing their scene here in a way that makes them feel very naturally like close siblings, I'm happy to see Zero has a sense of humor, Nasuka's genre-blind rationality peppers scenes she's in with amusing little beats, and Fujimi is such an earnestly weird dude, so happy to finally have a good lead on the weird conspiracy he's tracking, that it's easy to root for Baku to go save him. The overall plot right now is still rather vague. While Baku fighting to take control of his own dreams was a story that holds meaning even without understanding the literal mechanics of the narrative, the reasons he needs to fight for others are only sketched out in a very basic way here. That's clearly all according to plan though, and because that's all stuff I'm curious about, I thought the way the cliffhanger seemingly changes the whole nature of the story was a very effective way to promise an even more fleshed-out next installment.

Bike action was also real good! Not just as a thing I want to see in general from Kamen Rider, even, but in how that whole vehicular setpiece feels very much like a sequence from exactly the kind of spy movies this show is pulling influence from. Just having a Rider on their bike is always great, but when you can get your hero hanging dangerously off the side of some bigger moving vehicle, that's even better.