[Fish Sandwich]

Quote:

Originally Posted by DreamSword

But that didn't happen. And to me, that in itself signaled that it wasn't the sort of story that Zeztz was going to be gunning for.

No, it didn't happen that way, but the show was pretty clearly framing the entire way things went down as a failure on Baku's part, so I saw it as reinforcing what I took away from the premiere.

I figure the whole significance of Baku being this master lucid dreamer is part of the show's take on the usual Rider theme of freedom? That first episode left a very strong impression on me, and a big part of that was how much I loved stuff like Baku declaring he has nothing to fear inside his own dream, and the visual of him grabbing onto that lightbulb in defiance of a monster trying to drag him down into darkness. "I know my own mind better than anyone" definitely felt like a pretty clear statement of intent about what the broad concept of the show is going to be, considering it's literally the line that opens the door to him getting his belt. Baku's whole thing, as he's introduced, is that while his waking life is shaped by forces outside his power (the exaggerated bad luck being a broad metaphor for any number of hurdles people face), he asserts firm control of the one part of him nobody can chain down, which then shapes the way he becomes a superhero when villains come along trying to take even that away.

The shape of the overall kinds of conflicts the show would tackle seemed very well-defined from that, and I saw 2/3 as existing primarily to demonstrate, by showing rather than telling, how bad things can get when people aren't able to keep such a strong grasp on everything that goes on inside their hearts.

Mostly, I think I was just taken aback that this two-parter wasn't some major step forward in its own right, which is one of those series structure things that generally ends up making more sense to me once I have the whole picture. So yeah, for sure, it's entirely possible the themes of the show will end up coming together in a way neither of us can quite see yet, and I'm totally ready to accept whatever shape it ends up taking. In the case of this two-parter itself, though, I had a lot of trouble seeing enough meat on the story's bones to overcome those preconceptions. Very little in those first three episodes went the way I expected too, but I feel like I still "got" them in a way I didn't with these two, despite still enjoying them on a surface-level. (Which I should maybe be emphasizing more! I was absolutely not miserable or anything watching them, despite how it probably sounds by this point!)