[Fish Sandwich]

Quote:

Originally Posted by GoldenXtreme

I felt like Baku took a rather dark turn this week and I'm not sure how intentional it was? Shoving Nem aside in a bid to save "himself" and then going after NOX with a level of aggression that genuinely felt like he planned to kill him if his transformation hadn't given out.

Quote:

Originally Posted by StardustWhip

Baku seems like he's in a darker place this episode... both literally and also figuratively. Besides the aforementioned assassination orders, there's how he shoved aside Nem and Little Baku after declaring he'll "use anything" to put an end to his bad dream, and now once he's in Nox's dream he just dismissively tells Nem to play the role she was given. And barely smiling or expressing any emotion after he gets his order from Zero. It's a far cry from the happy-go-lucky nice guy Baku of before.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DreamSword

Baku, meanwhile, is facing various truths head on, and chooses to instead try and channel his personal darkness into something better. I think it's rather telling that rather than follow his mission to a T and kill NOX outright, Baku instead disables his target and demands answers out of him. He doesn't want to be in a never ending dream, regardless of how much he embraces the ideal of being a secret agent. He's a dreamer, but he's not delusional.

It really is interesting how I keep seeing people filling in the blanks of Zeztz episodes in such wildly different ways. For the record, I think DreamSword is right on the money with this one? The way that scene smartly plays off an established catchphrase by having Baku saying "arise" right before the lightning strikes especially gives it a rare level of clarity in this show. He wasn't shoving Nem aside there, she falls over as a consequence of what Baku is actually doing, which is helping his younger self to his feet. Baku helps his younger self stand tall against his fear rather than cower in terror, all in the name of waking up. It tracks with the larger decision he's making to embrace the power of bad dreams, and is even cohesive with a lot of what made me love the premiere so much. It's pretty much exactly the kind of moment I want to see from Zeztz more often?

That being said, I do still see how all of this might not come across, because as usual, I also personally feel a lot of this ends up muddled?

There's a lot you're left to assume, even though assuming things usually just gets, well, at least it seems to get *me* in trouble with this show. For example, it's pretty vague how exactly Baku even ended up where he is at the start? They don't spell it out very thoroughly, but like, it's ~probably~ safe to assume between the previous talk of Capsems being affected by his mind and Baku's early line here about his mind testing him that his own lingering doubts are what caused him to lose control of that black hole?

So like, that's the kind of stuff you have to deal with from the word go in Zeztz, and that feeling carries right through to the climax, where it's difficult to properly square Baku's newfound determination to get answers from NOX with his simultaneous decision to embrace the role given to him in NOX's dream, which is killing NOX? Speaking of smart direction choices in this one, how about that moment where the Nightmare appears behind NOX's shoulder, only for him to look back and see Baku? It's kinda like Baku *is* the monster coming for NOX...but Baku also brings light to the darkness surrounding him. As if Kamihoriuchi recognized the contradiction and just decided to emphasize both parts visually at the same time. Which is pretty brilliant, if that's the idea, but because this is Zeztz, trying to get a better understanding of what's happening by reading into it deeper ultimately leaves me at least as confused as I was beforehand.