[Fish Sandwich]

I was really happy to immediately see NOX not just getting beat on one-sidedly by the newer toys this week. We've seen that guy be vulnerable, we've even seen him lose fights, but like, there is a certain image the show has worked hard to cultivate for him that I'd hate to see thrown away too soon, or too casually. I think this was a nice balance where he's never really in control of the situation, but still keeps his cool as he attempts to navigate obstacles that prove tougher than he expects.

The fact I'm so concerned about how cool the show makes NOX look also kinda gets at another thing I like about that fight between him and the Lords, which is that the show has set it up, seemingly entirely on purpose, so that it's sorta fine whoever you want to root for there, which I'm a little in love with? I can imagine some people will take the ambiguity as the stakes being unclear, and find it tougher to invest in the drama, but for me it's proving to be the opposite so far. I find it so interesting how this show has such a clearly defined Good Guy Faction and Bad Guy Faction, but has also actively encouraged the viewers to think beyond that strict binary divide. You'll probably think it's a good thing if Five and Six save the world by stopping NOX's evil schemes, but they're also unquestioning lapdogs for a shady organization. You'll probably think it's bad when NOX's evil schemes actively endanger children and threaten to destroy the world as we know it, but we've also gotten to know him as a person much more intimately than those new guys and have reason to believe there's validity to his vendetta, despite the extreme lengths he's going to in pursuit of it.

Those intentional contradictions, I think are fascinating. How open to interpretation so much of it is.

So yeah, I still don't actually know where most of this is all going, but I'm still really liking what I'm seeing here. It's actually maybe even tougher to talk about this episode as a standalone experience than last week, given the RPG thing is even less in focus in favor of Plot, Plot, and more Plot.

I wish ZEZTZ would've used more than one suit in one of these two episodes? If I were to complain about something? But even then, it's not like I thought the action was undercooked, because the show is still remembering rules like how Plasma always attacks an enemy while transforming, and making that into an extremely cool visual of Kamen Rider saving a kid this time.

In terms of stuff like writing, it's again pretty difficult to say exactly what the relevance of a lot of it is right now, but it all seems really promising. I especially like that scene with Baku and Minami where he notes how all the children are similar to him. Definitely seemed extremely relevant to the overall themes of this show that I ~think~ I still have a hang on after episode 15, but, well, we'll see, I guess!