[DreamSword]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mesnick

Here, you need to understand the very essence of Rintaro's character. He grew up in Sword of Logos. This organization is his home, family, work, and interests. Therefore, at first, he doesn't question orders, and then continues to follow them.

I do understand all of that. It doesn't change how he continues to insist how much Touma means to him despite his actions speaking the total opposite. If he had spent the entire arc solely feeling conflicted or thinking things over, that'd be one thing, but he doesn't. Until the last leg he very much goes for "attack first, never ask questions." If anything, his supposedly deep bond with Touma should make him the first person to have doubts, not the last.

[quote]As for friendship, the real criticism of the first part of the show was that friendship is built on nothing, and therefore can't be strong. Therefore, its disintegration and subsequent rebirth are precisely the process of strengthening.

Their friendship was built upon all that they had been going through at the time. Ontop of their shared relationship with Kento. Another thing that majorly bothered me about the start of the traitor arc was that from the very start, it's clear that everything Touma did for everyone meant basically nothing to anyone in the guild, given that they attack him before he even talks about there being a traitor, not after.

Quote:

Plus, what friends never quarrel?

There's a difference between an argument and "I'm going to arrest you without even bothering to hear what you have to say."

Quote:

Also: how come Ren didn't get anything? He has Desast and independence, and that's clearly more than there was at the beginning.

It's not that Ren got nothing. It's that he got very little in comparison to everyone else. All of his stuff is mainly just setup for the next arc.

[Fish Sandwich]

Still quite happy to see these getting subbed alongside the actual show.

This one is also just straight up awesome? Whatever B-team I assume put this thing together is probably going places in the future. Literally the only job they had was "show NOX transforming", and they made it something surprisingly stylish and atmospheric that's looped into the world of the show to a level that even allows it to acknowledge the encroaching moral ambiguity of the dynamic between the "good" guys and the "bad" guys, demonstrating clearly how the current status quo of ZEZTZ differs from the one it started out with. Pretty darn impressive in my book!

[GoldenXtreme]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fish Sandwich

Why the actual heck is this such a compelling short story in the Zeztz universe...? The shift from a CODE briefing for their Agents on NOX's powers to NOX hijacking the facility and switching to his own perspective where CODE is the villains? So good, and it even gets to show off his conflicted feelings on having to fight Baku and Kureha. Plus, the way he records a video for future as if expecting he won't be living for much longer? I've learned more about Odaka in a few minutes than roughly 10 episodes of the show would give me.