[Fish Sandwich]

Hey everyone, guess what time it is!



Well, I'll tell you one thing, it's definitely long past time for me to show my appreciation for the punctual updates to the opening, but better late than never, right? Between Trinity, Revive, and Zi-O II, we've had three forms added in ON the episode they debut in, which is arguably too far in the opposite direction, but I still remember how long it took Drive's OP to figure out Chase wasn't hanging out with the bad guys anymore. Or how Infinity Style literally never showed up in Wizard's. This kind of stuff is fairly minor, but attention to detail is an easy way to win me over.

And Zi-O has definitely won me over, because as someone who's always been pretty violently opposed to setting anything Blade-related after the finale, I actually loved the episode. A lot, even.

Go-Rider always gave me the impression Kento Shimoyama was secretly chomping at the bit to do something like this, and with Hajime and Kenzaki both available, all he had to do was write an episode of Zi-O around it. Which should be a mess, but once again, this show's scripts are extremely tight, and manage to make all this stuff gel together. It's wall-to-wall great character interactions for the Zi-O cast, with Sougo giving a speech to White Woz that can only be described as "distinctly Sougo", Geiz further cementing his development from the Revive arc, Woz Woz showing some signs of growth, and of course, White Woz, who came off so well here I've officially retired the Lame!Woz/OG!Woz titles to differentiate the two.

It's very clever of the show to get rid of him here. He's served his purpose now that he can't manipulate Geiz, he's lost his Rider powers, and his notebook shtick probably would've gotten even older real fast if he nothing else to rely on. Seeing his rather... extreme reaction to all this definitely made sense (we've seen hints of his bad temper before), and his decision at the end did as well. Mostly. I do have a feeling we'll see White Woz again at some point, even if just in a flashback or something, because there's still a lot about his origins and motivations that were never explained. It seems pretty likely that whenever we get Swartz's backstory, we'll get his too, so I'm not too worried about it.

Speaking of that ending, I actually enjoyed Zi-O Trinity a lot more than I thought I would. The biggest things going against it still are the redundant nature of the gimmick (I guess if you're already stealing time travel from Den-O...), and the slightly goofy Sentai robo cockpit, but even those, I can deal with. The design is one that looks better in motion. The theme music is great. The fight scene itself was a lot of fun, and while it isn't to the extent I was hoping for, I adore the story significance it has by symbolizing the bold new future Sougo and his friends are trying to make. Even in the opening, Regulus is shining in the background to drive this home. Between that, the new narration, and the new episode title format, I actually find myself in the surprising position of wanting Zi-O II to be the form that's no longer used. Even though it's still way cooler.

Looping back around to the Blade part of the episode, though, I have a bit less to say, but's it's no less positive. The characters felt totally true to themselves, and just like with stuff like the Ryuki episodes, we actually get a decent character arc with Amane and Hajime for how few scenes they have to convey it. The resolution with him and Kenzaki becoming normal humans thanks to the Ride Watches sealing away their Joker powers is questionable considering Hajime can't go "back" to be being something he was only ever pretending to be using his abilities as a Joker, but, whatever. I'll cut the episode some slack. They clearly went all out to pack this two-parter with a lot of Blade fanservice (ableit deliberately avoiding memes) and I'm sure even if it's a bit forced, a belated happy ending for these characters is just what a lot of fans want.



I mean, the Day of Oma was like the single most important event in Zi-O's entire mythology, and they made it revolve around what Blade and Chalice were up to. What more do you want?

It seems like something of a new standard has been set for the last set of tribute arcs we're getting, and if they're all going to be like this from now on, I'll be real happy.