KR Zi-O 09 released

[takenoko]

> I hope he find out he offed his old man as well. Though the Pimp Kuroto outfit may be a bit overdone.

I think that was pretty heavily implied when we see Another OOO in the CEO office in 2016.

>Meanwhile, I can only come to the conclusion that Sougo is actually an idiot. Possibly an idiot savant, but definitely an idiot through and through.

I'm sure they're playing for the "Sougo acts like an idiot, but his actions are really actually thoughtful and cunning." However, they tried to do that in the last episode, and it just didn't come through. Oh, Mouri "KyuuRanger" Nobuhiro is writing this arc? I guess he wrote six episodes of OOO, so at least he has some familiarity with the series. It's just, from KyuuRanger, I'm not really sure he's a better character writer than Shimoyama "Ninninger" Kento. At least I liked a couple of the Ninninger characters.

[BreadToku]

All of the Another Rider designs have been fantastic; they're multiple steps above the usual MOTW outfits and even the movie monster outfits. Especially with the working eyes and mouths.

The flip side to that is that it leaves me a bit worried here about the future. These suits undoubtedly cost a small fortune to make; now is Toei going to pull an Ex-Aid/Build on us and endlessly reuse and repaint the same suits over and over again to save money later on?

Maybe it's my thrifty side talking, but I don't think I'd mind too much if the monster suits got reused with at least a justifiable in-story reason, since it'd be a shame to see them go after just one or two outings. I'm certain Another Riders will stop being the main threat once we get to either the halfway or even quarter point of the show.

[Phoenix512]

I really like the subtle callback about the original OOO was a king that ended up betraying his Greeed subordinates.

[Catastrophe]

This episode makes me think if they actually got past characters to be the Another Riders (even if they were different series) it'd be much more enjoyable because you'd be familiar with the character to some degree.

In saying that, the episode is really only good because of Kuroto, who was obviously one of the best parts of Ex-Aid, but not really for the right reasons. It's like they needed to take Riders biggest meme character because of his insane popularity, which then totally overshadows having Eiji and Hina.

[HarryFA1]

Hey, 2 things:
1. What's the deal with Nobunaga? As far as anime and other media is concerned, he's always depicted as either being Abe Lincoln or Hitler. Is it that Japanese historians have differenent schools of interpretation on the matter or what?
2. Am I hearing right? Or is Geiz's axe yelling "oh no!"? I figure that's word for axe or something along those lines?

[Lunagel]

Hey, 2 things:
1. What's the deal with Nobunaga? As far as anime and other media is concerned, he's always depicted as either being Abe Lincoln or Hitler. Is it that Japanese historians have differenent schools of interpretation on the matter or what?
2. Am I hearing right? Or is Geiz's axe yelling "oh no!"? I figure that's word for axe or something along those lines?

1) You can take a look at him on wikipedia, he's a very influential figure in Japanese history. He basically set off the impetus to unite the country but let's face it, he was a warlord. I'd recommend giving him a read-through as that particular era tends to pop up A LOT in Japanese media.

2) technically yes? 斧 (ono) "axe" also 弓 (yumi) "bow" I've seen romanized as "oh no" and "you me" in the magazines, but frankly a) the kids aren't hearing the "english" they're just hearing the japanese, b) trying to represent the pun in English is kinda impossible and c) "you me" makes no sense anyway

[takenoko]

Yeah, there's a reason why Nobunaga is known outside of Japan.

I didn't bother with the puns for Geiz because they made no sense. Isn't Geiz the Rider with the hiragana representation for his words? It'd make more sense for Zi-O to have foreign language puns since he uses katakana writing. But yeah, "You Me" and "Oh No" don't mean anything by themselves and aren't funny or anything, it's just Japanese being represented by English words. To what aim, who knows? Zi-O doesn't do that since Ken and Juu aren't a pun on anything.

[envedges]

Good on Zi-O for combining two random riders that many people thought it might be cheap way to throw in Genm to boost views, but Dan Kuroto works surprisingly well with OOOs than say Fourze and Faiz. They both have the over-the-top humor that people seem to like, which I am not a fan of both of them. I haven't really thought about it until this episode that both of the Dans are eccentric CEO like Kougami from OOOs.
As for Sougo, you either like or hate him more in this episode. For me, I happen to like him more in this episode for same reason I can imagine people who already hate him will hate him more, is the part when he allies himself with Kuroto. For some reason, it is entertaining seeing the protagonist being this passionate, right hand man to the antagonist of the episode. Usually the monster will either brainwash the protagonist, or the non-lead rider will usually be in alliance with the enemy. Sougo join Genm in his own free will albeit he is not the smartest person out there, the idea of it and how Sougo was smiling doing his fight with Geiz is something that you do not see in any other lead riders, which is a good start in developing Sougo's character.

[arromdee]

At 16:40 there is a typo; "critical" is spelled "crticial".

[takenoko]

Thanks! Files are probably still there, I can probably encode a v2.

[PDA]

Best episode so far but sadly is the best one due guest actors

Sougo keeps good as nothing...or gonna be remembered as stupid one

Geiz steal the spotlight just because he thinks and at least do something with personality

Time jackers and woz...best than protagonists trio


Dan kuroto is dan kuroto...he steal the episode but beat one woman was heavy to a kids show...

[Aeikozz]

love me some precure

[darkmage02]

I normally give a show around 12 episodes before I start nitpicking (for some reason, last few seasons of KR often either gets really good or starts breaking apart after the Christmas episode) but man, Zi-O is getting REALLY hard to stick to with it being only at episode 9 now. And that's saying something as I forced myself to sit through entire season of Hibiki & Ghost.

While Decade was a flawed show in so many degrees, I still find it entertaining because of the core cast member. Tsukasa may be an ass sometimes, but he's still cool in his fights and cocky in a way similar to Tendou. Natsumi is the moral compass of the show and a badass in her own right. Kaito plays it well as a non-chalant anti-hero (take a note, Geiz!) and Yusuke is, well Yusuke (okay I never like him much).

In comparison to Zi-O, Sougo is a fucking dumbass with a motivation incomprehensible to normal people (why the fuck does he wanna be king for? what's the motivation behind it?). His backstory is non-existent (funny enough that the show is centered around his pre-Demon King days) and even after 9 episodes, his character development is stagnant. The show didn't give him any stakes, didn't grow him in any way, the actor's acting is wooden, he's neither dislikable nor likeable (which imo is bad for any character). He lacks the sass of Tsukasa, the level-headedness of Shinosuke, the earnest-ness of Eiji, or even the dumbfounded belief in humanity like Takeru. While I wasn't much of a fan of Sento's narcissism, at least that's something to say about a character. What is there really to say about Sougo besides that he's a cardboard?

I know I may have compared Zi-O alot to Decade, but it's because I'm trying to state the fact that even when compared to possibly one of the worst KR series out there, Zi-O is faring much worse. The Time Jackers and Woz are easily the most interesting characters in the show, but their screentime is so little and we only know the surface of their motives, which is a shame. When it comes to Geiz, the character has inconsistently shift between a hard-ass anti-hero to a klutz to angsty to being an absolute dick to somewhat bearable. When he first show up, he gave me a Kaito-vibe but that only lasted for about 10 seconds. After that, I couldn't wrap my fingers around his characterisation and everything he has done ever since is either for a comedic purpose or as a plot tool to move the story forward.

Tsukuyomi may be the best out of the trio but similar to the Time Jackers she's getting slapped around the story meaninglessly and is way underused. What is her motivation to travel back in time anyway? At least Geiz we know is to kill Zi-O before he becomes the demon king to avenge his fallen comrades, but Tsukuyomi never explicitly states her reason for being here. She interfered with Geiz's plan to kill Zi-O, but unlike Woz, has no intention of helping Zi-O to transition to Demon King. I would hate for her to just be the pretty face of the show without substance (not surprised in a KR show but still...) and I think the actress is quite good in her role so I really hope the story takes her somewhere.

As for the story itself, the series feel like a badly written fan-service that neither captured the essence of the Legend Rider series it was referencing nor gave the returning Legend actors/actresses anything substantial to do other than being plot devices. I was so mad at the episode where they got both Takumi & Kusaka to come back, but did NOTHING except bicker at one another and to pass on the Ride Watch. I WAS ESPECIALLY MAD when they got Kamen Rider Beast to come back, AND HE DID NOTHING EXCEPT EXCHANGING A FEW PUNCHES WITH GEIZ FOR ABSOLUTELY NO FUCKING REASON and then hands him the Ride Watch. C'mmon, it's like the writers knew jack shit bout the shows and characters of the past and only knew the gist of things (no Tsukasa quoting intended). I'm not opposed to giving familiar characters new roles in the series but my gripe is with how little they actually influence or take part in the story. It's like the Legend actors are nothing more than glorified cameos and definitely not how I wanna see the Heisei era of Riders close out.

From Kuuga to Build, no matter how inconsistent or bad a show is, I have stuck around to the end and I really hope I can do so for Zi-O. But with each passing episode, it became harder and harder for me. Sorry for the long rant, but this show infuriates me on so many levels.

[takenoko]

In fairness for Sougo, we know why he wants to be a king. He feels the path to performing the greatest good deeds requires the most power to do it. That's why he wants to be king, since it's for his people.

But the problem is that he wants to be a leader, but he totally lacks any sort of charisma. If you want to lead, you've got to impress people, whether it's through power, wit, charm, something. It's like the writer wants to write him as a deceptive underdog, who's really much better than he lets on, but Sougo's often portrayed as unbearably naive and guileless.

The only time he "does" something is when he "tricks" Geiz in the last episode into beating Another Wizard. The problem is, Sougo never does anything impressive. Geiz tells the audience "Whoa, Sougo totally manipulated me. We better watch out for this guy" which clashes with the reality of the situation.

I don't know if it's the writing, the directing, the acting, or some combination, but Sougo just doesn't work.

So if half of Zi-O is Sougo becoming the Rider to end all Riders doesn't work, and the other half is nostalgia that's badly done, what does that make Zi-O as a show? All we can really do now is hope that post Christmas/after Sougo is done collecting all the main Riders, something interesting will happen to change the characters/plot.

[Greenstalker]

I think last rider i liked was wizard actor before that OOO honestly i wouldn't mind a Kabuto like main character once in a while but it seems we are getting more and more into pre-elementary school mood with these shows.