KR Zi-O 49 released

[Catastrophe]

Hosokawa is supposed to be a massive diva and general unlikable prick to work with, which I think is more of the reason he never comes back.

[takenoko]

You're supposed to know it because of the months of marketing of Go being in the summer movie. Also the fact that you're expected to have gone to see the movie in cinemas. Same with the Double and Kuuga Watches in Heisei Generations Forever. It's not Toei's fault you've chosen to ignore all marketing. The expectation is that people will go and see the movies when they're out. Don't expect them to cater to you just because you're unable to do so.

Also, Den-O was the first series to massively feature it's movie in the main series. They had several episodes leading up to it with scenes that served no purpose other than to set the movie up. I'm also not sure why you're specifically bringing up Den-O, but LOADS of series, both in Rider and Sentai, have done things like this. Did you start whining when Kyoryuger flashed back to its movie? Did you do so when Kougane turned up in the Gaim finale?

Zi-O has done a lot of things wrong, but right here the blame lies squarely with your inability to pay attention.

Wow, are you being serious? I thought you were being sarcastic at first, but that's pretty harsh.

I vaguely knew Go was in the movie, but as someone who doesn't really watch the trailers or pay attention to the marketing (I just watch the episode, it should be stand on its own, y'know?) I had the vaguest notion of there being Drive stuff in the summer movie. But it's not like I went out of the way to find that out?

[Catastrophe]

Who likes to spoil themselves on a movie they plan on seeing?

Besides, it's shitty practice to put all this important plot stuff in side materials. Ghost was the worst because of it. Something like Den-O works because the movie itself is irrelevant to the actual plot of the show and can be skipped.

[ViRGE]

Who likes to spoil themselves on a movie they plan on seeing?

Besides, it's shitty practice to put all this important plot stuff in side materials. Ghost was the worst because of it. Something like Den-O works because the movie itself is irrelevant to the actual plot of the show and can be skipped.

But if the movie doesn't tie into the series, then there's no compelling reason for viewers to see it. Having a tie-in means that more people are going to come see it, which makes it more profitable for Toei. So as annoying as it is, I'm not surprised that Toei is doing it.

[BreadToku]

Honestly with the sole exception of Den-O's I'm Born movie, the most the big movies tend to 'tie-in' to the series are fairly superfluous. Even in Zi-O's case, it's just the matter of one extra toy he has in his arsenal which only seems like a bigger deal than usual because they brought attention to it a couple of episodes ago and then never again.

It's the weird consequence of wanting the movies themselves to be big and dramatic enough to be worthy of a cinematic story, but also unable to shake up the status quo in too major a way. The ones that definitely suffer the most from these in my mind are 100 Eyecons and Be The One which actively hurt their series' lores by trying to add to them.

That said, I'm intensely curious about how ridiculous Zi-O's movie will be compared to Zi-O's usual chaos.

[KRDangerousZombie]

Before i write about the actual show, I am a big fan of Takenoko's running gag of the rider forms being named after the user, i laughed pretty hard when i saw Tsukuyomi's face photoshopped onto that familiar image.

I definitely had.... mixed feelings about this ending. I can only assume Ora is brought back from the dead because a writer or director intensely wanted to see her actress in a school uniform, because there is no way on this planet that Sougo should have wanted to bring her back. She murdered Heure in front of him TWICE. She murdered his first love IN FRONT OF HIM WITH A MANHOLE COVER. There was never ANY redeeming feature of her as a person.

Grand Zi-O being the jobbiest final form in the history of final forms was annoying, especially since the henshin was so fucking awesome.. but then it takes longer to henshin than get jobbed out. Then i didn't care about that, because the Oma Zi-O henshin & fight was so fucking badass. Was it stupid, kinda unnecessary and make no sense even given the constantly fluctuating rules of the show? Yes. but was i losing my mind in excitement over Sougo getting mad, saying fuck you to the rules, schwartz and destiny then COMMANDING woz to "IWAE" his new form before he curbstomped Schwartz like he wasn't even on a zectrooper's level? absolutely. If anything it feels like a microcosm of my feelings towards the whole show encapsulated in a few minutes.

Tsukuyomi being an absolute afterthought is par for the course for toei at this point. I was so hyped at the end of episode 48 hoping she was gonna actually matter at least for a few minutes but no. Her "betrayal" makes EVERY SINGLE CHARACTER IN THE SHOW look like a complete fucking moron. Your mastermind villain who has been plotting for this very moment for decades fell for it, the good guy cast fell for it, DECADE somehow fell for it? yikes. Only attack is a backstab that doesn't work before being deleted from existence in one punch? yikes.

Spoiler

The last couple of episodes before the final battle, Godai Yuusuke understands if he becomes Ultimate Kuuga, he will lose his mind because the power of the Ultimate form can consume him. But Godai is a kind-heart man and he overcomes such fear since Ultimate form is the only way to beat the final boss.

Same thing with Sougo here, the power of Oma Zi-O can consume him and yet he overcomes it and uses the power to beat Another Decade because he is a kind-heart person.

I actually like this personally. It feels fitting to end the first and last shows in the same way as a sort of book-ending of the era.

I was also a fan of the nods to the Ryuki ending.

Ryuki

One of the main riders dies, then the living rider succeeds in the mission but resets time to before they even met. Also the Zi-O/Geiz dynamic is played kinda like the Ryuki/Knight dynamic in hindsight with this ending. I would definitely say that ending was done 100x better than this one, but i'm giving them credit for trying

I still have a LITTLE hope for some of the extra material maybe possibly perhaps salvaging SOMETHING from this trainwreck ending, but standing on it's own it's a mostly disappointing ending for me. I don't like how much time was wasted with the Sougo talking to Oma Zi-O scene when the finale had SO. DAMN. MUCH. stuff it was trying to get through. Tsukuyomi Rider, Uncle watchman scenes, penultimate battle, Geiz Death, Final battle, two obscenely long (but obscenely awesome) henshin scenes and the time reset. Cut out most of the Zi-O/Oma Zi-O waffling down to like 3 lines, then you have some time left for Tsukuyomi to do literally anything or more from the time after the reset.

[Dengar]

How am I supposed to know these things? Referencing Go I just thought was Zi-O being weird again as usual. Like maybe Geiz watched Drive when he was a kid or something. I don't know I wouldn't put it past them.

They did the same bull with the other movie and the W watch. Like it's dumb. Really dumb. Den-O was never this stupid about crossing its main plot into its movies.

You're supposed to know it because of the months of marketing of Go being in the summer movie. Also the fact that you're expected to have gone to see the movie in cinemas. Same with the Double and Kuuga Watches in Heisei Generations Forever. It's not Toei's fault you've chosen to ignore all marketing. The expectation is that people will go and see the movies when they're out. Don't expect them to cater to you just because you're unable to do so.

Also, Den-O was the first series to massively feature it's movie in the main series. They had several episodes leading up to it with scenes that served no purpose other than to set the movie up. I'm also not sure why you're specifically bringing up Den-O, but LOADS of series, both in Rider and Sentai, have done things like this. Did you start whining when Kyoryuger flashed back to its movie? Did you do so when Kougane turned up in the Gaim finale?

Zi-O has done a lot of things wrong, but right here the blame lies squarely with your inability to pay attention.

Gating plot points behind movies is garbage.

Den-O did not do this. It weaved the movie into the plot, introduced things that would be used in the movie later, and most importantly, did not do things in the series itself without explaining why they happened. It's entirely possible to watch ALL of Den-O without watching any of the movies and never be confused at what the hell is going on.

Don't defend garbage exploitative money making schemes that go at the cost of good writing.

Fuck, even Decade had the courtesy of saying "The true final episode is the movie" right at the end of the last episode in the series. Not in a trailer, not promotional material, it was at the end of the episode itself.

Expecting me to watch trailers or whatever. Making the series deliberately inconsisent because "stuff happens in the movies" in an effort to make me fork over money for the movie. It's garbage.

I will not accept this garbage and I will dock points from my score of the show for this.

Resorting to this tactic simply means they have no confidence in the quality of their movies.

Which I suppose isn't exactly wrong since the vast majority of movies in the past have indeed been garbage.

[Dante ShadowRoadz]

Not even taking pushing Drive's Watch into the movie into account, this season was a TIRE FIRE OF EPIC PROPORTIONS @_@

For an anniversary season of all things they decide to retcon every five to six episodes what happens and why, have characters with zero development and charisma, and with maybe two or three exceptions, utterly waste the nostalgia value of all their cameo opportunities. The time travel is broken, they have no real motivation for the villains and the whole premise hinges on the question of how could Sougo become Oma Zi-O, yet it turns out it could have happened any time something managed to make him really really angry or sad :/ Cause yeah, thats how you get to be the King of Time and Overlord of all Rider powers.

And cripes was the finale was a deflated balloon in an empty room. Tsukuyomi was worse than useless and Grand Zi-O apparently lost all value within its own debut episode to have such a poor showing here. They couldn't have even made it more of a reflection of his internal struggle to face down Schwartz one on one after taking out Geiz and Tsukuyomi first before he went full Oma-Zi-O, cause that would have made too much sense. And of course the only real interesting characters in the whole show, Decade and DiEnd, just get a nebulous final moment at best while they Deus Ex Machina some new power for Sougo to re-set and alter the timeline to his liking. For the send off for the Heisei Era of Kamen Rider, this was about as phoned in as you could get.

I kept praying for a miracle this entire season but it seems Toei just didn't want to do the work :/ Lets hope the team for Zero-1 is more competent and doesn't tank the Reiwa Era before it even gets going.

[takenoko]

Before i write about the actual show, I am a big fan of Takenoko's running gag of the rider forms being named after the user, i laughed pretty hard when i saw Tsukuyomi's face photoshopped onto that familiar image.

If I can make even one person laugh at my ridiculous joke, then I've done my job.



Rejoice at the advent of Trinity!

[WannaFantaMan]

Jesus, the amount of yaoi feels I got at the very end with Tsukasa and Kaito had my screaming bloody murder for them to JUST KISS ALREADY!!! As for the ending itself, I thought it was good. Maybe Kamen Rider Tsukuyomi will get more screen time in the movie that comes out in December :3

[Ghost23]

I would have thought that since this is the last series of the era they would make a big ending but it ended up somewhat anti climatic. Still not sure what this whole king business is about and how the future ended up that way even with all the changes in the present. Nice to see Decade in it though but why the change in his driver from white to.....OK fuchsia (still say its pink). Also cameos from past riders was nice too. The whole combining worlds thing, really again. I'm Starting to miss the whole secret evil organization hell bent on world domination where they just stupidly just send one monster at a time against the Rider instead of sending a small pack of them to overwhelm the Rider. Don't anyone else miss those?

[ShepardRahl]

I didn't really hate Zi-O, but I saw the ending coming a mile away. That's why I hate time travel themed shows. They always do a reset or something similar at the end that makes the events of the series feel redundant and a waste of time. It definitely felt rushed and suddenly ends like hitting a brick wall. I tend to like more than a minute of epilogue.

The one thing I did really like was when Sougo finally transformed into Oma Zi-O and he ordered Woz to rejoice. I always liked Woz's rejoicing, but the venom in Sougo's voice when he ordered Woz was great.

[resop2]

I mentioned this in the series overview thread but I will spam this here as well:

What if the ending was not what we thought it was? What if Schwartz actually won?

Schwartz throws the kill shot at turnip. Instead of being absorbed by Geiz, it also hits Sougo knocking him out. Schwartz then creates an Another World for Sougo where Sougo beats Schwartz, reboots the world, and prevents Oma-Zi-O from happening, and then lives a normal life with the rest of the cast.

As it stands, the show ending has no chance of happening in Sougo's universe. Oha and Heure could show up since they have no backstory and could have been kouhai of Sougo that he had never meet that Schwartz had brainwashed, but Geiz, Woz, and Tsukuyomi are NOT his classmates and do not even belong in his timeline. Schwartz, knowing that Sougo is as dumb as a turnip, throws them in since he figures that Sougo is too dumb to figure it out.

[Dengar]

I don't think the writers are competent enough to think of that.

[Catastrophe]

I don't think bad end works well for a kids show.