Zi-O series discussion and poll

[takenoko]

Wiki
Images
Master Poll List

So spoilers of course, this will cover the whole series.

Let's start with the good first, so that people can read that before maybe ditching stuff when I get negative.

I felt like Zi-O had a little success with the past Rider nostalgia. Bringing back actual actors and occasionally having them sometimes help in battle was a nice touch. The strongest month for this series for me was the Blade/Agito one, where the cameos felt spot on and relevant to the Zi-O plot.

We got Rider Time Ryuki which was like 2/3rds a good remake of Ryuki.

Now to slide a bit into the negative, there were a lot of cameos that felt kind of superfluous or underutilized. This came hand in hand with the story not really seeming to know where it was going and...

We come to the blandness of characters and the poorly written story that I couldn't get into. Looking back, I kind of feel like this series compares unfavorably to Build, another series that I thought had contemptible writing. However, Build had the saving grace of having likeable characters. The Zi-O characters are ciphers, you never really get into their mind spaces in any real depth. And the story is so ridiculous with such poor grounding in reality that there's never any real stakes.

I mean, I don't know how else they could do it. I know they want to balance it with the nostalgia stuff, but for the majority of this year, it doesn't feel like they find that balance. So without the foundation of developed character or plot, when we hit the end game it just had nowhere to go.

Sougo - He's a Rider written to be a 10 year old boy. It makes you wonder if they did so because they thought children would identify him more that way. Red Letter Media points out the flaw in this logic with the first prequel, kids don't need to see a fellow kid to make them want to buy toys. They don't want to be shitty young Anakin, they want to be Han Solo or Luke Skywalker.

Geiz - The secret sauce to most good Rider series is the second Rider. He gets to be more badass compared to the Lawful Good of the main character. I think the main series story worked best when it focused on Sougo and Geiz's bromance.

Tsukuyomi - She fired her gun and was ineffectual. Another well-written woman Toei.

Woz - Has no character trait besides liking Sougo. They didn't even finish fleshing out his backstory.

Schwartz - A show can only be as good as its villain. And Schwartz just sucks. We never know what he wants besides abstract power. His relationship with Tsukuyomi and Sougo is ill defined.

And we can't talk about Zi-O without talking about Decade. Decade was so damn badass in this series, but... it feels kind of wrong to pine for him so much in the series that takes place 10 years after his series.

And the comparisons. I feel like the Decade stories were just better written. Yeah, they were AU, but at least it felt like watching a mini episode of the series. Versus in Zi-O where a cameo will show up, maybe he'll help out or maybe he'll do nothing and hand over a Watch. The quality was just all over the place, whereas the Decade stuff felt pretty cohesive.

Like even if Decade was headed toward a nothing ending, at least it felt like the journey meant something. Compare that to Zi-O hitting the Oma Day and it not mattering, or passing us by, or being prevented. Having Oma Zi-O be a threat in the future never felt like an end goal, since he just sat in a chair this whole time and turned out to be not that bad a guy to begin with.

Anyway, I'll stop bitching about Zi-O for now. 2/5 stars, except for a few exceptions, it never really succeeds as an anniversary series or its own self-contained story. I don't think it's too harsh to recommend it to people by going: "Here's the good episodes to watch. Don't pay attention to the main story, it's nonsense that doesn't go anywhere."

[Phoenix512]

I did like Zi-O for the most part but I think it could have been done better. The initial Rider cameos were messy for sure and if Zi-O were rebooted, they should throw out the initial batch of cameo stories and redo them in the style of the ones like Blade/Agito. None of that crap "Another Rider replaces the original Rider if the Another Rider was created in the past". It just made things in a mess at the end of each story.

The Timejackers should have been built up to be something. Heure and Ora needed a backstory of why they became Timejackers. I was waiting for it but never came (like how we never got Libra's backstory in Fourze but got backstory for a henchman in Leo).

One of the reasons I bag on Decade is that he had never a villain of his own (I don't count Narutaki as a villain. He's someone to me that was just there and never explained himself why he hates Decade so much). I liked the Timejackers since they were villains that belong to Zi-O and no one else. Decade really never fought his own unique villian. He fights every other Rider villain.

I feel like this series was more of a reprieve for Decade than being about Zi-O. Decade was cool. Also I loved Woz because everyone should have a hype man and was perfect in it. It should be a 2.5 but I guess it's a 3 since I don't actively hate it.

[TypicalStandUser]

The moment I saw Kento Shimoyama as the writer for this series, I figured this show was not gonna be a hit for those who want a good story out of it. And here we are.

Cons:

- A decent plot that was executed poorly (Kamen Rider VS Terminators of varying timelines was a nice premise, but the Another Rider usage for the 1st half of the show was a hit and a miss) and bland side-characters (Virtually no backstory for Heure/Ora, Schwartz/Alpina's backstories come in right before the endgame, Alpina herself can't realize how monstrous her brother is). Oh yeah, how does Schwartz make Another Watches??

- A backstory I thought was gonna work but did not (The 4/24/2009 incident should've unveiled more than just what Sougo and Hiryu went through, like the Cain and Abel narrative of Schwartz and Tsukuyomi).

- Lack of world-building (Who is Tid?? Was there any other means for Sougo to obtain the W and Kuuga Watches?? Why didn't Ryotaro and the Owner inform Yuto about Sougo??).

- Misuse of some guest characters (Taiko Katono/Chase wasn't at his best, Rina Akiyama/Mana's barely there).

- Reusing a plot point from Build and a mythological gag from Decade to facilitate the series' endgame.

Pros:

- Rikiya Koyama as a recurring Kamen Rider, not like Bujim Gaim.

- Katsuhisa Namase AKA Yabe Kenzou. Though I wish he could've interacted more with the guest actors who were in Yabe Kenzou, like Takamasa Suga/Yuki, Ryuji Morimoto/Kakisu, Kenji Matsuda/Zaiki or Taiko/Chie. Junichiro serving good food to Tsugami is nice though.

- The Agito & Blade tributes.

- Rider Time Ryuki.

- Keisuke Minami/Woz.

- Some of the Another Rider designs like Another Zi-O or Another Decade.

- Kentaro Kanesaki (Schwartz) seems to be enjoying his time on the show and practically pulling off shit-eating grins from nowhere.

- The DX Amazon Omega Ride Watch.

Solid 2. I held onto hope that this could try to be a good anniversary series but this doesn't deserve Iron Throne. Meanwhile, the Gokaiger fans are laughing it up because no one can top said Toei Tokusatsu anniversary series.

[Atragon]

Nooo. It’s just like Decade. Plot without plot. Many things happened on the screen, but you really don’t care about that. Maybe I’m really stupid but it doesn’t have much sense for me. I really hate something what Toei started with “Ghost” or maybe earlier. They multiply use one and the same character. Character die, and then it is alive again, and then it “really” die but his or her friends really suffer so they feelings revive him and again and again. The same with “bad guys”. Characters die and revive so many times that you really don’t care about them anymore. It’s lazy way execution of tv series. You can just kill all characters and then revive them again. Surprise! It’s happy ending! Yeah… sure…

KR Zi-O season just ride on back of previous kamen rider seasons. Sad, but lately each of kamen rider seasons put more stupidness then epicness to the kamen rider legacy.

[kangchan]

1 star above 5, trash story with non logic time travel, bad acting from the cast (especially Sougo and Tsuyomi). Only interest things are cameo from previous Riders. Shimoyama Kento, please stay away from Tokusatsu.

[BreadToku]

This show isn't my least favourite Rider show, but I may honestly consider it the worst-written. Because the whole series is so neatly divided into distinct arcs and sections, I can mostly recall my exact emotional state and investment through the whole thing.

The first episode was the weirdest, messiest thing I had seen in a long while, and it's (lack of) attempts at mixing in the background of Build and setting up it's own ridiculous rules was a recipe for disaster. Right off the bat, I realised this was going to be a show I was going to have to not think about very hard. And so I did just that and enjoyed most of the action and returning actors. ...Except for when they only appeared for fifty seconds. Or that time when they tried to make Kusaka look like Takumi's best friend. The best of these arcs was definitely the Ghost one, and not just because Decade was in it (though he helped a lot).

After that was the end of the year, Sougo's first meeting with his future self, and then the proceeding events in which Geiz makes a new promise to him and thus reigniting his passion to be king. This was the first time I got really invested into Zi-O's original characters and stories, and it made me optimistic that the show had more to it than just (shallow) tributes. And I continued to feel that for while because right after this, we kicked off with the arc with all the future riders and Kamen Rider Woz. I really enjoyed White Woz and the way he shook up basically everything about the premise. And that excitement carried all the way into my absolute favourite arc in the whole show, where Another Zi-O and Geiz Revive show up, where it very much solidified my fondness of the main cast and gave me even more hopes for the story.

Then came the second round of tributes to old shows, most of which I thought were very decent save for the Kiva one. But there was other stuff I wasn't fond of like White Woz getting hastily written out, and them teasing at a connection between Tsukiyomi and the villains which I couldn't care about because they had yet to develop anything about either of those elements. Also they hinted a bit at Woz's backstory but totally just never picked back up on it, huh?

The final stretch of episodes, starting from Another Zi-O II all the way to beating Another Decade was when everything fell into utter chaos, both their world and the plot. As time went on, it became clearer and clearer to me that there was no chance the show was going to neatly resolve most of it's underlying threads and questions in a satisfying manner. Not only did that turn out true, but there were even quite a few threads the show just outright decided to ignore or forget. And the ending actively made me angry.

I grew to like Sougo and his relationship with Geiz, but neither were given enough fleshing out outside of the few key moments sprinkled sparsely through the show. Woz is charismatic and entertaining but we basically never actually learn anything about him as a character. And everyone else I have absolutely nothing good to say about, specially not our villains who sucked majorly. Even Decade spent too much time being too vague and shifty about his motivations and goals. Also I feel bad for Aqua who became a recurring character for a bit just to die.

I definitely enjoyed myself a lot over the last year with Kamen Rider, but the last few episodes took a lot out of me despite having cool moments in between, so I'm trying not to let it colour my overall feelings too much. At least being disappointed is better than having no expectations at all? I'll give it a border line three out of five ridewatches.

[hiro9796]

- Keisuke Minami/Woz.

His surname was Watanabe, not Minami. Minami Keisuke is the actor for KyuuRanger, Outori Tsurugi.

[Mandalori]

Well both actors played characters that like to hype things. "Rejoice, it's going to be Legendary" would probably happen if both were to interact with each other.

[Layton13]

I really, really like ZI-O and this has to be my favorite Kamen Rider cast. If there is one thing ZI-O nailed its characters. Our ZI-O crew really feels like a family. And I also very much like their character arcs, they flow logically and well from episode 1 onwards.

ZI-O is exactly what I'm looking for in Kamen Rider, good characters, entertaining filler and a story that at least makes sense and while ZI-O has some inconsistencies, especially during its endgame, I have seen Rider Series with far worse stories and that are explained even worse, like Ryuki and compared to our other time-travel series ZI-O is a masterpiece in time-travel. ZI-O got the same feeling from me as my favorite Rider series, like W, OOO, and Fourze.

Through there is one thing ZI-O struggles a lot and that is its inability to explain stuff properly. A lot of questions and explanations are there just never state outright, that is to the series advantage during character arcs, but when it comes to rules and so on that can get really frustrating when you have to piece everything together yourself.

So, all in all, ZI-O is a great series and a fitting end to Heisei Rider legacy, 4/5. There is definitely some room for improvement, but that doesn't distract from what it is in my opinion, a stellar series with great characters.

[Catastrophe]

Zi-O was garbage. They should have learnt from Decade (and Gokaiger) and planned this in advance.

Wasted cameos, crappy writing, useless and boring characters.

The only cameo arc that was actually done really well was the Agito one. The second lot of them (Blade/Hibiki/Kabuto) were done better than the first, but each had aspects to them that weighed them down. The first batch weren't that great at all. A disappointing end to the Heisei era.

1/5. Bring on Reiwa.

[decade368990]

ZI-O is exactly what I'm looking for in Kamen Rider, good characters, entertaining filler and a story that at least makes sense and while ZI-O has some inconsistencies, especially during its endgame, I have seen Rider Series with far worse stories and that are explained even worse, like Ryuki and compared to our other time-travel series ZI-O is a masterpiece in time-travel. ZI-O got the same feeling from me as my favorite Rider series, like W, OOO, and Fourze.

Lot of us here would say Den-O nails the time-travel theme storytelling, not Zi-O.

[Lanay]

It's a trainwreck.

There's no direction of what this series supposed to be at all. Nostalgia series? Decade 2.0? Or it's own series? Screw it, just combine them all!

Den-O does this time-travel thingy better. At least (iirc) it never breaks it's own rules, unlike Zi-O.

Somehow it's just reeks 0 planning on the series as the whole.

Eh, at least Grand and Ohma henshin sequence are cool.

Now excuse me, I'm gonna bleach my brain with Den-O to forget that this series even exist, just like the ending indicates.

[takenoko]

Ohmu Zi-O?

As many criticisms as I have for the series, I don't think I hate it. But it is such a letdown and a waste of potential.

I'll always love Tsukasa coming in and eating Sougo's lunch. Could have been better, but some of the highs are pretty great.

[Connie_Edogawa]

I liken this series to Wizard. it's a show that I mostly enjoyed while watching it, and recognized that it was hardly perfect while it was going, and now that it's over I'll just end up looking back on it and sighing about it. shame, really. they had good suit designs and ideas at times, they just didn't execute very well.

[Dengar]

I do not regret watching the show. I was usually entertained.

I think I got more entertainment out of this than Ghost.


I didn't really hate Ghost either but it's the closest thing I can compare it to.



The thing is, I can't be overly negative. When the show did well, it did very well. It just didn't happen very often. Geiz in particular is entertaining when he's unfunnily funny.


3/5 Could Be Worse, Decade Was Better


Yeah I'm giving my score before moving on to my personal pet peeves. Most of them are just questions, that I doubt will ever get an answer.


-What's the origin of the Zi-O rider system?
-We know Geiz stole the Ride Watches he had from Zi-O, but why does a second Time Triver exist, and why does the Geiz watch exist? At least Tsukuyomi's watch has an explanation.
-Speaking of Tsukuyomi, she has no powers. That hand blade thing is just a convenient back stab thing. But if you think about it, there's no weapons, no special moves, or anything really. She didn't even use a finisher.
-Why did Woz betray the resistance and join Zi-O.
-How does a timeline reset move people from the future or alternate timelines into the present? I get that Heure and Ora were revived because Sougo is an idiot, but how does this even work? I guess chalk this up to timeline nonsense shenanigans since none of the time shenanigans made sense, not even internally.
-None of the time shenanigans made sense, not even internally.
-No, you don't suddenly get to obtain the power of Oma Zi-O just because you're angry. I get that Zi-O is an evolving power, but that evolution has to be earned somehow. The scene made it look like this evolution could have happened at any time.. Such as before he saw his friends die.
-Did Schwartz exist in the timeline of the Oma Zi-O of the future? Seems to me that he didn't. Not to mention, the Oma Zi-O of the future didn't have any friends for Schwartz to kill.
-Did Schwartz really need to emotionally manipulate Sougo into becoming Oma Zi-O to take his power? I mean clearly he was destined to do so anyway. Why not wait for that moment to come and strike then?
-I'm not really on the "they really hate women" train, but Tsukuyomi was beyond useless. I get that you can't have them be the hero and take the hero's spotlight but come on, give them something they're good at. Science girl from Ghost was more useful than this.
-Death scene was ruined simply by the fact that there's no way it would have stuck.
-No obtaining the Drive watch. Despite having a cameo from Chase.