Kamen Rider Zi-O (2018)

Kamen Rider ZI-O is an example of a series that’s fanservice first, and story second. As expected the producer of ZI-O Shinichiro Shirakura and main writer Kento Shimoyama has both has history in lots of horrible shit. Shimoyama was responsible for the shitty adaptation known as “Death March to Parallel World Rhapsody”. And if you guys are toku fans he was responsible for the infamous series, “Shuriken Sentai Ninninger”. Shirakura on the other hand, to make it simple, he doesn’t like tokusatsu. With this review, I’m gonna tell you the Pros and Cons of this series. With that said, Shall we begin the review?


Brief Summary:

ZI-O is about our main protagonist, Sougo Tokiwa. He had this motivation into becoming king. However, what he doesn’t know is that it would lead to a post apocalyptic future where he has done multiple of horrible things known as Omha ZI-O. In order to stop this from happening, two time travellers Geiz Myokuin and Tsukuyomi must stop him. Once Sougo is given the Ziku Driver from his future follower, Woz and the ridewatch he found he is able to transform into Kamen Rider ZI-O.


Pros:

The Opening theme: “Over Quartzer” is a grand step up from it’s previous rider opening theme. I like the instrumentals. And the singers are the people that sung previous Kamen Rider Openings, ISSA for Faiz and Shuta Sueyoshi for Den-O.




Woz: No lie Woz was the only character that had some type of likability, He may not have the most developments but just his screen time was a delight. And how can you NOT like it when he says “IWAE”.



A Great Middle: From the Wizard arc till around the Blade Arc (the moment he gets Trinity), it felt like ZI-O could’ve have potential. Showing Sougo that he does have some decent characteristics other than “I want to be king”. And to boot Geiz having some sort of respect of Sougo. May I say more?



Awesome Insert songs: Like the Opening theme, I also like the OST and insert songs. Makes me feel estatified of the fights. Especially with songs like “Toki no Ouja” and “Next New World”



Future Riders: I think this was actually good, despite being another way for Woz getting three various forms. I mean it does show we do have riders in the future. But this is the branch if Oma ZI-O is defeated on Oma Day. The riders themselves are really likable. And to make it better the actors for said Rider are from Toei previous works. Shinobi (Kinji from Ninninger), Quiz (Hiromu from Go-Busters) and Kikai (Jiro from Kikaider).

But unfortunately this is where the positives end.

Cons:

Geiz: He’s an example of a wishy washy character. The thing is that at one point he wants to destroy Sougo, then he doesn’t want to, wants to again…. See where I’m coming from? Without that he’s just a generic secondary character with little to no motivation of his own. Just a plot device and when that gone he’s just there.



Tsukuyomi: There are characters that are just used for plot device like Vernage from Build and there just characters that just fucking there. She only reminds Sougo about his fated future. The moment Sougo becomes ZI-O II. She realizes he’s dangerous. She’s goes future into the past and find out what lead the whole situation of Sougo’s dream. And I think to myself….. WHY DIDN’T YOU DONE THAT SOONER? The next thing is the amnesia thing, I mean most this stuff of her past feels the writers did this very last minute because they didn’t know what to do with her. You know what else that was last minute…. Making her a Kamen Rider… Again…. WHY DIDN’T YOU DONE THIS SOONER?


Geiz Revive: The thing I don’t have a problem with secondary riders having a second form. But it wasn’t really consistent on how it was used. Woz mentioned how every time Revive was used it causes damage to his body. I just think that they should’ve done more with that. But instead the “consequences” was just used for the sake of plot. If you gonna put that type of consequence at least do it more than just it’s arc that’s all I’m saying for this.

Time Jackers: OMG are they are a joke. They don’t much until after the fanservice stuff is over. Uhr, I think he should’ve been the guy that transitioned to good. I mean there was to much potential into that. The guy suffered so much during the Kikai arc, had some suspicions from Swartz, etc. Hora, I mean she did nothing accept be the girl of the group. But what pissed me off is that he betrays Uhr AFTER he saved her and there was no development onto that. Then there’s Swartz… Honestly, he’s the best one of the trio (and that’s not saying much) I mean had so much clever plans into his objective. Even though him being the final boss was predictable… I kinda like that he did everything just so he can be king and to save his world. But the problem is that like most of the stuff ZI-O it’s just last minute stuff.

The Final Episodes: I did not like this on Build for literally making the world become one. It felt like an excuse to not make characters die permanently, and just reset everything because “character development what’s that?” But ZI-O does this but ten times worse because none of these characters aren’t worth caring about. It didn’t need to do this. To add insult to injury, Tsukuyomi became a Kamen Rider…. In the penultimate episode. Yeah it's good that we got a female rider that didn’t die… But god dammit WHY NOW of all things. If anything most the stuff in the final 7 episodes should’ve happened earlier. The ZI-O 2 stuff with Hiryuu, Uhr and Hora discovering Swartz intentions, etc. But no we need fanservice first and story second.



Half assed Cameos: Yeah, I like that previous actors that returned but they don’t do much with it. It’s just remember them, they used to be in (insert previous Heisei season) and that’s it. They don’t do much other than give Sougo a ridewatch. Imo the Agito arc did this the best. Souichi at least helped the ZI-O team and did more than just give main rider a ridewatch. There’s also the Kabuto arc, but Kagami didn’t really do much, it mainly focused on the Hopper Hell Brothers and that’s it. He became Kabuto and that’s it. Again, I like the cameos but dammit you need to do more for them at least.




Do I recommend this?: Hell No! This show fails both story wise and fanservice wise.



Overall, ZI-O is a badly written series that has too many inconsistences, plot holes that aren’t mentioned again, Gimmicks that are just there for the sake of gimmick sake, Bland as fuck characters (minus Woz), cameos with very little substances may I say more? I wanted to like ZI-O but with the bad outweighs the good in an insignificant matter, How can I? As a fanservice show, it fails as well, even one of my favorite arcs (Wizard) doesn’t give Wizard any justice. I mentioned before they were just there. If you like this series... good, but you can’t ignore the glaringly obvious flaws.


4/10 (With the fanservice and Woz)
1/10 (w/o them)

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Everything the show did well:
-The hero cast while inconsistent is pretty likeable overall, especially Woz.
-Some really cool concepts that are done really well like the whole Demon King aspect or some elements in the second quarter.
-The show's second quarter manages to be really great for the most part.
-Pretty good main antagonist.
-Amazing final fight.
-Great action for the most part.
-Really great soundtrack that stands out from other seasons.
-Consistently entertaining show for the most part if you don't take it too seriously.
-Some of this show's tributes can be pretty good. The Agito, Ryuki, Blade, Hibiki, Kabuto, Kiva, OOO and Wizard come to mind.
-Good utilization of Kamen Rider Decade's characters.

Everything the show did bad:
-This show has some of, if not the most inconsistent writing in the franchise. A lot of stuff gets retconed and the main trio personalities flip-flop from time to time, especially with Geiz.
-Woz backstory and the Dai Mazine plot points are left to this show's summer movie. But even then the show barely uses Woz's background for the show nor does explore how was he during Geiz's time.
-The time-travel stuff is really wonky and inconsistent. Like when Riders are finally able to coexist with the Another Riders is something that happens on a whim and the show doesn't explain how it works (it's only explained in the show's official blog, not even in a spin-off).
-The show never explains Uru's and Ora's backstories which makes near impossible to care for them (their backstory is only told in an interview with the producer for some reason, not even in a spin-off).
-How Geiz gets over the negative effects of Geiz Revive is never explained (It gets explained on the show's official blog). Even though other toku also do this, in those you can see the gradual tolerance of the effects, in this show he just suddenly gets over it relatively quickly.
-The Kamen Rider introduced in the last 2 episodes of the show feels pointless.
-When Kamen Rider Aqua from the OOO movie crossovers is introduced into the show he's used poorly.
-Some tributes, especially the first two really suck and the Build one makes zero sense. Even some of the good ones like Kabuto feel like they miss the point of the characters' development from that show. The Kiva one starts good but gets interrupted by the Ginga plot-point that comes out of nowhere. The Wizard, Gaim and Ghost ones while not bad feel like they barely do anything interesting with the characters from previous shows. And one might argue that the Blade's tribute ruins that show's ending but that last one is mostly subjective.
-The show's finale might feel like a copout to some people.
-The show requires you to have passing knowledge of the past 18 Kamen Rider seasons, which isn't really a flaw but felt like it should be point out.

Reasons for the show's strengths:
Main producer Shin-ichiro Shirakura originally intended for the show to stop focusing on the 'crossover' aspect after the first arc, so from episode 15 to episode 27 the writing quality improved drastically.
Main writer Kento Shimoyama can be really good at writing comedy at times.
Kamen Rider Decade was originally planned to only appear for a few episodes, but due to the popularity of his appearance and the convinience from a writing standpoint since he was the only Heisei protagonist that could work as both a rival and a mentor simultaneously.

Reasons for the show's problems:
Shin-ichiro Shirakura had been promoted from a normal producer after he finished Decade. This means that he wasn't supposed to produce normal shows anymore and focused either on producing shows for a different audience or for bigger projects and management decisions in Toei. The original plan was for Build to be the last Heisei season, but due to the coronation to change the era from Heisei to Reiwa was delayed, there would be another Heisei season. Toei insisted that Shirakura should produce this season and for it to have tribute elements to past seasons due to Shirakura having had produced the majority of Heisei seasons. However Shirakura was occupied with management during the show pre-production so unlike his other shows he started more passive in the pre-production and came up with fewer ideas than usual. He came up with the clock motif since this was a celebration to the era, and for the protagonist to be prophesied to be a Demon King in the future, but didn't come up with much else.
Assistant producer Naomi Takebe insisted that the show should have a crossover aspect due to Decade having had a 40% increase on sales back when it aired and that the main protagonist Sougo should meet previous riders in order to differentiate from Decade. She recommended Kento Shimoyama who she had previously worked on for Ninninger as the main writer, due to him being 'adaptable' (some people speculate that this means that the writer was chosen because he was a yesman that could use as a puppet writer, but there's no confirmation for that), having had seen most Kamen Rider and Super Sentai seasons and for his experience as an episode writer for Gokaiger.
Despite this, Shirakura didn't want the legendary aspect to overshadow the characters so he decided that the ridewatches for all Heisei protagonists should release on the first quarter despite not all of them appearing in the show, so that the staff wouldn't be bound to promote them throughout the whole show which is why the show temporarily focuses on hypothetical future riders and more on the rivalry of Sougo and Geiz. However due the first quarter being way more popular than expected, actors from old Kamen Rider shows where showing interest in reappearing in the show and made request to do so to Shirakura which led to the show again focusing on previous riders and for them to be able to transform unlike the beginning in which Shirakura requested that they shouldn't be able to transform so that they don't overtake the previous riders in focus. He also originally wanted the riders to ride Robots based on previous riders but due to budget constraints the show shifted into having armors based on previous riders instead. Ultimately Zi-O ended up becoming the best selling season of Kamen Rider which led to Shirakura using legendary motifs for his next 2 shows.
Shirakura originally did not want to have time travel as a focus due to him feeling such plot points make the show feel more complicated and usually make less sense. Back in Den-O he said the same thing and the staff went through something called the 'Week of Hell' in which they had to come up on how to make the show and ultimately concluded that the first half shouldn't have a focus on plot and for Yuto Sakurai who the plot revolved around to be introduced far later. However, main director Ryuta Tasaki said that it would be a crime for a Rider with a clock motif to not time travel.
Ultimately due to them not being able to know which actors would be available for the tribute episodes the staff had to often rewrite or come up with stuff on the spot depending on which actor they were able to get back. The reason why this idea worked with Gokaiger besides Arakawa being a talented writer was that the 2011 earthquake opened up most actors schedule, they simply weren't able to replicate the way Gokaiger treated its previous rangers due to how tight the writing schedules were.
The staff was very liberal on what scenes should be cut for pacing. They ultimately ended up partially removing the scene where they explained how riders were able to transform from the Blade tribute onward. While not officially stated some people speculate that the explanation of Geiz being able to endure the Revive transformation and the backstory of the Ora and Uru being that Ohma Zi-O erased their timelines when they were young and Schwartz saved them due to them having the potential of becoming time jackets were ultimately cut in a similar matter.
The original plan for Woz ended up changing due to the character's popularity which largely affected his backstory.
The Kamen Rider that gets introduced in episode 48 was originally supposed to appear around episode 32, however the suit/toy designers PLEX were having issues designing the suit and ultimately the appearance of said rider ended up being delayed until it was ready for the last 2 episodes where the character was barely able to accomplish anything.

Overall:
The extremely inconsistent writing easily makes this one of the worst, if not the worst stories in the franchise. While outside of the story the show does some good it's still not enough to redeem the show. That said if you watch this show as a "dumb fun show that doesn't need to be taken seriously", you'll probably end up enjoying it overall but even then it's not a great show and there's far better tokusatsu out there. While I enjoyed the show overall, the show's objectively bad and I can only recommend this show if you're a Kamen Rider completionist or really enjoys tokusatsu that don't take themselves too seriously.

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