So I'm here with Writer Tears, bringing you my
full review of Case 7, Punish, of Combinator
Zets. So, Zets Episode 7, we get huge revelations,
we get some interesting lore things going on,
and we get a reference to the original Combinator,
which I thought was very fun, and I don't know
how many people picked up on it. I actually have
the episode open right now on my screen here,
and I haven't seen so far that anybody has referenced
it yet, but I'll have to drop it in there. I'll
have to drop it in there. Um, anyway, so yeah,
I think it's interesting. I think this is a good
episode and I thought it was a lot of fun. I'm
very into what's going on here, uh, which is
that, spoilers, uh, we learned that Nem was in
a car accident four years ago or a bus crash
four years ago with, um, her boss, um, Masui?
Oh, Pejoji, whatever, Pejoji. And, um, he was
fine and she was in a vip hospital and she disappeared
from there and that's interesting that she would
just disappear makes me wonder if she was special
after the accident and after she went into the
dream world or nightmare or if she was special
before and then kind of like how baku keeps almost
dying when he does good things for people maybe
she also has been fated to be wound up in all
of this. I'm now dropping my she and Knox were
brother and sister thing. I'm suspending it.
I'm suspending that speculation. If you didn't
hear about that, that was the last episode. I
figured based on her blue and pink outfit, maybe
it was a code that the parents in this dream
had two kids, twins, a boy and a girl, pink and
blue, and that that would have made sense. But
whatever. Maybe that's not right. Maybe that's
not right. It's okay if it's not. But yeah, so
overall, I liked the plot of the episode. I like
the story stuff going on, like the lore things
that are going on. We don't know anything more
about Nox. We don't know anything more about
how the whole dream world aspect of it all operates,
except for we know mechanically one thing is
he calls the people who are dreaming dreamers,
believe it or not, because they are dreamers
who are dreaming and who are experiencing a nightmare.
So there's that. That's really all for like.
technical lore type of stuff. And then obviously
I talked about everything with Nem being disappeared
and he's promised to now find her, which this
was a really cool moment. He is very upset. He,
Bajoji is saying that he doesn't want to accept
that Nem is dead. And that's why he pushed his
wife in the dream, pushed his wife aside and
took Nem into the tower, into the prison so that,
you know, he would live there forever with her
and he would keep her alive because she's missing.
She's this surrogate daughter who was injured.
who went missing who's presumed dead but he hopes
she's alive and if he can even in his dream uh
save her by staying trapped in this prison for
the rest of his life with her but it keeps her
alive then he's willing to do that and then it
was really cool within the dream knox almost
got him to fight the i don't know exactly how
this was supposed to work but he told him go
fight that nightmare the saw chainsaw guy uh
with your bare hands or not with your bare hands
he grabbed a pipe which was nice um and he attacked
it but he the guy quickly threw him aside anyway
now he's a monster versus a man and it led to
a really cool moment with um baku using uh the
impact ball capsum butter the impact ball he
struck it against the floor kind of like how
the um book injurers did like they've done it
off of a sword i believe um i've seen that clip
floating around and uh Anyway, he was able to
use that to activate it, and then he grabbed
the weapon, punched the guy, whatever. Good stuff.
So again, seeing the capsules being used in The
Dream by Baku is a lot of fun. The suit stuff
is good, but definitely out of the suit, it's
even better, I think. So anyway, we got to see
this confrontation between Baku and Nox, and
at the end of it, Nox... At the very end of the
episode, after Baku saved the day, Nox says that
he, being Baku, is one day going to find out
the cost of that power, which is the power that
he has to use the rider system, the dream balls,
whatever, in order to do stuff and upset his
plans. And we still don't know what the point
is, what the goal is. What will suffusing the
world in nightmares do for Nox? What is it that
he's going for? I don't understand. I don't know
that he understands. And it's interesting. There's
also this kind of like moral dilemma, maybe,
being presented that if Bajoji lets the world
know that Nem is not here anymore, that she's
missing or she's dead or whatever, that it will
be this horrible truth and people need to be
protected from that. The country needs to be
protected from that. And Baku kind of commiserates
because he wants to believe the lie. But that
wanting to believe the lie and having to face
the truth, results in him earning the power to...
I'm trying to make a Persona 4 joke, but it didn't
work. He ends up resolving that he is going to
find her, that he's got a new mission for himself
that he's given to himself, which is to find
them and... or save them. I can't remember what
he says. But I think that's really cool. I think
that's really cool, and I'm into it. I like the
small steps of character growth and arc... traveling
through arc. um arc trajectory that we're getting
to see baku go on and i like it it's fun um i'm
sorry i'm just looking at the set now the set
for the uh for the code hq or whatever inside
of his closet uh inside of baku's closet is a
lot of fun oh my gosh i just noticed there's
a panel on the floor that looks like a door and
i wonder if one day that's going to open up and
lead to a basement underneath uh like a secret
lab or something under there or who knows what
could be stored in there but that would be a
lot of fun anyway it's a really fun set design
um and i really like to see nasca and fujimi
in there with him and i like these conversations
that they're having with him and how they get
to foil him in certain ways because he's kind
of idealistic and um you know he's younger and
knows less and while nasca is more reserved and
more skeptical and fujimi is a little more wild
and out there and willing to just like say things
um they kind of represent an interesting balance
for baku you know if he's in the middle they're
here on either side uh they kind of represent
an interesting developmental like projection
or uh opportunity they're giving him the choice
of who he can be more like and so far he seems
to be being like fujimi but i think ultimately
he'll choose to be his own way and have an interesting
balance of of these traits uh which i think is
fun um and it just makes for good dynamic character
interactions um so that's always enjoyable so
overall i like the episode uh i you know we're
setting up more questions that we don't know
the answers to yet and i feel like you know they
can keep teasing them out for a little bit like
this for a um nox be able to utilize his powers
in different ways uh in the dream world as well
it's fun in the nightmare i guess you we should
just call it um so it's enjoyable and then yeah
that's pretty much it i like the episode i'd
like to hear your thoughts on it i don't have
anything groundbreaking or revolutionary to say
about it um i just think it's good um but i do
want to say i did see uh when nema's in the hospital
she had two readings above her head that she's
laying there um and one of them was 73 and the
other one was 98, which to me means it's a reference
to the original Kamen Rider which ran from 1971
to 1973 and had a total of 98 episodes. And I
think that's very fun and very cute, and it shows
just a little bit of care, a little bit of craft.
They didn't have to do it, but they did, and
I like that kind of thing. Yeah, I didn't sing
the praises of this episode. I like the projection
form or tool or whatever, but it does muddy the
waters even more because it's called... It's
not saying it's a form. It's saying technolum
projection. And it automatically switches from
the standard impact undersuit with the green
abs and muscles to the blue wavy one of stream,
whatever. And it's just kind of odd that there's
these four subtypes. But I noticed that in the
book, there's the red, blue, green, purple. and
we've seen red and uh blue with him so far so
it's easy to expect that purple and green are
coming but i just don't really know what it means
and like i don't understand why you can't have
those colored attachments or accessories without
changing the base suit i think he could keep
them without changing the base suit or just graying
out the base suit even would be fine, because
it looks, I took a lot of screenshots, it looks
really good to have these grayed out parts of
the suit, these charcoal accents that are popping
against the black that he has, and also contrasting
with the colors that he has as well on him, you
know, be it blue or whatever. So, yeah, I don't
quite understand the design choices being made
with some of these things. but i'm still enjoying
the show overall and i think it's very enjoyable
and i loved seeing like i said i love seeing
his resolve that's that's my big takeaway is
like nem is dead or missing and baku has the
resolve to find her and that's going to be part
of his mission going forward and i i like that
i think it's very cool i think it's very nice
it's very good to have that ongoing thing you
know where's nobiko uh it's good to have that
long thread running through the show while we're
getting the day -to -day action as well and the
you know monster of the week or monster of the
you know two -part episode kind of deal as well
anyway let me know your thoughts um yeah i'm
still enjoying this a lot it's just kind of i
i it's weird because i got very emotional at
some points and like um whatever but joji like
wanting to sacrifice himself to save his daughter
like really got to me and the fact that he's
like even willing to sacrifice himself in his
like be away from his wife and die whatever like
i don't know it's like all very interesting and
muddled and kind of complex uh but i like it
overall and i'm just very satisfied with what's
happening so far in the show and that's it um
that's it for now i'm getting out of here this
is mj signing out with writer tears intention
inspection check out my book trailer coming up
and uh let me know what you thought let's have
a conversation um you can leave me a comment
here or on the blog, or wherever you're finding
this, and we can talk about it. You can also
talk about me. Talk about me. You can talk about
me if you want, or talk to me on Twitter. I once
again neglected to talk about Kyohei Yamaguchi.
I downplayed my enjoyment of the form, but I
said there was good action, and I meant to say
I did enjoy what they did with the suit action,
with the fighting. It was all very enjoyable.
It was very good, very... Cool, very fun action
done by Kyohei Yamaguchi, who I have a special
connection to, a special fondness for because
of his episodes 23 and 24 of Kamen Rider Forze
from 2012, which were The Swan Alliance and Hero's
Desire, where we get to see the Cygnus Zodiart
be a heroic character, sort of, but not really.
It's a great suit. It's amazing. And, yeah, it's
a fantastic suit, and I like it a lot. And, yeah,
I think Yohei Yamaguchi is a good director. He
did four episodes of Forze, two episodes of Gang,
whatever, ten episodes of Drive, also whatever,
fourteen episodes of Ghost, which is fantastic,
fourteen episodes of Ex -Aid, ten episodes of
Build, ten episodes of ZL, three episodes of
Zero -One only, which is another Yu -Gi -Oh!
Takahashi show, and Geets, he did twenty and
twenty -one, so two episodes, and he did ten
episodes of Gotchard. and now he's done two of
zets so far he hasn't done anything past episode
seven so we'll see if he comes back for this
one um there was nothing wrong with the action
i think it was very good in fact so i'd like
to see more of him um doing action especially
because there was just like some interesting
fun movement and uh great acrobatics and stuff
like that going on here so anyway i meant to
talk about him last episode i didn't i actually
forgot to do it this episode and before i closed
out everything and uh You moved on to producing
the episode to release it. I realized, oh no,
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