Case 10, Vanish of Kamen Rider Zets. Let's talk
about what stood out. I liked the action in this
one a lot. The Nightmare looked wild, like a
demonic Mickey Mouse mixed with a sheep or a
dust bunny, maybe? I'm not really sure. He had
these crazy glasses on. The vocal performance
actually reminded me a little bit of Edemon,
the English language version of Edemon. I don't
know what Japanese Edemon sounded like, but I
thought, I wonder if this is what Japanese Edemon
sounded like, and then they decided to give him
a little, you know, kingly attitude, or what,
but anyway. So, yeah, the action was really cool.
What I really liked was they, again, pushed the
dream logic, and there were even little interesting
dream logic flourishes, like when they're fighting
inside this art museum, built this weird, like,
upside -down pyramid. Ah, Edelman! See? It's
all connected. Anyway, when they're fighting
this building with this upside -down triangle
structure to it, there's screens that are showing
some of the action that's going on. So it's showing...
uh, Zets fighting with the Nightmare, and it's
also showing Nox trying to shoot, I think he
was trying to shoot Zero, which we'll get back
to that later, hopefully I remember to actually
come back to that, but, uh, anyway, it's cool,
because it's showing it on, like, a white screen
projector, with, like, a little projector firing
at it, and so you can tell, like, the visual
quality of it is not great, like, it's obviously
not, like, um, CGI'd in, or, or, um, what would
you call that? composited into the scene it's
their they're recording a projection of a recording
uh that's either canned or live and it's like
even nox is seeing from a different angle so
you see him you know looking this way but it's
the camera's like looking at his face um that's
showing on the projected screen and it's just
really neat because it's like extra visuals and
then at some point uh zets charges at the nightmare
and they go through the screen to the location
outside that it's showing at this point, and
that's how it transitions. There's a little,
you know, whatever, CGI haze, and they ended
up showing him going through into that scene
fighting the thing, which was really, really
cool, and I really liked that. So I wanted to
praise it because I'm going to unpraise it in
a little bit. Let me see if I have written down
here. Yu Yu Takashi was the writer for this episode,
but I don't know if I have the director written
down. or not. It looks like I don't. I recognize
his name, so I'll have to try to talk about him
in the next episode, in the next review. But
I want to talk about the barrier form. So I looked
up, I really, I've got a lot of problems with
the capsules, and it's an evolving conversation,
my issue with them, but we'll start with this.
I think it looks really goofy. Like, actually,
when he brings it together, it looks really dumb.
But when he doesn't, it actually looks decent.
I like these big things on his arms that he chops
with. But the fact that they, like, make his
face when he brings them together. They sort
of make his face, but not really. I don't like
that. I don't understand it. It seems strange.
Like, the... This is from Kamen Rider O's. He's
like a cobra, a tortoise, and something else.
That one makes a lot more sense. It has, like,
a turtle shell. Half of a turtle shell in, like,
each form. And O's brings them together. And
then, boom, he's got a big shield, which is pretty
cool. Kind of reminds me of, like, in Digimon
Adventure 02 when, actually, it was in Tamers
as well. Anyway, WarGreymon can pull his shield
off of his back and put it in front of him sometimes.
LittleTerriormon does that in an episode of Tamers,
I think when there's, like, the Snake Dave attacking
the train. Anyway, Snake on a train. Anyway,
like, that's cool, and those visuals were nice,
and they worked there. It was an anime, both
of them. So maybe the animated quality of it
made it work better. But just the face being
a shield, I find really dumb. And I don't like
it. And I believe... Well, I'll get to the details
of the forms later. But anyway. Yeah, it looks
goofy. I don't understand it. Yeah. So the capsums.
This transitions into my issue with the capsums.
Zero explains what the capsums are like and how
they're structured. The red ones are for physical
things, so they boost his strength or whatever.
The blue ones are technological, so he gets like
machinery type stuff, which put a pin in that.
The green ones are about the body and the mind,
sort of. I think it's called esperim because
it has ESP in it. It's supposed to be like ESP,
esper, ability, something that's in... different
Japanese media. We don't call them espers here
in the United States. That's why we won the war.
And the purple one is called Wonder. So I don't
know if it's exactly, you know, Impact, Esprim,
Technolog, or Technolom, and then Wonder, if
that's exactly how the names work. But it's supposed
to be those four dimensions of reality. And the
purple ones, the Wonder ones, can bend reality
altogether. So I guess... I mean, technology
isn't, like, a fundamental aspect of reality,
though. It's a fact, but it's not a fundamental
aspect. Like, gravity and time and space and
time and space and I don't know what else. But,
like, time and space and maybe life are, like,
fundamentals to the existence of, you know, for
sure time and space. Anyway, I think you get
what I'm saying. But, like, machinery, technology
is not a fundamental underpinning of reality.
I don't know what else it could be, but, like,
it's very much... They wanted to do these cool
toy designs, and they are forcing them into the
show to fit the show, to fit the lore of the
show, which I kind of like and I kind of don't
like. If you're going to have these toys, either
don't explain them at all, or give them really
good, really deep lore. I haven't seen all of
Kamen Rider Kuga, however. Within the first 10
episodes, which I did see of Kuga years ago,
Kuga's trying to... Godai Yusuke is trying to
figure out... what do these forms do, and how
do they work, and how do I go from one form to
another, I started off white, and then I became
red, and red is like my standard thing, but somebody
throws me a stick when I'm blue, and I can turn
it into this kind of weapon, and if, you know,
Ichijo gives me his gun when I'm green, I can
then turn it into a big, you know, crossbow type
of thing, and like, there's a logic to it, but
it's not told to us, it's discovered, and I don't
know if the deeper you get into the show, it
is really laid out, but It's done at Kuga -level
writing, and I like Yuya Takahashi. However,
I don't think he's doing a good job of fitting
into the constraints of this show and what they
don't want to do with the capsums and how they're
divided out. For example, previously in the prison
episode, the second half of the prison case,
whatever, we had him use copy, I think. No, projection.
He used projection. Not astral projection, machine
projection, mechanical projection. And I believe
his projections fought the three chainsaw man
nightmares, and they were able to fight them
all independently of one another. However, I
did notice at the very end, they do finish with
the same kind of like chop or kick or whatever
to defeat them simultaneously. So if they're
just like copy, but then he was doing something
else too, I think at the same time. So it's very
confusing. If they're supposed to be four independently
functioning things, then you either need to be
using the, oh my gosh, did Kamen Rider Wizard
steal this from? from Harry Potter, the little
time turner thing? Because he got the Drago timer,
and he was able to produce multiples of himself,
and he was able to make Dragon Sentai, you know,
Wizard. Did they really steal the time turner?
I gotta look into that. That's hilarious, if
true. But anyway, I mean, but it also makes sense
that you'd be able to do that. I mean, we've
seen Back to the Future, right? It's two Martys
in one timeline at a time, at the same time,
simultaneously timeline. Sorry. Anyway, my point
is, the Wonder Capsums should have the ability
to do reality -breaking things like make 3, 5,
10, 100, you know, Gatakiriba, another O's reference,
levels of zets for Baku to get stuff done in
the dream world. But that's not how it happened.
It happened through the use of technology, which
I guess was like a scan and like projection of...
a thing and, or of himself, a copy of himself,
a mechanical technological thing. And it doesn't
really make sense to me. It doesn't really fit.
Um, it doesn't really seem to make sense. And
they're, they're really just forcing it. And
I find it silly and I find it like breaking the
world building. And I find it really irritating.
And it's not silly in the same way that like
Fujimi and Nazca, like rolling in through his
window and going out through his window and jumping
down. And there's like dogs barking and a cat
and things like that. Like those things are funny
and they're silly and goofy, but like, There's
these dumb little gags or tics in the show versus
this is, to me, deep lore stuff. But supposedly,
all I'm hearing from Japan, or not all I'm hearing,
some segments of the Japanese fandom who are
interacting with the English -speaking fandom
on Twitter, X, whatever, are saying that Ultraman
and Kamen Rider specifically are made for...
preschoolers. And I guess if the shows are in
fact made for preschoolers, then it makes sense
why there would be gaps in the logic and things
like that. But my counter to that is then why
is there blood? Why is there so much violence?
Why is there so much danger? Why are there alluringly
dressed characters from time to time? None of
that makes sense if it's a children's show, but
you know, it's a different culture. So definitely
not what I would put in my children's shows,
but here we are. I talked about Nazca and Fujimi
rolling into the scene and rolling out of the
scene. The whole thing with Nox being an agent,
a rogue agent or something else is interesting.
I wonder, does that mean he was working for our
boy Zero? Because Zero sure looked like he was,
even though it's a suit actor in a robot suit
of a motorcycle, I could have sworn, I think...
Baku's actor was holding something up and then
like lowered it so there'd be a little reflection
of something like dropping down almost like a
anime sweat drop like of being irritated because
when he learns about the esperim recovery caps
and being stolen he says this is very concerning
who did that and then when he finds out who did
it he like has that little moment and he pauses
he's very still but this thing happens on his
face and it feels like it's supposed to be it
feels like it's on purpose first of all to me
and second of all If it's an accident, it's a
very well -timed fortuitous serendipitous accident.
And three, I feel like we're supposed to get
that there's some shared history between them.
And I think that when Baku put up the barrier
between... Nem is protecting the bike zero. She's
here, Nem. The bike is here. Like this. This
is what bikes do. Anyway, and then Baku comes
along and he uses a cool power from... And he
puts a force field around her, which is pretty
cool. I'll talk about the Esper stuff another
time. But just, you know, that makes sense. A
force field type of thing makes sense for an
Esper kind of power. But she's protecting Zero.
And to me, Nox seemed to be aiming for Zero before
she did that, before she jumped in front of him.
And, yeah, I'm very curious to see what actually
is going on. So, anyway. I gotta wrap this up.
I'm really impressed that the show, we're ten
episodes deep, and there are continuous arcs
being delivered. Multiple characters each have
an arc that they're developing. Fujimi has this
arc of trying to, like, he's happy and excited
about the black cases, and now he wants to find,
rescue, whatever, his partner, who is Nox, somehow,
even though Nox says that, you know, that name
no longer has any meaning to me. And, you know,
we're getting these weekly cases solved and it
takes about two weeks, but they get solved. We
get, you know, red herring set up. We get mystery
set up. We get the solving of it set up. We get
encounter with the monster, then having challenges
with the monster, then overcoming the monster.
We have Nazca's like developing as a person.
She's becoming less skeptical and like relying
on the evidence to believe in the black cases
and to help her boss through it, even as she's
irritated with him and Baku being, you know.
So funny. And we still have the ongoing Nem mystery,
and we have the ongoing Nox mystery, and, like,
why is Nox working with the Nightmares? What
does he seek to gain? Probably his body back,
but other things, too, maybe. And it's very curious,
and, like, you know, did Nox... Is he an agent?
Like, is he number six, or is he number nine,
or is he number one? And was he recruited by
Mr. Bikeman by Zero? And, like, if you look at
his sword on the side, it has this weird area
where it's crested over. It sure looks like there's
a round indentation there for a capsum to go
into. So I wonder what's going on there. Okay,
I really, really got to close this one out. Yeah,
so again, I like that this episode is blending
this ongoing, satisfying mystery or satisfying,
like, danger and action and escalation of whatever
conflict with the Monster of the Week with these
long, ongoing arcs. I like it. And even though
there's silly stuff that I'm complaining about,
I'm still really enjoying the show overall. And
I think it's very good. And it's some of the
best Kamen Rider I've seen. And I've seen a few.
So I really like that. What do you think, though?
What are your thoughts on the episode? Do you
agree with my complaints about, like, projection
belonging and wonder instead? Do you think that
the trying to force the toy catalog to fit in
with the show and the lore of the show is, like,
kind of ruining it? Do you think they should
just... Do you think they should do it anyway?
Do you think they should have the toys and just
not say anything about them and just let it be?
Would that be a better way to do it? Or is it
better to integrate it into the lore? And if
it's being integrated into the lore, does it
need to be done better than it's being done now?
And I don't know. Do you think Ned might be an
agent too? Because she said that she and Nox
were like each other. And then he says that he's
an agent. So does that mean she's an agent too?
If so, how? What does that mean? She was an orphan,
so maybe she was an agent before. There's a lot
of stuff going on. But I'm satisfied week to
week. Also, I love how it gets me thinking about
what's going to come next, and I'm enjoying that.
What about you? Anyway, for now, this is MJ signing
out with writer tears, engine inspection, all
that good stuff. Check out all my other things.
I have long and ongoing investigations into some
stuff that I'm doing on Henshin Reflection, talking
about, well, you'll see. Go check out the links.
Find out everything at my website. Also, before
I really, really go, you're here because you
enjoy children's media. I'm here because I enjoy
children's media. I wrote a kid's book called
Mocking Mayhem. You can find out about... Find
more about it here. Look, I'm not actually Canadian.
Sorry. I'm just doing it for clout. Canadian
for clout. That's me. You can find out more about
my book with the book trailer coming up here.
Magical bugs battle monsters in this exciting
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Grow bugs protect them. When a grimling finds
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