WEBVTT

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Kamen Rider Z's episode 20 is a good escalation

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for the series, for the trajectory of the show,

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for everything that's been going on. Because

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we are still in kind of a holding pattern with

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Nem and Baku. They repeat some things to each

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other in this episode that they said to each

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other last episode, if not last episode and the

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episode before that. So they're kind of at this

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new status quo, at this plateau of what they're

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feeling and how they're thinking and how they're

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perceiving each other and their part. in the

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world and the role that they play in this dream

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world and all this other stuff. The battle between

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Code and the lady, I guess. The nightmares. I'm

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not sure how to frame that. But there's nothing

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revolutionary with them. And this is definitely

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the first part of a two -part story. However,

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in the background, we do see other things going

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on. We see a little spycraft between 3 and 6,

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or Kureha. She does something in the beginning

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of the episode that you don't understand until

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later. It's really cool. She plants a tracker.

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I'm going to spoil it. Anodaka unknocks. And

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she's supposed to be using that to find out where

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the enemy's base is and infiltrate it, attack

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it, whatever. Which is funny because the mission

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in the game is also capture the enemy base. So,

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kind of a parallelism going on right there. And

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then she enters the dream and there's this whole

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thing where she... is a decoy for agent number

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five to come in and attack Knox from the back.

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And he ends up capturing him for now, imprisoning

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him for a short amount of time in this torture

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room that Code has, because of course Code has

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a torture room. And there he talks to him and

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asks him what's going on. And we learn, which

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is something amazing, that the failure in episode

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three to stop Fujimi's nightmare from coming

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true, that released all those butterflies, has

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been... slowly cooking in the background, and

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now a bunch of these children, which these kids

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were not out at night, so that's kind of weird.

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It appears to be saying, the show appears to

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be saying that all those butterflies that were

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released created a cohort of dreamers who are

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all locked in this dream together now. And I

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don't know why it's video game flavored, like

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Dragon Quest. I don't know why the kids are kind

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of the targets. The only thing I'm thinking is

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that it's running like a counter code operation

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where code used kids to... turn into dream warriors.

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Maybe the lady is trying to use kids to turn

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into nightmare warriors in the future. I'm not

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sure. Uh, that calls for speculation and I'm

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not supposed to be doing that right now. Um,

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So, like, it was a very steady episode, very

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even -keeled episode. The action was cool. I

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was disappointed that we didn't get to see Kareha

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transform, but we got to see Five, and Agent

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Number Five, and he was interesting. He's, like,

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a very aggressive guy, very tough guy. He sounds

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like he wants to kill Knox. I don't want Knox

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to get killed. I want him to be redeemed. I want

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something to happen with him. I almost expected

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Knox to, like, counter him? Counter -counter

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him? Do counterterrorism stuff? Whatever. And,

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like... hey, if you don't believe in code anymore,

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come with me. But obviously, it seems clear that

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this number five is a code loyalist, which is

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interesting because where's he been and why hasn't

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he been doing stuff? Why has Baku been doing

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things instead? And why does he have a different

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system? Why does he have the knight system or

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the lord system as opposed to the knight system

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that four slash odaka slash nox. had. And, uh,

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why doesn't he have what, you know, Zets has

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with his Zets driver or whatever it's called.

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I find all those things to be curious and interesting.

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Um, but like, we didn't get too much from the

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kids that were the dreamers in this episode.

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Uh, it was weird to see Baku beating up a baby

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nightmare. And the fact that it's, you know,

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baby is weird. Um, I imagine it's because it's

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going to grow into the adult form of the nightmare.

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Like when, um, the boy, I, might've been Shota,

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um, had the, uh, the picture that he'd drawn.

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And that's part of a black case. It's very possible

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that the baby that we're seeing, the baby nightmares,

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the baby form of this, you know, demon King emperor

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or whatever, we're going to see, I think it's

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a demon King, um, that we're going to see, you

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know, presumably in the next episode, I don't

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think this is going to go more than, you know,

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standard two episodes, you know, set to tell

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the story, but. That's kind of what I figured

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was going to happen. Maybe these other baby nightmares

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are all his children or whatever. I don't know.

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Again, calling for speculation. I don't want

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to do that. But it was weird to see him beat

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him up, beat up the baby. But also kind of funny.

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And I think we're in a good place. It was an

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amazing episode, but it's doing what it needs

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to do. And it's like, it has to be there. It

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has to be this transitional episode. I wish it

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was a little bit better, but I did like... It

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overall, I had very positive feelings about it.

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It was just like, oh, okay, so this is kind of

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like more subdued and you're not ratcheting things

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up so much in the A -plot of the episode. And

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that's okay. We'll get more later. Despite me

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saying that Yu Yu Hakutoshi is the goat, I'm

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okay saying this episode is just like passable.

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It's doing what it's, it's serviceable. It's

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doing what it's supposed to be doing. And it's

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not this big explosive thing. However, I'll be

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curious to see whether or not the next episode.

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is a lot better, because I hope it will be, and

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I hope we'll get to see a lot more interesting

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things going on in forward development. That's

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what I'm interested in. What are you interested

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in this? What do you think about the episode

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overall? Answer me in the comments. Check out

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the pinned comment for my other stuff. I have

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links to the full Zets playlist and other things

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I'm doing. Until next time, folks, this is MJ

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with Tension Inspection and Rider Tears, signing

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out.