Kamen Rider Zeztz 13

Behold my… MEMES!

This is just a beautiful shot. There have been a lot of these wide, face-off shots, but this one is especially interesting and lovely with the Meteor Nightmare looming above.

VIDEO REVIEW

BLOG REVIEW

Rider Tears: Kamen Rider Zeztz Episode 13 – Unlimited Power And Its Cost

I cannot believe how hard Zeztz episode 13 went.

Is it good for a hero to have so much power at this point in the show? Is it too early? By episode 13 this guy has created a black hole and defeated a monster the size of a planet. It is supposed to be a meteor, but it looks like a moon. It is crazy.

Anyway, this was a really good episode. I really love the dramatic tone in this one. Things have been dramatic before, but this felt different and special and even more dramatic than what we have seen recently. It definitely kicked things up to another level.

There is a threat to all life on the planet with this meteor. The smaller chunks that hit first feel like precursors being spit off from the big meteor. If the main meteor had actually crashed into the Earth, it would have been an extinction level event. Everybody would be dead.

So Zeztz has already saved the entire world by episode 13, which is pretty cool. There is no singular villain group that we know of trying to take over the entire world, so it is impressive to see him already saving the planet on that scale.

The great thing is that everybody in the show acts like it is an extinction level event.

Baku, Fujimi, Nasuka, And Odaka: Real Drama

Baku is furious that Odaka Nox messed him up, got into his head, and made him weak. He is blaming him for making him unable to stop the Nightmare, find the mind’s door, and do what he needed to do to prevent all this from happening.

Fujimi is furious at Baku for rejecting culpability and blaming Odaka. He throws it back at him and basically says you are a civilian, I should not have relied on you. You do not know him. You do not know what you are talking about. And they are both kind of saying that to each other. It is really intense and really cool.

Nasuka comes down pretty harsh on Fujimi to stop him. She reminds him Baku is just a civilian and should not be treated like that. Then there is an interesting turn where she totally seems to believe in Odaka. She ends up on the same page as Fujimi when it comes to wanting to help him. It is really impressive. There is really good character work being done there, and it all fits the tone. It is very dramatic and very grounded. These people are acting the way I would think they would in these circumstances with these powers inside them.

Wonder Form: Love The Color, Not The Hands

The new Wonder suit feels too techie to me. I do not like the little tech nodes on it. I love the color. The shade of purple they are using is great, and I like the overall idea of it.

But the weird big fists on Wonder are too big and too odd for me to really dig. It is pretty cool and it is a nice attempt, and seeing it in action is not as bad, although it is super clunky. The way he supposedly gets out his scythe and everything just does not work and looks pretty silly. It takes away from the coolness of it.

The colors look really good and in wide shots it looks decent, but those big ball hands are too freaking weird for me. They bring the gravity of the form down a ton for me. It would be cooler if he had chains or something. Gravity is like an invisible chain. That would have been an awesome visual.

Doctor Strange Punch, Sonic Chaos, And Flying Capsums

I love that Nox did this Doctor Strange style astral punch on Zeztz and knocked all his balls off.

There is a clear toy trend with Kamen Rider where the main Rider has all these little widgets and gadgets and then some piece of merchandise that holds them. Wizard had that ring holder that swooped from the front of his belt to the back, and he could have several rings on him at a time even though there were way more in the line.

Different Riders have these carriers that hold the collectible items. In Zeztz, the equivalent are those tubes that look like tennis ball canisters, but Zeztz themed. I think they are kind of goofy, but whatever. We have seen Baku loading Capsums into those a couple of times, but then whenever he needs one, it just kind of appears in his hand. It feels like dream logic, like hammer space. They are teleported to him or something.

This episode gives us a cool visual to explain that. When Nox hits him with what you could call a Chaos Emerald punch, something between Sonic 3 and the Doctor Strange astral punch, the Capsums all fly out of him and get destroyed. That tells us they are somehow contained within him.

It makes sense because this is the dream world. He carries them with him in his mind and in his dream power. Somehow they are contained within him. It is a pretty cool move and a clever way to explain what otherwise would be clunky. The visual tells the story and the story allows for the visual. It all works together very synergistically and I really enjoyed that.

Gravity, Dark Star, And The Majora’s Mask Meteor

The gravity control stuff is really sweet. I love gravity control characters. I made a character a long time ago called Dark Star who had gravity type powers. I did not realize that was an existing superhero name when I made her, but whatever. She can fly with her gravity powers like Zeztz does here and can also crush things with gravity.

I do not know that Zeztz is crushing anything in this episode, but he could. I know he could. That is really cool.

The meteor Nightmare visuals are insane. It really reminds me of the moon in Majora’s Mask in some ways. I love that it has these giant stabby things on it like kunai. From the front they just look like blades with serrations or grooves. But when you turn them to the side, they are five pointed stars. That is a phenomenal little design detail. It is weird and creepy and really cool and I very much enjoyed that design. Great Nightmare. Never thought I would say that.

Zero, Nox, Dead Agents, And Dream Ghosts

There is a lot going on with the story logic and the characters.

Zero is definitely hiding stuff. He threatens Minami that if he lets her in on this big secret and she reveals it, he will have to kill her, eliminate her, deal with her somehow. It is super shady.

Then he shows up and confronts Nox and calls him Agent Number Four. That is a cool revelation. Nox challenges him and says he is still willing to throw away the lives of his agents. That implies there are other agents and some of them have died before.

So maybe Nox is dead. Maybe he is a dream ghost. Maybe when you die in the dream, you die in real life but then you become a dream walker or a haunter person. Maybe that is what happened to some of those agents.

That would be super interesting.

Minami, Baku, Fujimi, And Ownership

I love Minami supporting Baku without letting him know she knows what he is doing. Then she sees that something is wrong with him and goes to Zero. She does not just sit back and wait. That is really satisfying.

Baku has this whole arc where he is kind of pathetic and has given up. Then he has this Spider Man 2 style hang out with a kid scene where his morale gets boosted. It is a lot of fun.

The actor playing Baku is doing a phenomenal job. I need to look up his name every time, but he is pouring so much into these performances. He is so intense and so serious and brings such gravitas. He makes this impossible, crazy Henshin hero tokusatsu stuff believable with his conviction. It is beautiful. I seriously feel like he is reaching Hiroshi Fujioka level Kamen Rider actor energy.

The whole thing with the detectives and Odaka is great too. They have conflict, but ultimately Nasuka is coming around and believing in what is going on. She wants to help find Odaka and free him, either clear his name or free him from whatever has him trapped so he can stop being a bad guy and be the guy Fujimi believes in.

She is doing it out of tenderness and care for Fujimi, and also as a cop who wants justice for this victim of a crime, whatever the crime is and whoever is really doing it. Probably Foundation X.

Agent Numbers, Baku’s Past, And Where This Could Go

Jumping back on theory stuff as I round out the episode:

Nox is an agent, but he is Agent Number Four, not Agent X or Agent 10. That was a theory someone shared with me on a short, and I still think it was a great theory. It totally made sense, but apparently he is Four.

I have a new theory though. I think Baku was saved from death multiple times by previous agents, maybe even Nox as Agent Number Four. These agents died saving him from something for some greater purpose that Zero and Code knew about.

The preview for next episode looks like it dives into Baku’s past, so maybe that is what we are going to see. Maybe that is how Nox died. Maybe when you die in the story, or in the dream or Nightmare, you end up a ghost trapped in dreams. Maybe that is what is going on with Nox.

Your connection to your body is terminated, your body dies, and you live on as a ghost inside the dreams. I do not know, but I find that fascinating. That is my theory and I am sticking with it until it is disproven.

Power, Cost, And The Risk Of Going Too Big Too Soon

Episode 13 of Zeztz was excellent. Everything was delivered really well. The emotions were high. The tension was high. The crazy stuff with all the powers was happening. I am really interested in the character story that is going on.

But I am worried it is setting the bar too high for itself.

Will episode 14 be as good? Can it be as good? Will the show feel like it needs to keep topping this and make Baku more and more powerful for the show to stay good?

I hope not. It is not the power he expresses that makes the show good. It is the guts and the feeling and the emotion, the conviction behind the power, that make it matter, at least to me. I am worried the show will not know where to go from here and will get messed up.

But I think Takashi might be setting up this idea of dealing with power and what the cost of power really is. Nox keeps talking about the cost of using the Capsums and the horror of the Capsums. Maybe that is what is being set up here.

Where is it going to go? What does that mean? How are they going to stick the landing? Because if they do not, it will just kind of peter out and stink.

Final Thoughts

That is it for this episode. Zeztz 13 is wild, exciting, emotional, and a little scary in terms of what it means for the show’s future. Baku has already died and come back. He is already making black holes. He has already saved the world.

Now the big question is: will there be a real cost for all this power, or will Zeztz just keep pushing the meter higher and higher until nothing matters?

I hope they land this. I really want them to.

In the comments, let me know what you think is going to happen in the show and what you thought about this episode in general. I would love to hear what you have to say. Let’s have a conversation about it.

Drop a comment below or tag me @MJ_Scribe on Twitter. Let’s have some fun talking about this.

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