Kamen Rider Zeztz 45

Watch Analysis

The video and audio above contain the full unfiltered analysis. What follows is the razor focused version of the strongest point(s) I had to make.

The Beautiful Lie at the Heart of This Episode

I suspect Kamen Rider Zeztz 45 is going to be remembered as a stumble, and I don’t think that’s an unfair assessment. I have plenty of issues with the episode mechanically, and I’ll get to those. But before I do, I want to talk about the thing I genuinely loved.

I loved the life The Lady wanted.

Not because she was right. Not because what she did was justified. But because the dream she was chasing was beautiful.

Love Isn’t Possession

By this point, The Lady has merged with the Phantom Gore Nightmare, and she’s become even more warped than she already was. She’s also gone something like 16 years without sleeping so CODE couldn’t find Nem. You can imagine what that kind of life would do to a person.

She loves her daughter. I don’t doubt that for a second.

The problem is that she’s reached the point where possessing Nem has become what love means to her. As long as she has her daughter, that’s enough. She doesn’t understand that love is more than simply having someone.

You don’t truly love someone just by keeping them close.

Love is more complicated than that.

The Life She Wanted

What really struck me was the life she tried to build.

It’s just a quiet home for the two of them. There’s no father because Nem is a Nightmare baby. It’s peaceful. It’s warm. Everything has that soft, Vaseline-on-the-lens look. The colors are gentle. Even the costumes help sell the fantasy. If I remember correctly, Nem is wearing white during that first morning together, while her mother wears a pale yellow top with a shimmering silver skirt beneath her apron.

It all feels incredibly inviting.

Around the house are Mother’s Day cards and childhood drawings that never really existed. They’re the life The Lady wished they had shared.

I’m not saying that justifies what she did.

I’m saying it’s beautiful that this is what she wanted.

Isn’t This What We’re Fighting For?

Watching those scenes, I found myself thinking, isn’t this what life is about?

A mother and daughter sharing breakfast.

A peaceful home.

A place where people love, care for, and support one another.

Isn’t that something worth fighting for?

Isn’t that something worth protecting?

I really appreciated how much this episode treasures ordinary domestic life. Nem isn’t living some glamorous fantasy where she’s an untouchable celebrity isolated in a penthouse. Yes, she’s a successful actress. Yes, she’s famous. But she goes home, eats breakfast with her mother, and lives a simple life.

That’s almost a fantasy in itself these days.

Whether the episode realizes it or not, I think that’s one of the most beautiful things it’s trying to say.

The Lady’s Performance

I also thought the actress playing The Lady was excellent.

There’s a moment after people begin returning from Nem’s dream where she turns away, realizes something impossible is happening, and you can watch her change. One second she’s the sweet, loving mother. The next she’s The Lady again, calculating what has gone wrong.

She doesn’t overplay it. The shift is almost entirely in her expression, and I thought it was one of the strongest performances in the episode.

Where the Episode Loses Me

Unfortunately, this is also where the episode starts to lose me.

Everything involving Oblivion feels rushed and mechanically confusing.

Last week’s ending made Baku’s disappearance feel permanent. Combined with what happened to Odaka and Sieg earlier in the story, there was a real sense of finality. Then Baku simply comes back, and we don’t really understand why.

Maybe next episode will explain it.

Maybe it’ll be a great explanation.

Right now, though, it just feels off.

Personally, I think the story would have been stronger if The Lady had created this illusion herself. Imagine spending two or three episodes inside this false world while everyone slowly realizes something isn’t right. Characters begin noticing little inconsistencies. They start questioning their memories. Eventually they break free from the illusion.

That feels stronger to me than introducing Oblivion, having reality erased, and then having things effectively re-erased again. The mechanics become difficult to follow, and the emotional weight of last week’s ending gets undercut almost immediately.

Five Episodes Left

There are only five episodes left, and that’s what worries me.

I’ve loved Kamen Rider Zeztz for most of its run. That’s why Episodes 44 and 45 concern me. They feel less focused than everything that came before them, almost like the series is spinning its wheels right before the finish line.

I really hope I’m wrong.

I want Zeztz to stick the landing because it’s been such a great ride.

Even in an episode I consider a disappointment, though, I came away thinking about something unexpectedly beautiful: the value of a simple home, a peaceful family life, and the quiet happiness of sharing breakfast with the people you love.

The Lady built that dream on a lie.

But the dream itself was still worth admiring.

Drop a comment and let me know where you stand on this.

Inspector’s Notes

The Lady Is Evil… and That’s Why I Feel Sorry for Her

One of the things I appreciated most about Kamen Rider Zeztz 45 is that it made me feel sorry for The Lady.

She’s evil. I don’t think the episode leaves much room to argue otherwise. What she’s done to Nem is wrong, and she needs to be stopped.

But she’s also deeply sad.

After years of living in fear, refusing to sleep so CODE couldn’t take her daughter away, she’s become so twisted that she no longer understands what love actually is. To her, loving Nem means possessing her. As long as they’re together, she believes everything is finally as it should be.

That’s tragic.

It doesn’t excuse her actions, but it does make them understandable.

Good villains aren’t always the ones you agree with. Sometimes they’re the ones whose pain you can recognize, even while rejecting the choices they’ve made.

The Lady is one of those villains.

I sympathize with her.

I also think she has to be stopped.

The two ideas aren’t contradictory. In fact, I think that’s what makes her one of the more interesting antagonists Kamen Rider Zeztz has given us.

Did We Just Get a Real Behind-the-Scenes Look?

One of my favorite little surprises in Kamen Rider Zeztz 45 had nothing to do with the story.

For a brief moment, the episode lets us see what looks like a tokusatsu production set. There’s a green screen stage, practical props, lighting equipment, and crew members moving around before we see how that same scene appears in-universe.

It made me wonder if this was an honest peek behind the curtain.

Did the production simply pull the camera back and let us see what filming a Kamen Rider scene actually looks like?

If so, I think that’s incredibly cool.

I’ve always been fascinated by how tokusatsu is made, and this only made me want to see more. Watching practical props blend with digital environments is a good reminder that these productions aren’t purely practical or purely CGI. They’re a combination of both, carefully composited into the finished shot.

Now I just want to know where I can watch more of it.

If there are behind-the-scenes documentaries or making-of features for Kamen Rider, I’d love to see them.

The Memory Bubbles Are Pure Visual Imagination

One of my favorite ideas in Kamen Rider Zeztz 45 is the memory bubbles.

On paper, they sound ridiculous. Memories floating around inside little transparent spheres shouldn’t work.

But somehow they do.

We see Nem reach out and touch them, one after another, and each memory gently absorbs back into her. At the same time, Zeztz is fighting Oblivion, knocking those stolen memories loose so they can find their way home.

It’s such a simple visual idea, but it’s incredibly effective.

What really sells it are the shots themselves. Seeing tiny scenes playing out inside the bubbles makes every memory feel tangible. Then, instead of just disappearing, they physically return to Nem as she reaches for them.

It’s imaginative.

It’s beautiful.

And it’s one of those wonderfully tokusatsu ideas that probably shouldn’t work as well as it does.

Mechanically, it raises a few questions about exactly whose memories Oblivion stole, but honestly, I don’t care very much.

The imagery is so strong that I was happy to go along with it.

Sometimes a great visual is enough.

Loose Threads

Dreams Can Open Doors Too

I really like the visual of the Zeztz Door, but what I like even more is what it represents.

Up until now, creating these doors has largely been something associated with the Nightmares. We’ve seen them manifest the doors, open them, and travel through them. Sometimes the doors seem to respond to a person’s subconscious. Last episode, Nem kept wanting to escape and go somewhere else, and a door appeared for her. Back in Episode 1, Baku was trying to get away when doors appeared to him as well, although he already had the lucid dreaming training that CODE gave him as a child alongside Kureha and the other trainees.

So the rules are still a little fuzzy, and that’s okay.

What interests me is that Zeztz can now create these doors himself.

With the Extreme EXDREAM Driver and his new form, he’s surpassed the Nightmares in another way. Instead of merely fighting them, he’s now using an ability that once belonged to them. Whether the Zeztz Doors can take him anywhere he wants or only back to the Zeztz Room isn’t clear yet, but either possibility opens up some fun storytelling opportunities.

I’d actually love to see the show lean into that during the finale. Imagine Zeztz and a Nightmare constantly creating doors in the middle of a fight, forcing each other into different dreamscapes and changing the battlefield on the fly. It might get chaotic. It might even get a little messy. But it would also be a lot of fun.

More than anything, though, I like what this says about Zeztz himself.

Kamen Rider has always loved the idea of heroes taking the powers of evil and using them for good, and Zeztz continues that tradition here. He doesn’t tear open reality or force his way through the world. He creates a Zeztz Door, just like a Nightmare would, but he uses it to protect people and help them escape.

That’s a small moment, but I think it’s an important one.

I also love the design of the door itself. It bears the image of Zeztz in his Exdream form with his arms crossed in a confident, protective pose. The Nightmare Doors always look like they’re cowering, shielding themselves, or threatening whoever approaches them. The Zeztz Door feels completely different. Instead of danger, it projects protection and sanctuary.

I think that’s a wonderful visual way of showing that dreams don’t just overcome nightmares.

They redeem what nightmares were using for evil and transform it into something good.