episode 2
written on air date (2025.09.14)
the newest (...second...) Kamen Rider Zeztz episode was good. i really liked the design for Zero (pic related), who is both a mentor for the protagonist. and a bike. for the protagonist. This is, like, a robot avatar that "Zero" controls, so it's not that weird
i'm excited to see the people who want him in an inappropriate manner and barely manage to hide it, because that's how you get the best fanart, whether or not you actually desire the character. the part where he carried the protagonist was cute. my friend brought up something that was interesting: there was a throwaway line about Nem "being in everyone's dreams", which was immediately treated jokingly, but perhaps it might have been foreshadowing... i'm interested to see if that intuition is correct..
the doors were curious, as was the moon. right now i'm left wondering what it all means!
my problem though is that zeztz is soooo ugly. like SOOO UGLY. i hate the suit. i can deal with it in action, but whenever he shows up for the first time, i grit my teeth. for some reason the way his body looks, the skin tight suit, what i perceive as a lack of originality, it makes me seethe just to look at. i hope he receives armour, because i hate the way he looks
it's like they want him to be a Marvel superhero or something
but Zero was really cute. I'm a big fan of robots, and the specific proportion where the limbs, especially the legs, are long and flare out at the ends (see the spacesuits and mobile suits in Tomino's Gundam too), and also characters that can turn into things, in this case a bike. maybe it's because I've always wanted to turn into a railroad crossing signal when i grow up, but that requires the ability to turn into one in the first place.
i just want to know more about everything. i feel like i'm not paying attention, so i'm going to rewatch tomorrow and write a more in depth review regarding what actually happens. i want to know the logic behind things. i want to know who the fuck nox is
The thing is that I'm a spoiler-free guy so I literally know nothing. it's far from my first kamen rider but i didn't even know about the show until we started watching it. :-)
expanded 2025.09.15
what I'm really interested in is Baku having world-class bad luck. i wonder if they'll spin this any way... for example, the sheer fact that he survived all this stuff actually means he has world class good luck or something... especially with how it plays into his dreams and stuff, he's never so unlucky in his dreams
i also think the matter of Baku's sister being so avoidant of him is interesting, and wonder if that will be worked on. There's obvious conflict. she went as far as to tell him to stop helping her, and not to carry her shopping bags, in case anything awful were to happen...
There's also the matter of the (sometimes red, sometimes not) half-moon... I still don't understand what it means, rewatching both these episodes on my own... will it be explained? I mean, obviously yes, but for now I have to make my own conclusions and theories. something about the bridge between dreams and the real world? dreams and nightmares? There just isn't enough to say yet...
also, building on that theory my friend spun up earlier, Nem's name is directly related to sleep... as in, it literally means that. in Japanese, to be sleepy is to be "nemui". to go to sleep is "nemuru". her name is Nem, pronounced nemu, and as much as these shows love to play with character names I really think it should be relevant to the whole dreams theme, just as "Nox" is night-related...
well, the monster was cool. Mr. Wires, who is also a flamethrower. FireWire, even, (does anyone remember that??) anyway I like how they play with the dream logic, excited to see that continue
i made my buddy a Nox icon, upon request:
While discussing Nox and what his butterflies could "really mean" with this friend, it suddenly hit me:
Once upon a time, I dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, to all intents and purposes a butterfly.
I was conscious only of my happiness as a butterfly, unaware that I was myself.
Soon I awaked, and there I was, veritably myself again.
Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming I am a man.
I was going to (rather jokingly) compare Zeztz to the first Persona game, because of the presence of butterflies, 
but in remembering Persona I remembered this parable by Zhuang Zhou. It shook me a bit: of course! Of course the butterflies in the dream-related show will lead me back to this!
I just wonder what the significance might be...
post-episode shit-post
i think my zeztz torrent is phucked up.
and it was so fast paced it was hard to grasp, i only caught a lot of things upon rewatching a second time with the same group of friends. also the kaijin design this episode was just awesome. gun face is Awesome. more of this please