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>>23931737

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What are your praises and criticisms on the 42nd episode?

>>23931737
is this the 'NOX is a whiny cowardly bitch' thread?

>Yes, i finally destroyed every single trace of the only force in the planet who can fight the godlike dream demons who are murdering people by the truckload worldwide at this moment. including the lead commander and the father of one of my students, which i also helped kill*
>now, i will ditch my powers and let whoever do whatever they want with me, i dont want to fight anymore and i dont care that the world is literally breaking apart at the hands of the aforementioned dream demons.

like GOD! that is some next level bullshit right there, and here i thought the meteor thing was the lowest he could stoop.

*no way in hell im forgetting that, NOX killed zero, not catastrophe..

>Baku having to save scum this much against a miniboss kaijin
Is he one of the least skilled main protag Riders, as far as technical combat prowess goes?

>the nightmare made from zeztz himself dies after only two episodes
already can see 43 44 for punish, 45 46 for phantom, 47 48 for oblivion then the last 1/2 for the true final boss or whatever fusion?
yeah the writing can't even pretend to hype shit up anymore at this point

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>>23931737
I’ll give Nox some credit for wanting to turn himself in, recognizing he is a criminal who deserves to be in jail. But they made him even more despicable by selfishly giving up being a rider when the world is in danger. Millions of lives have been taken by the Nightmares and billions more will follow if they’re not stopped, and he doesn’t give a fuck. He’s learned nothing in 40+ episodes, still needing Baku and Fujimi to talk some sense into him, like he’s a fucking teenager and not a grown man who needs to gain some responsibility. At this point he is cemented on the top 5 worst secondary riders of all time.
Very silly that Baku doubts himself for being alone now, as if he ever used any other CODE agent. He has always fought alone, even cut ties with Zero for a good chunk of the show, so to see him doubt himself when the organization he hasn’t really been working with is gone, is very silly. To him nothing’s changed outside of Zero’s death, he’s always been without backup. Its what makes the whole “solo rider” approach fall flat this season, as they never do anything cool plot-wise with that.
The fight with the Nightmare was cool, a bit shocking to get rid of a main villain so easily, but Baku didn’t need to rewind time so much when he was going toe to toe with him. We needed a Zeztz death compilation to make those rewinds mean something, not him rewinding every time he got hurt. He and many other riders have won fights after rougher hits than he had.
But I can already tell I’ll like this episode more than next week. Sieg will go down as the worst redemption in Takahashi’s history, and he’s got some bad ones. He’s redeeming serial killers now. He’d unironically make Ryuki end with Ouja teaming up with the main rider trio to beat Odin, he’s that big of a hack. I fear for the 10th anniversary show he’ll make.

>>23931823
the point is that catastrophe was supposed to be invincible, the only way Baku could stand up to him was with the savestates. finding a way to counter every single attack. and even then using the savestates was killing him.

>>23931840
That doesn’t mean you use save states after every punch. Had they shown Zeztz getting completely fucked up instead of just being hurt like he always does then the rewinds make sense. Its fine to reuse the power to find a way to beat him, but not after every single hit. It’s more like using save states for a “no hit” run rather than using them to reload before losing a life.

Will Seig go away or get a new form?

>>23931801
10/10. Best episode of this final act so far. How best to deal with Nox? Sideline him after having him go through an existential crisis? For some reason? After achieving all of his goals? Let's not talk about that, other than I like the angle of Fujimi attempting to recruit him into the cause. Baku rationalizes Zero's death as a loss, but never having a real connection with him. This is big, as Nox being the only worthwhile thing he's done this whole arc asserts that he's been giving himself missions this whole time, when its been the influence of Zero pulling his strings instead. Against Catastrophe, Baku recognizes this and doubles down consecutively. He finds his resolve in doing what he's spurred himself to do from the start. Beat down nightmares. It was like watching Catastrophe vs Catastrom, only its Exdream. A hardcase, no u assault that nightmare deserves. Suffering self-damage while moving past it without breaking because his goal is clear. The fight was very well executed, delivering the best choreography since Dark Zeztz. I have little hope for next episode as Sieg doesn't have anything like that built up. But this was excellent.

>>23931845
Watch the fight again. When Catastrophe gets fed up, he charges up, and his punches get the red glow/aura. He'll land a charged up red glow attack, and that'll fuck up Zeztz enough that he starts beating down Zeztz until he's basically knocked down and doesn't have a chance to recover. They show this more fully for the first half of the fight. When it gets towards the second half and Zeztz starts glitching out from over-use, they switch to quicker cuts and just show the attempt up to Catastrophe landing a red aura attack, and cutting the rest of Zeztz being downed and getting beat too hard.

It's not Zeztz giving up after one normal hit, it's quickhand showing how Zeztz is getting royally fucked in every attempt while trying to figure a way to get the upper hand.

>>23931871
Damn, your standards are low.

Kino fight. Anything involving Baku is great

Did Zeztz not get a standalone movie? Haven’t watched Rider in years, are those still a thing?

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>>23932097
Summer movies are still a thing.

>>23931737
>>23931801
It was an okay episode, but it being okay already makes it better than the last 10 or so episodes.

I think the flowers Minami brought for Zero might have been the same kind of flowers Zero left at her parents' grave, if that's the case then that's a pretty nice detail on Kami's part (and so were the OP references in this episode). I understand Baku's logic for not crying over Zero's death given their complicated relationship, but I would've rather not have had him shed a tear for fucking Nox's death many episodes ago if they were gonna go with this angle. Also, everything Baku blamed himself for was actually Nox's fault, it was his vagueposting ass who didn't elaborate on what he was doing there until it was too late and nobody gave him any shit for that.

While I like that they addressed the fact that Baku didn't tell Nasuka about Kureha's death, I think they moved on from such a heavy topic way too quickly, making the conversation feel way less impactful than it should've been. It felt too inconsequential, like it was just an afterthought, which is sadly the way Nasuka's entire character has been handled throughout the whole show so far.

(1/?)

>>23932192
I kinda like that Nox wants to hold himself accountable for his crimes and has realized that ending CODE didn't really change anything, as well as the fact that his conversation with Baku inadvertently helped him to get over his gripes about Zero, but he's still a massive retard for essentially leaving Baku with zero combat support as if they weren't in the middle of the Gore Nightmares' world invasion, he decided to carry his last mission out at the worst time possible and just ended up fucking the heroes over, playing right into the Nightmares' hands (something which he somehow hasn't realized yet). While Fujimi did try to convince him to help the good guys out, his words fell on deaf ears like always, and he does come across as a hypocrite for giving Nox a chance to avoid jail when he was very eager to arrest Baku both times he had learned Baku killed his precious Odaka earlier on in the show. I hope Nox ends up in jail at the end since he truly deserves it, but it seems like he's ultimately gonna get off easy due to Fujimi's deal.

A bit surprised to see that The Lady wasn't been fully overtaken by Phantom and that there's still some part of her left in their merger. Hopefully this leads to her doing something important later on and she doesn't just remain as Phantom's puppet.

(2/?)

>>23932195
The reveal that Catastrophe made about it being born because Baku instinctively realized the fate Zero would force on him doesn't make much sense, because Zero previously implied that he had been forced to turn his son into Zeztz precisely because Catastrophe had manifested inside his dreams, as its power was the only thing that could break the neverending cycle regarding humanity and the Nightmares. Also, I don't know if I misunderstood something, but the show had previously made it seem like Catastrophe was some kind of ancient primordial Nightmare that existed or was at least known about long before Baku's birth, yet this episode treats it as if it was Baku's very own creation instead.

Minami is best girl as always, I kinda hope her Knight/Lord form makes it to the show, but the way this episode treated Baku and Nox as the only remaining Agents capable of taking action makes it seem like that's not gonna happen. And if that's the case, then I think she should've been seriously injured during Catastrophe's attack to raise the stakes more instead, although I did like her interaction with Baku when it was revealed she came out of it unscathed.

While I liked the fight with Catastrophe overall, especially because of Exdream's trippy restarts and the fact that they remembered they're supposed to take a toll on Baku's body (I hope this becomes relevant to the plot later on), it just didn't feel as raw, emotional and cathartic as the fights against Zeztz Darkness despite the opponent being Baku's very own Nightmare, which is why I didn't like this one as much. I also feel like Zeztz used the restart ability a bit too much (he hit the reset button pretty much every single time he started to struggle against Catastrophe), which kinda ruined the flow of the fight at times.

(3/?)

>>23932200
The fact that Catastrophe was defeated so soon after being properly introduced as a character also left me underwhelmed. I hope he comes back later on because him turning out to be a glorified monster of the week despite all the build up he got in the show and the promo material would really suck. I think he has so much more to offer as the supposed key to break the Nightmare cycle and a dark counterpart to Baku himself.

And I know it would've been repetitive considering they did the "Baku lost his powers" storyline less than 10 episodes ago, but I think that destroying Catastrophe (who was stated to be the source of Zeztz's power) should've done something to Baku's powers. I don't know, it feels like they're ignoring a very important previously established fact by having Zeztz just carry on as usual after he took down the literal source of his powers.

(4/4)

>>23931891
NTA, but I rewatched the fight like 3 times and I didn't really get that impression. The hits he got before he did the first reset did look like they hurt, but they didn't feel like killing blows that Zeztz couldn't come back from. The fight then went in different directions with every reset, and it looked like Baku just chose to hit reset every time Catastrophe started to get the upper hand by connecting a hit that really hurt him (but didn't look like a killing blow), as if he was abusing Exdream's power until he finally got the best result possible in a version of the fight where Catastrophe never got the upper hand at any point ever (closest thing to that in the final version was him and Zeztz hitting and knocking each other down at the same time), instead of attempting to turn the tables on him through direct combat.

>>23931891
I guess they just didn’t sell that well for me. In the Sieg fight when the final form debuted, the rewind made sense after Sieg gave him a devastating blow. In here they didn’t sell the urgency to do it after every hit. And I fully believe they could have conveyed it better, as they’ve done so in the past.

>>23932345
mmm I think they conveyed it well. he was getting btfo'd by catastrophe because he wanted more power to beat catastrophe. they were power looping each other and he just kept rewinding until his willpower btfo'd the infinite power he was giving catastrophe

>>23932200
>because Zero previously implied that he had been forced to turn his son into Zeztz precisely because Catastrophe had manifested inside his dreams, as its power was the only thing that could break the neverending cycle regarding humanity and the Nightmares.
I got the sense from Zero's explanation there that he intended that all along. As in, he was "forced" to make the scenario that led to his son becoming Zeztz because it'd be the only way to end the war, not that Catastrophe appeared there for an unrelated reason and then he was forced to turn him into Zeztz due to that.

>but the show had previously made it seem like Catastrophe was some kind of ancient primordial Nightmare that existed or was at least known about long before Baku's birth, yet this episode treats it as if it was Baku's very own creation instead.
That's definitely a misunderstanding.

>>23932348
>I got the sense from Zero's explanation there that he intended that all along. As in, he was "forced" to make the scenario that led to his son becoming Zeztz because it'd be the only way to end the war, not that Catastrophe appeared there for an unrelated reason and then he was forced to turn him into Zeztz due to that.
When Baku asked Zero why he was chosen to be Zeztz, Zero answered that it was BECAUSE Baku harbored bad dreams themselves within him, he never said he was the one who induced said bad dreams within him in the first place nor that Baku was chosen simply because he was his son.

>>23932200
its the attack titan power all over again. Dream, time power, etc

>>23932348
>That's definitely a misunderstanding.
The other three Gores who debuted much later are explicitly referred as "primordial Nightmares" by the TV Asahi site. Early on in the show, while Nox was holding the book with the old-looking pages depicting the 4 aspects of reality tied to Zeztz's forms, he prophesied those aspects would eventually break down (Catastrom is said to be able to destroy all 4 of those aspects, so Nox was seemingly foreshadowing it). When The Lady talked with Minami about the Nightmare dwelling inside Baku's mind, she also pulled up that same old-looking book. Last week, we got a shot of Catastrophe preparing to fuck shit up again while Zero was talking about how the Nightmares were the ones who caused the extinction of the dinosaurs and the fall of ancient civilizations.

>>23932435
That has always been dumb.

>>23931801
I still think cutting off the CODE elements so soon and making big bad MOTW tier nightmares the endgame was a massive mistake but fuck if that fight with Catastrophe wasn't awesome. That's the sort of fight you save for the finale so I'm curious what they have planned for the actual last episode. This quarter is still salvageable if they hone in on personal stakes and if Kami's got a string of bonkers episodes lined up like he did with Kingohger and Ryusoulger. Funnily enough the precure episode today did a few things that reminded me of Kami's playbook. Can't help but wonder if they took notes from his work.

>>23932195
>has realized that ending CODE didn't really change anything
with every passing moment i cant help but feel more and more frustration towards him.

keep in mind, this whole shitshow began because Zero abandoned him during a mission (which might or might not actually happened because premonition dream and Zero never brought it up), and now he, alongside catastrophe, destroyed the only force in the planet capable to fend the nightmares off, regardless of Three's douchebaggery.

and what does he got? the realization that all he did was the equivalent of a tantrum.

i do know that part of the CODE eradication subplot was to leave the slate clean, as the world really doesnt need them just like they dont need the nightmares, (not to mention NOX is dying in the movie, leaving Baku and Minami the only last living vestiges of CODE's existence) but he should have let Zero do his part on dissolving CODE, not just ensuring he dies too. specially now that he is not gonna get held accountable for all the crap he's done thanks to Fujimi. he SAYS that he wants to pay, but he wont.

so mega link anon is dead?

>>23932976
Haven't seen the webm anon in weeks either.

>>23931737
YOROZU BAKU
NOW YOU'VE DONE IT
YOU'LL NEVER BECOME ZEZTZ AGAIN

>>23931737
>>23931801
A really good episode, but as with the previous episode, held back by the need to force the plot in a certain direction.

The "resolution" to Nox's plot makes enough sense, though ironically it's one that's missing a few key steps. Obtaining his goal of destroying CODE's secrets, only to find it was all for naught, being done with life and trying to turn himself in only to be rebuffed but Fujimi and fate itself. I wouldn't have been too upset if he left to rethink his goals and occasionally popped up like you'd see in early Heisei. But having him soft-retire just to have him BTFO and his Driver busted anyway is low. It's like tried every way to write him out of the plot at once. It was barely tolerable when they did it before but now it's just annoying. And we STILL haven't gotten a full elaboration on him being burned by Zero, which I was kind of hoping would come up this time. Maybe they're saving that for the movie too.

Appreciate the comedy with the investigators, as it was much needed despite being a little out of place giving the follow up on Kureha's death. I'm glad it's been addressed, but as I mentioned before it feels like it's not getting proper attention the way it's been split up between the past two eps.

Really liked Baku's characterization this. Having Baku lose faith in himself and need a pep talk this late in the game should feel repetitive, but the strength of Imai's acting and the direction here made it work. Honestly it makes some sense that despite going it alone for the majority of the series, having few to any options at all would make Baku freak out a little. The culmination of Baku getting his resolve and speaking English without the accent for the first time IRL while Minami beams with pride was great.

The fight with Catastrophe was great too, and although it was a little reminiscent of Zeztz Darkness Nightmare, seeing them go blow for blow and try to out godmod each other was a joy to see.

>>23933065
>Having Baku lose faith in himself and need a pep talk this late in the game should feel repetitive
maybe if he were going at it with teammates but he's been a solo act since the start. it's gotta take a toll on him more than once. reaffirming his beliefs every now and then with the changes to his surroundings is fine.

>>23933065
That said, coupled with Nox getting written out AGAIN, I'm not enthusiastic to see Sieg again, but at least he gets to fight rather than as a gag. Hopefully the side effects of overusing Exdream's playback abilities plays into bringing him in as well.

>>23932192
>I would've rather not have had him shed a tear for fucking Nox's death many episodes ago if they were gonna go with this angle.

I get your point, but that had more to do with Baku taking a life for the first time more so than who it was for.

>>23932200
>Also, I don't know if I misunderstood something, but the show had previously made it seem like Catastrophe was some kind of ancient primordial Nightmare that existed or was at least known about long before Baku's birth, yet this episode treats it as if it was Baku's very own creation instead.

Given Sieg's explanation a few episodes ago, it seems they're implying something like the Judeo-Christian interpretation of demons, as entities predating (or in this case, coexisting with) humanity but also capable of attaching themselves to humans akin to channeling.

>>23932202
Feels like Catastrophe took a lot of inspiration from JJK's Sukuna. Which could've worked if Catastrophe was allowed more voiced screen time to flesh out the character even more since he's a pretty shallow. Like you said, just a glorified MOTW.

>>23933089
>NOX getting written out AGAIN
about that... does the actor have another gig alongside Zeztz or something? i mean, since the movie is done one would assume the whole story filming is done too so why doing this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2v7vdkZTRNg
Case 42.

>>23933089
>>23933108
I mean, we don't know he actually isn't appearing next week. It might be just sidelining him again, like when he was with lady doing pretty much nothing.

The issue here so far has been more like just them wanting to give Zeztz all the focus, not anything with his actor as far as we know. He has been appearing consistently, just going through several episodes without doing anything at times.

Felt like they really overused the spread eagle falling into pool of water scene. I wish it wasn't so much like a rewind too and we got some King Crimson inspired scenes instead.

>>23931801
>Praises
Excellent fight. Good illustration that ExDream's savescumming has its limits and he can't always spam it until he wins without consequences; he was only able to do it this time because the stakes were really personal with Catastrophe. Baku managing to finally speak English in the real world was a nice capstone for his character development. The contrast between the beginning where Baku and Minami are paying respects to the fallen CODE agents and the end where Oblivion callously deletes Catastrophe's throne was good for setting up what a monster Oblivion is; it looked like even Punish and Phantom were starting to have second thoughts about creating Oblivion. Fujimi trying to give Nox an out, and at the same time trying to push him to actually help clean up the mess he made, was a good character moment for him. On some level I have to admire that everyone around Nox keeps expecting him to become a good guy and he keeps going "lol no". He just straight-up doesn't want to, no matter how much they ask.

>Criticisms
On some level I have to hate that that everyone around Nox keeps expecting him to become a good guy and he keeps going "lol no". He might be the worst secondary since Kusaka and he's easily the worst in Reiwa, which is saying something when that list includes the likes of Spanner and Keiwa. Sieg is legitimately going to have done more good guy stuff than Nox has by the end of the show.

>>23933972
>Fujimi trying to give Nox an out
An out that he doesn't deserve.
>He might be the worst secondary since Kusaka
Nox is a bad Secondary because he fucking sucks as a character, not because he isn't Baku's friend and ally.
>which is saying something when that list includes the likes of Spanner and Keiwa
Spanner is not the Secondary of Gotchard.
>Sieg is legitimately going to have done more good guy stuff than Nox has by the end of the show.
I hate Nox but this is straight up wrong, he's helped out more times than Sieg (saved Nem twice, saved Minami and the cops' lives, fought and killed Three) and has far less evil intentions.

>cata chan already gone
>sieg is just going to die again but as a kinda good guy this time

>>23934043
i want to believe he is doing this in a 'FUCK YOU ASSHOLES! ONLY I GET TO CAUSE BAD DREAMS AND MURDER PEOPLE!' kinda way rather than him being even remotely heroic about this.

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I haven't watched Zeztz since the debut of Xdream. Is Nox still full of shit, or did the show prove him right about CODE?

>>23934044
The previews are teasing that he will finally gain a heart after Nem begs him to help them out.

>>23934077
>We never saw CODE doing actual 'earth defender organization' stuff
>NOX played right into the Gores hands and took the chance from Catastrophe's assault to destroy every single trace of its existence leaving with only Baku as the only living being able to fight the nightmares
>despite the fact the Gores are about to destroy the planet and the fact he has power to fight, NOX just wants to puss out and let them kill everyone.

if we're being fair here... i'll give it a 50/50

>>23934077
CODE has some pretty bad people in it (it's not everyone though) but Nox is still a retard who can't really put his vendetta aside and do the right thing when it truly matters. He fucked up big time in this and last week's episode.

>>23934089
doesnt help that i know why this is even happening.

they want to make people believe CODE has absolutely no reason to exist. while its true Zero was a dick with NOX and that they created Code Somnia, they were still supposed to be a group of planet defenders like the MiB, and we never saw them doing anything of the like, all we saw of them as an organization, was Three and his stupidity or Zero ditching NOX, we only saw the bad side of them.

with that, they expect the kids to believe 'yeah, CODE is evil and doesnt deserve to exist' and now they are on to phase 2: killing every single remnant of them. outside Baku and Minami (who aren't really agents of CODE despite being named as such), all thats left of them are NOX, Sieg and LA SEÑORA.

Sieg is dying next week, la señora will die when Phantom makes her move, and NOX will die in the movie, at the end of the movie we are gonna see Zero and the rest of CODE going all bigboss and say to baku and minami 'please forget about us, we dont deserve to exist, be free' or something the like.

>>23934077
CODE's upper management was mostly corrupt, and Code: Somnia has made the situation ten thousand times worse than it would have been otherwise, but the people under them were trying to do the right thing. Nox is still full of shit, though, because he only cares about getting revenge on CODE and isn't planning on doing anything to stop the Nightmares from destroying the world now that he's done that. Most of his screentime in this episode is about the fact that he's basically spent the entire show throwing a temper tantrum that didn't actually make him feel any better in the end now that he's done, and now he wants to quit despite everyone telling him that he has a responsibility to help.

>>23934103
>and we never saw them doing anything of the like
They fought against the Nightmares, at least in the first half.

>Sieg is dying next week
>NOX will die in the movie
Neither of these deaths is going to be permanent.

>>23934115
>5 and 6 were mostly fighting NOX.
>the grunts were just against la señora and NOX
>3 killed Baku in the premonition dream.

CODE never fought the nightmares directly except for la señora who was summoning them.

>>23934116
You're forgetting that Baku was actually carrying missions out for CODE under Zero and later Three in the first half, that Nox was facing off against a Nightmare the day he was left for dead by Zero, that Five and Six died trying to take the Disaster Nightmare out, and that the purpose of Somnia's mass dream control was to prevent more Nightmares from being created.

>>23934132
>Five and Six died trying to take the Disaster Nightmare out
5 and 6 died because 3 double crossed them. The other time they died in the premonition, Nox killed them. The point is for as large an organization as they're revealed to be, we really only see them in the dreams department and at their worst.

>>23934151
>The other time they died in the premonition, Nox killed them.
The Disaster Nightmare was causing a huge shitshow in the city, Five and Six were mobilized to stop it and kill Nox on sight. Nox didn't even need to transform to kill them because the Nightmare did most of the work for him.

>we really only see them in the dreams department
The dream stuff is the main focus of the show and the organization, it was created because the governments of the world found out that the Nightmares were the cause of everything bad in the world.

Anything they do against the Nightmares still counts as an attempt to save the world.

>>23934194
Well, you're right. But it still would've been nice to see something from the other sides of the CODE before the Nightmares came to power.

bump bc I haven't had time to watch the episode yet

>>23934103
>CODE is evil and doesnt deserve to exist
I think the idea is that this version of CODE is evil and doesn't deserve to exist. The corruption runs all the way through it, and even the "true believers" who are trying to just do the job/save people get twisted or chewed up and spit out.
The Nightmares seem to be tied to humanity itself. So long as humans exist, so will the Nightmares. So I think CODE is always gonna need to be around.
I kinda think the end of the series is not gonna be the CODE and the Nightmares all gone and everyone walking into the sunset, but Baku starting a new CODE. One that isn't corrupt. A new org for a brighter day. That sort of shit.

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2 months of Zeztz remaining.

>>23936950
Can't wait for Kamen Rider Mice. Dude better be falling for mouse traps with cheese in them every damn episode.

>>23933972
>Kusaka
>worst
Holy shit taste.