Recap: Kamen Rider Zi-O, Episode 1 – Kingdom 2068

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We meet Tokiwa Sougo, a high school student who wants to become a king when he grows up. On the way home and after a flip from a judo friend, he finds a strange object on his bike, but decides to leave it on the ground. A strange red robo seems to be following him.

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He gets home and is welcomed by his Uncle Junichiro who runs a clock shop. He tries to ask Sougo about College Entrance Exams, but Sougo has no need for them since he’s going to be a king.

Sougo heads back out and runs into a hooded man, Woz, with an almanac that shows today is a special day for Sougo, except he should watch out for a red robot.

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Woz disappears and the red robo appears, piloted by Myokoin Geiz.

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Geiz chases after “Oma Zi-O” as Sougo tries to pedal away. Geiz wrecks the market hall Sougo bikes into and he gets thrown off. Sougo tries to continue on foot.

Just then, a silver robo punches Geiz’ robo away and a voice tells Sougo to hop in.

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Piloting the silver robo is Tsukuyomi and she tells him to hold on as they travel through time. She shows him a video from the year 2068.

In the shadow of a circular row of Heisei Riders and a young man appearing to henshin, a gold-plated Rider absolutely lays waste to an army of fighters and easily swats away giant robos and missiles.

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Tsukuyomi says Sougo will become that horrible demon king in 50 years. Sougo can’t believe it. He walks out of the robo, known as a Time Mazine, for some air. But he instead gets chased by a dinosaur. Turns out Tsukuyomi jumped them to 66810000 B.C.

Tsukuyomi scoops Sougo up and they jump to the year 1671 instead. She introduces herself and talks about how King Oma Zi-O came to power and made people suffer while creating a world without hope. She and Geiz were part of a group of resistance fighters who tried to fight Oma Zi-O.

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When things really seemed hopeless, Geiz decided to travel back in time to ensure Sougo would never obtain the power of Oma Zi-O. Tsukuyomi followed.

Sougo asks her if she is sure it’s him. She rattles off all of his biodata from her research.

They sit down for a snack and Tsukuyomi pays the lady with coins from this era popping out of her tablet with just a swipe.

Tsukuyomi points out that Sougo also has “the watch.” Sougo is surprised to see him holding the strange object from earlier that he thought he left on the ground.

Tsukuyomi says the watch will give him unimaginable power and will cause him to become the king of time who destroys the world, Oma Zi-O. The statue of the henshining man from the video was that of Sougo’s first henshin.

Sougo says he believes her since he’s always wanted to become a king. But becoming a demon king doesn’t sound very good. Tsukuyomi notices the watch is not reacting to him. Suddenly, they hear a commotion nearby.

A couple of men are getting into a fight. Tsukuyomi gets the men’s attention by making it seem Sougo is stepping up to stop them. He tells them that peace is the best way to resolve a conflict. But the men pick him and throw him into the creek.

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Tsukuyomi still isn’t sure Sougo is Oma Zi-O, especially comparing the way they talk. Sougo climbs back up onto the bridge. He notices the men have stopped fighting and instead are laughing together as they walk away. The locals are amused by Sougo being more concerned about the men than about his wet self.

The men suddenly scream about a monster. Tsukuyomi looks and sees it’s Geiz, who has henshined. She warns Sougo that Geiz wants to eliminate him before he obtains Oma Zi-O’s power. They hop back into the Time Mazine.

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The two Time Mazines bump each other as they speed through the time highway. Geiz bumps Tsukuyomi’s Time Mazine off of it and they exit. The Time Mazine hits the Skywall and Sougo is ejected from the robo.

Before Sougo can get his bearings, a Strong Smash Hazard comes running toward him. But Sento and Ryuga finish off the Smash and run over to Sougo to make sure he’s alright.

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Sougo asks if they’re from the future too. Sento and Ryuga introduce themselves as they dehenshin. Sougo asks what era it is, but they say it’s actually November 30, 2017.

Sento and Ryuga bring Sougo back to Nascita. Sougo looks at Ryuga’s milk carton to make sure and the expiration date says December 10, 2017.

Sento comes up from the lab after examining the watch and says it is created with technology that doesn’t exist yet. Sento believes Sougo is from the future, but Sougo says he’s only from next year. He starts to tell them about Tsukuyomi and everything he’s learned since he met her.

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But Tsukuyomi walks into Nascita and shoots the three guys unconscious. She apologizes and says they’re not supposed to interfere with the past any more than necessary.

Elsewhere in the city, a basketballer almost gets run over by a car. But another strange man, Uhr, stops the car using telekinesis. Uhr explains that in the original timeline, this basketballer died. But if he agrees to a contract, his fate can be changed.

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The basketballer agrees and Uhr hands him a watch as he swats away the car that would’ve killed the guy.

Uhr proclaims that this guy will now become Kamen Rider Build. Uhr shoves the watch into the guy and he morphs into a horrific monster version of Build.

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This Another Build starts attacking athletic people downtown. He uses FullBottles to suck in a tennis player and a karateka, but finds they are not a Best Match.

Sougo wakes back up in his own bed in 2018. He tells his uncle about what he assumes was a dream and how he is unsure about becoming a king if it means he becomes a demon king in the future. Uncle Junichiro says Sougo shouldn’t rush his decision then. He talks about a chance to follow his dream when he was younger. The risks involved caused him to hesitate and that resulted in the opportunity passing him by. He never got another chance after that.

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While the hands of a clock can be stopped and even turned back, life isn’t that way.

Later, Sougo is walking downtown when he comes across Another Build attacking people, including his friend from yesterday. Sougo tries to save his friend, but just gets swatted away.

The watch falls out of his pocket and it lights up. Sougo realizes it wasn’t a dream. He charges at Another Build who grabs him by the collar. Tsukuyomi arrives and shoots at Another Build before telling Sougo to throw the watch away and stop his rambling about wanting to become a king.

Sougo says he still does want to become a king to make the world a better place for everyone to be happy. Woz reappears and says Sougo must indeed become king. With the Zi-O power, he can bend the world, the past and the future to his will.

Sougo thinks about the fact that he will become a demon king one day. He decides. He will become the demon king, but a great and kind demon king.

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The watch changes color and Woz, on one knee, presents Sougo the Ziku-Driver on a fancy pillow. Sougo takes it, slaps it on his waist and locks the watch in to henshin to Kamen Rider Zi-O.

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Woz excitedly proclaims the birth of Kamen Rider Zi-O. Tsukuyomi can’t believe it.

Sougo fights Another Build. Woz leaves, seemingly happy.

The Zikan Girade pops out and Sougo uses it to deliver a Finish Time Girigiri Slash at Another Build. The basketballer returns to his human form.

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Just then, Geiz appears, wanting to know why Sougo would choose the path of the demon king. Sougo basically says this is his destiny from the moment he was born. Geiz flashes back (forward?) to 2068 when Oma Zi-O declared himself unbeatable because he was born to be king.

Geiz says he understands that he must stop Sougo right here, right now. He henshins to Kamen Rider Geiz and then uses a Ghost watch to get extra Ghost armor.

Geiz charges at Sougo.

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Episode Thoughts

I’m still on a bit of a high from Build‘s finale. So I didn’t know how that would affect my watching of Zi-O‘s premiere. Would the excitement carry over to the new series? Would I have unreasonably high expectations for Zi-O?

Well, after finally watching the premiere, I still actually don’t know if my Build high had any affect at all. lol

What I do know is that Zi-O’s premiere definitely left me intrigued about the season. Toku premieres always tend to stuff as much information as they can into that first 22 minutes. There’s pros and cons to that. Which is why with both Sentai and Kamen Rider, one should give them a couple of episodes for a fair shot.

Zi-O‘s premiere certainly wasn’t any different. We met so many characters, were introduced to so many plot points and concepts and possible toys and of course got all the hints of Heisei nostalgia complete with Sento and Ryuga’s first appearance. The show was literally jumping all over the place.

But I think the most important point was the idea that Sougo will become some demon king ruling a post-apocalyptic world. And they got that across quite effectively. We get a reasonably good picture of who 2018 Sougo is (a nice high school boy next door with a slightly odd obsession with becoming a king) and a tease of what he might eventually become (DEMON KING!).

Obviously, that seeming disconnect is very interesting and is a good jumping off point for the season.

I am now suddenly remind of Drive and the plot of the movie where Belt-san goes bad. lol

I do like what we saw of all the characters that were introduced in this episode. Even in just very short and fleeting moments, they all seemed very promising. Tsukuyomi and Geiz seem like perfect tsundere characters and that would certainly be interesting to see unfold since we are to believe Sougo goes from boy next door to world destroying-tyrant. lol

Now, I admit, I was fanboying a little when Sento and Ryuga popped up. And it’s only been a week since we last saw them. lol

I’m assuming Zi-O will be jumping back to every Heisei Rider season and meeting past characters in a similar way. Will be interesting for me having only started watching Kamen Rider with OOO.

Which reminds me! I still haven’t finished watching Decade. I’ve always been interested in seeing the season after seeing him pop up from time to time and after always seeing the varying comments about the season. I don’t even remember at which episode I stopped at. And I’ve started and stopped several times. Not because I wasn’t interested or was bored by what I did watch. I just never have the time to just power through the episodes. Whenever I decide to give it a shot, I always just start over with Episode 1 and as I watch, I’m all “I remember this. I already watched this.” So then I don’t pay attention as much and then I lose track and then I stop watching until I remember I want to finish lol

Anyway, Zi-O had a fun, promising start. It certainly has a lot of high expectations after such a good (if not, great!) season and being a big milestone season as well.

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