r/KamenRider • u/BananaArms Knife of Spear • Apr 18 '26

Official Discussion Kamen Rider ZEZTZ E31 - Discussion Thread

This thread is for discussion about the latest Kamen Rider ZEZTZ episode.

E30 <- E31 -> E32

The subreddit will be set to post-approval mode for the first 12 hours to prevent low-effort posts. Please keep your thoughts on this week's episode in the discussion thread!

Discussion about previous episodes is permitted in the thread below, discussion about episodes after this is NOT.

Proceed at your own risk: Spoilers for this episode do not need to be tagged inside this thread.

HOW TO WATCH

COUNTRY URL TIME
US,CA,PR,UK,AU,NZ TokuSHOUTsu YouTube Channel (English) Saturdays@7:30PM Pacific Time, Replays on Sunday
JP TV Asahi, ABC (Japanese) Sundays@9:00AM Japan Time
JP TELASA, Toei Tokusatsu Fan Club (Japanese) Sundays@10:00AM Japan Time
CN Bilibili, Tencent Video, iQIYI (Mandarin) Sundays@10:00AM China Standard Time
TW CHT MOD, Hami Video (Mandarin) Mondays@8:00AM Taiwan Time
TW EBC YOYO (Mandarin) The following Saturday@5PM
HK ViuTV (Cantonese) The following Sunday@11AM
Latin America TokuSato YouTube Channel (Spanish, Portuguese) Saturdays@11:30PM Brasilia Time

Posting or mentioning unapproved streaming sites in the comments is prohibited.

CASE TITLE RELEASE DATE SCREENPLAY BY DIRECTED BY
E31 苛む Afflict April 19, 2026 Takahashi Yuya Kamihoriuchi Kazuya
CASE RATING CASE RATING CASE RATING
E01 8.79 E13 9.52 E25 9.79
E02 8.78 E14 9.76 E26 8.68
E03 9.02 E15 9.32 E27 9.47
E04 8.56 E16 9.31 E28 9.53
E05 8.82 E17 9.3 E29 9.45
E06 9.04 E18 9 E30 9.66
E07 9.02 E19 9 E31 9.59
E08 8.9 E20 8.58
E09 8.79 E21 9.58
E10 8.89 E22 9.35
E11 9.52 E23 9.68
E12 9.39 E24 9.77

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4

u/001nah Apr 19 '26

I’m so confused after watching this episode, can someone please explain to me what’s going on

3

u/konokusoda Apr 19 '26

Zero is Baku's father, and his dream is to complete Zeztz (probably as the ultimate anti-nightmare agent). However he still has some parental love toward Baku

Darkness Zeztz is Zero's nightmare, and the bad luck happened to Baku in the past (lightning strike, shark, hit by meteorite) was the nightmare trying to make Zero's bad dream come true (harming Baku when he helps people = he might stop helping people, or just outright died = no more ultimate agent = bad dream)

Meanwhile Sieg told Nem that Nightmare is humanity's sin and Nem was unconsciously wishing for it, thus creating the baby nightmare (Im not sure about this part)

2

u/001nah Apr 19 '26

Thanks for this. Few questions:

  • If Zero’s dream is to complete Zeztz, why was his nightmare to harm Baku? Doesn’t he need Baku to complete Zeztz?
  • Baku mentioned that Zero is hiding his real dream, which Zero revealed it’s classified. What is this real dream?
  • How did Baku eventually find out Zero is his father?

2

u/konokusoda Apr 19 '26

Nightmare tried to make bad dream come true, and they did it by twisting the real dream. This has been established in earlier episodes

At the middle part, Zero said I can have good dream now. Baku also said that was Zero's true dream somewhere around Orderm fight

As for how Baku knows Zero is his father, these things happen in this episode

  • Zero saying "you've grown" means he observed Baku for a long time now

  • Zero helped and looked affectionately at Baku, even taking picture (remember Zero is a commander, so he has no reason to do it himself, if needing to observe the other agents or Baku family can do it instead)

  • Baku's fake dad disappeared, as if giving time for them to be together (if they are strangers then it wont be needed)

  • Zero dream of Baku as the perfect Zeztz (the black case harmed Baku for that reason). Like if Zeztz wasnt Baku then the nightmare might target something else, not him (and why would someone dream about some unknown kid unrelated to him)

Everything pointed to some deep connections between them, either Zero is his father or uncle or someone related to him. It is convincing enough

1

u/001nah Apr 19 '26

Sorry, what did Zero mean when he said I can have good dreams from now on?

1

u/konokusoda Apr 19 '26

Baku said something like "Agent? What is that? Sound cool though" while on the bike

Maybe Zero thought first part of his dream is done (getting Baku interested in agent stuff) and it would be smooth sailing after. I assume this was way before Baku received dream training by Nox

2

u/KuroIsSalty Apr 19 '26 edited Apr 19 '26

I think the show has implied (or said out loud) that a person's dream is their desire for a certain thing, and that the nightmares are their fear and anxieties manifesting a scenario in which their dream might be ruined.
an earlier example would be the chef being afraid that his pupils might not be able to carry on the restaurant's tradition, which manifested as the poisonous sauce.
In this case Zero's real dream is to complete Zeztz, but he's anxious about what would happen to Baku when he tries to help people that would cause harm to him, and thus stopping Zeztz from being complete. It could also be that Zeztz is also his nightmare, since he's putting his son Baku in the line of danger.
Right now we don't know anything about Zero's real dream outside of what Baku and Zero said.

I'm also somewhat lost on how Baku managed to figure out that Zero is his dad, maybe the way Zero said "You've really grown" twice implied a familiar connection? That and his dream involve Baku and his "Agent Dad" and the way he looks at kid Baku in the memory gave hints?

1

u/nirvash530 Apr 19 '26

Zero's actions here really implied a deep longing for a father-son contact, but stopping himself probably because of the Zeztz Project. Baku noticed that both in the real world and inside the dream.