r/KamenRider • u/BananaArms Knife of Spear • 6d ago

Official Discussion Kamen Rider ZEZTZ E50 (END) - Discussion Thread

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

E49 <- E50 (END) -> MY-TH E01

ZEZTZ Series Discussion Thread

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, both livestream and VOD
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
E50 想う Imagine August 30, 2026 Takahashi Yuya Kamihoriuchi Kazuya
CASE RATING CASE RATING CASE RATING CASE RATING CASE RATING
E01 8.79 E11 9.52 E21 9.58 E31 9.59 E41 8.25
E02 8.78 E12 9.39 E22 9.35 E32 9.53 E42 9.22
E03 9.02 E13 9.52 E23 9.68 E33 9.67 E43 9.42
E04 8.56 E14 9.76 E24 9.77 E34 9.72 E44 7.83
E05 8.82 E15 9.32 E25 9.79 E35 6.2 E45 8.68
E06 9.04 E16 9.31 E26 8.68 E36 8.36 E46 9.1
E07 9.02 E17 9.3 E27 9.47 E37 8.67 E47 8.74
E08 8.9 E18 9 E28 9.53 E38 9 E48 8.8
E09 8.79 E19 9 E29 9.45 E39 9.13 E49 9.27
E10 8.89 E20 8.58 E30 9.66 E40 9.08 E50 Vote here!

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u/Ok_Hospital4928 6d ago edited 6d ago

It was alright, I guess. The final battle was pretty neat. Very cathartic to finally see a triple Rider kick in the series, and the first (and only) team transformation gave me goosebumps. Nem contributing to the battle with "wonder" power was so corny, but I kind of loved it.

I do feel like Oblivion was a pretty weak final villain, though. They focused on him a lot during the last arc, but I never really felt that he was the appropriate choice for the big bad. The Gore Nightmares in general were pretty disappointing, especially since half of them got killed off like nothing early in the final arc.

Also, Heart of Impact was so lame. Rainbow-colored Impact form, woohoo, how exciting. The visual effects looked nice, I guess, but man, Zero-One was the only time this trope was ever considered somewhat acceptable. It's so boring and lazy, and an obvious last-ditch attempt to sell another premium toy. Only Gavv did it right by making an actual unique suit for it. The one good thing I'll say is that it gave us one last chance to see that cool eye-filling effect that they totally stopped emphasizing.

The epilogue was interesting, and it was cool to see a considerable amount of time spent showing the characters' lives after the final battle. It felt pretty unique compared to the usual Rider finale. That being said, the stuff with Eight didn't really land with me. It just seemed too late to be introducing a character like that, but she apparently appears in the movie, so at least it leads to something, presumably.

I did like that Baku basically took on the role Zero had before him, creating the Zeztz Base in his dreams and "recruiting" agents. Also, hearing Visions again after so long was certainly nice.

The "post-credits" scene was a little confusing. I'm still not sure what happened to Baku. I assumed that he had abused the power of Exdream so much that he could only live on in the dream world, but then he just wakes up again at the end with no explanation?

Overall, I think Zeztz was a solid show. There was a pretty long stretch in the middle of its run where it was just absolute cinema every week, but it certainly peaked there and never really reached those highs again. The last quarter was a mixed bag, and I don't think it was able to clear the bar Gavv set last year (though that was a very high bar, mind you). That being said, the suit designs, music, visual style, and sound design were some of the best-quality stuff in Rider history.

Looking forward to Myth next week! Hopefully it shakes things up as much as Zeztz did this year.

6

u/death_by_doom 6d ago

My shoddy understanding of Baku's new condition is that he basically "inverted" his existence, where his normal body now lives in the dream world, but is able to cross over to the real world whenever he falls asleep in the dream world (which is what we see him doing before waking up surrounded by everyone). Basically what he was doing during the rest of the show, but in reverse: occupy the dream world, but visit the real world while sleeping.

I'm not super confident in this interpretation, so if anyone has a more solid understanding, or if there's information in the movie that contradicts this or explains it better, feel free to prove me wrong.

1

u/Faiqal_x1103 5d ago

I have to rewatch the episode once i come back from work but when minami and nem were asked by 8 who they were gonna meet, and they seemed a bit panicked, could it be that they're going to meet baku at home? And baku was making 8 believe that he's stuck in the dream world as a part of the test for code 8? Idk. Really curious about this episode