I really like Kamen Rider ZEZTZ, but the change up in part two feels like a whole different show.
ZEZTZ is the first of the Kamen Rider series to get a simultaneous release in the international market. In prior shows of recent years you had to wait for the full series before you got a subtitled version. There’s still no dub, but considering Toei still treats their YouTube channel like an afterthought, the partnership with Shout Factory as part of their TokuSHOUTsu line-up has allowed the English speaking world a chance to see the show at the same time as Japan, relatively speaking. You can watch the repeated livestream during weekends or watch the regular posting on their YouTube channel, which is how I watch it with my Sunday supper.
I love the original concept. Baku is an ordinary guy, but every time he tries to help someone he somehow gets hurt. So he can only save people in dreams, where he’s the amazing secret agent Code Number 7…until the day he finds out he’s actually helping people. In the dream world, “Nightmares” are living beings who slowly bring the dreamer’s worst fears to life, even making them happen in the real world. Baku/Seven is given the power of Kamen Rider ZEZTZ by CODE, the Confidential Organized Defensive Establishment, given missions and mission gear by Zero, who speaks to him remotely through his transforming robot. However, there are other people working against CODE, helping the nightmares in their quest to make the nightmares come true, take over a person’s body, and enter our world to cause chaos. In those emergencies, ZEZTZ can enter our world and destroy the nightmare for good. Meanwhile he has to uncover various secrets and find the sleeping Nem, an idol who gets cast in various roles in the dreams with the goal of making them happy. She becomes Seven’s parter in the dream world while a Mulder & Scully style group of cops help him solve “black cases” caused by the Nightmares and fend off CODE’s enemies, one of which is a former cop.
The mysteries were a good subplot as we got “Japanese superhero fights off a Freddy Kruger army”, and I’m totally up for that…which is why I shouldn’t write Nightmare On Elm Street stories. However, saving spoilers for the next paragraph onward (so you’ve been warned), something changed in the last few episodes. Many of the mysteries were revealed…and then someone hit a huge reset button and totally changed the plot of the story. Don’t get me wrong. As of this writing I’m still enjoying it for the same characters, cool dream world effects, and the amazing action. However, I don’t feel like I’m watching the same show anymore outside of the characters and ZEZTZ’s various forms.
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