Kamen Rider Zi-O, Episode 02: "Best Match 2017"

[Toku Prime]

Am I the only one hearing the 'Lonely Man Theme' from The Incredible Hulk playing right now?
​

This week: Oh the time travel shenanigans! I guess this is where the minisodes prove their worth, as this one provides three rules that explain the events of this episode. Even then, the timeline remains broken to the extent that Build's show never happened. Will every previous Rider's show get tossed out in similar fashion? Or will the show manage to restore everything by the end of the series?

 

[NeonZ]

I mean, Build will be teaming up with Zi-O again by December...

 

[Dr Kain]

Um... none of this episode made sense, which was on top of it being down right boring. Are Sento and Banjo in the new Earth they created or not? I mean, they were saying they came back from a Lynx concert, but then Zi-O went back to 2017 and none of it seemed to gel with the Skywall Earth. I'm so confused and not in the excited way. In the, "I think I'm going to drop this show already" way.

 

[Dr Kain]

I mean, Build will be teaming up with Zi-O again by December...

Knowing how shitty the writing has been already in just two episodes, they probably won't even remember they did anything different. Build and Cross-Z will just show up to join in the big battle as if nothing happened.

 

[NeonZ]

Um... none of this episode made sense, which was on top of it being down right boring. Are Sento and Banjo in the new Earth they created or not? I mean, they were saying they came back from a Lynx concert, but then Zi-O went back to 2017 and none of it seemed to gel with the Skywall Earth. I'm so confused and not in the excited way. In the, "I think I'm going to drop this show already" way.

Build kind of created a mess for Zi-O. They were doing Zi-O's set up here, with Build just in because it was the most recent show the actors were still around, but Build's story just further complicates Zi-O's set up. Usually the fusion of worlds would make team ups simpler because then Build can just be around to notice a new threat and team up with the current Rider, but due to the time travel set up, it brings up many questions... which they clearly didn't want to answer since they were establishing Zi-O's set up in these episodes and talking about alternate worlds might give the wrong impression that that's a relevant part of Zi-O's set up. At least wait for the next arc that doesn't have to deal with this mess. Episode 3 is much more heavily focused on Ex-Aid's actual gaming and medical focus even before Emu pops up, unlike this episode where Build's role is very generic.

Either way, in this episode, they were definitely treating, 2017 and 2018 as the same world. There was no Build element in 2017 aside from Sento and Banjo themselves and Another Build was attacking that 2017 and then running around until present 2018. The complication comes from the Build World 2017 being shown in episode 1 (Skywall, Smash, secret base) in the scene with Sento and Banjo.

Build's "New World" epilogue seemed implied to take place in 2017 , which likely was set up done for Zi-O (new government cabinet nominated and Japanese elections were in 2017, "2017" on the Cross-Z Watch was the only date shown, and they show a scene from the beginning of Build happening in the new world (Gentoku and Sawa meeting)).

 

[Hangyakuno]

Either way, in this episode, they were definitely treating, 2017 and 2018 as the same world. There was no Build element in 2017 aside from Sento and Banjo themselves and Another Build was attacking that 2017 and then running around until present 2018. The complication comes from the Build World 2017 being shown in episode 1 (Skywall, Smash, secret base) in the scene with Sento and Banjo.

Build's "New World" epilogue seemed implied to take place in 2017 , which likely was set up done for Zi-O (new government cabinet nominated and Japanese elections were in 2017, "2017" on the Cross-Z Watch was the only date shown, and they show a scene from the beginning of Build happening in the new world (Gentoku and Sawa meeting)).

Then, if they didn't show skywall in episode 1, they can make Shougo somehow meet wandering Sento and Ryouga without making this mess of timeline.

 

[SamuraiEchidna]

When I watched the first episode, there were some things I wanted to see. I wanted to see these characters expanded a little bit, mostly Sougo and Tsukuyomi. Well, I got half of what I wanted. Turns out she wasn't protecting Sougo right away for no reason, rather it was just a random instinct she had. She still has some doubts about everything, but I guess seeing Sougo as this weak little teenager instead of an imposing destroyer must have caught her off guard.

Also, causality loops are apparently a thing. Great. That won't get annoying after a while.

As for the ".5" webisodes, this one is the closest I've seen to it being necessary for the enjoyment of the show. Some of the points they bring up can be found within the show if you examine it closely. Which means they aren't making up for lack of story, they're just spelling the story out for anyone who didn't get it the first time. At least until the end, when Build says "don't get hung up on all the tiniest of details". Which, to me, means we should either just try to enjoy the show for what it is, or maybe the smaller details will be addressed later. Either way, I still hold firm to the idea that these webisodes are just bonus filler content. Not extremely necessary, but if the episode left you a little confused and you don't feel like watching it again, the webisode might clear up SOME of the confusion.

Um... none of this episode made sense, which was on top of it being down right boring. Are Sento and Banjo in the new Earth they created or not? I mean, they were saying they came back from a Lynx concert, but then Zi-O went back to 2017 and none of it seemed to gel with the Skywall Earth. I'm so confused and not in the excited way. In the, "I think I'm going to drop this show already" way.

I've seen people get confused on this, so allow me to TRY and clarify things. (This might not be the show's official explanation, but I've seen similar setups in other stories, so the same logic might apply here.)
Build came from a parallel world (Skywall Earth), but by the end of his series, his world fused with (what I'll be calling) Earth-Prime, where all the Kamen Riders since #1 are implied to live. However, you can't just get rid of memories all together. So, even if fused and all the characters got a reset, it's possible that the planet Earth itself has both the memories of Earth-Prime and Skywall Earth. That's why, when traveling to Build's specific past, it's possible to bring up the events of Skywall and what not. If you were traveling into someone else's past, you wouldn't see Skywall. Basically, it's like Naruto's shadow clones. The clones each do different things and make their own memories, but when Naruto becomes one person again, he keeps the memories of those clones on top of his own.

So to answer your question, yes. "Sento" and Banjo, in 2018, are in the new world. However, in 2017, they are in the past that only they (and possible the Earth itself) remembers. Of course, as we have seen, you can't time travel and not have an effect. Because of Zi-O, the Time Jackers, and the Another Rider monsters; the timelines are changing. Zi-O's interference has made it so that Katsuragi Takumi never became Sento. It's also possible that the past is being rewritten so that Build was always on Earth Prime to begin with, and therefore Skywall never happened, and Evolt's ultimate plans played out in a less over-the-top kind of way. The .5 webisode pretty much confirms this when Build says "It's like the Kamen Rider Build TV show never happened".

 

[Dr Kain]

So basically this series should actually be called Kamen Rider Retcon. It's not that he is a destroyer of worlds, he is a walking reset button.

 

[raden238]

Zi-O altering Build's timeline is obviously going to be addressed in the Heisei Generations Forver movie, they're merely planting the seeds for it.

 

[Dr Kain]

Zi-O altering Build's timeline is obviously going to be addressed in the Heisei Generations Forver movie, they're merely planting the seeds for it.

People shouldn't have to watch a movie to enjoy the TV show though.