My own little void

So Casette Beasts is basically my favourite creature collector and the sequel just got announced

• Original had a Kamen Rider beast

• Sequel's name is a digimon reference

• Got Johny Gioeli from Crush 40 on the OST

Pompous Naruto running loser BF and his "i can make him worse" GF

I just finished the recap episode. Yeah, Zeztz is peak, but given how it's fairly high concept I think I lost sight of what it was going for. Baku turning so hard against code when he barely knows what they're doing is so weirdly highlighted when Zero name drops Somnia, but I think the recap episode actually did a good job of putting everything back into perspective.

NOX and 2 just wanting to take revenge on an organisation that wronged them meanwhile they're actively preventing millions of deaths, I'm not saying CODE is good, but NOX's motivations are pretty blatantly flimsy. 2 did a pretty good job of not being found, if anything turning her daughter into a nightmare factory lead to her getting killed and her daughter abducted (but i guess she woke up so mission accomplished (???)). That's it though, they're lashing out and that's (relatively) fair (don't make genocidal climate change monsters).

Meanwhile Baku continues to work alongside CODE whilst doing his best to stick his own principals, i.e. be a Kamen Rider, but loses sight of this with the introduction of Catastrom (I think this is meant to be a metaphor for moral decay i guess? kinda like ACAB? Is that why he destroys his own dream? A rider's nightmare would be having their morals be co-opted by a flawed organisation that is willing to disregard human life?).

I've started writing about Zeztz and my opening paragraphs are basically about how Zeztz remixes aspects of previous rider seasons similar to how our brain mixes facial features we've seen to make new faces in our dreams. I've only seen up to episode like 17ish but this is what I've noticed so far:

Of course several nightmares resemble past riders, most notably to me that one nurse's nightmare that looks like a mix of Geats and the Wolf Orphonoch, several returning actors and other minor references.

But there's also:

Return to 2 episode mini-arcs, the investigation angle makes me think of W and Drive in particular.

Roles are given to Baku and Nem in dreams like in Decade, the dreams are an exploration of the subconscious of the civilian of the week ala Wizard.

The paranormal investigation team is made up of the main rider, a guy who's really into it and lady who doesn't quite believe what's going on, like in ghost.

Kids indoctrinated by a dodgy organisation like in Faiz.

Baku lives with his sister and is concerned with employment like Kouta in Gaim, and his main character quirk outside of dreams is that he has bad luck like Den-O.

Rewatching Gaim for the Build up to Easter and I thought I'd like to write a piece about the show, yanno about power and how it's used and how different characters represent that.

Rewatching Kabuto bc I'm thinking of making a video about it and holy shit seeing Tsurugi for the first time again, knowing where it goes...

So I've been thinking about Lu/Pat a lot while I've been watching it, specifically the arbitrary nature behind the Patrangers beef with the Lupinrangers (I don't say arbitrary as a dig here, i think particularly Keiichiro's need to find issue with the Lupinrangers for any reason is the most interesting part of the show).

Before the Lupinrangers steal anything from the Patrangers, the issue is just that they're thieves. We don't see anything of the Lupinrangers in action before the first episode but by the time they're branded as criminals we have only seen them steal from Ganglers and they do wear the aesthetic of thieves, which means one of the following:

The Lupinrangers stole from someone before the events of the show

The Patrangers count stealing from the Ganglers as normal stealing (which paints them in a certain light given how the conflict is more complex than by-the-book justice and the Patrangers are more than happy to blow Ganglers up (acab?)) or the Patrangers found out about the Lupinrangers stealing from the Ganglers before they knew what Ganglers were and act under the assumption this was a normal theft

The Patrangers take issue with the Lupinrangers promoting the aesthetic of crime ala GTA controversies. We do see the higher ups being concerned with this in episode 19 as it's lowering the public's faith in the police, but that's not a legal matter (acab?)

Of course the Lupinrangers do eventually steal from the Patrangers making their beef a little clearer (this ties back into the conflict being bigger than the Police, but still illegal), but it does evolve over the course of the show, the standout moment being around episode 31ish where Keiichiro's reasoning becomes that the Lupinrangers don't have anyone to hold them accountable (he tolerates Noel's behaviour as he is ultimately able to be held to account); they're vigilantes. This moment stands out to me because at this stage the Lupinranger focussed episodes are resembling more standard sentai episodes. How would the Patrangers respond to other sentai? (maybe this is addressed in the kyuranger movie?)

He also reasons that the Lupinranger's focus on taking back the Lupin collection has led to multiple Ganglers escaping, which does make some sense but overlooks the times the Patrangers have failed to defeat a Gangler on their own and the framing of this revelation is clearly meant to show Keiichiro fear of not being strong enough to handle the Ganglers without the help of the people his station has primed him to hate no matter how flawed or ill-informed this is.