Premise

Baku Yorozu is an ordinary, everyday young man, living an ordinary, everyday life. In his dreams however he is the heroic super spy codenamed ‘Seven’, who battles to save the world. Now, as monsters called Nightmares invade the dreams of humanity, Baku will have to step up to being a hero for real as Kamen Rider Zeztz!

Zigg’s verdict: The World Is Not Enough

For the first time maybe ever the stuff surrounding the debut of a new Kamen Rider series is arguably more interesting than the series itself. For readers not in the know, Zeztz represents the first time that a currently airing Kamen Rider series will be simulcast worldwide, and therefore the first chance for many fans outside of Japan and Southeast Asia to (legally) follow the series while it’s airing.

With that in mind, it’s kind of difficult to see Zeztz‘s decision to embrace a super-spy, James Bond-esque theme as not at least partially a play to lure in ‘western’ audiences. That argument is also supported by a lot of elements that seem to suggest, if not a soft reboot, then at least an attempt to get the series back in touch with its classic, core tropes. So we’ve got multiple callbacks to original 1971 Kamen Rider, particularly the look of the suit and the very Cyclone-esque design of the bike. Then there’s the renewed focus on what seems to be a police procedural plot, and some leaks suggesting a more reserved roster of form changes than the toy barrage of recent seasons, both elements harkening back to modern Kamen Rider‘s foundational text, 2000’s Kamen Rider Kuuga. Whether these were deliberate attempts to play to the larger audience or not (and for the record Toei has a pretty consistent pattern of trying to reboot the show every couple of years), they do suggest that we’re meant to see this as something of a new beginning for the franchise.

As to what the episode itself was like…honestly I say this every year but it’s so hard to judge shows like this from a single episode. I will say that this opener had some very slick production, particularly the bullet-riddled opening credits. I’m also quite taken by the ‘battle in dreams’ conceit, one of the more high-concept premises that a Rider show has had in recent years. This episode did a pretty good job of selling it through clever camera work and some arresting imagery, though it was also a little incoherent as a result, which I concede might be deliberate to convey dream logic.

I’m less sold on some of the aesthetic elements of the show though. The suit is strikingly designed but after years of rubber armour the all-cloth look takes a bit of getting used to and sometimes comes off as cheap looking (yes even by tokusatsu standards) while I’m really not a fan of the chest-belt choice, and the belt itself is one of the more annoyingly talky ones in recent memory. I can’t say I was bowled over by the action either, especially compared to some of the very clever choreography we saw throughout Gavv‘s run.

Every Rider show needs a little time to show its true colours, and I feel that might be more true for Zeztz than most. At the very least Toei is taking a number of big swings here, both within the fiction and out. It’ll be fascinating to see how a Kamen Rider that everyone can watch with minimum effort plays out, and whether the show will be able to establish a foothold in territory that is unfamiliar with it. If we’re lucky, the story itself might be good too. Here’s hoping.

Kamen Rider Zeztz is streaming every Saturday-Monday on the TokuSHOUTsu YouTube channel