The Japanese children's show Kamen Rider airs once weekly. One season per year, of which a new episode airs every Sunday. Kamen Rider Zeztz began airing on the 7th of September, 2025, and I've been watching every episode live since the debut.
This is a small blog of my reactions to and thoughts on each episode. It's good to have somewhere to write my thoughts—I can reflect when my theories are proven wrong!
Spoilers are involved, so perhaps watch the episodes first when they air, then check this page as it's updated, maybe we can discuss them together!(^^)
episode count: 04 / TBA
episode 4
written on 2025.10.02
guess what... we. finally. got. an. OPENING! Oh my God! It's......not bad either. My biggest fear with shows is that the opening turns out shit lol and it's not exactly my thing but I don't hate it at all
There's lots of cool stuff going on... and well, Nem on the other side of the door to Nox solidifies my theory slightly. or at least I think so. LOL
My buddies suggested the idea that Nox might be "redeemed" thanks to his being with the protagonists in the opening... I'm not sure. He seems so detached!
Mouse, who do you think the secondary will be?
I don't think that far ahead.
...i was really into Baku as a priest! He looks so good... cute and cool... *sweat* priest disguise means... more disguises... as a secret agent... and disguises are moe... i can't wait
It's still sad to me that Baku's sister hates him attempting to do anything. She clearly views his bad luck as a stain, which is... not ideal. :-(
the Nightmare, like I said last time, looked so cool... like SO cool... I love birds so badly, especially crows! And this one's obviously a crow.
I figure that it's because it's the opposite of a dove. Doves are all-white birds representing purity, peace, love, hope... whereas crows often represent death and disease...
I think it's an interesting contrast! and I loved the flying, of course. the whole sequence is really cool. i just think that being able to go any which direction can lead itself to really interesting choreography and stuff, you know... ♥
now, misidentifying the Dreamer is weird. i wonder if it will happen more, or...?!
written on air date (2025.09.21), revised 2025.09.29
Three episodes without an opening...?? I'm getting worried! that's seriously insane.
Anyway, Nox is clearly just "aura farming", as they say, the entire time... like, lol, are we serious. ohhHhHHh DREAMSSS ohhhh SUBCONSCIOUS ohhhhh LOOK AT ME AND MY COOL BUTTERFLIES WHICH CERTAINLY MEAN NOTHING. i like him though even though i know nothing. after he shows up at the beginning of the episode the monster jumps onto the building to blow up and the greenscreen before he does is truly LAUGHABLE
Zero serving tea is so cute, though! I mean, it's gasoline, but moe is classy... as they say. They don't say that. They've never said that. Don't be fooled, though... I still think Zero/Baku is "yaoicoal", as my IRL put it.
I'm very picky about ships. Ships should make sense, ships should have chemistry; right now, they are merely two characters in proximity, with some funny scenes. Princess carrying your special agent the moment you meet is not chemistry. I felt the same way when I saw people shipping Red and Blue before the first episode of Boomboonger ever aired.
But you know, if a character is male... or male presenting... or a robot with a male voice... or not male but close enough... and there are two of them, people will make things happen.
...this is a kamen rider blog, though. on with the episode.
well, the idea of being trapped in a bad dream forever is...scary. well, obviously. but you know how it is!!
baku's ability to instantly fall asleep made me laugh, i used to be able to do something like that...to a lighter degree...but i would never dream, not on purpose. i used to have crazy hallucinations while half-dozing off, but that's really not the same as my ability to sleep anywhere. i'm jealous.
i think it was really cool when he got thrown into jail... the transition between getting thrown off of fujimi to being thrown on the floor of a jail cell, yes! more of this dream stuff, please!! that's what makes this series so promising, to me.
there's something so curious about fujimi and baku being so yellow, in this scene, so washed out, and then nem standing out in her all-blue "police chief for a day" uniform. it's really really cute, don't get me wrong, but it's almost as if... she doesn't belong...
...wink.
well, i can't say for sure, but she's suspicious. everyone's idol, who just so happens to appear in everyone's dreams, who just so happens never to question her role, who just so happens to play whatever role she's given to the hilt.
frankly, my theory is that she's not human. her infectiousness in the dream world, embedding herself as a part of people's subconscious, is actually what created her popularity in the real world. is it true? probably not! but i'm excited to see!!
undercover cop baku is cute... cop uniform is cute... there's something so cute about it... a secret agent means undercover disguises, and baku is a cute guy, so i'm looking forward to whatever disguises come up. 8-)
about the Mind's Doors: only one has the statues, but they all have two locks/knobs as pointed out by my friend... is there a significance? maybe one way leads to peril, the other way to hope? lol
it wass crazy when the monster swallowed up fujimi like that. like, i was actually thinking, "that's really cool...." so clearly they did a good job! it was scary! and then he became the monster in real life...
...which released that red half-moon into the real world too, along with a purple aura... and nox appeared again, just to release a tonne of his butterflies and aura farm some more! scary!
what are the consequences?... well, i dunno.
it's nice that zero drove baku all the way out to the police station while he was SLEEPING! but the question is... how did he bring him blanket and all? is baku that deep of a sleeper??
and the way the Nightmare lit up when it was being addressed is really curious. i can't make sense of it; was it being addressed as a nightmare that caused it, or something else...? or was it just the lighting
nightmares seem to solve problems in the dreamer's life in an inappropriate or cathartic way, in fujimi's case he waas tired of his work not being recognised and his nighmare was destroying the police, so curious!...
i liked the HENSHIN! sequence. bruised & battered Baku is COOL!! and as much as i hate zeztz's design, i love that he got his hands on a sword!
and with transforming, he looks so much better with just a little bit of armour! i'm so right, all the time.
my takeaway from the fight:
bomb wires are COOL
running on walls is COOL
stretching limbs is COOL
cliches are COOL
RIDER KICK IS COOL ♥
cutting the blue wire... masterful work. and, just like last time, he turned into a butterfly
i'm having trouble deciphering the weird slot machine(?) theming with the triple 777 though. what's it mean?? come on, tell me! is it to do with the gachapon stuff??
the monster for the next episode looks soooo cooooool (haven't watched at the time of writing, i was busy when it aired...)
i just want to know the goal of this season, and we haven't been given one, other than stop the Nightmares. i guess nox is the bad guy, right? but what does he do? where is he from? is he even human?
i'm excited to learn. maybe next episode will give me some more answers... i'll watch it tonight.
the newest (...second...) Kamen Rider Zeztz episode was good. i really liked the design for Zero (pic related), who is both a mentor for the protagonist. and a bike. for the protagonist. This is, like, a robot avatar that "Zero" controls, so it's not that weird
i'm excited to see the people who want him in an inappropriate manner and barely manage to hide it, because that's how you get the best fanart, whether or not you actually desire the character. the part where he carried the protagonist was cute. my friend brought up something that was interesting: there was a throwaway line about Nem "being in everyone's dreams", which was immediately treated jokingly, but perhaps it might have been foreshadowing... i'm interested to see if that intuition is correct..
the doors were curious, as was the moon. right now i'm left wondering what it all means!
my problem though is that zeztz is soooo ugly. like SOOO UGLY. i hate the suit. i can deal with it in action, but whenever he shows up for the first time, i grit my teeth. for some reason the way his body looks, the skin tight suit, what i perceive as a lack of originality, it makes me seethe just to look at. i hope he receives armour, because i hate the way he looks
it's like they want him to be a Marvel superhero or something
but Zero was really cute. I'm a big fan of robots, and the specific proportion where the limbs, especially the legs, are long and flare out at the ends (see the spacesuits and mobile suits in Tomino's Gundam too), and also characters that can turn into things, in this case a bike. maybe it's because I've always wanted to turn into a railroad crossing signal when i grow up, but that requires the ability to turn into one in the first place.
i just want to know more about everything. i feel like i'm not paying attention, so i'm going to rewatch tomorrow and write a more in depth review regarding what actually happens. i want to know the logic behind things. i want to know who the fuck nox is
The thing is that I'm a spoiler-free guy so I literally know nothing. it's far from my first kamen rider but i didn't even know about the show until we started watching it. :-)
expanded 2025.09.15
what I'm really interested in is Baku having world-class bad luck. i wonder if they'll spin this any way... for example, the sheer fact that he survived all this stuff actually means he has world class good luck or something... especially with how it plays into his dreams and stuff, he's never so unlucky in his dreams
i also think the matter of Baku's sister being so avoidant of him is interesting, and wonder if that will be worked on. There's obvious conflict. she went as far as to tell him to stop helping her, and not to carry her shopping bags, in case anything awful were to happen...
There's also the matter of the (sometimes red, sometimes not) half-moon... I still don't understand what it means, rewatching both these episodes on my own... will it be explained? I mean, obviously yes, but for now I have to make my own conclusions and theories. something about the bridge between dreams and the real world? dreams and nightmares? There just isn't enough to say yet...
also, building on that theory my friend spun up earlier, Nem's name is directly related to sleep... as in, it literally means that. in Japanese, to be sleepy is to be "nemui". to go to sleep is "nemuru". her name is Nem, pronounced nemu, and as much as these shows love to play with character names I really think it should be relevant to the whole dreams theme, just as "Nox" is night-related...
well, the monster was cool. Mr. Wires, who is also a flamethrower. FireWire, even, (does anyone remember that??) anyway I like how they play with the dream logic, excited to see that continue
i made my buddy two Nox icons, upon request:
While discussing Nox and what his butterflies could "really mean" with this friend, it suddenly hit me:
Once upon a time, I dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, to all intents and purposes a butterfly.
I was conscious only of my happiness as a butterfly, unaware that I was myself.
Soon I awaked, and there I was, veritably myself again.
Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming I am a man.
I was going to (rather jokingly) compare Zeztz to the first Persona game, because of the presence of butterflies, but in remembering Persona I remembered this parable by Zhuang Zhou. It shook me a bit: of course! Of course the butterflies in the dream-related show will lead me back to this!
the first episode of the newest kamen rider just aired on sunday, and really i cannot stop thinking about the "dream chase sequence"... it's very cliche but tbh i hope it's not a one off because they captured the Unreality of dreams very well and the panic in trying to escape A Monster With A Gun For Its Face!!
in particular: a shot repeating twice in almost exactly the same way, the environments being so ridiculously nonsensical, running up the stairs just to come out the other end running down the stairs, opening a statue in the wall which is a door by pushing it just to be pulling it towards him in the very next jump cut, and so on...
and it was so fast paced it was hard to grasp, i only caught a lot of things upon rewatching a second time with the same group of friends. also the kaijin design this episode was just awesome. gun face is Awesome. more of this please
although i'm not a fan of the suit, it looks a little naked(??) but i hope it's like how in kamen rider kuuga he starts all pathetic and grey before going to his signature red, i'd like to see him with a bit more armour on rather than just the weird sculpted six pack lol
but in remembering Persona I remembered this parable by Zhuang Zhou. It shook me a bit: of course! Of course the butterflies in the dream-related show will lead me back to this!
and it was so fast paced it was hard to grasp, i only caught a lot of things upon rewatching a second time with the same group of friends. also the kaijin design this episode was just awesome. gun face is Awesome. more of this please