Code Number: 7 is a suave secret agent tasked with rescuing national celebrity Nem after she's kidnapped by a ruthless crime syndicate. At least that's the case in Baku Yorozu's dreams anyway! In reality he's a seemingly ordinary man with a strong desire to help those in need, but cursed with extremely bad luck. Every time he tries to help some one, he's struck down by some freak accident.
When one such incident land Baku in the hospital, he's attacked in one of his lucid dreams by a creature that identifies as a Nightmare. Unable to fight back against the monster, Baku attempts to flee - finding himself in in mysterious room where an equally mysterious stranger bestows upon him a strange device. Using it to transform into Kamen Rider Zeztz, Baku is able to defeat the monster as he retakes control of his dream. As he wakes up he thinks it couldn't possibly have been real - that is until he finds the Zetz Driver still attached to him!
If there's one thing Kamen Rider Zeztz knows how to do, it's make an entrance. Even before we're close to anything Rider-related the episode opens up with a fantastic spy sequence, with agent Code Number: 7 infiltrating the crime syndicate to rescue the damsel in distress. It's cliche in all the best ways, pulling on the tropes and visuals of a spy movie in exactly the way a dream would. With all of the main action sequences taking place at night during this episode Zeztz already has a very distinct look to it, and that feeds into the visuals here just as much as it does into the transformed fight sequence later on. One aspect that's particularly good during this sequence are the the animated credits interacting with the content of the scene itself (appearing as bullet holes, window reflections and such), giving it a cinematic feel which further emphasises the sense that this might be reality. Even if you've ignored all of the promotional material for Zeztz and so have no idea this Rider is dream-related, the scene is very good at giving the sense this isn't the full story whilst also being entertaining.
Code Number: 7's introduction is also our first look at Baku Yorozu's alter ego in this dreamscape, and while they may be fundamentally the same character it's interesting to see the slight differences between his two personas this early on. Baku is a dreamer very much in and out of reality, but whereas his desire to help people results in bad luck in the real world (which as we saw at the very end of Gavv, can manifest in ways as ridiculous as getting zapped by a UFO), in his dreams he truly becomes an "invincible agent". That added confidence doesn't just show through in his mannerisms, it's also the knowledge that the dream is his own and thus the ability to take control of it. Even when faced with the panic of having a monster invade and physically harm him with in it, Baku is eventually able to turn it back round. Much like Emu's gamer prowess in Ex-Aid it already feels hinted at that his lucid streaming is somehow special, so it'll be interesting to see just how that plays out in future episodes.
As tends to be the case the episode also gives us introductions to some of the side characters for the series, laying out their involvement in the story nicely without giving too much away. Nem is already a particularly interesting case as the episode doesn't really make it clear whether she's actually going to be involved outside of Baku's dreamscape, nor whether she has much of a role beyond being the damsel in distress for said dreams. On a more substantial level we meet Baku's sister Minami, who deeply cares for her brother despite him constantly trying to help people in the face of his bad luck. She doesn't much in this episode, but then again she might not need it when a Series of Sister's Substory Agent Minami miniseries has also started to release on the Toei Tokusatsu Fan Club alongside the series. On a slightly more interesting front for this episode though are Tetsuya Fujimi and Nasuka Nagumo (played by Rina Onuki, who previously appeared in Geats as Sae Ganaha/Kamen Rider Lopo) from the Public Security Bureau's Anomalous Affairs Division - the former its wisened section chief and the latter its newly transferred sceptic. Even with only a few minutes of screen time they sow a lot of seeds with these two characters early on - their knowledge of the Nightmares through unsolved "black cases", and via the final few minutes of the episode. Nasuka probably won't remain a sceptic for very long, but the pair's dynamic here gets them off to a promising start.
Through Tetsuya we may find out the name of this series' enemies, but other than that the Nightmares remain a mystery to both our hero and us viewers. While the idea of a monster that dives into people's dreams isn't an especially original one, it remains an age-old concept that lends itself to many different interpretations. In Kamen Rider's case, of course it would be a literal monster showing up in the middle of your dreams. The Gun Nightmare kicks off what will hopefully be another year of great monster designs, with the MOTWs being physical embodiments of nightmares being a great design motif. But when it comes to the Nightmares' wider plans, we're still pretty much in the dark outside a few cryptic appearances of a white-suited figure (who promotional material has confirmed as Nox). Between his presence at Baku's accident (thus also bringing Tetsuya and Nasuka to the scene) tying everything together and reappearance at the hospital at the end of the episode, it doesn't feel like Baku has just somehow stumbled into their plans.
As for Zeztz' first transformation and fighting debut, well that certainly delivered on the spectacle front as well. Unique Driver placement aside it definitely feels like Zeztz is trying to represent a "Kamen Rider of a new era" despite not being an anniversary Rider of such, with the sleek design and colour scheme feeling like a futuristic interpretation of Kamen Rider 1 - more so even than Zero-One did back at the beginning of the Reiwa era. Whether or not this is purely coincidental with Toei's push to bring Zeztz to a wider audience isn't clear at the moment, but it makes for an interesting talking point. But while the colours of the suit work really well together, as far as this episode goes it's those glowing red lines running down it that really bring it all together - bringing some visual flare to the fight that are naturally reminiscent of the glowing accents on the Faiz Riders. Outside of that initial transformation there the fight doesn't really delve into Zeztz' gear all that much either, with even where the Driver came from still a mystery at this point. Instead we simply get a sleek fist fight that's rounded off with a good old fashioned Rider Kick. While typical Bandai logic dictates Zeztz will likely get a bit more to him with future form changes, for now I quite like the more stripped back classic Rider approach we got with his "Physicam Impact" base form.
And purely because it's a landmark series in terms in this respect, it's worth discussing Toei's chosen methods of worldwide release. "Worldwide" being used in a loose sense of the word, because there are still several territories that are still unfortunately locked out of TokuSHOUTsu's livestream without the use of a VPN. But for Zeztz to be available this quickly outside of Japan legally anywhere in the world, especially outside of the US, is cause for celebrations. The whole livestream format is a bit clunky and is unlikely to deter piracy in the way the powers that be might think it will, but thanks to some of the changes that have been made to streamline it in the run up to release (making it a continuous stream rather than repeats at selected times, adding the ability to actually rewind the stream) it's workable. Not as convenient as Ultraman's release, but workable nonetheless. With Toei also making moves to bring Kamen Rider to the US in a bigger way at Los Angeles Comic Con (with special subbed screenings of Zeztz and Kamen Rider W Forever: A to Z/The Gaia Memories of Fate as well as a panel with Zeztz producer, they might actually be serious about bringing Kamen Rider to an English-speaking audience this time. Of course how much of this attention comes to the rest of the world is yet to be seen, but it's a start nonetheless.
Kamen Rider premieres rarely disappoint, and Kamen Rider Zeztz opens up with a first episode offering plenty of action and intrigue. Baku is already a very interesting protagonist with the little changes in his persona/confidence between his dreams and reality, whilst the episode also introduces plenty of other characters to widen the scale of the story without giving too much away. Although Zeztz himself gets an action-packed debut that shows off the suit to brilliant effect, other action sequences such as the opening's gun fight prove just as exhilarating even without any Rider content. With so many revelations still to come just in these early episodes, Zeztz certainly isn't sleeping on the job.
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