When Kamen Rider ZEZTZ premiered in September 2025, it walked in with one of the boldest hooks the Reiwa era has tried in years: a hero who fights monsters by weaponizing his own dreams. As the 36th entry in the franchise and the seventh of the Reiwa period, it also carried a milestone its predecessors never did, becoming the first Kamen Rider series to launch with a genuine global simulcast. That meant the rest of the world got to argue about it in real time instead of waiting months for subtitles. Now, deep into its run and barreling toward the finish, it is clear ZEZTZ is a tale of two shows: a patient, sometimes plodding first half, and a back half that has been, frankly, electric.
The Premise: Dreams as a Weapon
The premise is pure “dreams and spy technology,” and it is a strange, sticky combination. We follow Baku Yorozu, a perpetually unlucky young man whose biggest fantasy is to become a secret agent. That fantasy curdles into reality when the shadowy organization CODE recruits him to battle creatures called Nightmares using the ZEZTZ Driver, a transformation belt powered by capsules dubbed “Capsems.” The twist that makes the whole engine run is that Baku does not just fight in the waking world. He operates across the boundary of dreams and reality, lucid-dreaming his way into battles that bleed between both planes.
It is a setup that gives the show license to be surreal, espionage-flavored, and a little melancholic all at once, anchored by a strong supporting cast: the deadpan Paranormal Affairs detective Tetsuya Fujimi, his reluctant assistant Nasuka Nagumo, the enigmatic Commander Zero who issues orders via hologram and an android motorcycle, and Nem, a beloved celebrity who only ever appears inside dreams, and who is later revealed to be comatose in the real world.
The First 25 Episodes: Slow, But Never a Chore
Here is the honest part. The first 25 episodes were slow. Not bad, not boring, just slow. ZEZTZ spent its opening arc carefully laying brick after brick of world-building, establishing the rules of the dream and real divide, the structure of CODE, the nature of the Nightmares, and the slow-drip mystery that CODE had apparently been training Baku since childhood. Episodes functioned as self-contained “Cases,” and that monster-of-the-week rhythm, while charming, meant the larger story often idled in neutral. There were stretches where you could feel the show holding its biggest cards close, asking for patience it had not fully earned yet.
And yet it stayed entertaining throughout. That is the saving grace of the first arc. Ryutaro Imai is enormously likeable as Baku, selling both the hangdog loser and the wide-eyed wannabe spy without making either feel like a cartoon. The suit design is sharp, the dream-world set pieces gave the action team room to get weird in the best way, and the spy-gadget aesthetic kept even the filler-feeling episodes watchable. So even at its most meandering, the first half was the kind of slow you did not mind sitting in. It was comfort-food tokusatsu with a mystery simmering underneath.
Episode 25: The Twist That Changed Everything
Then episode 25 happened, and the show I had been politely enjoying turned into the show I could not stop thinking about.
The hinge is brutal and brilliant. The first arc builds to Baku uncovering Nem’s true origins, only to be betrayed and killed, before jolting awake in a hospital bed. Episode 25 then recontextualizes everything: that entire first arc was, in effect, a premonition. Baku wakes still carrying the ZEZTZ Driver and, more importantly, every hard-won piece of knowledge from a life he technically never finished living. It is the rare reset that does not feel like a cheat or a reboot, because it weaponizes everything the slow burn quietly planted. All that patient setup suddenly pays off as foreknowledge, and Baku stops being a confused recruit stumbling through other people’s plans and becomes a man racing against a future he has already seen.
Arc Two: Firing on All Cylinders
Since that turn, ZEZTZ has been absolutely great. The pacing problem evaporated overnight. Nightmares that once took a full episode to unravel now get dispatched with a swagger that signals real growth, freeing up screen time for the threats that actually matter. And the villains in this stretch are a genuine step up. NOX, the alter ego of police officer and former CODE agent Kensei Odaka, is a fantastic dark mirror to Baku, a dreamer who builds Nightmares instead of fighting them. The Lady brings the assault straight to CODE’s doorstep, and the looming specter of Sieg, the former CODE Number One who fused with a Nightmare and was imprisoned for a thousand years, gives the back half a mythic, ticking-clock weight the early episodes simply did not have. The emotional thread of Nem, suspended between dream and coma, finally gets the tragic gravity the premise always promised.
What is most impressive is how the second arc redeems the first in hindsight. Episodes that felt like wheel-spinning are now load-bearing. The show was teaching you its rules so it could break your heart with them later. That is a confident piece of long-form storytelling, and it is the reason I have gone from “I will keep watching” to “I will clear my Sunday morning for this.”
Craft, Cast, and a Global First
Beyond the writing, ZEZTZ is a well-made show. The opening themes, NAQT VANE’s “VISIONS” and Yuta’s “PLAY BACK,” do a lot of heavy lifting, papering over the early pacing lulls with genuine momentum. The dual-world concept lets the cinematography swing between grounded police procedural and dreamlike spectacle. And the global simulcast is more than a footnote: being able to follow a Rider season week to week with the rest of the world has made the back-half escalation feel like a shared event rather than a solitary catch-up.
The Verdict
Is it perfect? No. Newcomers should be warned that ZEZTZ asks for real patience before it rewards you, and a 25-episode runway is a big ask in an era where a lot of viewers bail by episode five. If you need a show to grab you immediately, the front half will test you. But if you trust it, or if you simply skim the early Cases and lock in around the premonition reveal, you will find one of the most rewarding Reiwa Riders in recent memory.
As it stands now, with the finale closing in, Kamen Rider ZEZTZ has become exactly what its premise always wanted to be: a story about a dreamer who learns that knowing the future does not make saving it any easier. The first 25 episodes were a slow, pleasant dream. Everything since has been the moment of waking up, and it has been thrilling. Highly recommended, with the caveat that the good stuff is on the other side of the slow burn. Stick with it.
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