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Kamen Rider Zero-One Episode 29- "Our Dreams Will Not Be Broken!" Discussion
In the final phase of the Hiden/ZAIA contest, AIMS must step in and choose a side in the Rider fights.
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We sure Fuwa isn't our main Rider?
Cause DAMN that was an absolutely beautiful form debut! |
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Iron man references again especially iron man 3. First the palm then the chest now the armor bits.
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Anyone else find it hyper hilarious in the previews where RG Vulcan sucker punched the hell out of Yua?
Also, judging from the previews, Aruto sides with Jin in his Humagear liberation plan? |
Hot damn. Like episode 16, this truly feels like the end of an arc. Right down to the extended episode preview, this felt like a finale in itself.
You know shit is about to go down when they omit the opening, but this time they saved the title card till the end as well. Lots of great development for Fuwa, we learn the truth behind the chip in his head (somewhat called it! It was Naki's), why he was able to turn into Assault Wolf and why he inadvertently helped Metsuboujinrai with distributing the Raid Risers and breaking Horobi out. This gives Fuwa a lot of doubt and mental anguish, naturally, but he decides to pursue his dreams and break free of the control imposed upon him by both ZAIA and Metsuboujinrai. It's such a strong character moment and extremely heroic and the words he says to Yua are also really badass too. But the highlight of this goddamned episode was the fight scene. Rampage Vulcan looks amazing and HOLY HELL is it badass! The choroegraphy and effects-work this episode were on another level! I honestly haven't seen a form debut this effective on all levels - story, visuals, choreography, emotional beats - since maybe Black Hazard in Build. This was impactful both literally and figuratively and the beat-down he gave both Thouser and Valkyrie was highly satisfying. The guys doing the effects this season are running on all cylinders. That transformation was absolutely phenomenal and the finishers utilizing a mix of different Progrise Abilities was pure spectacle. The ending does not bode well for Aruto or the Humagears, I hate Gai with a passion but him winning over Hiden Enterprise will push the story in a really exciting new direction I feel. It feels like Zero-One is just getting started! |
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https://i.imgur.com/Zq2Xg3n.gif |
Okay that is a beautiful gif, I'mma steal that to just have that on me at all times.
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But while I'm not particularly happy with Gai's victory (in part due to how undeserved it feels, considering how he never really lost anything when he logically should've), RampageVulcan's debut is one of the most fucking baller form debuts EVER. I debated whether or not I wanted the SHF of Vulcan Assault Wolf or RampageVulcan, and this debut really settled it. The highlights of this arc really have been Metalcluster Hopper's and RampageVulcan's debuts. |
RampageVulcan henshin really feels like Blade King Form. I'm just worried that his final form was revealed too early and there are a lot more episodes to go and RV won't be as powerful when everyone else catches up.
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Final forms for secondary Riders (or new forms for everyone in general), from my experience with the franchise, never really seem to be "absurdly" powerful past their debut. They're still powerhouses, just not as flashy. And they usually job when drama calls for it. In terms of endgame power levels, I'd go ahead and assume that Rampage will be weaker than the final villain, who will be weaker than Zero-One by the end, with Valkyrie falling in-between somewhere (lest she get a final form, too). Overall, I'd say Rampage will be fine. ...Unless Yuya Takahashi decides to throw a curveball and have him perform exponentially better/worse than previous secondaries. |
Contrary to what many people are saying here. This corporate vs arc is as long as it needed to be.
Each 5 episodes sets up 2 things. 1) Humans are farked up, 2) Humagear are as heroic and inspiring as Humans. Sure, Smug Gai smirking his way through victories is annoying, but he's supposed to be the smug CEO. Plus his consistency in psychopathy (which is a dominant trait in many many top level executives) really puts him in a position as the iconic darkness vs Aruto's iconic light. Then we have Jin and Horobi, one who is really a tool of Arc and another being the first of his kind to be truly independent from either systems. They mirror the two humans Yua and Fuwa, one is a tool of Zaia while another is the first of his kind and aims to be truly independent from everything except his own goals and dreams and will. Very nice juxtaposition. Really enjoying this. And now we are kicking into the third act, things are starting to get serious. I do wonder how would normal Hopper ever hope to win against Thouser though. But I'm more curious why Izu had to be reactivated and how did the zero one driver get back to Aruto. I actually really was hoping that Aruto starts using other belts, that would have made an amazing twist in the KR shows where the main rider kept his belt throughout the show. |
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EDIT: This arc's goal was to build up the Hiden-Amatsu feud and Gai's a pretty good archetype. Corrupt CEOs are almost a staple in hero shows (I think), and I'm happy they're doing it here. What else were they gonna do? Have time travel or aliens pop up? Another Humagear uprising so soon after the Metsuboujinrai arc? Back to Gai... He's meant to be unlikable because he's the, as you said, the darkness to Aruto's light. Aruto may not be a good CEO, but he's got a lot of heart (business smarts might come up in the next arc, though, maybe?). Every time he's on screen, with that callous grin on his face.... I want to dump juice on his outfit. Gallons of grape juice. Just to inconvenience him. We have anywhere between 16 and 20 episodes left in this show, and I'd say that's enough for a final arc. Three act structure and all that. Very excited for what happens next. :D Also, I'd also liked it if Aruto used something like an AIMS Shotriser if only Hiden's CEO can use the Hiden Zero-One Driver. I'm not sure how they're going to explain how Aruto can use it, but I'm sure they didn't explicitly state it shuts down for anyone but the CEO... so it's probably the exception (being the "only belt of its kind" against all the mass-produced belts) not the rule. |
Yeah, so, I'm willing to say very very easily that Zero-One is good again! These two episodes alone were just phenomenal. We're finally seeing interesting things happen and things progressing... and special shoutout to Rampage Gatling, who really is exemplary of the "suit looks awful from photos, looks beautiful in action" trope. Oh, and he got a stupid good fight scene to go with it!
Though what especially got me was that preview at the end. After half a season of the first Reiwa series feeling exactly like a Heisei series - and I have no doubt that's going to continue - I wonder if this is how they intend to differentiate from the past going forward? Splitting up a series into two 'seasons' with two clearly defined settings. It'd be a clever way to do it honestly, and for once Zero One really does feel new. |
I still think what happened last episode was contrived to reach this point, but now that this competition is over, it's time where things really getting serious. Yeah, I expected this outcome to come a long way. Even if the mess with the rapper didn't happen the way it did, I knew humans will vote against HumaGears and result in ZAIA's victory.
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So I may be over thinking about this but it almost looks like we're getting a timeskip next episode? (Albeit a small ine?)
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Good episode. Fuwa had good character development and is rapidly becoming (imo) the star Rider of the show.
I was getting annoyed the first few minutes as metal hopper was just getting b*tch-slapped around constantly. I kept wondering what happened to the automated defense that form had. Now he's just getting slapped around like he's not even in a Rider suit. But then the Fuwa fight scenes and character development made up for it. for me now Fuwa is the main Rider and Aruto is the cheesy secondary Rider. Hahaha |
This was fantastic. Some of the best action I’ve seen in quite a while (which isn't saying much because the choreography and camera work is getting incredibly good lately, across multiple shows) and it was a prelude to something really interesting. I especially look forward to Aruto being forced into a new situation here, just to see some new sides to his character.
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Also, real-life explanation: The budget they spent on the suits CG is gone :p |
ahhhh, yeah that's right. I thought I still saw the nano-swarm sometimes so I guess I forgot about that part.
Guess I'm just tired of seeing the main Rider get his butt kicked episode after episode. Fuwa made up for it this episode though. That was a fantastic fight scene. |
This was a fantastic episode. Fuwa delivering the long overdue beatdown to Gai and calling Yua out on her shit made these past few episodes worth it.
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I'm thinking that this is a 52 total episode season. Next two weeks are are a special 2 part episode on Gai. Then 20 more. Sometime possibly soon the season will pause for the coronavirus then who knows if they will shorten, add, or just go along with their planned amount of episodes.
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Even though I (unfortunately) got spoiled on the outcome of the competition before I watched it, this was a spectacular episode, and it really feels like both a grand finale of this arc, and a new beginning.
I thought since the start of this arc that Aruto's position as the joke-telling rookie CEO of Hiden was one of those things that wouldn't ever be in danger. I figured it was his thing, changing that'd be like deciding Gentaro wasn't too much of a social butterfly, or Kiryu Sento was suddenly neither genius or a physicist. But seeing how this episode panned out, and the preview for the next episode, I think I see what really sets Aruto apart from other main Riders: He's fighting to protect all HumaGears (despite what the opening narration says). No matter if he's doing it as the president of the company that makes them, he's devoted to reaching a great, big beautiful tomorrow where humans and HumaGears can live in harmony. And his being ousted as president (unless that next episode's title is surprisingly literal) only means a change of status quo for how he fights that fight, and who his enemy is. He's not battling against terrorists who hack HumaGears, or another CEO who wants to take over his company and destroy HumaGears. He's now a pretty-much-normal guy who's fighting against a giant corporation now starting on that mission to destroy all HumaGears. I feel like I've kinda gotten off the topic of this particular episode... Not much more I can say about this episode in particular that hasn't been said. I will say that it seems like Gai can only get defeated when another Rider gets a new powerup. Hopefully Rampage Gatling doesn't get the Metal Cluster treatment where Gai eventually starts kicking Fuwa's heiney even after this solid first showing... And on the topic of powerups, it feels like we're reaching the silent deadline for Valkyrie getting a new powerup. Vulcan already has double the amount of forms she has, and the odds for her getting an upgrade are even less in her favor after Zero-One gets his final form. |
Maybe, just maybe, Yua's upgrade form is to use Cheetah with ShotRiser and then Jackal with RaidRiser for a hybrid form?
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They... the writers actually had Hiden lose? And Zaia go through with its takeover!? That's what I was hoping for but I didn't think they'd actually go through with it! In light of that, I now think it's actually really smart that they made the job battle be 5 rounds long, because with Zaia getting the first two wins and Hiden getting the third and fourth, it perfectly sets up Zaia's takeover as a serious threat while still making us expect a Hiden victory, letting this come as an impactful twist without it coming out of nowhere.
Some of those 5 rounds might have been better as single episodes though, instead of two-parters. |
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https://i.imgur.com/M65wg6t.png
Yup, that's more like it! Glad I held off on whining for a week! Well, I mean, there's still all the same stuff to complain about, and as the end of an arc, I think an autopsy of this thing is necessary, but we'll get there in a second. Right now, I wanna talk about what I liked about this episode, and that's a whole lot. Mostly it's Fuwa, though. Man do I love this guy, and this is one of his best episodes yet. The character development he gets here is off the charts. In just two episodes, the show has made him into a straight up old-school kaizou ningen, cementing him as the most Kamen Rider possible Kamen Rider, a tragic figure manipulated to serve evil, whose irrepressible spirit ultimately compels him to fight instead for good, overcoming even his own desire for revenge. I ain't hearing any arguments this guy isn't an interesting character anymore. He is, without a doubt, one of the big reasons to be watching this show. Where this gets even better is that Yuuya Takahashi, for the first time in a while, shows his master planner skills again, finally tying together the plot threads of Assault Wolf, Naki, ZAIA, and using all that combined with Fuwa's own changing motivations and development to have him bounce off of Yua's arc, forcefully shattering the comfortable lies she's been telling herself, and moving her along in a direction I think we've all been waiting for. That central moment, where it all comes together, where Fuwa has realized his obsession with his goals isn't going to do him any good in the long-term. Where he throws it in Yua's face that she has the same issue, and tells her, in the most Fuwa possible way, "you need to start moving on too, and I'll beat the crap out of you until you get that". Where he finds himself standing against Gai, the man who promises to rid the world of HumaGears, and with Aruto, whose belief in co-existence used to be so intolerable to him. That is a payoff. This kind of drama makes me feel a lot more like there was a point in everything that's happened up until now, and the timing of it all happening. It helps that Rampage Vulcan is freakin' sweet. I know most people are just happy the obligatory dogpile form (heh, dog) went to the secondary Rider, but even that is underselling how fresh it is. Fitting its in-universe origin, as well as Fuwa's wild character, it's a mangled mess of robot animal corpses strapped onto Vulcan. It's not things coming together in perfect harmony, it's an abomination, and I love it. Absolutely stellar debut fight scene too, thanks to Sugihara's usual insanely intense direction, which throughout the episode is as on-point as ever. I'm very, very optimistic about where this show is heading from here. When all was said and done, the contest arc ended with everyone in the positions I most wanted. The main characters are all in perfect places for growth that fits their respective characters goals and motivations. Aruto is facing the consequences of his actions, and has to work harder than ever to make his dreams come true. Fuwa, who more than anything desires to have control of his own life, is facing the realization he's been dancing to someone else's tune the whole time. Yua, who's always been about procedure and following orders, has to own up to the fact that sometimes, those orders are obviously not for the better. Jin is growing up. Horobi has to follow the Ark's will in an increasingly complex world. At the end of the day, you know, I'd say they pulled it together. The question then, remains: Should this arc ever have become something that needed pulling together in the first place? I'm still not too sure, and I probably won't ever be until I one day sit down and watch Zero-One all over again once it's done. This arc consistently lacked in development for the main characters until largely just in these last few episodes (and, put less charitably, Aruto's "development" in this one is merely that he's no longer allowed to be static), and I think that's a big part of the problem me and so many others had. It was just hard for the show not to feel like it was stalling. Yua has been a big talking point precisely for how much of a talking point she isn't, and it's hard to say what keeping these details at bay for so long accomplished. Perhaps this is the downside to Takahashi's attention to structure as a writer? Perhaps he knew well ahead of time where these people needed to be for all these events to line up so perfectly, and ended up putting them in place too early, deciding it was best to simply leave them there until they were needed again. It's a theory, anyway. Another big problem I've really locked onto over time, that's even present in this very episode, is how perfunctory the action can feel at times. It was never clear why Aruto, after the second episode made such a big deal out of him gaining the willingness to wipe out a rampaging HumaGear, and the following 14 episodes of him cracking jokes and doing wacky gags, why he's suddenly so insistent on trying to talk them down, even though the lack of backups isn't even an issue now. This is the kind of thing I think was a missed opportunity with this arc. You can easily turn that minus into a plus by taking some space in one of the arcs to have Fuwa or someone go "hey, why (thing I just complained about)", and give Aruto the opportunity to admit how maybe the competition with ZAIA and the continued public pressure on Hiden has made him desperate to hope there's still a chance for HumaGears to keep control of themselves, even though he knows it's naive of him. It could serve the functional purpose of justifying the writing (imagine how much more satisfying the Hopper Blade's debut would've been!), and create a nice human moment that adds depth to Aruto's character. As it is, he and Thouser keep smacking each other around, and now that it's all over I still have *no* *flipping* *clue* what they were ever trying to accomplish. They aren't trying to kill each other. They don't want to steal each other's belts or Keys or something. Half the time they're fighting (like here!), the HumaGear has already been blown up, and what's worse, this keeps happening in public. There's an obvious satirical element to Gai's ability to manipulate the public through populist tactics, but it stretches suspension of disbelief to have him smack Zero-One around with a lance completely unprovoked the way he does at the start of this episode. This isn't Gaim and these aren't Armored Riders! If Bill Gates got in a fistfight with Steve Jobs in the middle of the street, it would raise some eyebrows! So that about sums it up. There are more minor, individual things all over the place, but the problems with this arc, which I've probably said a million times, and so has everyone else, because they're obvious, were: - questionable pacing - stagnant characters - lack of proper plot context behind fights I guess, anyway. I think in an ideal world, five two-episode competitions would've made for a really nice chunk of the show, that could've gotten anyway from the terrorist stuff and the focus on society as a whole to deliver a detailed look at these two corporations, giving us tons of tight world-building while effortlessly working in great character growth from the unique scenarios the premise allowed, and I just can't honestly say I think we got that. It also didn't help that we got several episodes that moved the plot forward... without moving the competition forward, contributing to the pacing issue by extending the overall length, and underlining what I'm talking about when I say the show would've benefited from trying to kill more birds with fewer stones. I'll also be clear on this one last time: None of these episodes were particularly poor episodes of Kamen Rider. They're downright good in a vacuum, even. We still got lots of heroic action. The direction was consistently wonderful. The actors are doing good work. The jokes were funny. It was never that I hated these episodes, but rather that I wished they could've been so much more that what they are. And what they are, I suppose, is up to each individual viewer in the end. |
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But second of all... I think really the way to fix this comes back to precisely what you said a few weeks ago: use the opportunity to spotlight developments of different characters, including and most especially side characters that otherwise haven't shined beyond comic relief. A clear example that came to mind at the end of this episode for me was Jun -- he has a whole mini speech about hanging onto his title and feeling obligated to seeing what becomes of the company; which of course creates a clear contrast to Aruto casting titles aside and going off to build something new. Wouldn't it have been awesome for those ideals to have been showcased in a previous episode, and for it to have a great payoff here? Wouldn't that also have been a fantastic opportunity to have Aruto have some sort of "no matter if I was the CEO of Hiden or not, I would always protect Humagears" speech that would also foreshadow this? I loved that ending but it was also kind of annoying to see how -perfectly- they could have improved not just a previous episode but the entire arc. |
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I honestly feel so bad for his character because it really does seem like he has a lot of potential to do more than merely alternating between occasional comic relief and a generalized dissenting voice to Aruto. Both of which are roles other characters starting filling rather quickly. There's still plenty of the series left to get to fixing that, I suppose. |
This is the most awesome episode that i ever seen, its like watchimg 30 minutes movie of fuwa's journey...
That said i still believe the tournament arc is too streach out beyond believe aside from Thouser debut, maybe metal cluster( i feel like this form is very wasted opportunity and should be use for tool to make cirized to hate aruto more).... they should make competition shorter because if anything the long streach tournament arc kinda hurt aruto and gai's character... Aruto mostly eiter yelling "Yamero!!" Or do nothing about gai's blatant attempt to cheating and gai looks like cartoon villain try to be smart if anything.. I just thought the most important compettion is fire fighter one... and maybe the lawyer one because metal cluster debut i guess, the rest of competition is skippable IMO |
Well...This competition arc was underwhelming just as I expected.
The only thing I will keep from that arc is Fuwa's evolution, it's like we are switching to a main protag to another. It reminds me a bit of Build where there was a huge emphasis on Ryuga. Anyway...The way Gai took over Hiden Intelligence is bullshit, it's not even clever, it's straight up bullshit. So far, I hate that character. The series isn't bad though. Let's see what will happen at the next episode. Fish', it's always a pleasure to read your reviews of each episodes ^^ |
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