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Kamen Rider Zero-One Episode 29- "Our Dreams Will Not Be Broken!" Discussion
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03-30-2020, 08:08 PM
#
32
Kurona
Showa Girl
Join Date: Jun 2018
Posts: 9,064
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Fish Sandwich
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.
So first of all I wanna say, boy, do I sometimes feel guilty just reading your Zero-One posts because every single word is validation for me. Everything you've said I agree with so much and you put it into words way better than I could even begin to, and it's just wild how consistently I agree with everything you have to say on these. This isn't connected to the next part I just thought I'd say it
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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