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06-19-2022, 07:58 PM | #17141 |
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Posts: 907
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After a little bit of meandering, I watched some more Kamen Rider Faiz. 38 episodes down, 12 to go.
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06-21-2022, 04:42 PM | #17142 |
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I'm now up to episode 42 of Faiz and the series itself, by this point and time, is ultimately a very mixed bag for me. There were times that it's good, or at the least, decent. Other times, the show feels like a bit of a real chore to get through. I'm also considering watching Den-O next since I have less than ten episodes left.
Last edited by GuardianAngel87; 06-21-2022 at 04:57 PM.. |
06-23-2022, 11:58 PM | #17143 |
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Join Date: Sep 2019
Location: Michigan
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I just finished watching up through episode 30 of Zero-One, as well as the Gag Battle special and Part 2 of Project Thouser. Which means that I am officially done with what is considered the bad part of the season. And I...
I... I still absolutely LOVE this show!! From what I understand, the main issue that alot of people take with this stretch of the show is that the majority of episodes have a pattern to them. Competition starts, Gai manipulates things in his favor, Magia and Raider happen, Thouser does a Jacking Break, Gai wins the day. And while yes, those points are certainly true, I found myself far more focused on the why and how these events were occurring, rather than the broad template in and of the episodes themselves. There's so much great character drama that goes in during this whole stretch, and the show never once loses the metaphor, allegory, and commentary aspects that helped me in loving the first act so much. Heck, while certain two-parters definitely could've been one-off episodes, I found myself not minding the return to two-parters just due to how many personal stakes were at hand. Even when it comes to template though, I found the show doing just enough tweaks and subversions in order to keep things fresh. Takes the stuff surrounding Gai as the biggest example. Not only is his constant hypocrisy and scheming helping to hammer in the points the show is trying to make about prejudice and how big corporations and/or governing bodies will try to take advantage of a situation for their own personal benefit regardless of morals, but the various ways he utilizes the powers he steals is always cool and exciting to watch thanks to the still excellent and unique choreography of each action sequence. Not only that, but it was really satisfying seeing Thouser be so invincible, but slowly and surely brought down a peg as the episodes go on. Metal Cluster Hopper absolutely destroying him almost every time, the fight with Jin ending in a draw, and of course, the excellent debut of Rampage Gatling. It also helps that, even when Gai does win the fights, it's Aruto who always gets the moral victories. It was also nice that Raiders weren't always ZAIA employees, which helps to avoid the idea that anyone who works for any specific company is automatically a bad person. Really liked the Lawyer two-parter for that. Speaking of Gai and ZAIA, I legit love Gai as a villain. No joke, dude's' MO is literally just: He's an instigator, and one that the audience is most certainly not meant to like. And to me, that makes his character brilliant. You should be getting mad that he's profiting off of people's' gullibility and confusion. You should hate how he'll constantly use his position, money, and power to bully others. And you most certainly should hate that in the end, he gains an advantage not due to any moral standing, but because he knows how to lead people on. And speaking of hatred, lemme also talk about about favorite suit in the show, Metal Cluster Hopper. I've loved this thing ever since playing Memory of Heroez, and lemme tell ya, its debut did not disappoint. Really cool power set, a design that is very much My aesthetic, and something that, given what was set up by Shining and Shining Assault Hooper, fits in perfectly with the themes of the show. Heck, wanna know the thing that stood out to me most in its debut episode? It was how, upon interfacing with Ark, what's the only thing Aruto can make out? That the Ark is crying. Crying out in pain, sadness, and anger, and channels that via making Aruto lash out against anything that so much as gets near him. To me, that in and of itself makes for a potent statement on how destructive being taught hatred can be, given that it was Gai that corrupted Ark in the first place. Not just to others, but to yourself as well. And what's the thing that gets Aruto under control, and brings out MCH's' full potential? Love. The love and kindness of all the Humagears that Aruto has helped throughout the show. Hate cannot defeat hate. Only love can do that. Sure, there are definitely some things I could complain about such as Naki's' plan making so sense, the continued conflict of episode 27 feeling really forced, or how Assault Wolf became the official Jobber of the arc after its great debut, but to me, all of those things are so incredibly minor. Right now, Zero-One is very much the Time Force of Kamen Rider to me, and I'm loving almost every second of it.
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Last edited by DreamSword; 06-24-2022 at 12:04 AM.. |
06-26-2022, 08:27 PM | #17144 |
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I am now officially down to the final four episodes of Faiz and if all goes well, I should finally be finished with this series in a few days as well as its Paradise Lost movie afterwards.
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07-02-2022, 12:17 AM | #17145 |
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I just finished watching the rest of Zero-One the TV show, as well as the movie REALxTIME. And my feelings did not change. If you want the short version of my thoughts up front, I absolutely love like 99% of this show. From what I could gather by just taking cursory glances around my circles of the internet, the three major things that people tend to focus on when discussing the final act of Zero-one are COVID's' impact, Gai, and the ending. I will for sure say that things probably would've been better had the pandemic not hit during the show's' run, but I think that, for the most part, what we got was still a great treat. Sure, the recap episodes are a bit of a slog, but beyond those, I still loved most of the character arcs and the overall message being spread. And really, I feel that Gai's' arc ties into some of the overall themes of Zero-One wonderfully. While yeah, the implication that all Gai did was sit in his chair and boss people around is hilariously untrue, and Gai's' love of Hiden Intel being treated like a twist is odd considering he outright says as much close to his introduction, the two-parter hammering in the idea that hatred starts at home and how the trauma we endure in our childhoods has a great impact on our adulthood is a great message to send. Ai's' integration into this and the previous episodes is nice too, showing the power of a good therapist and just how much of an impact it can make on those suffering internally. Really helping to sell it too is everyone in the cast's' very sensible reactions in saying that Gai's going to need to do alot if he wants anyone to actually forgive him. Gai's' hatred started with his abusive father, which he then in turn spread to those around him. It really worked for me. Speaking of the cycle of hatred, Horobi was an excellent showcase of this too. Taught to have nothing but hatred for Humans, using the way Humagears are treated as the justification, his arc highlights how prejudice does nothing for either side. Really enjoyed the touch of realism added to his scenario too in that one or two good encounters typically does not just get rid of someone's' prejudice. The ending felt like an alternate take on Kuuga's' ending to me, and given that I love Kuuga's' ending, this worked just as well for me. Two men suffering intense grief and lashing out at the world finding solace in eachother in order to process their grief? Yeah, that's totally my jam. The action side of it was great too, with my only real nitpick being Realizing Hopper. Like, yeah, I get why it was done, considering Zero-One was long since established as the symbol of unity between Humans and Humagears, but I personally think it would've been alot more thematically fitting had Aruto instead become Ichi-gata, as a way of hammering into Horobi how much Aruto empathizes with Horobi's' newfound love and appreciation for family. Like I said with Act 2, sure, there's a few other things I could certainly nitpick at, such as Aruto becoming the President of Hiden Intel again, or how Naki and Raiden are pretty nothing characters compared to everyone else, but really, when it comes to the grand scheme of it all, Zero-One not only has an amazing cast of characters, not only does it tick alot of boxes for things that appeal to me personally, but it talks about and tries to get people thinking about so many messages that I jive with that it's hard for me to not love it. It absolutely became one of my favorite entries in the franchise. Future Reiwa entries are certainly gonna have to do alot of work if they wanna take Zero-One's' spot as my favorite Reiwa season, because I give the show an overall rating of 5/6. I had an incredible time with it as a whole, and I am so glad that SHOUT chose it as one of the earliest seasons for them to sub. ---- Oh, and for anyone interested in my ever growing Rider Playlist, the song I chose to represent Zero-One is "Evolution of Circuitry" by The Megas, which is a song about robots rising up against human oppression, among other things. Knew it was a perfect fit by the time I finished the first act, and the show never took that away.
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Last edited by DreamSword; 07-02-2022 at 12:21 AM.. |
07-02-2022, 05:15 AM | #17146 |
The Immortal King Tasty
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Oh, so you didn't just skip those! Clearly you are a true Zero-One fan!
In all seriousness, it's still great seeing how much this show clicked with you. I honestly kinda half-expected you to come back after those first 16 episodes talking about how the show went downhill for you at some point, so seeing Zero-One just kinda blast past all that to become a new favorite was really nice.
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07-02-2022, 07:34 AM | #17147 |
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Quote:
Quote:
In all seriousness, it's still great seeing how much this show clicked with you. I honestly kinda half-expected you to come back after those first 16 episodes talking about how the show went downhill for you at some point, so seeing Zero-One just kinda blast past all that to become a new favorite was really nice.
Yeah, one of the few things I knew about the show going in was that alot of people seemed to agree that it was all downhill after the first Act. So it was a really pleasant surprise for the show to almost never skip a beat any time after that, but to find that, atleast with what few criticisms I've bothered to look up, many times the problems people had with the other acts were thing I felt were a bit unfounded and/or addressed within the show itself. Now, I'm not saying anyone who doesn't like the show is Wrong or anything like that, I'm more trying to give credit to the great writing and character arcs that the majority of the show had, even despite real world setbacks. So putting it like that, I guess, in a way, how everything was handled even despite the pandemic just gives me even more appreciation for what we got in the end.
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07-06-2022, 10:48 PM | #17148 |
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Quote:
I have since sat through Zero-One Others, the Gemns specials, the anime shorts, and Final Stage. All I'll say about Others and Gemns is that I most certainly did not like them very much. Others especially felt like the antithesis to not only what alot of what the show was about, but also disregarded the character arcs of almost everyone involved. The anime shorts and Final Stage though are pretty fun. I liked how Final Stage legit felt like a MetsuboJinrai movie(more than the actual one); Getting a follow-up on Assassin Boy was a great treat, considering him being discarded is one of the few things I didn't like about the show proper. So, yeah, my Zero-One journey seems to have ended with a bit of a thud, but you know, in the grand scheme of it all, I'll always have the love I do for the show proper and every other bit of material is produced. From the crossover with Zi-O, to the HBV, to the Aruto vs Taro gag battle, to the bombastic epilogue movie, to the Izu Lectures, if nothing else, Zero-One is alot of fun, and I'll always love it for that.
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Last edited by DreamSword; 07-07-2022 at 06:10 PM.. |
07-07-2022, 04:54 PM | #17149 |
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Hey, I said I expected you to say that about the show! Spinoffs are a different thing entirely!
But seriously, I'm definitely not going to begrudge you if Others wasn't your cup of tea. I don't know if I can get this across right, but I think with movies like that, it's more important that you felt something watching it than it is what specifically you felt? Like it'd actually be a bigger condemnation of the story they were telling if you felt completely neutral about it? You can think it was good, and you can think it was bad; what matters is that you're thinking.
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07-07-2022, 06:15 PM | #17150 |
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Location: Michigan
Posts: 4,424
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Quote:
Hey, I said I expected you to say that about the show! Spinoffs are a different thing entirely!
But seriously, I'm definitely not going to begrudge you if Others wasn't your cup of tea. I don't know if I can get this across right, but I think with movies like that, it's more important that you felt something watching it than it is what specifically you felt? Like it'd actually be a bigger condemnation of the story they were telling if you felt completely neutral about it? You can think it was good, and you can think it was bad; what matters is that you're thinking. But yeah, count me as one of the few people who aren't too broken up about Others not being in the SHOUT DVD release. Wish they'd made room for Reiwa and the Gag Battle though, since both of those are surprisingly kinda important to Zero-One's' narrative. The HBV of course would've been nice too, but I guess if Kuuga's' upcoming release is anything to go by, SHOUT just can't grab those for whatever reason.
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