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06-19-2022, 05:50 AM | #51 |
The Immortal King Tasty
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: Every diner you've ever been to.
Posts: 3,833
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I'm kind of surprised you're confused about this, because one of the things I found so great about these first two episodes is how easy it is to infer so much about why Aruto has the outlook on AI he does just based on the quick couple of flashbacks we get. And then of course, what makes the second episode so great is also how easy it is to tell why Fuwa has the exact opposite stance, and--
You know, it's just occurring to me there's like, WAY too much I want to say about Zero-One? I completely forgot to mention something pretty significant earlier, even, which is that I recently finished a rewatch of the whole thing I started when Shout released the show. So I've already had the show on the brain for a while now, and there's not a layer to it I don't have things to say about. Like: - The standby noise for the Shotriser! The whole "Kamen Rider. Kamen Rider." thing is cool and memorable, but beyond that, it's a really purposeful way to communicate something meaningful about the setting. Die won't have full context for this yet, but when you consider where the Shotrisers actually come from, it becomes very clear why the branding is shoved in your face so heavily. I'm sorry I'm talking about the future a little more than usual, Die, but I'm definitely going to forget to bring this up later, and it's a smart enough detail I don't want to risk that. This show did so much in its designs and everything to get across both the high-tech nature and sort of corporate feeling of all that gear. The difference in Zero-One and Vulcan's suits is just great, for example, and they even consciously highlighted that in the transformations. Zero-One is this super slick hero suit Hiden made that zaps itself onto the user to give them superpowers, but Vulcan is a lot rougher than that. Fuwa is much more of a warrior than a hero, so his suit is this clunky assemblage of armor that attaches itself to him bit by bit to enhance his combat capabilities, because AIMS is not concerned with the kinds of things Hiden is, and Fuwa himself most certainly doesn't care about the same things Aruto does. - I really love the Shooting Wolf suit, by the way. Asymmetry is always appealing to me, and Vulcan is that plus being blue, and a dog, which are two of my favorite things in general. It was kind of an easy sell, but at the same time, I still remember being impressed by how much more I liked the AIMS suits once we started seeing them in action. From the initial scans and whatnot, I wasn't too sure how those designs would really come together, but the actual suits really make every part pop to exactly the degree it needs to. That blue is real pretty! - Ooh, ooh, and then there's the guy *in* the suit, and I ain't even talking about Fuwa yet! Nawata does a great job as Zero-One and all, bringing a liveliness and spunk to that character we probably couldn't have gotten from Takaiwa, but Vulcan is played by Kousuke Asai, and there's anyone in this show with the talent to match Takaiwa's expressiveness, it might just be him. I first took note of Asai back when he had one of the lead roles in Lupinranger VS Patranger, and he really delivers here as well. Vulcan always comes off so tense and aggressive in how he carries himself, and the way Asai continues to match Fuwa's strong emotions throughout the series is always loads of fun to watch out for. - And speaking of people who made Lupinranger VS Patranger so amazing, do I even to need to tell you Sugihara's direction is still absolutely incredible here? The choice to contrast Vulcan's first transformation against an equally climactic moment for Zero-One was an insanely smart choice from Takahashi as a writer, but it only works as well as it does because of how smoothly it's cut together on top of that. There's a transition I've never forgotten since I originally watched the episode, right after those transformations finish, where a close-up of Zero-One rushing into battle towards the left of the frame cuts pefectly to a shot of Vulcan rushing into battle, towards the left of the frame, keeping the motion consistent and selling it all as one scene across two locations. It's a trick I caught Sugihara using a few times after this, as well, and I think it perfectly highlights what I love most about his style. "Kinetic" is always the word I use to describe it, and it's because of stuff exactly like this, where you can tell a ton of thought went into how the motion of the camera dictates where the viewer's attention is. - Then there's the other big reason that's one of my favorite scenes in Zero-One, which is Gou Sakabe's soundtrack. He's the guy who did Ghost, a show that had great defined musical motifs for all its main Riders, as well as just slapping in general, and that continues with this show. Zero-One's upbeat heroic sound is amazing in its own right, but that climax makes excellent use of the appropriately intense music associated with Vulcan. Like, I could immediately tell at the time that was Vulcan's music, despite it being used just as much for Aruto here. If you recall how glowingly I praised Ixa's theme for how much it fit Nago, well then this is the Reiwa version of that. Vulcan's got one of my favorite bits of music in the entire franchise. ...And uh, let's see, what else is there? I guess I haven't explicitly mentioned that Fuwa made a great first impression and I really like him, but, uh, everyone thinks that, so there's probably not much need to elaborate. But again, it's the choice to contrast that with Aruto's own character development that makes this episode such a winner, and I really loved everything they do with him in this one. Plus, it's always nice to have an elaborate action sequence involving Kamen Rider on a bike. Don't get too used to those! ...But they definitely made much more of an effort upfront than Zi-O did to make you associate Kamen Rider Zero-One with his ride. Quote:
Rise Phones... man, I don't know. You're telling me that the company that developed Humagears also sells a phone that's three inches thick and made of shiny black plastic? I know Bandai's gotta sell role-play items, but, man, my disbelief can only be suspended so much. Just let these kids use iPhones! You've got enough plastic crap to sell!
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06-19-2022, 07:32 AM | #52 |
Master Procrastinator
Join Date: Sep 2015
Posts: 367
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06-19-2022, 10:39 AM | #53 |
Veteran Member
Join Date: Jan 2020
Posts: 1,091
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So by this point, I think I should clarify that the Magia are based on extinct creatures. The one from last episode was the Kujiberotha teruyuki (an extinct mantidfly from the Cretaceous age), and the ones from this episode are a kuehnesuchus (a gliding lizard from the same period) and an Ekaltadelta, a carnivorous fanged reptile. And their henchmen are based on trilobites.
Onto this episode, some more interesting facts. Fan sub group RiderTime went through seven different translations for the shine/worker (shain) pun https://ridertimefansubs.home.blog/2...r-zero-one-02/ Fuwa beleiving that he needs Yaiba to give him permission to unlock the key (which most of the fandom believe too) is actually his own stupidity showing. In actuality, the key can only be unlocked by placing it in the belt (basically, it can only be opened when made to say ?authorise?), meaning that him pulling it open makes authorising it pointless. And now, time for my regular feature, wherein I talk about the Progrisekeys themselves. Alongside showing some concept art of Aruto using ones he never does in the show. First up is Shooting Wolf. Progrise! Uchi Makakuri Stay! Shooting Wolf! The elevation increases as the bullet is fired. Unfortunately, due to my habit of only collecting secondary Rider belts in Reiwa, I can?t show you what that sounds like. I can show you this brief video involving the ShotRiser and the memorial Shooting Wolf key I made though And borrowing a time saving trick from Gaim and Ex-Aid, the legend items in his toyline remix their jingles from the base toys. Though unlike Gaim grouping Legends to each of the 5 main Riders (Kouta gets milestone Riders, Kaito gets Riders that turned into monsters, Micchy gets Riders with a connection to the number 2, Taketora gets Riders from both the darkest series and the lightest, while Oren gets the ?weird? ones) and Ex-Aid, which had some stealth jokes in the choices (Kuuga - Mighty Action X, Ryuki - Drago Knight Hunter Z, Hibiki - DoReFiMa Beat and so on), Zero?One?s are entirely random. Fullbottle, shake shake, BestMatching Build! A genius physicist whose mind surpasses all And finally, a look at what if Fuwa used Rising Hopper ShotRise! Rising Hopper! A jump to the sky turns to a rider kick. Quote:
- Then there's the other big reason that's one of my favorite scenes in Zero-One, which is Gou Sakabe's soundtrack. He's the guy who did Ghost, a show that had great defined musical motifs for all its main Riders, as well as just slapping in general, and that continues with this show. Zero-One's upbeat heroic sound is amazing in its own right, but that climax makes excellent use of the appropriately intense music associated with Vulcan. Like, I could immediately tell at the time that was Vulcan's music, despite it being used just as much for Aruto here. If you recall how glowingly I praised Ixa's theme for how much it fit Nago, well then this is the Reiwa version of that. Vulcan's got one of my favorite bits of music in the entire franchise.
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06-19-2022, 12:41 PM | #54 |
Veteran Member
Join Date: Jan 2020
Posts: 1,290
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KAMEN RIDER ZERO-ONE EPISODE 2 - ?ARE A.I.S ENEMIES? ALLIES??
Ha ha ha, Fuwa. A lot of other things happen in this episode ? MetsubouJinrai.Net is exposed to the public as the perpetrators of the recent Humagear rampages, Aruto struggles with everyone looking to him for answers, his dad was maybe a Humagear (?) ? but the big news this episode is the time we spent with the AIMS crew, and Fuwa in particular. Quote:
Along for the ride this episode is Fuwa?s (presumably) long-suffering co-worker Yaiba, and she?s already my favorite character on the show. I?m a sucker for competent women surrounded by abject failures of masculinity, so it follows that I found Yaiba to be a very entertaining foil to Fuwa?s ridiculousness. She?s a cop whose partner thinks he?s a soldier, and you can see on her face that way too much of her job is keeping this dude from trying to eat the face of every robot he sees. As a mismatched buddy cop team for a toku show, they?re amazing.
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Great episode, across the board. I liked how the story tried (maybe a little too bluntly) to contrast Aruto?s sense of protection with Fuwa?s sense of righteous fury, especially through the by now standard eye-catching fight sequence. The fight through the shipyard used so many cool techniques ? some POV shots, some multi-level moves, some slo-mo, and a beautifully staged finisher from Vulcan. This show?s proficiency with fight choreography? I feel like it?s going to be this thread?s I Forgot To Mention The Suits? It?s so good, and I barely feel like I did it justice. Still! Just one more element of a really fun second installment.
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KAMEN RIDER ZERO-ONE SO-DO AI 01: KAMEN RIDER VULCAN - SHOOTING WOLF
I like the two Shotriser suits a whole lot. (I also like how the show works the word Rise into so many things? Good branding, and I like the emphasis on things becoming more than what they began as.) Unlike the clean symmetry of the Zero-One suit, Vulcan has a more unfinished asymmetry. It looks less agile, more destructive. Little spikes come off the blue parts, and even the torso looks angry. Quote:
Melodrama is what I come to kamen rider for so this is pretty great. I also like that Fuwa, Hiiro, and Taiga all processed their trauma differently. Hiiro became cold, taiga got a hero complex, and fuwa was consumed by rage. It's all very nice tbh, and shows a diversity to the writer.
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The most complete non-wiki encyclopedias for Kamen Rider series (currently only found Ryuki and OOO's). Last edited by DreadBringer; 06-19-2022 at 12:43 PM.. |
06-19-2022, 03:44 PM | #55 |
Standing By
Join Date: Feb 2020
Location: USA
Posts: 2,108
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KAMEN RIDER ZERO-ONE EPISODE 2 - ?ARE A.I.S ENEMIES? ALLIES??
Fuwa?s great. He?s great. He?s all rage, and nothing else. He had a formative trauma, and he let it envelope him in unquenchable fury. The rules are irrelevant, if they stand in the way of his mission. The entire world exists to bear witness to his vengeance. He?s an investigator that asks no questions, and shoots every suspect. His Henshin sequence is him breaking open a collectible and shooting himself with a violence that protects him from the world. He reminds me a bit of Nago from Kiva, in how hilariously psychotic he is. The actor plays it entirely straight, which (if anything) makes it even funnier to me. He?s the latest in a line of absolutely bonkers secondaries, the newest lunatic with a grudge that Isn?t Here To Make Friends and considers the title character to be a potential Finisher recipient, and nothing more. You'd be surprised how many times Isamu can strain to break open a Progrise Key without it ever getting old. There's something inherently cool and manly about watching him do that while shouting words of determination through the pain. It's completely impractical, since he could just insert the Key like Yua does, which I recall a few people complained about. But who cares, right? It looks bad*ss and it totally fits his anti-technology personality. "Why the hell would I trust a goddamn machine to do my job when I can do it myself!", that sounds like something I imagine he would say. Comparing him to Nago is very apt, since they both have a prejudice against their respective shows' races. Same goes for Gou. These are all very flawed characters, but I think that's what makes it so fascinating to watch, as they learn to overcome that prejudice and see the world in a better light. However, Nago is self-righteous in general, while Isamu and Gou have more personal justifications for their hatred. There's also the endearing trait that Isamu is the only person who finds Aruto's jokes humorous, but he tries desperately to hide his reaction from others out of embarrassment, since he wants to maintain a reputation of strength and intimidation. He also probably resents that the president of the company that created the robots that ruined his middle school life can somehow make him feel an emotion other than anger. While it may not be quite as great as Sento/Ryuuga, I think Aruto/Isamu is a solid ship with a similar foundation. Quote:
Great episode, across the board. I liked how the story tried (maybe a little too bluntly) to contrast Aruto?s sense of protection with Fuwa?s sense of righteous fury, especially through the by now standard eye-catching fight sequence. The fight through the shipyard used so many cool techniques ? some POV shots, some multi-level moves, some slo-mo, and a beautifully staged finisher from Vulcan.
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KAMEN RIDER ZERO-ONE SO-DO AI 01: KAMEN RIDER VULCAN - SHOOTING WOLF
It?s a great color scheme. I?m not gonna be like All Secondaries Should Be Blue, but I think it?s generally a smart move. It?s got the same red piping, to tie in with Zero-One?s suit, but we?ve got blue over a white undersuit, rather than COLOR over a black undersuit. It nicely casts Vulcan as cool, imposing. Something about that blue and white just says that this dude is not going to save anyone. Quote:
The funniest recurring feature in the first two episodes is how much property Hiden destroys, totally unnecessarily. Did they need to create a Henshin that lets a giant metallic grasshopper stomp around first? Did they need to fire the Rise Hopper from space into the goddamn basement, instead of letting Aruto take an elevator up to it? (And then he drives it along a bunch of windows!!!) For a company that's all about how technology can benefit mankind, I feel like the killer robots are the least of their problems.
On second thought, why is the Rise Hopper stored in Zea? Why does it need to transform from a cellphone way too big for anybody to use? It feels redundant and impractical! Quote:
RealEyez is a decent OP, but I feel like the lyrics are a little too generic and on the nose, like, "A new era", or, "Cut through fate", they're not really saying anything specific to Zero One, outside of the meta part about it being the first Reiwa Rider show.
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06-19-2022, 04:28 PM | #56 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
Join Date: Aug 2019
Location: Chicago, IL
Posts: 6,159
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Fuwa beleiving that he needs Yaiba to give him permission to unlock the key (which most of the fandom believe too) is actually his own stupidity showing. In actuality, the key can only be unlocked by placing it in the belt (basically, it can only be opened when made to say ?authorise?), meaning that him pulling it open makes authorising it pointless.
Amazing. Quote:
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I think the Rise Phones are a great bit of this show's world-building, honestly. You see everyone using them, and it lets you know how big of a company Hiden is in this universe. If they didn't look so distinctive, that would absolutely not come across nearly as well. A Hiden logo on a generic smartphone doesn't really pop on the camera the same way, you know? It's the same way Humagears all have really big headphones on. It's a much stronger visual.
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Fuwa's quirk of ripping open Progrise Keys is both funny and displays his rage, also about how he kinda has abnormal human strength, filling 2 tasks at once, but it's clear that Fuwa's the over-the-top and theatrical character too. Though I'd say that I'm a bit surprised that you actually deem Fuwa as psychotic here, as those characters being funny and entertaining (oh, blatantly for Fuwa in his sense of humor) can make them being seen as something more lighthearted, and thus have their actual dark qualities being downplayed (including actual villains).
That's one of the hidden joys of Fuwa, after only a couple episodes. He's arguably less of a functional human being than the human-shaped robots? Quote:
Because her and other examples of females you mention all share a form of this, like Ozawa, and it seems that females are only deemed as competent and tough when their demeanor is like that, which no offense, seems to push the agenda that femininity is bad and inherently weak, and women should shed them completely to become 'strong'.
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You'd be surprised how many times Isamu can strain to break open a Progrise Key without it ever getting old. There's something inherently cool and manly about watching him do that while shouting words of determination through the pain. It's completely impractical, since he could just insert the Key like Yua does, which I recall a few people complained about. But who cares, right? It looks bad*ss and it totally fits his anti-technology personality.
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06-19-2022, 05:09 PM | #57 |
Showa Girl
Join Date: Jun 2018
Posts: 9,064
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He certainly didn't die, but Okada - Fuwa's actor - definitely put a huge amount of work into his role! I won't get into it - partly because spoilers, partly because I don't remember all the details of every specific example - but there's a lot of stuff he gave specific input on like small changes to certain lines, adlibbed motions, all the works that he later went into on his Youtube channel (which, by the way, he's a let's player!). Gave me a lot of respect for the guy and it factors in a lot to what makes me like the character so much
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06-19-2022, 06:42 PM | #58 |
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He certainly didn't die, but Okada - Fuwa's actor - definitely put a huge amount of work into his role! I won't get into it - partly because spoilers, partly because I don't remember all the details of every specific example - but there's a lot of stuff he gave specific input on like small changes to certain lines, adlibbed motions, all the works that he later went into on his Youtube channel (which, by the way, he's a let's player!). Gave me a lot of respect for the guy and it factors in a lot to what makes me like the character so much
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06-19-2022, 07:44 PM | #59 |
Kaiju or Hero?
Join Date: Jan 2021
Location: Even I Don't Know Anymore.
Posts: 1,397
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Quote:
He certainly didn't die, but Okada - Fuwa's actor - definitely put a huge amount of work into his role! I won't get into it - partly because spoilers, partly because I don't remember all the details of every specific example - but there's a lot of stuff he gave specific input on like small changes to certain lines, adlibbed motions, all the works that he later went into on his Youtube channel (which, by the way, he's a let's player!). Gave me a lot of respect for the guy and it factors in a lot to what makes me like the character so much
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06-19-2022, 08:50 PM | #60 |
I have a problematic type
Join Date: Jan 2012
Posts: 10,426
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I am 1000% in on the Fuwa love train. Very fun character who often goes into everything he does way harder than he has to. One of my all-time favorite henshin sequences, too, with that defiant bullet-punch as its climax.
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