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09-04-2020, 07:06 PM | #91 |
Showa Girl
Join Date: Jun 2018
Posts: 9,064
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Quote:
On one hand, I can't look at Aruto's history of flipping out when he sees HumaGears being destroyed throughout the series and even for a moment think him wanting revenge against the person who killed the most important HumaGear in his life is in any way "uncharacteristic", but, on the other hand...
I just don’t think he’d have that mindset for more than an hour. Every single thing we’ve been shown of Aruto portrays him as someone that’s surprisingly well put together and beyond a natural moment of rage is not someone who’s going to think things through and come to the conclusion that he had to kill someone even out of necessity, never mind selfish revenge — this isn’t early Fuwa we’re talking about, or Jin. This is the guy that’s always able to power through it all with a smile on his face, and if there was truly something under there that while time that implied it was a facade? There sure as heck wasn’t any hint of it. Instead this stretch would have you believe his beliefs and ideals are so weak that he’d sacrifice all of them just to kill Horobi, and that doesn’t sound a single thing like the man we’ve been following. Heck, this is something the writers agree with me on as it wasn’t remotely the direction his character was going to go in until apparently last minute board meetings and decisions forced their hand! I try not to bring development into these discussions as the show should speak for itself, but when this is the case I really can’t help but think on it. This was only a thing they had to do because they needed to rush things along, and otherwise Aruto wouldn’t have been characterised like this — because it’s completely out of character for him. But even that aside, that wasn’t quite my main point — whether it made sense for his character or not, it’s just not a satisfying way to see the series end. It frankly was rarely about Aruto and him going on a revenge plot is the least interesting thing I can think of for the show to focus on. I mean, aside from the Ark becoming a Kamen Rider, superseding the actually interesting thematically appropriate villain and forcing him to get a half assed parody of a redemption episode. This last stretch is just filled with unearned and downright forced character drama that doesn’t in any way fit into what the show was, and despite some lovely looking fight scenes, despite my desperately wanting to get into it and wanting to believe this ending was a satisfying resolution... it failed spectacularly on every thematic level to me, from humagears being brushed to the side to development being sidelined to Aruto’s actual compelling development of finding his own path in Hiden Manufacturing and 02 being superseded by his ghost dad handing him a driver. Everything in this episode should work, but only if you ignore the entire years worth of episodes that preceded it.
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Last edited by Kurona; 09-04-2020 at 07:08 PM.. |
09-04-2020, 09:15 PM | #92 |
THE UNSTOPPABLE ONE
Join Date: Aug 2013
Location: Anti-Soul Mysteries Lab
Posts: 178
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Quote:
You know, except for Ansatsu, Wazu, Soreo, and the actual Ark. Yeah, I know Soreo appeared in the finale, but I'm content with the idea that that's Zea pretending to be Soreo to give Aruto the push. Cuz it'd literally make zero sense for Soreo to come back with memories intact and then backtrack and have Izu not remember anything after being destroyed.
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09-04-2020, 10:00 PM | #93 |
Member
Join Date: Jul 2016
Posts: 685
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Not to derail the conversation, but honestly this back and forth between Fish and Kurona just kinda reinforces the one thing about Zero One that's been lurking at the back of my mind for a while now: Is it me, or is the world/setting of Zero One actually too big for the story?
There were a lot of different aspects the show that could've focused on:
Yet based on the producer roundtable discussion after the finale (https://twitter.com/TomConstantines/...320880640?s=19), the predominant thing they always knew for sure about the show's ending was that Aruto would fight Horobi. Which... If that really was the case, why bother bringing any of the earlier stuff up at all? Yes I'm aware the actual reason was to develop the characters and to build a real story out of it, but my point is that: If the personal struggle involving Aruto vs Horobi was the main goal all along, then the writers really didn't need to throw all this extra stuff into the pot, because now it just feels like there's so many different directions the show could've gone, but the writers just stuck to a single route the whole time. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I realize that this all could possibly just be me showing off how utterly stupid and or terrible I am at seeing the deeper meaning of things, but I figured I might as well say something about this episode since I haven't posted anything in these threads in a while (also because it took me an hour of reviewing and rewriting this post before I finally decided to submit it) |
09-05-2020, 02:59 AM | #94 |
Fangirl-Type Humagear
Join Date: Jun 2017
Location: Massachusetts, USA
Posts: 703
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Quote:
The true enemy in this show was always, ALWAYS how Humagears were not truly seen as people and what conflicts arose from that, but the last third seemingly wants to act like the true enemy was the Ark. And that, I think, is the worst possible direction the show could have taken.
Personally I do think that final battle was a satisfying conclusion to their personal character arcs, but to the story of Humagears it's not even a conclusion at all. Since the Ark was hyped up as the personification of malice, defeating is supposed to symbolize overcoming malice, but we'd all know that the real struggle against human-Humagear hatred was still far from over, even without the movie teaser with Azu and Eden (side note, that scene didn't annoy me as much as I expected, probably because it mostly just confirms what we already knew about the fight not being over yet). And I dare say it would've still had that effect regardless of who became the final villain or what their endgame plan was. It could've been Thouser with a plan to control everyone's mind through ZaiaSpec, Jin aiming to reduce Earth to a burned wasteland where only Humagears could survive, or any other villain you can imagine. It still would've had the disappointment of "great, the final boss is defeated, yay... but the society-level injustice that they represent still hasn't been solved..." Which isn't to say Zero-One shouldn't have been about the injustice of Humagears being treated as subhuman! Superhero stories can absolutely tackle bigger issues like that, it's awesome when they do it well, and personally I think Zero-One did a pretty decent job of it most of the time. But by picking that as the central issue of the series, the writers put themselves in a hard position where the actual problem of the story would never be solved by just beating a final villain.
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The mask you wear by choice shows more about you than the face you were given by chance. |
09-05-2020, 03:07 AM | #95 |
Showa Girl
Join Date: Jun 2018
Posts: 9,064
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It’s not even that that I need the final battle to solve everything, though. It’s just, like... it’d be nice if the Humagear story actually got development, and they weren’t stuck in the same place of literally being company property by the series’ end. You can have Aruto and Horobi’s conflict very easily be about it — in fact it’s kind of set up to be! Horobi believes that for Humagears to see any peace, hunanity needs to go. Have Aruto just believe in co-existence and have the battle be about that instead of him moping around for three episodes! This is rider 101, people!
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Last edited by Kurona; 09-05-2020 at 03:10 AM.. |
09-05-2020, 03:13 AM | #96 |
take me to space
Join Date: Sep 2017
Posts: 1,406
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Quote:
Which isn't to say Zero-One shouldn't have been about the injustice of Humagears being treated as subhuman! Superhero stories can absolutely tackle bigger issues like that, it's awesome when they do it well, and personally I think Zero-One did a pretty decent job of it most of the time. But by picking that as the central issue of the series, the writers put themselves in a hard position where the actual problem of the story would never be solved by just beating a final villain.
I think the show honestly had all the elements already to have an endgame that was about driving home the point of humans coexisting with humagears. We had Thouser, a human villain who wanted to get rid of humagears, Horobi, a humagear villain who wanted to get rid of humans, and the Ark which was a nebulous being of evil that the above parties wanted to serve their own purpose. In my opinion, the ideal endgame would have been all three of these forces making their plays for their agendas, but they're all stopped by heroes as the culmination of their character development. AIMs fighting Thouser because they now want to protect humagears. Jin fighting Horobi because unlike his father, he believes that they can coexist with humans now. And Aruto fighting the Ark because, uh... there's probably something to be had there. If the whole Aruto becoming Ark-One thing still happened, that it could have been an 'internal' battle represented by him regaining hope by seeing what the other heroic characters are doing, resulting in some sick imagery of Zero-Two beating up Ark-One or something. That's just what I would have liked most though. I'm sure everyone has their own idea of how the series could go. Probably best left for the realm of fanfic, now. |
09-05-2020, 09:49 AM | #97 |
The Immortal King Tasty
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: Every diner you've ever been to.
Posts: 3,833
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Oh, and there is one other thing I'd like to take a second to dig into in these precious last moments before we all move onto Saber hype, if we haven't already.
There's that line Aruto says to Horobi during the break in their fight that was so clearly gift-wrapped for movie trailer style edits, it was literally the only line of dialogue in the preview. "We're Kamen Riders, aren't we?" I've seen the episode twice now, and I've come to the conclusion I both adore that line, while also having some misgivings towards it. Thinking about it, it's a lot less shallow in meaning than I had it pegged for at first. In the context of that scene, Aruto is basically saying to Horobi that, even despite the tragedy he's faced and the hardships he has to endure, him, and Aruto as well, will ultimately be able to overcome all that, refusing to break, and emerge as people who can turn that pain into strength, and use it to bring good into the world instead. And like, holy s*** that is exactly what Kamen Rider is about. Right back to the roots. I'm honestly a little floored thinking about how much sense that makes, and similarly, Yua's little speech in the epilogue was something I came around to more after hearing it, well... not to be mean to Yua, but after hearing out of Vulcan's mouth instead, in one of his actor Ryuutarou Okada's usual YouTube videos, which in retrospect I wish I'd been keeping up with more actively. He points out, among other fun anecdotes like that the script only said Fuwa opens that car door by force, how the whole idea there is that the show is defining "Kamen Rider" not by the ability to transform, but by just that general desire to fight for freedom and be an all around cool person. And that's great! ...but it also kicks up my usual issues with how flagrantly the name "Kamen Rider" has pretty strictly been defined entirely by having a belt and transforming for years and years now. Which for simplicity's sake, I understand, but it hurts scenes like those two in this episode when even just earlier in this very show, we've got Ark being referred to as a Kamen Rider, and no robot dog came along to redeem that guy. It's maybe pedantic on my part, which, again, I get, but it's one more theme in Zero-One that can be a bit muddled. It reminds me a lot of a line, also written by Takahashi, from Ex-Aid, where Emu at one point insists he's a doctor before he's a Kamen Rider. It's a great statement that inherently loses some impact when it's relying more on the meta context than any emphasis the show ever gave that title. Zero-One is by comparison doing better, since around the halfway point, it's brought this stuff up fairly regularly, with Fuwa's arc even landing on him now having "a dream called Kamen Rider", reclaiming the idea from Gai, who only sees it as a tool to make more profit, as with everything else. So I guess between that, and everyone making their little mission statements in Burning Falcon's debut episode, maybe Zero-One actually did do a reasonable job here. I don't know. This is another one of those "thinking out loud" posts where I don't really have a concluding point, so hopefully I'm saying something even remotely interesting.
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09-05-2020, 11:59 AM | #98 |
Showa Girl
Join Date: Jun 2018
Posts: 9,064
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On one hand, I feel like villains referring to themselves as “Kamen Riders” can often implicitly be read into as a twisting of that sacred meaning, especially with how long the show has gone on. You know how in W, Shotaro and Philip considered the name “Kamen Rider” to be an important thing that was granted to them, and would feel very offended when it was taken by the likes of Accel? That’s often the lens through which I view villains taking up the name. They don’t deserve it, they aren’t true Riders, but that’s the point. Evolt practically taunting the other Build riders by calling himself one; Cronus considering it his property; everything in Ryuki being a great subversion. I think it’s important we never truly take a villain at their word when they call themselves a Kamen Rider.
And since I’ve spent a long time here now illustrating my criticisms with this season, I might as well toss it a bone here — I LOVE how this season uses the name Kamen Rider! I think both Thouser and Ark using the term, for starters; is a great example of the above because in some way they are both a twisted parallel of Aruto, visually or mechanically. Thouser I especially love for how he’s making the name a brand. While everyone’s out here giving grand speeches on who they are as a Kamen Rider and why it’s an important name to them, Gai would love little more than to grab that term, trademark it and copyright it as ownership of ZAIA Enterprise. Kamen Rider, to him, is a product. But for the others? Fuwa grew into someone who’d protect others at all costs rather than using his powers to pursue a revenge quest; and it’s at that turning point he defines himself as a Kamen Rider, for instance! I also love all the MBJR members using it and it’s my favourite implementation of an antagonist using it — because they’re freedom fighters for the sake of Humagears. Whether you read into that as sympathetic or a twisting of the term I really really think they nailed the usage here! Horobi and Jin were used by their enemy before they escaped it and proclaimed themselves as saviours against that enemy in the name of their people. There’s something so, so good in that! Aruto himself is also a great evolution of Kamen Rider in expanding the scope of who they protect, I really don’t think I need to go into detail for Ichigata; and Yaiba...! ... she gets to be in the gang too. On the other hand it’s, uh, all quite clearly for toy marketing. But I still think the writers do a lot with what they’re given!
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09-05-2020, 12:07 PM | #99 |
Fangirl-Type Humagear
Join Date: Jun 2017
Location: Massachusetts, USA
Posts: 703
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I think that's why I find antihero and villain Kamen Riders more compelling than monsters as major villains (when they're done well, of course). It's because they represent a subversion of the ideals Kamen Rider stands for. So like, if a Kamen Rider is someone who faces tragedy and then uses that pain to grow stronger and fight for justice, what does it mean when a villain claims that title?
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The mask you wear by choice shows more about you than the face you were given by chance. |
09-05-2020, 12:54 PM | #100 |
The Immortal King Tasty
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: Every diner you've ever been to.
Posts: 3,833
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It might just be Ark-Zero I have a problem with here, because he was such a nothing character that it's hard to believe anything mattered to him besides wiping out humanity, least of all semantics. Probably more of a sign of the bigger problems with that stretch of the show than anything.
The MetsubouJinrai guys and Thouser, though, yeah, I love what they do with that idea. Ryuki was one of my formative Rider shows, so I definitely see the value in exploring the idea of "Kamen Rider" meaning different things to different people, and that was something Zero-One delivered on in a lot of smart ways. What they did with Jin after he came back especially, I thought was great.
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