Kamen Rider Zero-One Episode 21: "Objection! That Trial!" Discussion
 

Stage 3 of the competition between ZAIA & Hiden is a courtroom test, with a HumaGear attorney against a veteran prosecutor.

We finally get back on track.

Just when I thought Gai couldn't act like more of an asshole than he already is, he punches Aruto in the gut and slams a Zetsumerizer onto Bingo.

Also, what's with Aruto's Shining Assault Hopper's eyes and chest light glowing at the end?

The ending of metsubo during the Christmas arc finale was underwhelming despite the build up rush, but I was expecting thosuer to be more interesting, but it turns in to a mini tournament of buying out and human vs Ai. There's nothing about fuwa's injuries or how he's able to overcome it. I expect better writing thus far compare to geiz revive. The same can be say people complain we didnt see a proper vs between zio assault and thosuer. It's nice to see yellow buster and hooh soldier back.

Is it just me,or is everyone seeing a Pong screen? Am I missing something on MioMio?

I think this episode was stronger than the previous arc, at the very least, the introduction of the case and the misdirection with the Raider adds a little mystery on top of the usual competition dynamic (though it's such an obvious frame job and it's probably just Arisa Komiya or the detective dude). Looking forward to Metal Cluster next week too, though a normal episodic plot like this feels like a slightly weird place to drop a major upgrade compared to the last three. Still, looks cool, I'm sure it'll be fun.
It's just...
Feels weird to do an arc about the law in the middle of this arc, because the show is otherwise ignoring that laws exist. Gai assaults Aruto, his guy for the realtor comp causes untold amounts of property damage and walks away with no repercussions, and now Gai just flagrantly pulls out a terrorist hacking tool, assaults Aruto again, and I'm absolutely sure nothing will come of it. Well, obviously it's leading to "plot stuff," he's making Aruto angry and he's gonna make him a new toy, Rider stuff. But nothing from the "wait, that's illegal" side of the issue.
Yeah, yeah, it's a kid's show. Still, weird to in the middle of it highlight and remind the viewer that sometimes, laws exist, and you can be arrested, sometimes on weak evidence. Most of these crimes are on tape! Which, just to remind, was kind of cleverly used in a pragmatic way along these lines in episode 2, where Aruto just comes out and goes "look, public at large, it's not Hiden screwing up here, it's metsuboujinrai.net hacking our shit, and we have it on tape." What's gonna be stopping them from using Izu's feed to show everyone Gai is related to Metsuboujinrai.net, other than a need to have him in the show to sell toys? It's just...eh. Maybe something will happen, they will try to hold him accountable and Gai is just able to pay off law enforcement or manipulate the narrative or something, that at least would be something. Doubt it though.

Also feels really weird to be ignoring the whole thing last episode with Fuwa. So, hope that's acknowledged.

Putting the law aside, it may seem that someone other than the lawyer this time is the Raider.

Also goddammit Yua, you used to crack down against metsubojinrai.net with Fuwa, and the sight of Gai holding the damn belt should have been the last straw for you.

If you could still support this villain, that means you're never on the side of good in the first place then.

Well technically she was a ZAIA employee for several years before the events of this show...

IZU should just go report Gai to the cops now.

I feel like the writers might have written themselves in a corner. With ZAIA already ahead 2-0 it just means Hiden will win the next two whereas if they had let Hiden win last week then this match up might be up for grabs. Although I have faith that they have something up their sleeves with Metal Cluster next week.

And Fuwa was preety cool with that speech he gave to Aruto. You see the growth that has taken place with him. Though when Izu asked him if he was a gorilla... that was good.

Considering this episode is about criminal, why everyone not arrest Gai for having zetsumerize key and turn a Humagear into magia? this honestly make me confused
Also aruto please hit a gym why you so easy being push away and KO by people, i honestly kinda tired seeing aruto is easily being push away when he is not in zero one suit...
Fuwa in the other hand is fantastic in this episode he shown his development by giving aruto advice in this episode which is nice...
I know SA Hopper being nerf but that is very hard nerf and the fighting scene honestly is not very fun...
i know its a gag scene but he should be easily dodge that dynamite just saying...

really pissed at the episode.

The show is certainly still enjoyable to watch, but the writers obviously turned their brain off so far.
Except for that scene between Aruto and Horobi (and it's just about the protags learning something obvious/that we already know), it's once again some kind of copy/paste of the 4 previous episodes except for the "who is the raider" mystery.

same dialogues. Same interactions between characters.
seriously, how many time should we have to suffer the "middle episode Gai is discussing with his chosen candidate and correct him that 99/100% is not acceptable, only 999 or 1000%" scene.
how much more uncreative can you be ? can't you find new things to say really ?

I still like the show very much, but if the beginning was full of promise, the current situation is a huge drop.
The show even corrected some past shows error, it had new fight angles and choreographies (where are the 1st person view fight of Ep2 ? where are the Ep1 finisher kind of shot ? I still have in mind that Ep1 shot just before the final kick that shows Aruto's foot on the ground with some kind of effect, that was cool).

We finally had a female main rider participating to the plot and transforming when needed, now she is nothing more than what Schesta is to the vice pres.

Speaking of which the vice pres/Schesta and that third guy trio also disappeared during this arc. The vice pres was an actor introduced at the press conference for the Zero One show. he is not supposed to disappear like that.

If we introduced a lot more new characters for the current arc I would kinda understand to put others on the side. But we just removed Jin for Gai so far. Still the same number of characters. You built cool characters so far in the first arc. Use them. They're still here.

many potential wasted in this arc so far.

EDIT : also forgot to mention that as someone said, we already know the outcome of this round.
If Hiden don't want to lose the "out of 5", they should win this one.
BUT
even if there could still be a twist like "Even if ZAIA wins the 3rd round, they decide that if Hiden wins one round only, it's ZAIA loss", just because Gai would like a complete victory, there is absolutely NO. WAY. that Kamen Rider will end an episode with an innocent man/character of the week be wrongly convicted.
Absolutely no suspense.

EDIT 2 : the only thing i could see work somehow, is that the accused actually IS guilty, but Bingo somehow win the case and the round for Hiden.
BUT
After the trial Aruto would realize the guy really is guilty and it was actually orchestrated by ZAIA to make him snap and go berserk when he realizes humagear can make serious consequences mistakes => which leads to cluster hopper somehow.

I'm honestly pissed off by this episode and the previous one.
Gai stealing Zero-One's power is getting old really fast.
Also, like some of you pointed it out, we are talking about justice, but Gai and his prosecutor are lying and cheating high time.
Last week, Gai did nothing against his human representative using a Raider key...
I don't like how this is turning out at all.
The only interesting parts are with Fuwa so far, but Gai vs Aruto is boring.
Also, I'm disappointed by Yua...obeying that way to Gai when he is just a complete asshole, what the heck is wrong with her?

Completely agree with the last two posts on every point.

I've gone beyond bored with this arc and am starting to be actively annoyed by it.

Oh look, Zero-One got a Jackrise,.... again. Like he gets done to him every single time. He got his butt kicked,.... again. You would think at this point after seeing it happen every. single. time,. he'd be a little aware of the danger of the Jackrise. But nope,.. because Aruto is an idiot. It's hard to root for an idiot no matter how cool his Rider Armor looks.

*sigh*

This is just re-treading the same past few episodes over and over. It's so boring and frustrating.

The little conversation at the soda machine was the only interesting part. Our Detective is starting to develop a tiny bit of character finally.

But seriously, this sucks.

We get 25 episodes, right? And 10 of them are going to be this garbage contest? Ugh,... this is the first time I've watched a Kamen Rider series and actively thought, "I will never watch this again when it's over."

The costumes are amazing but the characters and the story are really boring now.

Wait what?! Every rider (aside from Decade) has ended around 48-52 episodes, admittedly you're right that 10 of them are still gonna be about this lame ass arc. But no Zero One is not going to end at episode 25, unless I somehow missed a big announcement on Twitter or Facebook.

I thought this as soon as they revealed Gai's real age, but I wouldn't be surprised if he turned out to be her actual dad or something like that. She clearly has a lot of conflict with what he's doing, but is loyal to him to a fault for some reason. Who knows how long it'll take them to address whatever that reason is though, she's been put in the backseat this arc way hard.

Despite my apprehension the last several weeks. This episode was actually... good?

Courtroom drama's are neat, we've got some nice guest actors this time. Though it's a shame that Aruto got suckered into this like, even Izu warned him. But it has to be a win for them otherwise we wouldn't have another contest after this based on episode descriptions.

Like the bad parts were mainly just... Thouser, he's the only one not doing anything for me. I can only watch a man Jacking Break so many times until it gets boring. Granted it seems like even the Ark is done with Gai's shit given the ominous glowing on Shining Assault before the episode ended.

That being said, I'm kind of hoping that Hiden ends up losing. Like they win the next two rounds but manage to lose the last. But if the writers are smart and remember Izu can record things, the TOB doesn't take effect because Izu just shares all of Gai's stupid antics for the world to see in order to tank Zaia's image. Because honestly, Gai pulling out a Zetsumeriser, a known terrorist weapon, shouldn't be ignored even though the writers may just ignore it.

But like, using the repetitive nature to lull us into a pattern and then quickly make a clear bait and switch with the Raider this two-parter was honestly clever. Like I can already figure who the Raider is, but it's still a nice way to twist things. Plus the Lion Raider is just like... my favorite monster in a while? Mostly cause you have a dude having a machine gun but also having removable dynamite on his body to light with said gun and then throw. There's just something magical about it.

Fuwa also continues to be the star of this tournament arc with his involvement in the background. Plus just his interaction with Aruto this episode was nice. Overall a fairly solid episode tbh, even if they hit similar beats. Let's hope Metal Cluster next week is the game changer we need.

Izu asking Fuwa if he's a gorilla was savage. And the Punching Kong jingle playing in the background just made the whole thing even funnier for me.

Holy crap, i just found out that the Humagear lawyer is the same guy who played Tsurugi/Houoh Soldier from Kyurangers.

Sorry my brain crossed wires, I was thinking of the recent Ultraman seasons (that have moved to 25 episodes per season.)

So frustrated with this new arc my brain short circuited. Seriously on Monday after work I like to sit down, relax and watch the latest episode of Kamen Rider. And as I watched this latest episode just retread and hit the same beats and do the same things I've been watching for weeks I actually just started getting mad about it.

This just feels really lazy.

I mean this is KAMEN RIDER!! The exciting badass super hero!!

..and now we're watching Flower Arranging, House Selling, and Court Drama,... while The Hero gets his butt kicked episode after episode with the same exact move (Jackrise).

very annoying.

Should I repeat my weekly segment in which I say that I wholeheartedly enjoyed this week’s episode and cannot understand why people dislike this so much or...?

Honestly I liked it too, and more than the last several episodes. While I'm not invested in the trial, the cool Raider being a mystery of sorts (even though I'm sure it'll be straightforward reveal) and Gai really upping his evilness here makes me excited to see it all come to a head next episode (or the one after if that one ends on another cliffhanger).

It's still enjoyable if you take it for what it is. entertainment.
But in our day and age, it's not enough anymore. We're in an era where TV shows are build on surprises, plot twists, character background/interactions and well written (or at least believable) stories. Game of Thrones, The Expanse, the Marvel movies, Netflix-like platforms and SO. MANY. happened now. You can't be doing like in the early 2000s anymore.

I know that's a kid show. I know that's a toy selling show. But it doesn't justify the level 0 of plot development (well no there is the raider and fuwa thing but that's 3 or 4 min out of 23) and character development of the main cast of this arc.

From the same writer, Ex-Aid, was simple. "beat Kuroto" => done. "now beat palad" => done. "next beat Cronos/Gamedeus/Cronos again" => done. game Clear. But it was coherent and an inner representation of a video game. Stages with minor bosses (salty and co), major bosses and a final boss.

the historical 2-parters from Kamen Rider are obsolete now, or at least when you make it not focused on the main characters anymore.
On a personal level that's what i hate most in Kamen Rider, and also why (warning. this is not a test. unpopular opinion ahead) W is one of my least favorite KR show. The story can be written on a stamp and was developed on maybe half of the episodes only (without having much of a mystery about philip and all. Everything was obvious. That takes the cake for a detective show !) while the other half was focusing on ""NPC" of the week" life and problems (and that's the aspect of KR I hate the most).
Because what's the point of having a 5 to 10 main cast if you take half the show talking about random people.

Now that's what Zero-One is doing in this arc. We focus way more on Smile, the florist clan dude or the house seller dude instead of Aruto or any other protag. WAIT NO. Even worse we don't even focus on the "NPCs". We just recycle the same dialogs and fight scenes.
I mean we're near the half of the show, we still know nothing about Korenosuke, Soleo (the real one and the humagear one), Yua's childhood (or even Aruto's after the incident), Gai's past (or not enough), what did Horobi and Jin do during the past 14 years, the vice pres (why does he want to be president so much ?), what was Izu doing before Aruto becomes the president ? etc etc...
There is so many things you can do with the plot now.

EDIT : and like someone else said I don't remember where. Zero-One is built (at least so far) on a "it's not really a problem if a humagear is destroyed + nothing really happens to a human turning into a raider when he is defeated".
That's killing the tension and drama of the situation somehow. It's not a trivial thing.

I thought Toei kinda understood that, because Ex-Aid and Build moved away from the formula or at least well enough to make it acceptable (ZI-O is a special case as the anniversary show with cameos from every shows).


In the end, the show can still be enjoyable, there is comedy and fights with visual effects, of course it's watchable.
But not understanding why people dislike it. that's wearing a blinder on purpose.

You know, you could have done without implying someone who isn't on the same train as you is 'wearing a blinder on purpose'.

sorry if it sounded offensive, that's not what I intended (I actually took time trying to find a way to not say something mean).
But really.
Is that really difficult to understand why people would be pissed ?
Saying "ok I see it, but it doesn't matter to me I'm enjoying it" is 100% fine, respectable and opinion based.
But saying "I don't see why people...". c'mon.

EDIT : it's like what happened recently with the star wars franchise (staying vague on purpose in case someone would be spoiled), except KR are getting this every week.

Let's not talk about Star Wars here...or at all for what it's worth...
I didn't like this episode because it's a repeat of what we had for 4 weeks.
Aruto is simply stating that a life is at risk here and that they shouldn't do their silly bet on a person's life....then this gets completely shot down.

The fact that we talk about justice but that we see that Gai straight up doesn't care about the law just make this unbelievable.
May I remind you that the guy assaulted a law enforcer ( if Fuwa can be called that...)

And also, for someone who wants to protect his corporation image, I'm sorry, but letting a Raider last week, being left unchecked like that is not "protecting" his image, it's straight up cheating...Which he was "against" at the first bet.

That's not coherent with what we saw so far. ( yeah...except that he is behind the Ark going berserk and the very existence of Mestubojinrai...but nobody seems to care about this at all in this world.)

this /\/\/\

I don't mean this as an attack on anyone, but I think maybe some of y'all are getting so focused on the "it's just repeating the same story!" narrative that it's making you overlook the actual changes that are happening. Specifically, Aruto finally putting together the pieces that Humagears are going berserk in response to human malice. That's a huge development! Not exactly equal to when he first learned of metsubojinrai.net's existence, but comprable.

And yes, it's one that many of us saw coming, but that's because we have the advantage of watching this as fiction. We can tell when something is supposed to be foreshadowing because the show draws our attention to it. With all the other things Aruto has to deal with, it's reasonable that it would have to happen three times before he got the pattern.

edit: nevermind

Or...



hear me out....







Aruto is just kind of an idiot.


:D :lol :lolol

https://i.imgur.com/4DusXFS.jpg

Well, compromise is a step forward, at least.

Speaking of steps forward, this episode did just about everything I hoped for to avoid making the mistakes the last two-parter did. Right away, the trial premise adds some much needed stakes to the drama. I wasn't asking for world-ending danger every week. Having the simple extra layer of a man potentially being imprisoned for a crime he didn't commit is more than enough to make the competition interesting. I also thought the way Gai talks Aruto into going through with it was very clever. He provides a very legitimate justification for Aruto, framing it as being about the potential good he'd be doing proving the defendant's innocence. It's also completely in-character for Gai, as he was most likely certain of ZAIA's chances, and merely trying to disingenuously take advantage of Aruto's inability to put his company before his heart.

So the premise! Aces! We're off to a great start!

Things get even better when we finally switch up the supporting players a bit. The prosecutor's stoicism is a great contrast to Arayashiki's smugness, and our Humagear for this arc is the President of Space, so like, yes. Houou Soldier and Yellow Buster, together at last! What more could I ask for?

So the guest cast! Also very strong so far!

Oh wait, I remembered what more I could ask for: Fuwa's plotline to actually do something. And sure enough, we get that here. Mind you, the show seems to be deliberately holding off on explaining what exactly happened with him toward the end of the last episode, but the overall situation with the Magia leaps forward here, with Aruto getting to have a chat with Horobi this time, where he begins to realize the horrible truth behind the recent string of monster rampages. Once again, this puts meaningful stakes back into the equation, and we get to see the main protagonist struggling with an issue that's clearly going to be a major theme of the show when all is said and done. It's also more great bonding between Fuwa and Aruto.

So meaningfully advancing the Magia side of things! Check!

All this, and the twist of a mystery villain in the Raider, with an obvious red herring, and an equally obvious real suspect that I'd still be okay with, because even if the twist is that simple, there actually was a twist this time.

So mixing up the format! Done and done!

What just might be the best part, though, is that this episode finally marks the return of Teruaki Sugihara on directing duties, which means more absolutely glorious, kinetic cinematography that manages to keep clarity even when things are getting shaky. There's all kinds of great bits I could mention, but one subtle thing that jumped out at me. It's similar to the trick I pointed out with Vulcan's debut in episode 2. When Zero-One goes chasing the Raider outside of that parking garage, the shot of him inside cuts from him running to the left of the screen from the right straight to a shot of the Raider, outside, also running from right to left. Because the shots are synchronized like that, they flow together super smooth, and your brain is almost tricked into thinking it only took them like two steps to get out of the garage, keeping the pace up by dodging the implication that they actually spent like a minute in-universe just running out before getting back to fighting, in a much more creative way then just randomly cutting to them in a different location.

Am I making that sound too elaborate? I probably am. It's like a couple seconds of footage that I squeezed a whole paragraph out of, but I really love this guy's style. It's hard to convey a lot of that without being able to actually show footage in motion, but there are some static shots I liked just as much. Take this classy bad guy lighting, for example:

https://i.imgur.com/aGTGWL1.jpg

Nothing too fancy, but you can't go wrong with shots like this, and you can't go wrong with this episode either.

This is must be the summer movie shooting scheduling hampering the main series scheduling. Everyone's just stretched thin and phoning in.

I don't blame anyone for thinking the last 3 challenges are repeats. This time its different! No need to lump the competition arc as one big failure.

Aruto isn't really cut out for CEO material obviously. I am not surprised that the VP wants his seat.

Aruto isn't putting dots together until this interaction with Horobi. Of course because we already know that he thinks there was some issue with the security, that's why he asked Izu to check the security protocols.

Aruto is getting manipulated by Gai is obvious, one climbed the corporate ranks in a corporation he sold his company to. Dude's going to be as CEO AF! His reasoning runs convincingly from a businessman's point of view, but remember, Aruto is not CEO material, to put it nastily, he's a good example of how nepotism sucks. The competition arc is meant to show us how out of depth Aruto is. And I believe the conclusion of this arc will grow Aruto into a better CEO.

The lines are pretty writing themselves, each reason for each competition about how a CEO is supposed to be, its perfectly waiting for Aruto to counter at the conclusion of the arc, possible while kicking Thouser's butt as Metal Cluster Hopper.

Really looking forward to this arc being over...

Is Gai a good guy? He seems like hes bad, but I think he just is trying to get Aruto to become stronger in business and as zero one. I'm sure this has been brought up before, but I'm too lazy to skim through zero one threads

So far Gai is a bad guy because he is a sensible and ruthless businessman who wants to augment the prospect of his product in the eyes of public compared to Aruto's approach to Humagears.

Aruto himself is bad businessman because he doesn't focus on profits instead of humanity aspect of his own products.

Both are bad in some ways. Both wants humanity to move forward though. Although Gai's move in the latest episode is simply...neutral evil.

Catching up now and just saw Aruto using Shining Assault Hopper while Isamu ALSO appeared with Assault wolf form

Pausing the video it appears that BOTH are using Assault Grip devices

isn't that a continuinity error? I thought there was only one created by Horobi?

From episode 18:

https://i.imgur.com/WpnlOEy.jpg

thanks i completely missed that