I figured! If there's ever actual fire, you're going to find a Kamen Rider in the adjacent quarry.

Or a church.

It reminds me of one of Gentaro's catchphrases..."Kamen Rider Fourze! Let's settle this one-on-one!" (or whichever translation you prefer).

How has no one posted the dragon boxer poster yet?

Oh, and since I forgot to tease Die about this earlier:

I'm really looking forward to some time in the future, when you make a post telling us how watching Revice somehow resulted in you buying dozens of Rider plushies all because you thought Lovekov was cute. You'll tell yourself you just need a Jeanne to go with it, and there'll be no turning back! :p

Definitely not; I think pretty much everyone made that connection immediately. Even Takahashi was apparently consciously trying to make sure he didn't write them exactly the same way.

???

https://i.imgur.com/qU9juzx.png

I might be misunderstanding what you're saying here somehow, but Punching Kong's gloves don't actually cover the hands completely.

I don't really have anything to add to these two bits, but it's just nice seeing you thinking on a similar wavelength to me with this show. These remarks both get at major reasons why I like Aruto so much.

--Hidenori Ishida somewhere on the set? :p

I don't remember how my subs had it, unfortunately. I should watch that show again someday!

I don't get this reference?

The PC keyboard one, that was the one on Tokullectibles I had to keep talking myself out of. I am way ahead of you on this!

True, and I definitely forgot about that shot. I knew the hands came out of the gloves, but there's still a very small amount of dexterity to be wrung out of those massive mitts hanging off the back of Fuwa's hands. I know it's a shotgun, but I would not trust the accuracy of a shot fired from those hands in that suit.

I honestly forgot he still had the use of his hands in Punching Kong. The giant gorilla arms kind of give you the impression it's just them.

He’s an episode early. He’s referring to an Easter egg from next episode. (Which I will be covering)

KAMEN RIDER ZERO-ONE EPISODE 6 - “I WANT TO HEAR YOUR VOICE”

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/.../zeroone6a.png

As an exploration of technology’s increasing role in the mitigation of grief, I thought this was enormously moving and inarguably successful. As an episode of a tokusatsu series for children, I thought this was exhilarating and charming. As an exploration of technology’s increasing role in the mitigation of grief within an episode of a tokusatsu series for children, there were a few bumps in the road.

I got choked up a couple times, though, so it’s not like this episode was a miss for me. Multiple scenes felt like the show was intruding on something too personal to be shared – the deepest sadness of a father’s loss – and you can see from Aruto’s face that this situation can’t stay as it is. Memorializing someone through technology, it’s become more and more commonplace. Facebook pages are left as monuments to lives, photos are preserved digitally, machine learning is bringing stills to life… and that’s not even counting speculative tech like holograms or whatever. We’ve always used technology to remember the things important to us, and to feel closer to the people important to us. Someone trying to save their daughter’s memory through a Humagear is an idea as hopeful to some as it is abhorrent to others. What’s the difference between a memory and a ghost, you know?

The fact that we’re witnessing such raw and intimate emotion means this isn’t really a story with a lesson, and I appreciated that. Suggesting there’s a singular correct and healthy way to grieve a child… god, talk about abhorrent. What we get here is messy, and that’s as it should be. Seiji knows he broke the law, and he knows that buying a simulacrum of his deceased daughter to live out that woman’s unrealized dreams is, at best, uncomfortable to witness, and at worst, nauseating to telescope out. (It definitely robs that deceased woman of her individuality and personhood, flattening her existence down to Daughter and nothing greater.) He’s a man that’s grieving, and he’s trying to figure out how best to honor a memory while preserving his sanity. Aruto’s solution is to give Seiji a few days to wind things down, because even the massive goodwill and sincere sympathy of Zero-One needs to be balanced against destructive self-deception. (Fuwa’s version of goodwill and sympathy is to not immediately shoot both Seiji and Seine, and that’s to be commended.) There’s nothing that’s a sure fix; Aruto’s been in Seiji’s shoes, and he knows he can only hope to cushion this guy’s fall.

Added to this exploration of a parent’s love is Jin’s attempt to understand what it is to be a son to Horobi. For Horobi, it’s the best possible definition for a lifeform he made, and that's all. For Jin, it comes with expectations of affection and support, which turn out to be laughably mistaken once Horobi slaps a Forceriser on Jin and says Go Kill. Luckily (for us, only for us) that leads to an exciting action sequence where the brand-new Kamen Rider Jin proceeds to wipe the floor with Zero-One. Valkyrie shows up to sell the new Lightning Hornet Progrise Key, defeating the episode’s Magear with electricity attacks (!) and chest bees (?!), and it’s all very thrilling. Super fun action sequence.

The problem, for me, is that the action sequence is almost hilariously incongruent to the pathos and sorrow of the preceding two Acts. We pivot from a man trying to navigate a future without the person he cared the most about, and a robot boy trying to understand what means to have a parent, to a frog-headed monster (with a smaller, human-sized head inside its mouth) and a mute supervillain brawling with superheroes. It all happens so gracelessly that it’s almost offensive, and it keeps the finale from feeling like a natural consequence of the story we were invested in. It’s like someone put the last reel of Iron Man at the end of Ordinary People. We were having a nuanced, complicated discussion about processing grief, and then the episode blew all that up to, uh, blow stuff up.

But the resolution is strong, with Aruto replacing the destroyed Seine with an Emotional Support Alexa, basically. It’s a nice choice for the story to make, because even Aruto’s like I Hope This Helps But I Don’t Know. There’s no additional condemnation of Seiji as deluded or troubled or whatever. He’s just given something that can keep his grief in private, with the hope that it’ll allow him to process his emotions without as much stress and law-breaking. Like, people feel weird emotions all the time, and maybe technology can help them work through it in safety. Could be worth a shot!

—

KAMEN RIDER ZERO-ONE SO-DO AI 03: KAMEN RIDER JIN - FLYING FALCON

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/.../zeroone6b.jpg

First one of these that I’ve actually built alongside an episode!

Fun to do, this one. The gray bits on the arms and legs are all stickers, and there are a couple on the Forceriser. The black’s all painted on the undersuit. The entire second box, all of the suit parts are completely painted; the only stickers are for the bow and the stand’s nameplate. It makes for some super easy stickering and construction, with the only trip-up being an inability to line up the stickers for the boots. They need to fold around the toes, and it’s really difficult to lay out where they should go before you start applying them. Finished product is really nice, though! The shade of pink/magenta is a little less vibrant than what’s on the show, but the armor pieces and stuff all look right.

I’m a big fan of the MetsubouJinrai suits. Probably my favorite designs for the whole show, that I’ve seen? I like how Jin’s suit is highly symmetrical, but the different types of metal add a discordant look to everything. (Which the SO-DO stickers replicate really well!) It’s even and uneven simultaneously, which is tough to pull off without looking goofy. The different textures to the metal add to the feeling that this suit is kit-bashed, stolen from another source. The straps continue that expression, missing the cleanliness of Zero-One and the shiny craftsmanship of the AIMS suits. This one’s aggressively tactical and practically hotwired. It looks like a villain suit. The helmet’s a nice finishing touch, the profile of a soaring falcon giving the eyes a menacing triangular shape.

Overall, it’s a really eye-catching suit. We’d seen Horobi in low-light and cameos appearances, but this is the first Forceriser suit we’ve gotten a good look at. The gray and pink/magenta absolutely pop, and it looks like a suit that can give Zero-One a run for his money. Big fan of this one!

Episode 6!

-Yeah, this is a very unique episode, not just for 01, but for Rider as a whole maybe?

-Grief is such a complicated thing. It hits differently for everyone, and similarly with how people cope. Because of this, I feel a bit awkward judging a character's actions during grief and how they process it. Beside the Obvious Dangerous Methods, it just feels terribly scummy to say "This character should've handled their grief in X or Y way!" because of that, yknow? Essentially comissioning a robot and turning them more or less into your daughter because you can't get over her death, it's......No words, really.

- When Seine starts spouting off lines that she's obviously learned from watching videos featuring Seiji's daughter, it's so....sad. Forgive me, but it even starts to get deeply uncomfortable for me. Just like, Seine has the appearance of an adult woman, but all the lines she's learned are taken from obviously a much younger stage of the deceased life? I suppose we've all done it, remembering our loved ones in a super speific, often idealized angle, but bringing technology in the mix.....Seine exists to be Seiji's daughter, and fill out a dream his late daughter had. Isn't it kind of fucked up to ""revive"" her in such a curated form, as if there's nothing else to remember? (Not to mention the overly complicated angle of him "profiting" off of the voice and face of the deceased as her manager depsite his intentions, but that's far too much to get into.)

-I wonder, what Koreonosuke was thinking when he made that Humagear for Aruto. Was it purely for young Aruto's support, but maybe it also for his sake as well.....?

-Oh, and we got a little sideplot for Jin today! It's really striking, how this kid who parades around the battefield like a playground, suddenly lurches for the Magia belt, trying to rip it out before it's too late. Seeing Jin's pain about a topic he doesn't fully understand (but wants to know more of!) is a really interesting contrast to Izu's search for "passion" last episode. Too bad his dad's like, a terroist-cultist who doesn't give a shit about any of that.

-Completely forgot about both Jin's rider form and Lightning Hornet *both* debuting in this episode. The action really feels like a second thought to me, considering how visceral the "Humagear of the Week" story is. Love how unmistakably pink Jin is, though.

-The ending for Seiji, ah....I say I dont like judging chars by how they react/cope with grief, but I wonder, is that solution really for the best? Only time will tell. At least, for now, Seiji can grieve without the threat of jailtime over his head.

-I'm not sure what kind of a future where we rely an AI for emotional support is like, or if I'd even want something like that, but surely if it's able to help even a handful of people, perhaps I wouldn't mind it.

-Ending this episode of a double "Aruto ja naito", I sure did need that after all that.

It's a story that sort of immediately disregards Fuwa (he briefly shows up in the finale to marvel at Yua's badass new form) despite him kind of having a really good point about how Seiji's actions are both illegal and massively disrespectful to Seine's memory. (Fuwa sort of frames it in a How Dare You Treat A Robot As Your Child way, but the laws he's righteously protecting seem to be more about not trying to replicate the dead.) The episode elides the grosser aspects of Seiji's actions -- the infantilizing nature of his idealized relationship with his daughter, not least of all -- to focus on how badly he's processing his loss, and I wonder if it would've been improved by adding Fuwa as a forceful advocate for the daughter's independence from her father's grief.

I really like this part, how the show treats emotional support as kind of nebulous and hard to quantify. It's better for Seiji to not try and resurrect his daughter, but maybe it's still not okay to have conversations with her everyday? If they'd attempted to end this story with Seiji all fixed or whatever, it'd seem callous. This open-ended conclusion, where this guy needs to figure out what his world is going to be like without his daughter around, that felt nicely observed.