Episode 9!!

-I really enjoy Izu in this! I can't believe I forgot her monologue in this ep, it's real good! (Also the bit near the end, how she targets Yua by asking her a question but not giving her time to answer. It really gives an air of.....disappoinment? Like a parent asking "who got into the brownies?" to a kid with chocolate smeared all over their mouth)

-Horobi and Jin are a fun pair to watch fight together, real "take your child to work day" energy, except said work is enacting terroist schemes.

-The bit with Aruto and Fuwa on the rooftop, it's a cute gag. Aruto worrying his jokes cause physical pain....


-Horobi's whole thing is about "liberating" Humagears and rising aganist humans. There's not really any kind of point given concerning why humans should get the boot, other than it being the Ark's will. Does this make his villianous decress feel flimsy....Yeah, just a bit. (Of course, we can make assumptions based on the past 9 episodes abt how Humagear existence/autonomy is seen and treated by humans to bulid a case for him, but I'd rather not put words in the terrorist-cultist's mouth, yknow?)

-There's a small detail I'm slightly fond of. Izu reports in this episode that MJBR are not connected to Zea/in their records. This is kind of teased upon earlier, on how Jin was forced to use a computer to look up the word "son", while Izu can merely access the internet through Zea directly to look up the word "passion". I'm sure not being connected to Zea has its uses, but it probably also might be tedious in some areas as well....

I realize I've been silent for too long now. Especially in the first quarter of Zero-One.

So Horobi and Jin, the ForceRiders, have a neat aesthetic to their designs. Its full of hazard lines, strewn together haphazardly, and evokes the look of something dangerous, and I love that look. Even the sounds sound like a bomb waiting to go off, where even the peppy voice of the Progrise Keys gets distorted somewhat in the transformation, and the point of forcing them open to create their suits is just plain cool.

This show explores things a lot of other A.I./technology shows don't usually touch on, and that's that there is no clear answer to whether their evil or not. It's not saying "technology evil" or "technology is good future" but looks at both and leaves the cast to figure that out, and that's a good thing.

And good gosh did the action scenes impress. The ForceRiders in action just scream destruction, watching Horobi destroy Vulcan being one of those instances, and just the whole aesthetic with Zero-One's Finishers. Good stuff.

Yeah, boy, this and the Time Mazine both are really Not My Thing. I actually might prefer the weirdo stuff like Captain Ghost to these big huge robots?

It's a very confident episode! The directing is excellent, I didn't really talk about it at all. There's a great use of longer takes, silences, and bizarrely-composed close-ups to take us out of the wacky world of the first half-dozen episodes, and move us into something more dangerous for Aruto. There's less safety net for him in this one, and the ways we get long takes of him in empty rooms really sells it.

I am incredibly glad the show immediately had Izu figure out that Yua was behind the negative footage, AND figured it out right in front of Yua. If they'd try to hide Yua's involvement for a few episodes, I'd've been a lot more sour on this development. Instead, the rushed if forward. Much appreciated!

It's a very cool suit! Any suit built around Brawling gets my attention, and Punching Kong more than delivers on that archetype.

It's a missing part in the MestubouJinrai story, for sure. Horobi doesn't seem to be too aggrieved or anything, and all we get is that humanity is destined to be destroyed. There's no real argument, or rationalization, or case being made. It's just We're Killing You Now, as an entire platform.

There's some fun in that, in them treating human extinction as a weirdly bloody checklist and nothing more. That's an unusual way to launch a war against a species. But it would probably help the story some if we got a clearer idea of why Ark made this decision, and I assume that'll be along in due course.

I got my Forceriser today! (Despite being the third Driver I ordered, it was the first to arrive. Crazy!) It's an exceptionally cool device, with the mix of Fun Progrise Key Jingles balanced against Terrifying Villain Belt Menace. It, in every way, feels coopted and wrestled towards evil. But for kids!

It's a clever dynamic between the main 5, how Isamu and Yua are on the side of humanity, Horobi and Jin are on the side of HumaGears and Aruto is stuck in the middle of the conflict, trying to preach the good in both sides. This episode really tackles the disease of prejudice and how unhealthy and unfair it is to judge an entire race over unfortunate past experiences. Isamu takes a big step towards becoming a wiser person here, acknowledging to Aruto that there might be some good in HumaGears, even if he still sees the evil in them with much more lucidity. Defeating prejudice takes time, it's something we've all had at some point, it's difficult cause we often don't know it's even there. But with an open mind, people can get there eventually.

I like the concept more than the execution here. I understand the reason why it's so top-heavy, to emphasis the raw gorilla power. But visually, it kind of looks like he dressed up for winter but forgot to put on pants and boots. It's also weird that this form has the distinction of being Vulcan's only non-wolf form.

It's been almost 3 years and I never noticed these details before. Thanks for bringing this up.

I'd been wondering about these suits the whole time! Thank you!

Oh right, this case is me forgetting.... english itself. Blade is pronounced /bleɪd/, not /blaed/ (can't use that combined letter).

The main thing is, this is a war between 2 satellites, Zea and Ark. Zea is the one operating normal Humagears used by HIDEN, while Ark is the one who has misantrophy toward humans and is gearing the Humagears to exterminate them, like Horobi and Jin. Actually, as long as Humagears aren't in Ark's grasp, they'd do good. Even the Humagears who are corrupted and turned into Magia can be traced into Ark too. Regarding this episode, Horobi at this point still talked about freeing Humagears from, but presented quite difficult damned if you do/don't situation, of shutting down Humagears in huge number in hospital to prevent them being turned into Magias and putting patients at risk, or letting Humagears active for MetsubouJinrai.net to hack.... and the former choice would have you being forced to re-activate Humagears if you care about the patients.

While Fuwa'd have psychotic traits previously, actually Fuwa's conflict with Aruto is not that intense compared to some others, like at the end of this episode where, though Fuwa would still mostly holding his belief, he's now more on good terms with Aruto in shorter time. Yeah, Fuwa's terrible sense of humor was an indicator that he'd become Aruto's ally. But it seems that, there's inherent bias to prove something on someone, especially the ones with prejudice. It seems that Fuwa can be only slightly convinced by having himself directly experience something good, in this case from Humagears, while others' experience Aruto talking about him being raised by Humagear dead falls on deaf ears. And there are many more like Fuwa in this case, only wants to view with the lens of their own experiences, and while this is rather natural, this can be troubling, like in reverse example, someone (not said friend's partner in crime or underling) who refuses to acknowledge that their friend is a bad guy, and condones them, because of how being their friend thus they won't harm theirs, but would for others.

Yua's change of heart? Too early for that, her real arc (regardless of its quality) doesn't even begin yet, she's still ambiguous now. That part is a neat scene, but Izu fully shows her worth in this episode, in every aspect. There's a part of her usefulness as Humagear like her knowledge of various data such as the hospital being understaffed, controlling the Humagear system to shut down them or turning them on, analyzing Mammoth Zetsumerise to create Breaking Mammoth key, as well as some of her character development, with her again learning more about human traits, OTW to Singularity, this time, jumping on ambiguity conflict about Humagears being good or not (something that usually the older ones grasp better), still not knowing that, but following what she wanted currently of serving Aruto. There's also an iconic scene of her delivering Breaking Mammoth to Aruto by drifting on the asphalt.... worried what'd happen to her boot sole after that tho.

Regarding mechs, yeah the special effects on toku are actually quite subpar and it'd hurt those mechs fight, or that if not using CGI, the fight would be slow and clunky, another hurt. That being said, there's some mechs (dunno what'd you think about other CGIs) that I'd find delighting though, like Zolda's Magnugiga in Ryuki for its Final Vent. And for its raw power, it's used in more unusual way to manage the huge recoil of Attache Shotgun instead of hurting you with its raw power, making Fuwa still the shooter to Yua's melee.

I was going to say that you're both seriously overthinking the joke, but instead I'm wondering whether or not to rename my account to Shoichi Burrito.

To add my two cents to this discussion, I once left a comment in the discussion for a YouTube livestream on Mika Kikuchi’s YouTube (that guest starred Ayumi Beppu) and they actually read it out and said my username. Turns out that with a Japanese accent, it’s not that different. (They even figured out it was “eighty four” rather than “eight four”)

It's nice to have the resolution be something other than a binary Aruto Has His Faith Betrayed or Fuwa Learns To Love Humagears. Aruto finds strength and conviction in his hopes for Humagears, but he has to grapple with the danger he might be putting people in if he's wrong. (I really like that he takes his time to make his decision? There's a growing thoughtfulness to his role as Hiden CEO that I like seeing.) Similarly, Fuwa is saved by a self-aware Humagear, proving that they can be trusted, but then he's also like There Was That Apocalyptic Red-Skies Rampage Tho. Both guys to got see some alternate viewpoints, and that's great.

I mean, that's the plot of the series, but that's not the point of this story. The point of this story is that Humagears are more than their programming, so their ultimate evolution is going to be up to them to decide. Horobi is evil, but it's not as though (at this point in the series) he's been Programmed For Evil; he's a villain by choice. On the other hand, we've seen a half-dozen self-aware Humagears who've opted for helping humanity. This might be a proxy war between two satellites (which... I don't think that's been directly attributed in the series so far? I feel like we're talking a lot about things that haven't been established in the series yet with this post?), but the message in this story is that you can't predict how people will behave, so how do you deal with that.

Die, considering all the discussion we've had in this thread about how your toku merch spending habits have evolved well beyond what you expected, you'll have to forgive me if I find it somewhat incredulous anytime you suggest it's unlikely you'll ever be into something toku-related. You didn't care for Inoue until you did; you didn't care for Sentai until it had Inoue; and for all any of us know, you don't care about the robots until you end up buying a Don Onitaijin whenever you get around to catching up on Donbrothers.

But then, maybe I'm just getting defensive about this because I happen to like mecha stuff in tokusatsu. Granted, I'm hardly the biggest fan of these CG robot throwdowns in Rider either (although I recall liking this one better than most of the Time Mazine stuff at least?), but you know, that's no reason to go and diss Breaking Mammoth as a concept! It's clearly just too awesome for the show to do justice to!

I'm genuinely fond of that design though. I like how even though its whole thing is being a mammoth (it's whole torso is just a mammoth's face, even), it's also mostly just Big Zero-One? Plenty of neon yellow, it's got Rising Hopper's antennae, it's literally wearing an oversized Zero-One Driver... It's a charming design all around, and there's something fun about it technically just being a form, specifically, rather than a machine counted separately from the rest.

And while the actual fight scene with it isn't particularly impressive, it leaves a good enough impression anyway thanks to how well this two-parter builds up to that climax. I'm kind of struggling to think of what to really say about these episodes beyond that I like them a whole lot. They have a sort of mid-season-finale feel going on, with a (sometimes quite literal!) big scale, and a lot of different characters all taking steps forward in their development. The show also did take a week off after episode 9, so I think it might've genuinely been written with that intent. Which is a really polite way to do that? Waiting two weeks after a cliffhanger like Fuwa blowing up for example, that's fun, but it's also agonizing, right? Knowing you're going to have to take time off and deliberately parking the show is this really satisfying place for a bit, that's a nice gesture on Yuuya Takahashi's part. (And these episodes were by him again. Again, not that it makes a huge difference from Kakehi, but you know, for the record and all.)