Is... that what's happening?

In the dream, he's weakly trying to keep Yua and Izu from obliterating Fuwa's self-confidence for good, before eventually joining in on the dogpile.

In reality, he's waiting for Fuwa to wake up after the potentially life-threatening brain surgery that Yua performed in the Shooting Special, but then sort of ignoring Fuwa's epiphany to say Jobs Are Cool.

These recap specials aren't for me, at least for the last two I had something to discuss, this is the one where I just give up, I have no interesting thoughts to share on these specials, so see you guys for Episode 35.5.

So I didn’t watch these until much later (owing to that being how long it took for a sub to crop up). Though I refute the notion that Fuwa is totally unsuited to anything else. He’s got the self-delusion and lack of indoor voice that’s perfect for acting.

And since this is the only place I can share these, here they are.

Progrise: I keep the security of the company. Security Guard: Mamoru.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=CKzx8CaQJCg

Progrise: I make sushi heartily. Sushi chef: Ikkan Nigiro.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=LQKKoouZVGg

I'm not sure? I feel like Fuwa's training to be an actor would turn out exactly like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6wY9OwqJ2A

Also, hey, it's my third anniversary on the TokuNation boards! August 11th of 2019 is when I randomly decided to discuss my problems with Kamen Rider Ghost (a thing that prompted immediate responses of OH NO GHOST and OH NO SOMEONE WHO WANTS TO TALK ABOUT GHOST), and y'all were so welcoming and supportive that I never left. Thanks for all the feedback and commentary across a dozen different threads!

I always presumed Okada drew that himself in-character?

I would love to know if that's true! I sort of assumed he did it himself (it's too weird and specific for it not to be from the hand of a committed actor like him), but either way, I'm sure there was some internal discussion about how bizarre the drawing should be.

Happy Anniversary!

(I'll watch Ghost someday)

Also, I've been absent on thread for too long. I'll be back once I catch up.

Congrats on your 1000th post!

EDIT: Huh, this is my 1300th post.

Everyone gets an anniversary celebration today!

As it turns out, the man himself drew a gorilla on his YouTube channel to prove he's actually a much better artist than that!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2jCCuul3rk

(No points for guessing the punchline.)

Although, on the subject of the Zero-One cast's drawing talent, during this stretch of the show, the actors all contributed little messages to everyone on the staff blog (or whatever I should call it i've never been sure), and Yua and Jin's actors went the extra mile to handwrite theirs with little sketches, which I found pretty touching going through all those pages when I was rewatching the series a while back.

Maybe that's just how in-character he was as Fuwa, though! He's like, Fuwa Would Draw Something Real Dumb, and then that's what he delivered. Acting's not just almost making your throat explode trying to open a Progrise Key, I guess!

KAMEN RIDER ZERO-ONE EPISODE 35.5 - “WHAT CREATED METSUBOUJINRAI?”

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/...eroone355a.png

This was okay?

I’m definitely running out of ways to say that a COVID-era special was clever within its restrictions, while still very obvious in how it was restricted. We are on one small set, with two actors maximum. There’s maybe eight minutes of new footage in this episode. We’re basically reiterating (and occasionally recontextualizing) entire character arcs within a single scene. There’s almost nothing here we didn’t already know, and anything new is going to be expanded upon in future episodes.

But, y’know, I like these actors! Azu alone makes this thing delightful to watch, with her cutie-pie delivery on existential threats an endlessly watchable approach to fleshing out (literally!) the Ark’s presence. Jin finds some fun shades on his I Totally Love Ark You Guys Seriously gray area, with a tease towards his still-unforeseen benefactor (Satellite There, I’d assume) and Jin potentially acting as a double-agent against The Ark. (Plus, I just love how the episode has him saying that Horobi’s lessons changed his life, when you know he means Aruto.) Ikazuchi and Naki get some good drama out of their inability to see how far they’ve come, with a nice application of swaggering braggadocio and humble inquisitiveness, respectively. And Horobi… is also present for this episode.

I don’t know that I care a lot about The Ark’s plans, if I’m being honest. It’s one of those villain schemes where it takes 80% of the series to have any clarity, and by that point I don’t have any time left to get invested. There’s gonna be a villain suit, and a robot uprising (or whatever), and then it’s basically every series endgame ever. The points where I could care about the MetsubouJinrai plot were mostly ages ago (first act, plus some of the last five episodes), and the show opted for dull repetition and catchphrases. There’s a lot in MetsubouJinrai that I care about – easily three-quarters of the roster has my complete and undivided attention – but The Ark itself? Not so much.

Otherwise, yeah, this was a clip show that tried to do some fun stuff with the format… but it was still a clip show.

This is my personal favorite out of all of them as it not only gave us Azu, which is just a fun idea for a character to begin with, but also advanced the story the most out of all of them. Like, if anyone were to ever ask me if seeing the COVID episodes was necessary, I'd tell them that this one and, assuming they're willing to sit through them, the President Specials. Plus we got a step further in Horobi's' arc, with him refusing to admit that he's approaching Singularity himself.

Yeah, it's really this one and the President ones for me. It helps that they're the only ones that feel canonical, but there's also an emphasis on excavating character motivations and delineating past missteps, rather than easy comedy. The Fuwa ones are kinda bad, but the other stuff is reasonably entertaining.

35.5 a somewhat return to the show as we're slowly working our way back into filming.

It does what's necessary to sort of set up for some things and fully introduces Azu who I enjoy as like an Ark counterpart for Izu. I like her a lot! I think she's pretty quirky in an evil sorta way, and it was nice to see some new scenes even if they weren't much.

Meanwhile buckle up because we're entering a part of the show where even the crew wasn't sure how many episodes they'd have and had various interesting restrictions that kind of enhanced certain parts.

I do appreciate that we have new footage, even though this episode is still mainly a recap of the lives of the members of MetsubouJinrai, the mere fact that there's new footage makes this my favorite of the recap episodes. But besides that, this is a nice episode, you can still see the restrictions of Covid on the show, with there only being two people at the same time on screen at most, but it's better than what we had for the past few recap specials, though it still does fall under the category of a recap special to me, but I still like the conversations between Azu and the various members of MetsubouJinrai. I like this episode (though that might just be because of the reprieve from the recap specials), and I'm glad that we're getting back to actual plot relevant episodes.

I skipped most of the clip shows when they first aired, but did catch 35.5 because it was supposed to be the first episode with significant amounts of new footage. I wasn't very impressed at the time. Obviously, it was a completely unavoidable situation, but the hiatus really killed the show's momentum for me when I was watching it weekly. It didn't help that I'd felt like we were finally starting to get back to a good place after the protracted job competition arc. I still enjoyed Zero-One after this point, but it never felt like it hit the same highs as the early episodes for me.

Now, as for Azu I'm pretty sure that if you go digging in the old episode discussion threads you'll see me saying that she was going to be a one-episode gimmick character and we'd never see her again. That was a pretty cynical take and you'll eventually see if I was right or wrong. Either way, following up on Wazzu and Izu, the show missed a huge opportunity to call her Wilby instead of Azu.

That's ultimately my opinion about all the COVID-specials really: they're nice enough, and I laughed a bit, but there isn't really much to talk about, because it's essentially recap? I didn't feel like I missed anything from only watching 35.5 on my first watch of 01. Azu's fun though, really cool to see her actress play a different yet still equally entertaining character!

-It's actually really interesting in general that none of the things that triggered their Singularity aren't necessarily evil/malicious, wonder what's the point of even delivering that data to Ark....? (In any case, the data retrieval also seemed to override everyone to "renew" their dedication to Ark, so good on Jin for lying !)

So I’ve been checking the Episode Guide, and it turns out that the Malice Learning key apparently doubles up as As’s Humagear key.

Also, due to COVID shooting the shows merch release/debut episode synchronisation out of whack, we got an action figure of Kamen Rider Ark-Zero/Ark-One a month before the former debuted and two months before the latter debuted.

Singurise: Hakai! Hametsu! Zetsubou! Metsubou Seiyo! Conclusion: One!

https://youtube.com/watch?v=JNZrO0BXekY

We don't often get villain episodes in Rider, so it was interesting seeing an episode about Metsuboujinrai and catching us up with them at this point. I guess it probably helps that they're Riders, because could you imagine the Greeed or Lucky Clover getting their own episode? Though a part of me misses when villains were just Kaijin.

It's interesting that a version of Is working for a human-hating, coldly analytical, AI would be more...peppy and outwardly emoitonal than the normal Is, but I guess that heightens the irony and the contrast between Is and As, especially since As probably isn't near as "human" as our Is is.

I'm glad Ikazuchi is back. It's nice that the show can finally explore him as a character and the dichotomy of his two identities.

Jin continues to be best boi.

I'm actually very excited to see how they try to cram fifteen episodes worth of plot into ten episodes. Sometimes you get real clever modifications, or weaker material gets jettisoned for expediency. Could be a positive!

35.5 is absolutely trying to set up a new status quo, and that's what elevates it above the Shooting Special or whatever.

Yeah, I feel like I got a microdose of that this week, where it's almost difficult to remember how it is to watch a regular Zero-One adventure. After five days of recaps and redubs, is it going to be weird to watch an all-new episode? I guess I'll find out tonight!

This is one of my flaws as a viewer, maybe, where I don't have any theories about what the Ark needs from its soldiers via the Malice Learning (!!!) key. I mostly don't care about vague plot pieces like that, where it's all part of some epic strategy designed to etc etc. Like, tell me or don't, you know? I don't have a ton of patience to theorize when there's so little to go on.

Oof. I feel bad for the production team!

He really does! The Azu stuff was more immediately my speed/interest/crush, but Jin's by far the most fascinating MetsubouJinrai member right now. (I mean, Ikazuchi and Naki are great, too! Just not as great.) The actor keeps finding a weird mixture of melancholy and focus to build out Jin's internal conflicts, and how he's trying to navigate the larger battle for the future of Humagear civilization.

Perhaps this just happened to bring up previous character's arks, uh, arcs, but this is about Azu's setup and plot. So perhaps you got it by enjoying Azu here. Azu does have a good debut here, and she's made As (sorry not sorry) the opposite of Izu. Other than how Azu is long-haired to Izu's short-haired, Izu is professional, obedient, serious, stoic, and dutiful, can be blunt on occassion, while Azu is playful, sassy, cheeky, condescending, smiley, and invasive towards what she interacted with. Both are dedicated to work under their "boss" though, Izu to Zea and Azu to Ark.

This also displays Azu's cruelty that she had no qualms enslaving the members of MetsubouJinrai.net, removing their individuality by taking away their Singularity. Though she'd retain their regular personalities while remaining shackled slaves of The Ark this way. Jin is the only exception, presumably due to his evolved constitution. Azu did impersonate Aruto's looks perfectly, but she didn't put good enough effort to impersonate his personality, she still revealed her true personality as "Aruto", which exposed herself. Outside of Azu failing to make a dent on Jin here, perhaps this is also the official reveal of Jin's turn to the good side that he's a double agent against Ark.

I think Jin's ability to retain his Singularity Point is that he lies to Azu over what it is. She thinks he's being honest when he says it was Horobi's influence, but I think it was really Aruto's fiery defense of the Humagears that Jin had been destroying. It's Aruto's lead that Jin's following after his Singularity, not Horobi's. Azu was able to take something from Jin, but it wasn't his real Singularity Point.

KAMEN RIDER ZERO-ONE EPISODE 36 - “I’M THE ARK KAMEN RIDER”

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/...zeroone36a.png

Interesting energy to this first full post-lockdown pandemic episode. There’s an A-plot where we’ve got the debut of Ark-Zero, its absolute thrashing of the heroes in multiple fight scenes, Jin’s defection from MetsubouJinrai… and then there’s a B-plot where Fuwa makes a friend with a Humalexa, and finds out his family is a bunch of corny randos with no particular bearing on the series. They’re both good in their own way, but they don’t– I don’t know, they don't connect.

Fuwa’s interest in his own normalcy isn’t hugely relevant to the battle against Ark, beyond his new-found appreciation for AIs, but even that’s both weird and sort of irrelevant. Weird in that, like, shouldn’t Naki’s journey have been more convincing to Fuwa than some $60 hunk of plastic that doesn’t even know him? Why does Fuwa spending an afternoon with a chatbot engender a fighting belief in Humagear destiny? (Which… this episode treats An AI Without A Body as some sort of breakthrough that Bot comes up with, but isn’t it exactly what Aruto did for the dad of the voice actor back in Episode 6?) And it’s irrelevant in that he was already going to kick Ark’s newly-constituted ass for multiple previously-established reasons, starting with Attempted Genocide and ending with Just Hospitalized Yua. Having him shoe-horn in some high-minded empathy is kind of distracting, and not totally earned.

(That said, the stuff with his family is very cute. Some Dads Are Alive, and they are the source of Fuwa’s dopey sense of humor.)

The Ark stuff is a little dull to start, but I like where it ends up. The beginning fights, where the Big Boss has to show off its unstoppablosity – fine, whatever, I get it. Not my favorite mode of storytelling, but it’s how these shows have always worked. (I like it better when the villain has a strategy to negate the hero's abilities, or creates a trap that keeps the hero unsteady and ineffective. I don’t like the basic He’s Just Unbeatable approach.) And, gosh, I do not love that Jin and Yua’s strategy is the Metal Cluster Hopper -slash- Swartz strategy of empowering your adversary to ludicrous levels, and then just assuming you can stop them. Why in the world did the two of them think this plan would work?! I thought Yua was the smart one!!! But Yua immediately and correctly castigates herself for this boneheaded scheme, so I’m not super angry about it. Characters and plans can be dumb, so long as it’s acknowledged very quickly that they’re dumb.

I liked how the Ark stuff ended, though, for real. The idea of Ark-Zero being a roving, malevolent force is exactly right for this show’s discussions about the pervasiveness of intolerance. Intolerance isn’t a thing that you detonate, it’s an idea that anyone can fall prey to if they’re getting bad information. Having the monster be anyone, anywhere, at any time? That’s a smart concept for this show to explore over the next few episodes.

Real weird episode to come back with, this one. I can sort of squint and see how you could say the two plots were talking about one thing – Family? The past? Facing fear? – but it never feels like one cohesive story. They’re two good plots, but I’m used to this show crafting tighter episodes. Hopefully that’s not a victim of the pandemic!

—

KAMEN RIDER ZERO-ONE SO-DO AI 09: KAMEN RIDER ARK-ZERO

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/...zeroone36b.jpg

Pretty great suit? Beyond the kind of Body Horror feel to its unfinished state, there’s a ton of fun details to this physical manifestation of hatred towards humanity. The one red eye, to signal that this is The Ark who’s addressing you; the wires snaking out, like the cables in the MetsubouJinrai hideout/clubhouse; the creepy half-grin; and all the Zero-One But Painted Black notes under the surface, to show you what the Ark is trying to combat. Smart suit, creepy as hell, definitely like looking at it.

Figure’s not bad, either. Surprisingly few stickers on this guy – maybe a dozen, across two boxes? Lots of painted detail on the torso, head, and left pauldron, and a few white and red stickers to finish it out. Very quick build, with a solid figure to show for it.

Oh you can bet your sweet bippy that Humalexa and Fuwa's little plot were likely things of the pandemic. It definitely feels like she's there to pretty much help speedrun stuff since well, like I said, they weren't sure of how many episodes they had left!

That being said it was nice to just have Fuwa's family be... as average as expected alongside being alive and well, and that being enough for Fuwa.

Anyway I will defend Yua and Jin's scheme in one thing, since if I recall... they weren't expecting Ark to have a Rider Form. I think their plan was to get Ark manifested into the real world into a physical form so they could just kill it for good. It becoming Ark-Zero was likely not part of their plan.

That being said, I'm glad you enjoyed how Ark was handled. They do a really good job of like subtly letting you know that Ark isn't possessing Horobi, and then it really hits when you find out "Oh shit, that was Jin". I also like that, yeah Ark is strong but if you have a super form you can overwhelm him. But that doesn't mean you can get rid of him. The episode is a real good showing of Ark-Zero and a neat little bow to Fuwa's Arc.

Also hey, Omori Hill was in this episode! Get used to seeing Omori Hill a lot more often than normal! I'd almost like to say that ever since Covid hit they've been using it more and more in Toku and haven't let up.

We're finally back to actual episodes after so many recaps, and it's an okay episode as well. I was surprised when this episode almost immediately had a scene containing a bunch of extras even though this was right after they could start filming again, so you'd think they wouldn't have too many extras in the following episodes, but apparently Toei thinks differently.

Fuwa apparently wants to get his fortune told to see if he should check on his family that he has no memories of, which is something I almost didn't think this show would call back to, not that I'm disappointed we got the opposite. We then see MetsubouJinrai reviving the Ark, which is a rather dark cutaway from a plot about Fuwa and his family, we then see that the Ark has possessed Horobi and he transforms into the suit we saw back in the Presidential Specials (so at least those things had somewhat of a purpose).

But, of course, we then cut away, we see that Gai is now letting normal people access to the Raidrisers, which just seems like an all-around bad idea, you're basically letting any criminal gain access to a super powered suit, and even if police and security will also have them, it still sounds like way too much of a bad idea, especially when this is only being done so that when ZAIAspecs go berserk, family members will be able to stop them, as opposed to a recall and a warning to not use them until security is strengthened, but I guess what's the point when instead of choosing a safe option, Gai chooses an option that will make him more money, but what can you expect from a corrupt businessman.

The rest of the episode is mainly about Fuwa's dilemma, Aruto gives him Ai-chan, which is basically just a therapy robot, which apparently helps Fuwa out in a few hours, and he goes out to see his family, and watches them from a distance, and now he's all better, which I honestly dislike, a lot of things in these during Covid episodes are rather rushed, which is understandable but makes you think about how much more they could explore these plot points with 5 more episodes to tell the story. As someone who doesn't care for fight scenes, the rest of the episode doesn't particularly interest me, but this is a fine episode, rushed but still, at the very least, okay.

It's Episode 36!

-Before I mention anything: the show has returned from hiatus! Even though when this episode was probably (mostly) filmed to completion before the show took a break, you still kinda feel this sense of uncertainity behind the show, so we're left with a very open and flexible route in the story for this episode's main plot: "And then the big bad shows up and Does A Bad Thing!" The other currently running subplots are quickly wrapped up (Fuwa's past, Yua working with Jin) so it's a pretty open spot to do anything.

-Oh dear, it's Ai-chan....Hiden Manafacturing buliding their own new AI model based off of Aruto's own vision of humans and Humagears working with each other, its a very sweet idea! But, uh.....let's say I feel very awkward about her inclusion in the story...? More on that later.

-Very sorry, but like. I don't follow Jin and Yua's logic at all on destroying the "Destroy Ark" thing? We already know destroying a Humagear doesn't necessarily mean the AI inside is destroyed, and wouldn't Ark be the most vulnerable being trapped in that big sunken satellite? (It being trapped there meant that Ark could only "act" through MJBR carrying out their will for the past 30 or so eps, right?) We could've just, idk, used the extraction of Naki as a red herring to keep Horobi occupied while the rest of the gang makes the satellite explode or something,, Maybe I'd expect this plan from Jin, (which depsite his growth still makes mistakes due to his limited experience) but getting the sign-off on this plan from the person who arguably the smartest person here, Yua?! I can't follow that at all,,,

-Oh hey, it's Ark-Zero lol. While I might not be on-board with any semblance of character they might have, everything else about them (the suit, the weird goop, how they fight having a real "Unstoppable Force" energy) is pretty cool ig.

I just find Ai-chan amusing on several levels because seemingly what Fuwa needed the most was a disembodied voice therapist to help him talk through his feelings. Like, I think Aruto just made a possibly incredible technological innovation in technology and artificial intelligence right there, and it's basically a more self-aware and talkative Alexa.

And, I mean, she's voiced by MAO who just can't seem to resist coming back to tokusatsu even after taking off as a voice actor. First Sentai, then Sentai again, then Rider, and eventually Ultraman...like, she's been every major tokusatsu franchise except I guess Garo? But that's less frequent. But anyways it's just always nice to hear her.

It's nice to see where Fuwa gets his sense of humor from and there's a genuine warmth and natural domestic vibe with his family, giving Fuwa some sense of closure, although you really have to wonder if this family has any idea that their oldest son is alive and what he's doing now.

Kamen Rider Ark-Zero! As far as Big Bad Riders go, I feel like Ark as a Rider basically encapsulates everything he has been built up to be...just pure, raw, and hardcore machinery taken to it's most grotesque state, fitting for a being created from an AI bred from malice and concerned only with the annihilation of humanity even if it's at the expense of those who are loyal to it. And in true evil Rider fashion it basically wrecks everybody in its way, even when it seems like they've won.

I'm honestly a little shocked that the show devoted even a single subplot to Fuwa's potential family. Like, they even came up with a plausible reason why they're not looking for Fuwa or anything! I sort of wish Fuwa's ambivalence to find out who his family is would've gotten more screentime/analysis than just Follow Your Gut (it's his main move anyway), but it's nice to have that aspect of Fuwa's character fleshed out.

I mean, even then, it's a lot of conjecture, which does not strike me as the sort word Yua would want to see applied to her strategies. They didn't know Ark would turn into an unstoppable Kamen Rider that can materialize all of their weaponry, but they also didn't seem to have a clear idea of what would happen when the Ark was whatevered by MetsubouJinrai. It's a massive, largely unnecessary roll of the dice.

Not to get political, but as an American, I found the Good Guy With A Raidriser solution put forward by ZAIA to be depressingly realistic.

The main thing I wonder about for Ai is the same thing I wondered about back in Episode 6: how does the AI feel about not having a body? Aruto's dream was for Humagears to live in harmony with humanity, but wouldn't humanity be a lot happier if Humagears didn't have bodies that could turned be into murderous monstrosities? Is a disembodied AI as good as a Humagear at realizing Aruto's dream? Is it not as good? This is kind of a massive change from the humanoid Humagears we've spent a season with, and I'm hoping that this time the show will interrogate that change a little.

It's amazing to me that Aruto has known Fuwa for almost a year, and only NOW does he realize that Fuwa badly needs therapy.

Yua's trying new things.
I guess it all comes down to programming, but maybe not having a body is freer in some sense...
Granted we could say that about a lot of Kamen Riders.

Sure, or their specific role. A tennis coach is going to be a lot more effective with the ability to swing a racket, for instance. But, like, how does the Humagear feel about having a body? Do they care? Is it irrelevant to their self-actualization? This is the sort of stuff I'd like to see the show address if it's going to bring in a character like Ai.

Being completely honest... probably a step up from a lot of Kamen Riders. Aruto might be the smartest Rider in terms of like, mental needs so far. In that, you've got him trying to help a fellow Rider get therapy before the series ends. I feel like Fuwa's got it good compared to the many Riders both before AND after him!

Oh, absolutely, I'm just goofing around. Aruto's at least thinking about ways for Fuwa to process difficult emotions through actively confronting them via a healthy dialogue with another person; I think that's a step up over the previous therapeutic methods of Fighting Relentlessly and Shouting About Ideals.

Fuwa has been established as someone with a boring average life, but perhaps that's also required to give him a real closure, even if he didn't really care about his past before. Fuwa's rampage against Humagears came iirc because of his killed family in his false memories. With Fuwa finding out that his past is fake, he still got an inherent concern about his family, which can be different from that false memories, even if he'd not care about the past. Now, here, seeing his family live in peace, sharing his terrible sense of humor that can still brought them happiness, which makes him feel easy and lifted his burdens on his shoulders to worry about them less with them being safe and keep fighting. He no longer hated Humagears since ep. 29, but this strengthened his belief in Humagears too. And as Enchilada645 said, it's good for a series to try giving a proper solution to broken individuals (both Fuwa and Yua), by giving them a therapy, which obviously the emotionless Naki can't do the job.

I can't talk about this due to spoilers for much later part of series ofc, but it really is who Yua is, she's a failure. She had good intentions for joining AIMS (actually ZAIA), but she ended up becoming Gai's tool for quite some time, not in literal sense, but as a pawn that is used and discarded. Then to make it up for what she had done at ZAIA, it backfired as she and Jin gave it a physical body to rampage instead.

Perhaps by this, someone shouldn't be judged by their outer demeanor/impression? Sure, Yua from the outside (especially at debut), would feel like the typical competent person that they're usually portrayed as cold, aloof, stoic, ruthless, etc. portrayed as professionalism which Yua had, but yeah she's not the hypercompetent everyone-carrier (like to Fuwa, even if him playing by his own rules can cause problems, but not for him breaking open Progrise Keys, if he can, just let him) expected from her demeanor. Competency isn't about having cold demeanor, and for the opposite, coldness isn't inherent competency too.

It's a sudden idiotic moment for Jin though to think Ark-Zero can be destroyed with physical body. And as said before yeah, Jin had turned good now to foil Ark and ZAIA's palns, and getting Yua (another human) to hospital. Jin was still anti-villainous in his revival to take care of Humagears, but invade humanity, while having soft spot for Aruto. It's unknown when he had planned to be a double-agent against Ark, but the time he began that was the part he became good (probably the part he suddenly supported MetsubouJinrai.net again after ep. 35). Unfortunately though, Jin becomes the primary target for Ark to possess with, due to him being immune to Azu taking his Singularity (good explanation from you btw about why Jin may've been immune unlike others).

Good that despite your previous grievances with Ark, you'd still appreciate the suit, because I do too. I do like Ark's fight debut here that though obviously Yua and Jin wouldn't be killed off, Ark is devastating enough. The power is battle-based (seems like evil version of Metal Cluster) and Ark makes good use of his powers at debut instead of merely knocking people down with fists while forgetting the power. Like telekinesis, laser beams, and spheres of dark energy. You have the impression that Ark's only about being unbeatable here...

Therapy seems to be, often ignored concept in fiction, due to keep the drama and conflict going or perpetuate character's quirks for entertainment, keeping the characters broken for the story. And even if they're working to put the character on better state, the team's probably primarily about inserting fighting and special effects (+ ideal screaming) as tokusatsu show... which can dillute that.

I really liked the conclusion of Fuwa finding his family - the bit about his dad is ESPECIALLY cute - but everything about AI makes me groan and hold my head in my hands even though I'm very certain it's an artefact of covid requiring them to speedrun some things. I still don't get though why they thought this was the superior narrative choice than having Fuwa, like... talk to an actual person, or why in-universe Aruto thought it was a better idea to cook up an Alexa instead of talking to Fuwa himself. Just... fascinating decisions all across the board, here

Probably because Aruto isn't exactly a therapist. Not to mention it's alot easier for many people to open up to new faces that they aren't personally attached to and/or feel anonymity towards.

Also, maybe I'm misremembering, but I don't believe that Ai was created for Fuwa specifically? Aruto made her as a way to help people have someone to talk to in general.

I'll be real when I say that when it comes to talking to like disembodied voices across the web in Voice Calls... uh... it's very helpful in like wanting to open up? Compared to say like doing it via video call or talking to someone in person.

As a very introverted person who doesn't really like interacting with people, it helps a lot. Just having a friendly voice to talk to and chat about stuff with, I can probably let out stuff a lot more than I would talking to someone through normal means.

So I can see the thought process behind Aruto's decision here.

I already know why people aren't exactly keen on AI-chan though, so it'll be fun to get there when we get there.

Also it's the fact that Fuwa is being helped by what is, effectively, a Humagear.
I think most Humagears wouldn't really think about it since their programming and personality is so oriented by what they were designed to do, so they don't think as much beyond their function until they reach Singularity.

I don't know if that's correct? I remember it just being Fuwa chased by killer robots at his school. I don't recall the show ever bringing up Fuwa's family (fake memories or real ones) until this episode.

All the behind-the-scenes factors aside, it works for me because Aruto's usual method of helping people is almost always going to be making them an AI buddy to help navigate their inner turmoil. Like, Aruto will toss out words of encouragement in the heat of battle, or try and defuse the tension with a dumb joke, but his dream is that Humagears can help people be better versions of themselves; Fuwa's problem is literally what Aruto builds Humagears for.

Sort of? Aruto's looking to build a Humagear that can be a statement piece for Hiden Manufacturing, and Fuwa (conveniently) needs a kind of help for which there isn't an existing Humagear solution. So while there's hope that Ai could be of use to other people, it's really Fuwa's current problem that she's designed towards.

Yeah, I mean... Fuwa's plot here is just the kids version of Her, you know? Fuwa can't confide in a professional or his friends, but there's this disembodied lady voice that he can open himself up to. There's dramatic precedent, if nothing else.