I think I need to wait for at least next week to say entirely what I think about this one, because depending on what they do with that cliffhanger, my opinion could range anywhere from "Ohooh, exciting" to "Umm, really?" On stuff purely from this episode

- Humagear plot is nice, if a little superfluous, especially in how it didn't really have an ending (see what I mean, cliffhangers get in the way), but I'm a sucker for seeing how many different types of Humagear are out there.

- Yua: "Hey, you know what will help Fuwa deal with his trauma of having his brain messed with? Messing with his brain more!

- Hey Shining Hopper, nice to see you again. It's at least a little funny, becaue it implies that Aruto doesn't even think Horobi is worth using Metal Cluster on. Or maybe he just forgot to pack it that day.

It's funny that Aruto is suppose to be the main character...yet he feels like a side character in his own show, when it's the other characters driving the plot.
I think I figured it out on why I'm finding this show boring, Aruto I feel isn't an interesting character, while the other characters are interesting and drive the plot. Reminds me of Final Fantasy XII.

THIS exactly is how I feel

I'm a little disappointed that we broke our string of "Gai gets his ass handed to him" episodes; I was enjoying that. I suppose having his company's tech get hijacked to drive people crazy is okay, but it's not the same as an explosion followed by a roll and the torn jacket.

Still, it really does feel like Zero-One is well and truly back. The plot is ticking along, there are interesting developments, and I'm actually excited to see what happens next. I'm glad to see that the downturn was only temporary.

Also, Fuwa manages to be fantastic even when getting knocked unconscious. Such a great character and performance.

i was a little worried we were going backwards by returning to "hacked humagear of the week" with the return of metsuboujinrai.net but they pivoted away from that pretty quickly

surprised Horobi straightup murdered Midori. Not much of a savior of humagears if he's gonna be killing them in cold blood in the quest for "purity" or whatever

Based on the preview it looks like Horobi and Jin are gonna have an army of humagears and face off against Gai and an army of Raid Riser equipped humans

which begs the question:
Gai, if you had a buttload of raid risers, why'd you only send 2 at a time for the past . . . four episodes? Maybe you'd have gotten stuff done

Fuwa is now getting brain surgery to get his memories back. he continues to have the most interesting arc in the show. main character fo sho

He feels like a bystander because he IS. 30+ episodes in and he hasn't really progressed from the totally unqualified kid thrust into the role of president of cutting edge robotics manufacturing corporation.

He isn't an engineer or scientist so all the new powers are essentially handed to him by Izu (or Gai)

He has no business acumen so Gai runs circles around him. Gai took his damn company and flipped public opinion against him so his family's own technology is more or less illegal and villified by normal folks

He has no killer instinct or tactical prowess so even when handed the next toy-based power up he doesn't use it to actually beat his opponent, either by killing, disabling or capturing them. Fights end with both sides walking away basically clean. even humagears that he's trying to save get blown up and then swapped into a new body good as new. There's no stakes to his fights

We have seen Gai take over Hiden, turn public opinion against humagear tech while selling Zaiaspec tech

We have seen Jin and Horobi try to free their fellow humagears and take over the world

We have seen Fuwa fight against humagears for humanity's safety only to realize they aren't all dangerous except his hate was fake and now he has to fight for his past and find his place in this new world

Yaiba was similarly fighting against humagears to protect humanity except she was a spy for a rival tech company except she was mostly being mindcontrolled and now she's free and figuring out what to do while also trying to restore Fuwa's memory except she helped unleash Naki

Izu is learning about hopes and dreams and choice

Aruto has obstensibly taken the role of humagear advocate except he is utterly ineffectual at it

In recent memory we've had Kamen Riders be detectives, doctors, scientists, . . . even a fuckin' teenager hip hop dancer and they've all had more agency than this dude, a goddamn bad comedian.

kouta unknowingly killed his best friend in the first episode!

Aruto is just . . . there.

Hope next episode, Fuwa stops breaking Progrisekeys and starts using them properly.

I think this is one thing I'll give the episode for explaining, actually. Gai mentions 'rolling out' the Raidriser en masse -- ie it's a stage they haven't quite gotten to yet. To me this implies that right now they're either limited in how much they have, or ZAIA's making a show of having limited stock to appease potential buyers and play off AIMs' limited use of it as a sort of trial run.

Could be that they're still trialing them - the previous Raiders had a tendency to go a bit overboard, and Yua obviously had the chip in her head. Want to test in small amounts to make sure you don't have an army that can be turned against you at the drop of a hat.

So Raiden would come back as Ikazuchi with the dodo magia key.
What would Naki become? Which key would Naki use?