Well since you requested it, here’s Ichigata’s jingle.

Progrise: The Sole Hero of J-J-J-Justice! Rocking Hopper! Kamen Rider will fight to protect humanity. Type-1!

https://youtube.com/watch?v=DDMDhlH8clA

And despite everyone pointing out the Ichigou homage of the design, that’s literally a skin deep thing. His personality and the suffixes for his finishers (Spark and The End) are homages to Kikaider.

Onto this episode, all I can say is that the last scene got rewritten because Ohmori-P decided at the last minute that the show’s appeal was Aruto being president. Originally, it would’ve ended with Gai buying out the company and Aruto deciding to quit his job and walk off, with the VP taking one last moment to rub it in.

So, uh, how would you rank this compared to Super Movie War Genesis?

Aging is a biological thing (except for a certain eternally 24 year-old), so to simulate the effect of aging in HumaGears, they would need to be manually transferred to an adult body. Yeah, the point of kid-type HumaGears is probably just part of their culture to simulate a real human family.

I mean, did Aruto need a mother? He turned out pretty okay with only his father raising him, which isn't that uncommon with modern families. In Kamen Rider, it's lucky to have even one parent.

Same here. It's implied at the end that Aruto remembered that timeline, so Sougo apparently failed to erase his memories. I feel like Sougo winning would've just been too much of a downer on the Reiwa Era that had barely started at that point.

This is probably a good time to mention Inoue's statement for Zi-O VS Decade, that Basketball Sougo is native to the Reiwa Generations timeline. If those two Sougos are the same person, then Aruto must've seriously beat him up!

One of Gai's traits is that he sees himself as innocent and perfect. He doesn't realize when something is his fault, instead blaming others. For example: Ark turning against humanity? Gai merely educated it about the evil side of humanity. Ark destroying a city and killing people? Gai didn't tell it to do that. He sees all these actions as inevitable due to the nature of humanity and AI, while ignoring the fact that they wouldn't have happened without his deliberately destructive input.

You probably guessed this already, but my favorite scene in this episode was immediately after that climactic fight, where Aruto calmly picked up Flying Falcon from the ground. The lazer bird has returned to the nest! :D

I wish they had given Noriko Hidaka more dialogue.
That's fair. At the same time it feels kind of...I dunno about shady, but unless his mom was never around to begin with it seems kind of unfair to make a robot of just his dad instead of his mom. Because moms' are really important.

Maybe having two HumaGear parents who aren't in a relationship would have caused some kind of learning conflict about how best to raise Aruto?

Yeah, now it's revealed, the true source of why there are terrorist attacks in MetsubouJinrai.net and Humagears turned into something more unsafe. It's the worst form of how Aruto and HIDEN Intelligence had to face a competitor that tried to bring them down, in Gai and his ZAIA Enterprise. All about the dangers Humagears pose can be traced back into Gai feeding human negativity to Ark, making it genocidal and taking some Humagears as its underlings too like Horobi and Jin. Gai is the very target Fuwa should direct his anger at. This is done to discredit HIDEN and Humagears, but of course this is more than just taking down company, but also causing genocidal deaths, displaying how hatable Gai is to done so much more than just being company rival. As a company president, of course Gai had to keep his public image good as well, which unfortunately he had all the means to do to just deflect blames from anything he does to another party like claiming it's Ark's decision to become genocidal.

Jin isn't Final Boss material... because he's not, never, a Final Boss. As you've seen in this episode too, Horobi is beaten, but he's tied into a seat and re-awakens at the end, so it's not the end for MetsubouJinrai.net, only their central antagonist role. Not all dads are dead. Other than that though, you previously talked about the bad consequence of Fuwa's revenge, and now Fuwa actually felt it (other than how, Gai, the real source of his misery, has appeared), he questioned whether his whole quest for revenge was worth it, especially after seeing the defeated Horobi as nothing more than a hunk of metal. I forgot that here Aruto had a bit more sympathy to Jin that I remember, regarding how much he hated Jin before (for plausible reasons), regarding him knowing about how Humagears learned good or evil. Jin is a product of abusive upbringing from Horobi, thus bad teaching leads into a psycho.

So you'd like the suit, despite on how Soreo was handled in Reiwa First Generation (which'd be good to look at the suit objectively, moreover the Showa take). Other Showa trait is that, his name "Ichi-Gata" (Type-1) contrasts with Hongo's "#1" (ichi-gou), his suit has teal armor on a black bodysuit and his helmet has pink eyes, imitating the color scheme of Rider #1's original appearance (officially dubbed "Old #1") as well as "Hopper #1" from Kamen Rider The First. Ichi-Gata has an extended collar with red accents, referencing Rider #1's iconic red scarf, and the energy effects give the appearance of a full red scarf of his own. His transformation belt is the CycloneRiser, a silver and red repaint of the MetsubouJinrai Force Riser; this serves as a combined reference to Rider #1's own belt (named Typhoon, painted silver and red) and his motorcycle (named Cyclone). His pre-transformation pose is reminiscent to Hongo's iconic arm cross.

I don't remember if this was already pointed out to you, but did you know that the Robot Sougo from Decade vs Zi-O is from this movie's timeline?

https://i.imgur.com/opL1vdE.png

Episode 16(and I guess, by extension, 15) is also a contender for my favorite episode of the season.

Everything about them just comes together so perfectly for me. Especially in regards to one of Zero-One's' biggest themes: That being how the previous generation can often instill hatred and negativity bias into the current one.

Jin being the final boss of the first act is superb. His singularity being reached under a specific circumstance due to the machinations of the Ark is a great angle at turning Jin into a sort of dark mirror to Aruto. Like, the Ark and Horobi literally set Jin up to get the classic hero motivation/power-up of losing a loved one, only it's being done for one of the villains. Both in-universe and meta-wise, I found that to be absolutely brilliant.

But true to form, it's not the blind hatred and despair of Jin that wins the day, but the symbol of peace and unity in Aruto. Shining Assault Hopper serving as both the literal and symbolic union of not just Humans and Humagears, but of Aruto and Fuwa is just icing on the cake.

Absolutely wonderful two-parter that serves as both an end to the first Act and the beginning of the second. Love it.

And yes, I am 1000% prepared to be the Only Second Act of Zero-One Fan. Just as I was the Only First Act of Zi-O Fan.

The only way that original ending would've worked is if it happens at the shareholders' meeting in the middle of the episode. Aruto only became president of Hiden to protect humanity and Humagears as Zero-One, and he thinks that necessity is gone now. Humagears are safe, and humanity doesn't have any reason to fear them. Total victory, and I can see him being okay losing the company after that.

Any other scene where he'd just quit? INSANE.

I never remember which of these movies is which, so I had to go look it up. Yeah, I don't remember liking that Ghost/Drive movie too much, but I think I like this one less? That movie was stupid, but this one felt like it fundamentally didn't understand the point of Zero-One, and didn't much care about the purpose of Zi-O. Bigger sins in Reiwa First Gen, to me.

Ha ha, I for sure thought Sh Ranger Must Be Happy when Aruto picks up that Progrise Key. I'm glad that story got some closure for you!

I think it's also that the kind of vengeance Fuwa wants... it can't ever be obtained? He's dedicated his life to anger and violence, practically training himself to live off of only those two emotions. But then he thinks he's going to Get Revenge someday, and then he'll feel some catharsis, if not outright happiness. That can't ever work, though. The lifetime of Only Anger has left him without the capacity for relief, or happiness, or fulfillment. The end of this road for Fuwa can only be Death or More Anger, unless Fuwa starts doing some hard work on his value system.

Makes sense! The headphones that Sougo wore in the Decade vs Zi-O special were a dead giveaway. It's that sort of attention to detail and insistence on making sure all relevant story information is included in the product instead of randomly on a website or tweet that makes me appreciate non-series Kamen Rider storytelling so much!

It's a great episode for Aruto (I love the mid-episode scene with him and Izu so much), and I like how bummed out he is when he has to finish off Jin. He never really got to know Jin, and now Aruto's realizing that he's going to have to execute some messed-up kid who's mad about his dad being dead, a kid who genuinely doesn't understand what it means to be in a robot death cult. It's a heroic victory that makes the hero feel like kind of an asshole, which is one of my favorite types.

I got here first!!

... but I probably won't be here much and I'm not a fan of the third act as well as the second, so, eh; I'll let you have this one

No problem, we can share.

I will just be the Only Last Leg of Zero-One Fan.