Glad you enjoy both Fuwa and Yua, they make a good first impression honestly! Their whole serious cop, feral cop routine is really great and they make an absolutely solid duo.

Though Fuwa of course became a fan favorite over the course of his run and it's hard not to see why just from this episode alone. But he's got a lot more layers to him, oh boy a lot more layers indeed.

So excited to see you react to Fuwa. One of the best secondary kd all time. Probably my favorite character in Zero-One besides one I can't mention without major spoilers

Shooting Wolf was always a design that... never quite hit right with me? It always felt like something was missing. And I definitely don't mean on that big white side because I absolutely love Rushing Cheetah! I think it's something about the helmet; just doesn't come together for me and I love how all his later forms' helmets look too.

Shame when Fuwa's one of my favourite Riders in the whole franchise, but hey, you take and lose some!

I never really realized Fuwa's use of violence was short of a shield to protect him both from ever having to confront his beliefs/trauma and from the world at large. Good observation.

I am suddenly very excited for you to get to Saber.

Melodrama is what I come to kamen rider for so this is pretty great. I also like that Fuwa, Hiiro, and Taiga all processed their trauma differently. Hiiro became cold, taiga got a hero complex, and fuwa was consumed by rage. It's all very nice tbh, and shows a diversity to the writer.

Yaiba is great! I wish I had more to say on her without spoiling stuff.

Zero one has some great fights tbh. I wish I understood how fight choreography worked so I could comment more on them.

A friend of mine would say this is why GEIZ being white is betrayal of the anniversary theme of Zi-o. Anyways, love this design. The asymmetry! The shade of blue and off white! The literal mask on the helmet! the red accents! The way the blue eyes are fierce almost feral!

I'm gonna pop out my zero one sodos actually and start fiddling with them.

Episode 2!

-Truly, there's nothing more funnier than establishing "Aruto might be wayyyyy over his head with this job" in this episode than the goverment enacting an invesigation literally 5 minutes into his first day! Aruto truly inherited the company, with all its weird secrets included!

-We are properly introduced the AIMS duo, more speficially the mad dog Fuwa! Isn't he so fun? The story gives his perspective on Humagears with equal weight (Hiden being up to no good, rotten and secretive, is not only backed up with the Daybreak Incident, but for little incidents like Hiden attempting to shake off the press/Izu telling Aruto that the control system for rampaging Humagears's connection to Hiden must be kept Secret from AIMS, For Some Reason) while also going "Hey! Doesn't this guy have a screw loose?!", it's real neat. Aruto/Fuwa stating their perspective in juxtaposition, it's a simple but super fun move. It's also really cute is the way they decided to humanize this walking ball of rage is that he might be the only person to find Aruto's jokes funny? Literally shaking trying to keep a straight face, lmao.... Anyway, I'm glad he immediately hooked you! (I've found that no matter what a person's opinion on 01 is, they generally agree that Fuwa's real good.)

-I did manage to find some of my scattered thoughts on my inital watching, and one of my inital impressions of AIMS was "Watching the AIMS duo banter makes me wish I was watching the G3 Team sections of Agito instead." Now, now past me, AIMS has its own charms yknow? (Though, I wonder what would happen if we locked Hikawa and Fuwa in the same room together...)

-Very interesting that AIMS assumed on first glance that 01 was a Humagear, even tho they also have Rider tech. I don't think I caught that the first time I watched.

-Not particularly important, I really always enjoyed the Vice President and his goons? They bring a really fun energy to all of the office scenes.

I realize I dropped the whole English cover bit halfway through the last series, but there's a really good one for Zero One, so I will revive that for what might be the last time, unless I find a cool one for future shows. I do regret not posting the really good Decade one last show, though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wC6B-B052Jw

Small thing: Revice and ex-aid's first eps both feature a bicycle, which is weird.

Edit: Also I forgot to mention the red vs green thing aruto has going on. Aruto and Izu are green, while the vice pres is red and stuff.

I'd assume! If it's just Something Bad Happened To Me As A Kid And I Never Got Over It... like, that's just that dopey kid who wanted to get revenge on Sougo from Zi-O. Bland! Boring! I'd hope that the dude who gave us the intertwined grudges of Snipe and Brave would deliver something more clever than that.

He's really fun! In an intensely troubling way!

I can sort of see it? The blue that frames the white on the helmet makes the whole head look a little elongated, maybe? There's a narrowness to it that works against the flaring on the arms and legs.

Yeah, one of the things I loved about Ex-Aid was how the world didn't exist to tell one character's story; everyone in the cast thought of themselves as the lead. Zero-One's got that same thing, where this episode is very very much about Fuwa's inability to see outside of his pain, and how he mostly doesn't consider other people as anything but obstacles to his mission. This writer seems to enjoy building out narratives where, at best, people develop overlapping quests, rather than singular missions shared across a team.

I never got tired of Aruto being surprised that people needed him to make decisions. Very funny!

I can see why! He's a character that works no matter how seriously you take him.

Ha ha, yeah, as stated, I really like women in these Kamen Rider stories that have to wrangle/shape/fix these hilariously broken dudes, so Ozawa is one of my all-time faves. Yaiba is already hitting those levels of Lady You Are Better Than These Dopes in my brain, though!

Hikawa and Fuwa locked in a room together? I assume it'd end with Fuwa screaming at Hikawa, and Hikawa agreeing that Fuwa has a point about Hikawa being an oblivious obstacle that doesn't know how to stand up for himself.

This was great!

On the topic of Zero-One's theme song... does this show not have an opening sequence? Or just not yet? I've only heard snippets of the theme over fights and final scenes.

Zi-O, too!

I think revice does too, so that puts saber and build as the odd men out.