Hello, Die. This might be my first reply on your thread. I have kept reading all of you and the other members' opinions from the start you made your Kuuga thread. So I guess an 'Iwae' toss for your accomplishment until today. Keep your love for Toku and stay healthy

I don't want to add fuel to the fire but I also want to criticize Aruto's inaction when Gai and Fuwa was fighting. It might just because some misdirections in the directing. Kamihoriuchi may has distinct directing that I love but... He's not the best when it comes fight composition. I question why they didn't just let Aruto use Metal Cluster Hopper here. For one, it gave more advertisement to a form that had just debuted before. You could just make the Panda Raider lost to Shining Assault Hopper, or even Rising Hopper. It doesn't even hurt to show MCH twice in the episode too. That or maybe Yuya Nawata was a bit busy during this week?

One simple fix for that fight is simply having Aruto and Fuwa fighting together against Gai. This explains why Gai specifically used Horobi's Scorpion Progrise Key. He could make a feint attack one Aruto with that stinger attack when the actual target was Fuwa. When Fuwa loss, you could just make Aruto rushed to his side thus leaving room for Gai to confiscate the evidence. It's honestly disappointing that we don't see enough dynamic between Aruto and Fuwa after ep 25 where Aruto gave a token of friendship to Fuwa by throwing Authorise Buster. We need more than that. This is around the late 20s and by this point we had so many great interactions between the Main and Secondary Rider. This is at the point where Geiz admitted his friendship to Sougo, Banjo kept check on Sento in case of Hazard went berserk, Hiro called Emu by his 'literal' name and started being rubbed by Emu's earnestness.

Sorry if this ended up like a bit of a ramble. But at this point, I want for the show to keep the rather good standard that have been set by previous series with the Main and Secondary Riders' relation. I know that Aruto and Fuwa's relation is more of a professional one. But, man... I wish Aruto and Fuwa was more buddy to each other, at least one the level of Geiz and Sougo. Still, don't be discouraged by my words, there are more people who still love Aruto and Fuwa's dynamic. I'm pretty sure either one of them would give a much better input.

My take on the Humagear design is that I'm so shocked SO-DO made it! It was maybe like the biggest surprise to me at the time? I'm pretty sure it was before they'd even started dipping into monster figures, and out they came with something that's quite staunchly not involved in fights, isn't a specific character and is hardly something that's overly appealing to kids. Just because it was a suit in the currently-airing Kamen Rider show! GOD I love SO-DO!

That shot of Fuwa pouring the bucket of water over his head is stuck in my mind. It was in the next episode preview too; why did he do that?! Love that guy

That's actually a real technique for protecting yourself from the heat during fires. It is funny that he doesn't bother to shield pour Yua or drop a layer of clothes, though.

So uh, sorry to disappoint, but this is actually the second of the few things in Zero-One that I don't like. Aruto's inaction against Gai is incredibly out of character here, and this is the only time in the entire show where I felt the conflict was forced solely for the sake of plot.

The fight between Jin and Thouser is cool atleast. Really liked that it ended in a draw. And the Sting Dystopia Jacking Break was cool(as they always are), but yeah, this was very much a case of plot contrivance.

Ah, my bad.

Sorry, I must have gotten guests mixed up in my head, since I thought I heard something to that effect, but I guess I got that confused with something else.

Thanks for the clarification, and apologies for the mix-up.

I don't know what's wrong with Aruto asking Fuwa about his dreams. Gotta realize that this is the stage where Fuwa's character is developed further, regarding his vengeful tendencies before. Previously Fuwa has blamed all the Humagears for his tragedy and vows to exterminate every last of them, but now, Fuwa is sensible enough to at least redirect his grudge to the real perpetrator. Kamen Rider is usually about using powers from evil sources for good, and for more modern series, frequently had people coming up to terms about it (though dunno if you're not into this or such), like for example Sento learning about him being a pawn to Soichi/Evolt or Sougo learning him being a pawn of Woz or Swartz. For Zero-One, it's done here of Fuwa learning about how AIMS, and fighting as Vulcan, is only a pawn for ZAIA's dirty business. There's usually character progression after that revelation, but Aruto invoked that by asking Fuwa after this revelation.

For other parts, this is the part that explains how Gai is not only about toxic egotism, his goal (or something more ambitious than just stroking his ego), is shown here in how he wanted to use Kamen Riders as weapons to gain profit. Previously too in ep. 25, he openly admits that the return of the terrorist group would be good for ZAIA since they could make more money selling weapons to AIMS. So what Gai wants to do is to launch war so he can gain profit from it, this'd be the real stakes of him gaining Hiden, and to me this makes his goal have resemblance to Namba's goal from Build. This part does show why Jin calls Horobi a father, he's literally made to be a father-type Humagear, and it's clear that Gai is also the reason behind Horobi's rampage. Horobi also had another opposite to Gai here, who looks 24 but is 45 year old, in how Horobi looks 20 but is actually 12 year old (as Humagear production). So Gai looks younger than he is, Horobi looks older than he is (as a robot).

Doesn't mean he's not a villain by this time. He's still an anti-villain, as he'd still retain misantrophic views to humanity in general except to Aruto, but now he had redeeming quality in, actually taking Aruto's anger into account and learning from him (which is why he's an exception), which now means he genuinely cares about Humagears and treats them as his friend, not misusing the word friend to treat them as disposable tool like before, he's no longer psychopathic manchild at this point, he's now much more mature and mellow (regarding evolved Humagear, it's a topic already talked before, Singularity). Jin of course has improved, but for now he still goes from straight villain to anti-villain by gaining real redeeming qualities (thanks to Aruto teaching him the hard way) while still being an invader to humanity. Though other than genuine compassion for Humagears now, Jin also has become more individualistic as well, to make a decision on his own on what to do for himself and Humagears. Individuality seems to be a good trait for Jin (better than before) to learn here, though dunno for the trait in general. Tbf for Horobi though, he hasn't got his turn yet, Jin's real character arc started now (still quite late).

It's Episode 27!

-Yeah, the firefighting competiton is my favorite "battle" out of all these. It's such a good time, start to finish.

-I amittedly dont have much to say about the second half other than I wasn't fond of it? It seems like everyone has aired out similar greviances.

Couldn't Aruto have used Freezing Bear to help douse the fire? I mean, he literally used the form in the last episode.

The effects of melted 119's body is absolutely chilling, yet inspiring at the same time.

I don't know what I love more...Fuwa dousing himself with water and dragging Yua with him into a burning building to help people or the fact that he didn't even bother getting her wet before they didn't. Like it totally would've been in-character for Fuwa to just splash her and run with her, but it's kind of funny that he didn't. But yeah, their Rider suits probably would've been more safe, huh?

I love how Jin and Thouser to a dual Rider Kick. We don't get to see that very often, but it's really cool.

This reminds me of an idea I had to like circumvent the pointless Magia fight from last episode.

And it's mostly just, Aruto figures that going in transformed with Freezing Bear will help, and Gai decides to follow him and Jack him of Freezing Bear to sabotage his chances at helping and to get that Jacking Break in.

I feel like that would've been a much more solid and fresh idea for the whole "Aruto uses old form but gets jacked" concept.

Thanks so much! I don't feel like I'm going anywhere, even if the next couple might possibly get a little hectic for me.

I feel like the better way to go would be to have Gai neutralize Aruto somehow, and then fight Fuwa. We've already seen that Metal Cluster Hopper can handle Thouser solo, and adding Vulcan to the heroes' side would make it unrealistic for Thouser to win. If they'd maybe had Gai gut punch Aruto before Henshining and attacking Fuwa, it'd allow the fight to progress without Aruto's assistance.

That would be really great! It's a weird side-effect of this show's various power bases that we rarely see Aruto fight alongside anyone. (I mean, same thing for Fuwa nowadays! It's all solo fight scenes!) I would love to see Zero-One and Vulcan teaming up again to take down whomever. Their last team-up was pretty fun!

Yeah, and they even did the retro model! What a bizarre choice, but it's totally in keeping with SO-DO's inclusiveness.

(It helps that it doesn't feel like we're getting a new suit for Zero-One or Thouser anytime soon, and Vulcan's got one or two left? Not a ton of superhero suits left on this series to make into toys!)

I don't mind Aruto asking Fuwa about his goals for the future! I do mind Aruto asking it with zero set-up in the middle of a random episode. That's the sort of thing a writer should build up to, and deploy organically. You can't just have it come up as a conversation starter.

I can sort of see Aruto not using his abilities, since it might disqualify Hiden and lose them the contest. (Fuwa outright says that he doesn't care about rules, so the contest is irrelevant to him.) Because there's a crew of firefighters on hand, I think Aruto's less inclined to take over the rescue. If Homaura and/or 119 had failed, I think that's when Aruto would've stepped in.

I remember being really disappointed with these episodes when they aired. We'd gotten a nice break from the job competition arc and its repetitive formula of Gai cheating and Aruto utterly failing to have an effective response to it. You can add Fuwa in on this one, though, with his unfathomably stupid decision to tell Gai that he had the evidence needed to take him down. This is such a bad period for the show's two heroic Kamen Riders as the show goes out of its way to make them look like total morons.

The worst part of it all, though, is how the show approaches Gai by making him such an underhanded douchebag. I hate that about Gai because I think that he's right. His motivations and methods are completely terrible, but at the core I agree with him about the Humagears: they are innately dangerous. Yes, a big part of that is Gai's own fault because he sabotaged Ark like the massive fuckwaffle that he is, but that doesn't change the fact that so long as Ark is out there hacking Humagears, every singe one of them is a walking MotW timebomb. I wouldn't want my kids to go to basketball practice with a coach who might randomly turn into a monster and attack them. I know Aruto is very committed to seeing the humanity and potential in the Humagears, but he - and the show as a whole, by extentions - are ignoring a lot of very valid concerns.