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!

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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.