I'm actually kind of... disappointed by Raiden and Naki here. They kinda just stand around here without uttering much of themselves. Raiden especially, but that's only because I've just been really disappointed how tacked on he is to the group. Raiden and Naki technically don't even have a reason to be in this room at all and would have honestly just immediately defected to Jin or Fuwa and Yaiba's side a long time ago.

Horobi's combo fight with Zero-Two was great, always a fan of how they handle Horobi the rider in terms of how they display his stunts. But from this point on, my view on Horobi starts to crumble. He didn't have quite much development to actually form this realization he has at the end of the episode and it just falls apart when I recall that he looked at Aruto a few episodes ago and thought: "He must be the one that'll change the fate of Humagears". I know, I know, rewrites and Covid and all, but my thoughts remain as they are.

Gai stepping down and handing the company off to Aruto really does feel like a studio note/mandate. Not only does it go against Aruto claiming his own destiny, but it also makes it look as though Gai is dodging responsibility. Definitely one of the aspects of the show I didn't like.

I think Horobi's argument is partially that humanity could create another Ark in the future, but it's also that humanity keeps vacillating between Humagear Genocide and Humagear Celebration. (I believe the current landscape for Humagear integration into society is Humagears For Some, Miniature Japanese Flags For Others.) I'm not sure I'd want to bet my people's survival on how persuasive a random CEO is? His bleak outlook of humanity's acceptance... it sort of has precedent.

Sort of surprised we didn't see Matsuda Z trying to cheer up kids or whatever, but, yeah! Very fun to see all the old Humagears lifting humanity up again. Very sweet.

I mean, I think Raiden got a pretty big role in the destruction of the Ark? And his reunion with Subaru was pretty sweet? And he was the most vocal about the Ark tossing them to the side? For a cast this packed, I think that's plenty for this episode. It's also substantially more than Yua or Fuwa got the last couple episodes. Remember when Fuwa kept saying how he was going to defeat Ark? He wasn't even invited to the fight.

It certainly felt like the writer didn't have a clue why Gai would voluntarily step down, or why Aruto would voluntarily return, because neither guy gets a scene explaining their actions. It's just There's An Emergency, and we're supposed to fill in the blanks. I will not be doing that!

REALxEYEZing is a nice pun, even I didn't have that cross my mind. Also, are you implying that Aruto and Izu are not cohesive unit before?!! :lol

It's ironic here that, despite their initial portrayal, it seems as if Jin is the worse one between the 2 (YMMV). While Horobi is already certainly terrible in his ruthlessness to carry out his missions without budging a bit, Jin's the one who is utterly psychotic, did more despicable actions to carry out their missions, and absolutely revels on it. Though there was an implication when he tried to help Seine before being re-hacked. But now, while Jin didn't immediately turn good on his revival at ep. 25, he's the one who changed quicker for the better than Horobi, properly taking care of Humagears (if still imposing some misantrophy beliefs that time), and later, turning good when he starts aiming for Ark (ep. 36) and helping a non-Aruto human (Yua). But overall, this scene is also another Aruto weaponizing friendship scene, with Jin (of all people, for early series context) supporting and advocating him against Horobi.

Otherwise, regarding Ikazuchi, his Raiden persona is completely separate, Raiden was always good, but Ark just intervened. Zea returning Raiden allows him to be the proper big brother to Subaru and Hiden's ally as he always is. Even Ark knew this, in ep. 39, it knew Raiden would turn on them and encourage Zero-One to antagonize them, so Ark returned Ikazuchi's singularity, as a deliberate way to get Aruto alone so Ark could take his Driver. And Raiden was the one who finished off Ark for good here, instead of the main protagonist. Raiden's just one of the Humagears that helping out (though he had the biggest contribution), there are others like Oyakata, 119nosuke, doctors, and nanny-types, which is a reminder that helping out isn't only about beating up bad guys.

I do think that this was quite a regression too for Aruto. Him being shackled back into the destiny as someone who just continues his family's company. There's some Horobi-stuff for Aruto even before, previously, he agreed to become the president only out of necessity to take care of Humagears, when what he wanted before was to become a comedian. But with Hiden Manufacturing, he now is committed into doing what it takes to help Humagears like making a company himself for that. Though if Fukuzoe's in charge, there's something he needs to learn to (or already had), like fighting as Kamen Rider, not focusing on Hiden Intelligence's bottom line (e.g. covering up Magia's attacks, Daybreak Incident).

Bathed in light? It's true that now Horobi fights for his own convictions, but if light also meant good, then it's far from the case here (though it may be a bait to think Horobi has received enlightenment, but actually NO. Jin did win in their debate though). As I said before, just because Horobi is fighting against the bad guys, doesn't mean he's redeemed at that time, bad guys can fight another bad guys. And Horobi is very much that. After fighting Gai due to his hatred of humanity making use of Ark, now he's someone who is against Ark, thus he fights them along with the cast. But, because he's against Ark, he STILL performs exactly the same actions as Ark's pawn before, killing all humans, because he holds them accountable in the rise of Ark, in their corrupt traits (and lumping all humans together). No humans means no corrupt traits (in his eyes) and no Ark. So.. what's good of working with people you don't like in this case? Though of course this is working with another villain, this is quite a natural outcome of what'd happen after the common threat is beaten, there are no reasons to ally anymore.

Yes, Horobi's turn of character's journey, starts, now. It's really late yeah for him, even more than Jin (at ep. 25), and Ark (at ep. 36). This is also a reminder that, even if the actions (and outcomes) of 2/more different people is exactly the same, it doesn't mean that they're the same people. For heroic examples, there are those who fight because it's the right thing to do, but there's also those who fight only to get paid (emphasis on "only"). The outcome may be similar, but the latter isn't the same character, they're more selfish and potentially anti-heroic. For Horobi here, and he's a case where his morality doesn't change, this doesn't improve him to even anti-villain levels or such (so much for the 'enlightenment'), if he succeeded, at least the humans would be extinct, but previously, it was to serve Ark, and now, it's his way (and worldview, tbh) to disable Ark, totally opposite aim. And him being more dangerous than Ark? Eh, being dangerous or not isn't decided by someone's character, it's by their powers. You can have genocidal mindset, but you can't carry through that if you're not powerful (or not powerful enough). Horobi isn't likely to surpass Ark in fighting as Kamen Rider, who destroys everyone and only Zero-Two can match.

Wasn't it Gai? And it wasn't a named character that was the reason behind Ark having negative effect. It was random human malice info Gai shared on him, which'd mean random unnamed people were the reason. Horobi is one of the negative effects Ark gave on Humagears, though the experience in this episode still didn't change his genocidal mindset.

Horobi does have a point here, but while Horobi or other villains can make good points, it can be invalidated depending on who makes the point, like, if they're so horrible person.

The thing is, development isn't necessarily about someone turning to be a better person. Someone can get development while keeping their morality the same (like Horobi here, or some MCs), or someone can get development to turn even worse, like Micchy in Gaim. For Horobi thinking changing the fate of Humagears.... remember that the keyword is, "fate of Humagears", ONLY Humagears. Not any other species. Humans won't be included in that thought (and Aruto's only 1 person), thus they're not safe if Horobi thinks to keep Humagears safe, he still thinks he needs to exterminate humanity.

Apparently, it's probably the "karma" for Gai for all his atrocities before, now he had to lose his CEO position he liked and reveled so much, and is deemed as undeserving to be one and that the man he terrorized so much was truly the better one. Of course, someone can lose CEO position not by doing what Gai had done.

Not much to say that hasn’t already been said, so I’ll share this here, since there isn’t really anywhere else I could’ve shared it.

Progrise: I make up a festival by all energy. Festival Entertainer: Matsurida Zett.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=IpETZW0d-Z0

Boy, if you think ep 37's pacing was certainly not comfortable, this episode beat that in a certain mile. Honestly, this is the first time I don't know where to start talking. We had Gai stepping down as Hiden's President, Aruto claiming back his position in Hiden, Ark stopped using Metsubojinrai, Horobi and Jin's conflicting ideas, Ikazuchi and Naki's defection from Metsubojinrai, Horobi finally reached Singularity and betrayed the Ark, Aruto and Horobi teamed-up for the first time, and the Ark's destruction by the Uchuyaro's bros. To say the episode was bloated is an understatement. I think Die had chosen the correct step by making this episode as an image post.


This episode was the one that I thought Covid really impacted the filming. There were many neat ideas but they were hugely clammed in a single episode. I don't even mind Aruto returned back as Hiden's President because I'm honestly not surprised for them to make weird steps here and there. I mean I want Aruto and Izu to rebuild Hiden Manufacturing but when Aruto returned as the President, I was like "Well that's neat. Guess it's Aruto's lucky day." Because it lacked quite a punch, I just felt like it was just an everyday routine for Gai to play as the President and pass it on Aruto after he is bored.

Rather than reiterating how splendidly Die explained Horobi, I just want to say I couldn't keep my laughter when Aruto asked Horobi "Well, do you want to join my company now?". Man, Aruto didn't quite learn from his experiences with Jin. Dude, you just teamed-up with Horobi solely to save Jin and because there was a bigger threat. Don't expect or even believe someone, who had been an antagonistic force for most of the series, suddenly became good and buddy buddy with you, especially if you barely had a heart-to-heart interaction. For someone who built the amazing Zero-Two, Aruto is still not the brightest one in this subject.

One last thing, I just thought the Ark's death was cathartic and karmatic to some extent. I had said I dislike how the Ark exploited the weakpoint in our hero's side, by manipulating Aruto and Ikazuchi. So obviously it was karmatic that THESE two ended up ruining and foiling the Ark's daily life. Aruto obviously outwitted the Ark by inventing Zero-Two and Ikazuchi got the spotlight by giving the final blow to the Ark once and for all. Ikazuchi blew up the Ark might be my favorite moments in this episode beside the team up in such a bloated episode. If Die have watched Super Sentai or Power Rangers, the Ark was basically defeated in almost the same manner as many MOTW in those shows.

The way I see it is that Metal Cluster Hopper is Zero One's Final Form, while Zero Two (which =/= Zero One) is Aruto's Final Form.

Wow, okay, you totally need to do something about that!

Thouzer is the MVP of the show, no contest.

I recall that Zero Two and Horobi teaming up to defeat Ark for good was written to be the finale due to you-know-what, so it makes sense that this fight scene would be appropriately spectacular. However, the staff didn't know how much time they'd have, so despite the show already getting cut to a low cap of 45 episodes, they overcompensated, finishing the main plot at 41. Everything after this is basically improvisation, with only the original abstract premise of Horobi being the final villain getting carried over. Whether or not that was a good thing is debatable.

Regarding what I mentioned before about Zero Two though, this is the peak here. It was designed to be Aruto's ultimate weapon against Ark and now that it's fulfilled that purpose, the next 4 episodes seem determined to undermine it and the few remaining appearances it does have aren't much to write home about.

Except unlike Phoenix, Horobi actually has a sense of morality and misguidedly believes that committing genocide of humanity is necessary to bring justice to HumaGears, which makes his motivation more similar to Heart Roidmude. Horobi is thinking critically now after reaching singularity and it just happened that he came to the same conclusion as Ark's will, but out of fear instead of hate. He's experienced firsthand the evil in humanity and he only sees Aruto as the exception to the rule. Horobi wants to destroy the hierarchy created by humanity and he doesn't have faith in Aruto's diplomacy to do that.

I wouldn't say that light always has to signify good. Here, it's representing clarity and conviction. When the episode started, Horobi was starting to doubt the Ark's strategies, and MetsubouJinrai's place within them. In this scene, he's energized and focused on rescuing Jin from the Ark, as well as certain in his dream to liberate Humagears from humanity.

I'd hugely disagree with this. Horobi's more dangerous in that his vision for the future is less nihilistic than the Ark's, and his power is in the strength of his convictions. The Ark was an easy villain to defeat because it was two-dimensional. Horobi's going to be harder to defeat because he has a point.


His optimism is... sometimes he's not really seeing things all the way through. I'm not sure why Aruto thought Horobi turning on the Ark to avoid a Humagear genocide and save Jin suddenly meant Horobi was going to be Chief Smirking Officer at Hiden Intelligence or whatever, but it's a very cute scene. I like that Aruto assumes that the people who fight alongside him are his friends, even when that's clearly not the case. It's so charming.

I just like bringing up Phoenix because it's the biggest Be Careful What You Wish For plot development for me. (I love those episodes.) It's the same problem Team Zero-One had with Naki, where they decided to follow their dream right back to a robot death cult. I like how Aruto doesn't really get that people can have really terrifying dreams. Just can't see it.

Aruto becoming President again worked for me. Like, I know, he went out on his own to find his own destiny...but it's still his family company, he's grown a lot since then, and there is a lot of power and authority in Hiden that he can only access as President, especially in a crisis, and Gai has come a long way in accepting Aruto. Maybe they could've built up to it a little more, but I could get behind it.

Horobi really came a long way. Finally acknowledging his parental feelings for Jin in a genuine way and standing up for him and for all Humagears against the Ark, to the point of teaming-up with a human. It's just all this self-actualization and character development, built from the kind of being Horobi is and what he's seen, ends up still leaving him the villain in the end. Because not all dreams are good, Aruto.

I like how much defeating Ark was a team effort, both from Zero-Two and Horobi to the Space Brothers. Seeing the satellite get taken out when Ark least expected it was perfect.

Still arguably got it better than Genius or Grand Zi-O as far as Final Form treatment goes.

A jump to the sky turns to a Riderkick to the Sun.

In terms of win/loss ratio, yeah, I guess. If I had to try and explain my specific frustration, it's probably that I think Zero Two was made to seem like a bigger deal, symbolically. Instead of the generic setup of collecting all the Full Bottles or Ridewatches, it was the friendship between Aruto and Izu. Instead of an upgrade to an existing Rider System, it was an entirely new Rider created to allow Aruto to Henshin in the absence of Satellite Zea.