Kind of? But I don’t really want to pat a show on the back just for having themes when they’re not really pulled off thst well imo. Points for trying, and the second third especially did so much with it that I can scarcely believe it’s the same show as all the ark stuff; but ultimately I just find it disappointing.

Totally fair! I'm obviously being a lot more lenient on the show since I thought the Ark stuff (or uh, at least the Ark-One stuff) was a totally smart, fitting conclusion for the story; it's evident the days where I was apparently regularly writing posts about Zero-One you totally agreed with are gone.

It's just... the big discussion point after Zi-O was "why did they reuse Build's ending?". The hot topic after Build itself ended was whether or not Sento's plan to save the world actually counts as saving the world. Maybe this is just my impression of it, but it seemed like mostly surface-level discussion about plot choices and/or holes. If Zero-One is inspiring people to instead discuss the history of artificial intelligence as a storytelling mechanism, and the real world events it's been used to parallel... I just think that's still pretty special, even if it's only coming up so people can say how much better it could've been done?

I’d argue that that’s the same thing that’s going on here though, and that the discussion happening right now is more just... assuring people that no these were the themes, in the same way that if someone tried to say war wasn’t a theme after Build ended. If that had come up we’d sure have been having a discussion about that; and I’ve sure as heck seen the same sort of surface level discussions about Zero-One’s ending until right now!

On the other hand, I constantly see discussion elsewhere on how brilliantly Build’s themes were maintained and used, what that series said about the ideals of heroism and the effects of war, etc. For Zero-One I mostly see people being apologetic about the ending and excusing everything because Covid. It depends entirely on where you go and I’ve found myself in positive thematic discussions about all three of these series. Don’t limit your viewpoint based on one discussion between a couple of people on one website.

I do have to concede I'm probably being rather naive here. Blind optimism has kinda always been a thing with me. These are all good points!

So we're agreed that all Rider series suck and everyone should go back to watching Sentai for that deep thematic resonance, then? Great, see you next week once I'm caught up on Ryusoul!

And honestly it’s one I wouldn’t take away from you — without that willingness to see everything through an optimistic lens I wouldn’t really have come around on a lot of things. You’ve half convinced me on Ghost; and I suspect only halfway because I haven’t found the time for a rewatch yet!

But I just... can’t see what you see in this ending. When I talk about these themes of parallels to slavery and oppression in a narrative about robots, I say so with great enthusiasm about how the middle of the show handled it but also with great disappointment in how the last stretch dropped it as quickly as it could manage. When I talk about the themes I fully embrace how the show used ideas of heart and malice to portray these struggles and our similarities, but also say so with great frustration in how it completely took over the last part of the show when that was never the main point. When I talk about these themes I do so with love for how public viewpoints on Humagears evolved in a shockingly realistic and well done way throughout the show, but ultimately got given no resolution at the end, no true change from the situation in episode 1, and no outlook towards the future of Humagears other than Aruto believing in them but even harder this time.

The true enemy in this show was always, ALWAYS how Humagears were not truly seen as people and what conflicts arose from that, but the last third seemingly wants to act like the true enemy was the Ark. And that, I think, is the worst possible direction the show could have taken.

I was going to crack a joke for a second here. "Well, that's half more than I usually convince people on Ghost!", or some other inane gag; but instead I think I'd rather be more sincere and just say thank you for always being so encouraging.

I guess this might be the crux of how I see the show differently. Someone mentioned a ways back in this thread that the real theme of Zero-One was always self-identity, and that's a sentiment I find myself agreeing with. The show ultimately defined Ark in the end as something with the potential to grow inside the hearts of everyone, human and HumaGear alike. The name "Ark" itself was almost certainly chosen because it sounds like aku, which literally means evil. I absolutely believe that's the true enemy of the whole show. Malice is the enemy of everything. That's what the whole Learning shtick was always about in part: the idea that the way we treat one another influences what we become. How we can choose to let it influence us. Aruto lamenting to Jin in episode 16 that Horobi taught him the values he did, or, heck, even something as simple as Aruto telling Horobi he's himself, and no one else in 35 - the show is full of thematic material that's a bit broader in scope, as I see it. The idea of HumaGear oppression, and how society as a whole views them, that's something I don't have trouble seeing as merely being in service of a larger story, and for that reason, it didn't bother me too much to not get a lot of clear resolution to those elements at the end.

It'd always be nice to just have both, but I honestly believe the more individual, personal level the show decided to go out on, a hero struggling against his base impulses and a machine dealing with emotions he never knew he could have, was a very powerful and compelling conclusion in its own right.

A show like this was always going to end in a personal struggle, of course; that’s just how Kamen Rider works. But you can still do that within the context of the Humagear struggle, and still have that be integral. Give them their own personal stakes in that battle that have been built over the course of the series rather than falling back on character deaths to cheaply fuel artificial drama.

I can’t look at a series that has always put its lens very closely very directly on Humagears and their role in society every two seconds and even for a moment think that Aruto uncharacteristically going on a rampage due to a last minute character death is satisfying. That’s just not an endpoint that makes sense and it frankly makes the rest of the season feel pointless as a whole. There’s no cohesion, no consistency and no strong development. For me the show just changed so radically it feels comparable to Hibiki — the ending may be strong, but it’s sure as hell not the ending to the show I’ve been watching.

On one hand, I can't look at Aruto's history of flipping out when he sees HumaGears being destroyed throughout the series and even for a moment think him wanting revenge against the person who killed the most important HumaGear in his life is in any way "uncharacteristic", but, on the other hand...

This is probably always going to be a sticking point with Zero-One as a whole, and I struggle a bit to disagree that much. There were absolutely some glaring missteps in the plotting throughout, and especially towards the end. I won't argue if you're saying they could have built all this up in a more cohesive fashion.

Is it that uncharectiristic, though? Thinking back to even the very early episodes, nothing angers him more than the deaths of Humagears around him. It's what pushes him to fight - Mamoru is coming to mind here, and that's, what, episode 2? Him letting his anger take over because he lost someone close (the latest in a long line of losing people close to him to Humagears), especially someone he's been trying to reach out to? It may not work for all the series's themes, but as Fish says, it works a lot for self-identity (the man who's personality on being able to make others laugh and get better subsumed by semi-righteous anger), especially once it plays off against Horobi suffering the same thing, proving Humagears and humans are alike, both in their capacity to love, and their capacity to suffer because of that love.