[Fish Sandwich]

This finale was definitely sold to us the wrong way. Oomori's exact words were まったく違います, and yet you'd have to squint pretty hard to look at this conclusion and yet not see all the bits that seem strikingly familiar. But that's not really a problem, is it? I'm not going to hold overly audacious statements from producers against this ending. The real question is simply whether or not it worked for the story being told.

It mostly does? I'm honestly struggling to even organize my thoughts, because there's a lot this episode throws out there, and a lot I'm not sure how I feel about. The core of it, Horobi and Aruto's big fight, was the part I probably felt the best about -- mostly. The fight itself starts out okay and rapidly gets better, culminating in a very memorable sequence with Rising Hopper that, once again, could only be brought to you by Sugihara's insanely kinetic direction. Thematically, Horobi and Aruto working out their violent impulses and ultimately realizing that moving on from their grief is the only real way forward, I love all that too. Where it starts getting slightly murky is that the conclusion Aruto reaches wasn't generated internally, and I'm never going to be the biggest fan of that choice, even if I can appreciate what the show was trying to do by bringing his dad back into the picture for the climax. It's something you can argue both for, and against, very easily. It certainly wasn't wrong of the show, with what it was always about, to have a HumaGear be the one giving a human the final lesson about what it means to have a heart.

Plus, even if using the base forms in the final battle is something of a tradition at this point, I'm never going to be sad about seeing Rising Hopper again. Although I also chuckled a bit when Aruto's Driver printed out another Driver. It's way more logical than a Joker thing where he just suddenly has a real belt would've been, but the visual of it -- a belt that makes belts -- in the show with way too many belts? Strangely appropriate imagery for the finale!

Beyond that, it's mostly a lot of little points I can't tie together easily, so allow me to pay tribute to most of my posts from back on that other Yuuya Takahashi Rider show, and break out the bullet points:

- Fuwa, Yua, and Gai all sitting in a room is also simultaneously a point for and against the episode. It's slightly embarrassing for those characters, even with Vulcan getting his big scene last week, and their plan to bring Jin back doesn't seem to end up making any difference to the final battle. On the other hand, I enjoy how committed it was to keeping the focus squarely on Aruto and Horobi, so it didn't end up bothering me too much.

- The time skip after Aruto and Horobi's fight leaves a couple things to the imagination I wish weren't. It's never shown how exactly the mass HumaGear rioting resolved itself, and while this episode is stretched for space as is, a quick cheesy scene of everyone seeing the big proxy human/HumaGear showdown end with the combatants reconciling and then standing down themselves might've really added to the emotional impact.

- The places they find for the cast in the epilogue are about as solid as can be. Fuwa doing his gorilla thing with a car door is easily the best scene in the entire episode, but Gai with his loyal legion of robo-pups in his pathetic non-office only continues the confusion I feel towards his character, and Yua and Naki seem to end up at AIMS entirely because the show wasn't totally sure what to do with them. Who are they planning to be fighting against, even? Are Magia still an occasional problem? I know that pointless tease of a new guy is still a problem, at least! I'm sure he'll prove to be an exciting enough character... wherever he shows up next. Not exactly the best use of the runtime in a cramped episode to be setting up new plot threads, though.

- I love that the show didn't undercut the weight of Izu's death and the meaning it had by outright bringing her back, but Aruto's ethically sketchy workaround means Wizard still did this kind of conclusion the best. And for people who don't like Wizard, it's also not as good as OOO, which it's a lot closer to in spirit. I can see what the show is going for with Aruto's decision, but it really just feels too weird and creepy to come off as the heartwarming new beginning for the duo it's clearly meant to.

--

That's about it for the episode, which is a bit of a mixed bag, leaning more towards good than bad at the when it comes down to it. The series as a whole, then, is... well, exactly that.

This show was definitely sold to us the wrong way. Was this the grand start to a bold new era of Kamen Rider? Absolutely not. Comparing it to what Kuuga did back in 2000, or even what the original did in 1971, to that kind of innovation and freshness, holy s*** Zero-One is just going to get slaughtered in that fight. And there's just no way I want that for it, because it's never, ever been a bad show in its own right. As far as I'm concerned, this was the 21st Heisei Rider series. The country may have moved on, but this franchise has had a formula that's been working for about a decade, and I don't blame them for not radically changing it in an instant.

Even removing that high burden of expectations from Zero-One, of course, it's been a show with a lot of problems. There's been a lot of speculation as to what things might or might not have been were it not for the unexpected production issues in the back half, but frankly, I think the idea that was the root of any problems in the final arc is nothing short of a fairy tale. As a fan of this show, I can tell you without hesitation it has had problems with things with pacing and structure for a very long time, and I don't think five extra episodes would've helped all that much at the end of the day.

It's a series that has had some notable lows. There have been character turns and plot points that either feel sudden when they happen, or not explored enough after. Fight scenes that, while pretty, feel like an obligation with unclear justification in the story for how they play out. Storylines that overstayed their welcome for far too long, and other ones that could've stood to stick around a while longer. It's not a perfect show, but for all those faults, it's also had some insanely notable highs. The bits that didn't feel sudden, the fights that fit perfectly, and the plotlines that nailed what they set out to accomplish.

I think a lot of the uneven nature of Zero-One can be attributed to both having a huge cast of characters who all need to be transforming, as well as the rather complex themes its story was often trying to tackle. Both of those can either be positive or negative things. Lots of Riders can be very exciting for the variety and potential it presents, but tricky to balance narratively so that everyone gets things to do that feel important. A show about the rapid advancement of technology, the ethics of artificial intelligence, and the fundamental nature of the human soul similarly presents some very fertile ground for powerful storytelling, but is also a tall order for a children's series that needs to keep it digestible and make plenty of room for pulse-pounding fight scenes.

The strengths and weaknesses of Zero-One aren't separate, but intertwined. They're all springing from the same core. The same heart, if you will. And that heart, at the end of it, for all the complaining I've done over this past year, is something that resonated with me more often than not. This was a series that delivered on some truly spectacular moments, be they excellent emotional beats, or just action that was on a whole different level from your average toku show. It had a cast of characters I loved seeing each week, with Vulcan being destined to go down as one of the most popular secondary Riders, and Aruto destined to be one of my personal favorite Rider protagonists. All the stuff about the show I didn't like, I think I've more or less made my peace with it already.

It will always be unfortunate thinking about the potential Zero-One could've had, but the potential it realized, maybe that's enough, you know? It's been a crazy ride these past 45 episodes, but not one I'll be looking back on with regret.