[Den-O]

"Why can't humans & humagears live together in peace?!"

In a world where the life of the average human has been made easier by machines called Humagears, Hiden Intelligence is at the forefront of technological advancement. But with the passing of their founder, Korenosuke Hiden, the duties & responsibilities of president have passed on to his grandson, Aruto. Authorized to use the Progrise Keys & Zero-One Driver, he fights to build a world where Humans & Humagers can coexist, as Kamen Rider Zero-One! But in another world, one where Humagears exterminate humans, Aruto is on the run. His company lost, his driver taken, Aruto must rely on the terrible power of the Forceriser given to him by a mysterious stranger. Working With Zi-O, Geiz, Woz, & Tsukuyomi, Aruto fights to bring his world back and begin a new generation of heroes as Kamen Rider Zero Zero-One!

Packaging
Kamen Rider Figuart packaging stepped up a bit with Zero-One Rising Hopper's box mostly thanks to the cosmetic effects of black light reactive materials in the box. Zero Zero-One doesn't exactly reinvent the wheel either, but I enjoy the techy aesthetic of Zero-One rider packaging very much so there isn't much to complain about either. We're here for the gorgeous figure inside the box anyway.

Main Figure
Zero Zero-One is of course Zero-One's movie exclusive form from Reiwa: The First Generation. A team up film between the cast of Zi-O & Zero-One that see Aruto lose his original powers and be forced to fight using a Forceriser. Bearing that in mind, the design of this costume falls right in line with the other early Forceriser based suits of the series, Horobi & Jin. You might imagine this suit being just a repaint of one of those two with a Zero-One head plopped on top as well. I assumed that myself originally. But I was wrong.

For starters, and this is pretty wild, the entire lower half of Zero Zero-One's body from the waist down is more or less borrowed from Night Rogue! That's right, the mold that never dies and was used to craft Night Rogue himself as well as Blood Stalk, the Hell Bros, and Mad Rogue. Now those parts have been carried over to create Zero Zero-One. However it's not as simple as the legs being stuck on with new paint apps. At a close inspection you can see that all the general details are present, but they've been altered. The shape of the boot is nigh identical but doesn't go as high up exposing more of the cross pattern print underneath, and the lateral straps are similar but the ones on Zero Zero-One are of a new molding. the feet have all the same molded parts on top, but new paint apps point out rivets that weren't noticeable before. The knee pads share the same design but are attached above the joint on Zero Zero-One, even the thighs and hips are the same, but new straps have been layered on top of this and wrap around fully. The biggest and very odd difference between Zero Zero-One & Night Rogue's legs is that on Zero Zero-One, the upper leg interiors have been painted brown. Something that was entirely missing from Night Rogue when he was released. A feature of the original Night Rogue suit that was eventually dropped during production in favor of the all black costume. The thing is, the Zero Zero-One suit doesn't have any brown on his inner legs! So is this just an oversight on Bandai's part? Are they letting on that we may finally see an accurate brown suit Night Rogue released? It's a weird one to ponder.

That being said, with these legs come decent articulation, though not the best. Now one of the few flaws I originally found with the mold, was the ankle design. Because of the way the cuff of the shin armor comes down around them, you do lose a small portion of movement in all directions. But the ankle ball is also designed in such a way that you can't really angle the feet outward properly. It's still a bother but it still works well enough too. Despite appearances, the bulk of the thighs doesn't impede leg movement either. As with the others, this figure can pose with the best. As before with this mold, I recommend you definitely pull the hips down far enough before moving them up, if you don't then the waist armor can dig some small grooves into the hips.

Around the waist we get some parts reuse appropriate to this series with a Forceriser carried over from Horobi & Jin. To be fair I haven't reviewed those guys yet, as at the time of their release I didn't have a middleman anymore. I'll track them down eventually. But for now some of my comparison is based on official photos. The Forceriser and belt attached to it are carried straight over with no changes. That means this belt also isn't technically functional. The trigger on the forceriser which forces open Progrise Keys is molded in place, so it's permanently in the opened position. The riser also contains a permanently opened Rising Hopper Progrise Key carried over from Zero-One himself. Same sparse details I'm afraid, but more noticeable since it's out in the open now.

Above the waist are some more familiar parts. First the ab chunk of the torso, with it's sculpted musculature that really sets itself apart from Horobi or Jin, is actually the same one from Night Rogue! The difference here is that the abs have been painted giving this section more depth, really setting it apart. The upper half of the torso comes courtesy of Horobi. It's his upper body and strapped armor, just in glossy black instead of brushed silver. Despite being an odd combination of parts from a couple of different molds, the torso has lots of useful range in the joints. The upper body is bulky and certainly more limited than some figures, but it's surprisingly agile.

The arms appear to me to be new parts entirely. If they share molding with something else, I haven't been able to place it yet. Regardless of where they came from though, they're pretty bad. They have rather large shoulder pads that impact the chest armor carried over from Horobi, making upward shoulder movement difficult at best. Tight bicep swivels aren't necessarily something to complain about, but they're there, the real issue with the arms is the elbows. Elbows that really just hit a 90 degree bend and that's about it. The bulk of biceps and forearms keeps anything from bending further back, they just impact each other when moving the arms. So getting any nice expressive poses out of him will be difficult to say the least. The wrists are also embedded pretty deep into the arm recces so you lose some of the motion of the wrists.

The head that tops off this figure is a bit different from the standard Zero-One head. With an entirely new faceplace sculpt including lines leading down from the eyes, larger if a bit differently shaped compound eyes, and some more sculpted lines and straps in the helmet itself, it comes across as amore savage and fierce version of Zero-One. All in all not too bad. It really fits the nature of this form and reminds me very much of another form that was produced in a similar way, Super Dead Heat Drive. I am also happy to report that this figure features the same Blacklight reactive paint as Zero-One Rising Hopper, so have fun with that just as I did for this gallery.

Accessories
This will be rather short, as the only accessories that Zero Zero-One includes are additional hands. 4.5 sets of hands of various grips. Primarily partially opened hands that you can make work with most Attache Weapons or other similarly sized Figuarts items, and some splayed open hands for pointing and posing. Nothing spectaculr really but enough options to give your figure some variety. I'd have liked a closed Forceriser or something like that to be included. And I would have really liked Attache weapons of any kind as well, as is I borrowed from the the other figures I already had for this gallery.

Final Thoughts
S.H. Figuarts Kamen Rider Zero Zero-One won't be for everyone. Big fans of Zero-One will want it for their collection, but I think it's safe to say this release needed to offer just a little bit more if it was going to be enticing to a wide range of collectors. As is this figure constitutes a decent and very interesting combination of reused parts from a couple molds and mixes in just enough new to be refreshing. But it also lacks noticeably in both articulation and some accessories. Zero Zero-One is a release that probably only the biggest fans of Zero-One need to pursue.