[Kamen Rider Die]

KAMEN RIDER ZERO-ONE EPISODE 20 - “THAT IS 1000% THE BEST HOUSE”



Another delightful resolution to a Job Battle, where Aruto achieves a moral victory (two, sort of!) at the cost of the actual Defeating Gai victory.

As Team Hiden racks up a second loss, the shape of the arc is coming into focus. Can Aruto be considered a good president if he values people more than profits? It makes him a good man, and an effective superhero, but does any of that matter in the face of ruthless capitalism? Everything Aruto does in this story, or that he learns from Sumida, is heartwarming. It’s a great lesson about ethical capitalism. But it’s also sort of a fairytale, and easily disregarded by corporate raiders like Gai. Gai is going to maximize revenues and grow the company, while Aruto’s going to make people happy at the cost of the company’s long-term viability. Can Aruto’s idealism work in a capitalist system that can’t quantify something like Happiness?

(The one point that is maybe beyond the scope of a children’s television program designed to sell toys is that these quandaries only apply to publicly-traded companies. If Hiden was privately-held, not only would it be immune to Gai’s takeover attempts, it wouldn’t matter if Aruto prioritized helping people over making money. A privately-held company can do whatever it wants, because there’re no outside shareholders that can agitate for greater profits. If Grandad Hiden wanted to run a company that only acted in the good of society, he probably shouldn’t’ve taken his company public!)

It’s Zero-One, so these questions don’t really get definitive answers, which I like. Aruto can both feel good about acting ethically, and feel bad about losing to ZAIA yet again. The ambiguity of this arc is really working for me, replicating the real-world sensation of trying to find some humanity in a system designed to turn people into consumers. (The fact that this topic is happening within a gigantic toy commercial is extra delicious.) The concept of Ethical Capitalism is such a dramatically rich one, and so dialed into the basic premise of Kamen Rider (can the power of evil be used to do good), that it’s nice to see this show spending a bunch of episodes on the conflicts and contradictions of it, even if – maybe especially if – there aren’t any good solutions being offered.

Outside of the truly excellent Job Battle stuff, we’re still kicking around the AIMS storyline, and it’s fine. Fuwa’s a pretty terrible investigator, historically, so his tools of Shouting and Randomly Being In Places aren’t exactly cracking this thing wide open. (I mean, his past successes are largely down to luck, and that’s not as reliable a partner as Yua and her hard work.) It’s nicely moody, but there’s really no new information here. The best part was probably Fuwa showing Horobi a grainy image of a shrouded person for identification, and Horobi being like Dude Come On. What was Fuwa expecting to learn?!

I’m still really enjoying this Job Battle arc. I like how it’s talking about things like capitalism, automation, fulfillment, and collaboration. It’s not doing everything right for me (the fights in particular are a little one-note, and that note is THOUSER), but I like the tone and themes a whole lot. Super impressed with how mature these stories are getting.