[Kamen Rider Die]

KAMEN RIDER ZERO-ONE: IS’S LECTURE ROOM EPISODE 2



A little bit of diminishing returns on this episode, and it’s mostly down to Aruto not being dumb enough.

The questions he’s given this time are, seriously, incredibly obvious. It’s stated that the production team tuned the difficulty of the questions way down after his last hilarious/flailing/hilariously flailing performance, and that feels like exactly the wrong move. The point of these shorts is to teach Aruto something about failure and/or dreams, but he instantly knows the answers to two-thirds of the questions! The dummies in the Zero-One staff responsible for putting together this bonus feature are giving him problems his character already solved! There’s very little challenge for Aruto in this short, which leads to him breezing through it without much entertainment value in the proceedings.

At least, until the lecture ends so early that the two actors have to vamp for time, and we find out about Noa, the woman who plays Izu, and her incredibly detailed dream house. Giant doors! Rose arches! A spiral staircase! An interior fountain! It’s all ridiculously grandiose, and every additional detail is as fascinating and funny as the one that preceded it. These two kids, her and the guy who plays Aruto, just spitballing the houses they want to buy in a few years, it’s so great. It’s like the first episode in this series of shorts, where you can see the chemistry they have as Aruto pulls more details of Izu’s dream out of her. Very on brand for Kamen Rider Zero-One.

Again, not as good as the first one! These types of pseudo in-character quizzes are best when they’re just shy of sadistic, and Aruto got off way too easy here. But there’s still plenty of charm in these two young actors goofing around, so it was still worth watching.