[Koh]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fish Sandwich

AAAAAaaaaaaaggGGGhhhhHHH why are you toying with me like this Zero-One? It's one thing for Ryusoulger to hand Kamihoriuchi an underbaked script, but you? You're supposed to be better than this!

Okay, so, since we're still working with this damn formula, let me just recap the basics on my thoughts towards the competition episodes:

- Not bad
- Could be far better
- Needs more going on
- Subplots running on a treadmill
- Gai's actions rarely make sense
- For f***'s sake stop making Yua a secretary

Alright, now that we're back up to speed, let's go into specifics. This might take a bit, but if I don't get this stuff off my chest every week, I might start legitimately resenting this series.

First of all, unless the show does something to prove otherwise, bringing back MetsubouJinrai in the middle of these episodes only serves to exacerbate how much less exciting the competition is.

Seeing Jin fighthing Thouser and whatnot is sure to be fun, but it's not like the competition being over demands removing Gai from the show. If Zero-One can't specifically do something to tie these things together by the end of the fifth round, I'm not going to be happy.

Second of all, Gai is wearing my patience incredibly thin. I don't know what it is about Yuuya Takahashi and his evil CEO Riders, but I think I'm getting more fed up with Thouser than I ever was with Genm and Cronus, and people who were around for the Ex-Aid episode threads might remember I didn't always have nice things to say about them.

With Gai, he's got both the Cronus problem of having inexplicably good publicity, combined with the Genm problem of constantly having things go his way even when they aren't going his way. He also adds on to that his very own problem, which is that I've completely lost track of what his motivation is.

We started with this notion of a belief in human superiority over AI, which seemed logical enough for a top-of-the-food-chain corporate boss character. But last episode he's suddenly talking about how cool arms-dealing is (?), and the reliance on ZetsumeRisers to create new Magia either shows that he's totally lying about thinking HumaGears are actually just destined to go crazy, or that the show has no idea how to have his belief be justifiable to him without actually putting his argument in the right.

The fact that he's now doing this s*** on live television, you might think that'd be my biggest gripe, but honestly, I'm mostly concerned that the show decided the beltless Magia shtick wasn't good enough. That was a great wrinkle in the plot! It played to the series' themes, and provided a neat visual cue to distinguish the new Magia from the old ones in a budget-conscious way. Everything about it fit, so why does Gai need, and how does he have, a drawer full of terrorist devices that look like they were thrown together from scrap-metal in a dirty, improvised factory?

All this confusion bleeds into his fights with Zero-One, where it's often not clear exactly what the stakes are supposed to be, beyond Thouser's wanton violence being mean.

Third, I'm still holding off on talking about Yua until we get to certain upcoming events, and while my outlook on her future is actually more optimistic than you might think, her role here provides the best example of what's wrong with the pacing on the subplots right now. We keep getting these hints of bigger things to come, but one of the reasons I keep insisting these episodes don't have enough meat on their bones is because all the hints are only different superficially.

What can we take away from Yua's discomfort at being asked to drive a HumaGear berserk, or being ordered to stop helping an injured man, besides that she's loyal to Gai and doesn't necessarily want to be? You know, that thing we've already learned like half a dozen times? Same deal for the constant teasing of whatever Fuwa's deal with Naki is.

I have no problem whatsoever with the fact none of these plotlines are hitting a resolution, what I'm upset about is that we aren't getting multiple puzzle pieces slowly doled out, giving us new information to theorize with, and leading to a more engaging overall plot. None of us would have time to do all this complaining about Zero-One if it would give us something fun to chew over while we wait for the big climaxes.

Fourth, and in that same vein, the plotline here is about 50% there. It wins major points for the twist that the HumaGear is the one that needed to learn a lesson from the human. It's the kind of thing I'm looking for from these episodes in how it specifically contrasts the other competition plots, instead of mirroring it. Good stuff. But it's not enough substance to carry the entire episode by itself, and everything around it feels as anemic as I'm unfortunately starting to expect. Aruto talks at the end about how him and the HumaGear "both learned a lesson", and all I could think was "yeah, that would be great... if it were true".

Listen, Wizard is my second favorite Rider show. I LOVE a good episodic plot, and that's exactly why this arc of Zero-One has been so frustrating. It forgets to do basic narrative things that make standalone plots work. Tying the guest character's story thematically into what the main characters are going through at the moment is a huge one of these.

For the story to come together, it's important to have somebody like Aruto gain something from the experience. A scene or two early on can establish either that's he's at a loss for how to deal with some larger problem, or tease a part of his backstory we've not yet heard, or show how he suffers from unresolved character flaws, and from there you have the weekly plot eventually connect to what you established, inspiring Aruto to new heights, or, going the backstory route, reminding him of something interesting that occurred in his past we can flash back to that gives the viewers new insights on what drives him.

And of course, it doesn't have to be Aruto specifically. Do it with Izu, Fuwa, Yua, Gai, heck, even a minor supporting character, if you can make the time. Episodes focused on corporate politics between Hiden and ZAIA would've been a great opportunity to flesh out Vice President guy whose name I can't even remember because he's been so unimportant. If him gunning for Aruto's seat isn't going to be a real plot point, you could take the opportunity to retire the shtick by doing a plot where he and Aruto eventually come to an understanding. Heck, go real out there, and pull one of my favorite tricks Wizard loved to use, having a guest character with ties to an existing one. What if Vice President guy's ex-girlfriend or somebody turned out to be the person Gai selected to rep ZAIA in one of the rounds? Could lead to fun scenarios, right? Bottom line, sprinkling in bite-sized character arcs for recurring members of the cast is a very, very good way to keep events feeling significant while the bigger stuff winds up.

Fifth, I've got a couple minor things I might as well get off my chest while I'm venting. Some of the comedy here was a little weak. The bit with Aruto and the firefighters getting all excited to "save" cute girls was timed great, but the gag itself is a little too nonspecific, I think. The jokes are funniest when they play off of the characters' existing traits. This is why it's cute when Izu mimics Aruto's gestures, and why if a show like Build did a gag about saving things from a burning building, it'd be Kazumin rushing headfirst into a blazing inferno after someone tells him there's like, an autographed Miitan body pillow in there.

I'm also not sure if I just missed development here, but what happened to "don't explain the gags!"? Because Aruto literally thanks Izu for doing so in this one.

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So that's my latest round of bellyaching with Zero-One. Hopefully my whining at least helps other people figure out what is or isn't working for them with this show right now. I swear I still like Zero-One quite a bit, but the good things it's doing simply aren't as interesting to talk about as all the things it's doing that I'm not so sure about, and I'm still hoping that'll change soon. I do have a feeling that next episode will be another case where the back half of the two-parter does a lot to redeem my disappointment with the first part, but we'll see.

A lot this arc feels like "the slump" that some rider shows get in the third act which makes me hopeful that the third act is going to be amazing all the way through.