[Fish Sandwich]

Okay, to be fair, those last two lines actually are different in Japanese, but I think these three different scenes from three different episodes (I promise) still illustrates the point that this show's rehabilitation is a gradual process.

This episode only had one thing that really bugged me, so let me complain about it upfront, and then I'll get to all the things that were genuinely great, okay? The fight scenes: they're still purposelessly beautiful. Jin fighting Zero-One for absolutely no reason at the start is one of the worst examples yet of them just trying to meet an action quota no matter what. He picks a fight with Aruto because he isn't doing the thing he wants, even though Aruto is doing exactly the thing he wants. This is the kind of stuff Inoue does on his worst days. It makes Aruto look stupid for not explaining what's going on, and it makes Jin look dumb for not properly assessing the situation. It might've worked if he were still mentally on the level of a six year old, but he's supposed to be a little past rebellious teenager. That's why he wears a suit now. The middle fight with Vulcan and Va- uh, the Jackal Raider is okay in terms of motivation, but the outcome is obvious from the previous two times Fuwa already curbstomped Yua. Then there's the culminatory fight with Zero-One and Thouser (plus goons), which is straight bulls***, because he's literally trying to use physical force to persuade Aruto into selling the rights to the HumaGears, which he legally owns. "Nobody was watching" is not a satisfactory enough excuse at this point. Gai is a sloppy, petulant idiot, who needs to be given more clever ways to justify his continued habit of assault and battery for the fight scenes to be satisfying. I gave the last episode a pass on the fact that by its own explanation, the Zero-One Driver and HumaGears never should've left Aruto's authority in the first place. I did that because it helped the drama. I'm angry about it here because it hurts it. I don't think I'm being unfair here. I'll give a work of fiction a lot of leeway on hard logic for the sake of emotion, but Zero-One keeps pushing its luck, and it's got me worried. This was three out of three fights the episode failed at justifying. Not a good thing for an action show! Things were so much easier when the show was about a company versus literal terrorists.

On a more minor note, there's less point in updating the narration on-time if a few shots later Aruto is still in the Hiden Intelligence building. But that's small potatoes.

With all that out of the way, I loved everything else here. Yua getting tortured is unpleasant to see, but it finally feels like she's moving somewhere, and the drama with G-Pen was fantastic. Seeing these old guest characters come back, and growing and changing and finding their dreams, that's a really great, on-point thing for the show thematically. I don't know why Aruto says he wants to put HumaGears first going forward like he wasn't doing that already, though. I guess he's just hard on himself, which, you know, that's good. It's good that Aruto is striving to be better like this. That's an element of the show that I like. The way he constantly has to bounce back from failure, and this new chapter of him starting a new company basically from scratch to do so, it's an extremely interesting direction. The new formula of exploring HumaGear sentience is also a good way to differentiate from the first arc that was more about the humans, and the second, with the competition angle. There's a lot to love here. I think my favorite touch was bringing back the "leap towards your dream" advice from Aruto's dad as his new company's motto. The episode doesn't remind you that's where that comes from, but thankfully I committed it firmly to memory as something important to the series early on, and also because "leap". Like a grasshopper, right? It's perfect. Actually, on that note, for how much I complained about the action, major points for using Rising Hopper in a significant capacity.

Beyond, that, there's the usual nice direction and everything, but I think I've said all I really can. I kind of hoped the positive part of this post would be longer than the negative part, but I guess 50/50 is kinda where Zero-One is at overall right now, huh?