[Fish Sandwich]

You know, it's funny, this is the first of episode of Zero-One in... man, I don't even know how long, where, even though I'm still seeing the flaws, I'm totally satisfied. Like I don't want to whine about this one at all? The things that feel interesting to talk about are actually the things it did right, so credit to Masaya Kakehi for continuing to be at least as good at writing Zero-One as Takahashi (take that however you want I guess). Anyways:

- I now have a theory Ryuuta Tasaki was as deeply invested in this show's story as much as we were and decided to start directing for it with these episodes specifically so he could have Yua hitting Gai be done in the style of one of the finishing moves. I mean, I get a feeling that was actually just in the script, but that theory is boring. That whole scene, with the music out of nowhere and everything, it was impossibly jarring, and I don't actually think it fit the tone very well, but I just can't hate it.

- Fuwa continues to give off major Showa vibes by enthusiastically telling a child to believe in their dreams, and finally gets his moment of formally rejecting revenge as a motive to top it off. The huge revelation about his backstory here, the plot is maybe too packed to give it the space it deserved, but it hits that beat I'd want to see of him saying it's irrelevant because he's over it already anyway. As for how forced the "retcon" feels, I've found it suspicious since day one that Fuwa just happened to survive being chased after by murderous HumaGears during the Daybreak incident (if a horde of angry robots wanted some little kid dead, he'd be dead), so this feels like something planned out to me, even if I figured at the time it had more to do with MetsubouJinrai. Although with the way the Ark has its eye on Fuwa, maybe it still does.

- Yua follows Naki's lead with the Takumi flavored "[thing someone told me I want to believe in for myself], apparently" line when she Rider Kicks Thouser, which, by the way, Yua finally beat up Thouser! The stuff about believing in technology existing to benefit people was actually right in episode 3, where she first transformed into Valkyrie. Like, she had a little dialogue with Aruto to establish that, so I guess props to Kakehi for remembering this show maybe a little better than Takahashi has been? Because it definitely didn't come up a lot in the interim, as far as I recall. This episode confirmed one of my theories about Fuwa, but as for Yua? Was she really just some random ZAIA employee? Gai wasn't promising her some kind of reward in like a Faustian pact she'd have to have some big internal conflict over? She could've just... stopped? This whole time? Because that makes Yua sound an awful lot like the jerk I had her pegged as early on! She should count herself lucky Fuwa turned out to be so bad at holding grudges! As satisfying as this all was, it could've happened a dozen episodes ago. I thought the idea of Yua as having this almost feudalistic loyalty to Gai was an interesting concept, but if it meant her not being Valkyrie for this much of the show without any particularly clever twists, then I just don't think it was worth it, plain and simple.

- As for the way all the plots here blended together, it's okay? I'm getting really tired of Aruto having nothing to do in episodes but repetitive Metal Cluster Hopper fights against any combination of the same three dudes, but we're due a final form in a bit here, and now that Fuwa and Yua have their arcs pretty much concluded, I think the odds of Aruto finally getting some meaningful time in the spotlight is right around the corner. For what it's worth, I did rather enjoy the HumaGear plot this time. Wimpy Student and Excited Coach were fun enough guest character for what they were. They admittedly didn't add too much to the story though.

- The action was well directed like always, but I think I'm becoming numb to it or something, because I can't think of anything nice to say about it beyond that.