[Switchblade]

Yay, it's Zero-One time! This is a show that I have pretty ambivalent feelings towards. There are some aspects of it that I absolutely love and some elements that frustrate me deeply. Looking forward to seeing this thread play out.

Some initial thoughts:

- I. Freaking. Love. The Zero-One suit. I love almost all the suits in this, honestly. I do not know off hand who did the suit designs for Zero-One but they absolutely knocked it out of the park. I don't like it when Rider suits get too bulky; that was a big problem I had with both Ex-Aid and Zi-O's approach to power-up armor. Zero-One really nails its more streamlined aesthetic, though. It's not a very complex suit, but it looks so good with just the basic black body and a few pieces of brightly colored armor that visually pop right off of it. Easily one of my favorite default suit designs of all-time.

- Aruto, specifically his stand-up comedian aspect, always felt like he was someone that should annoy me, especially given my longstanding and vocal animosity towards loud comic relief characters. I really give the show and the actor credit that I pretty much loved him right out of the gate. One of the things, in particular, that endeared me to him is that the big joke about Aruto as a comedian is that he's not funny and the show doesn't try to pretend that he is.

I do not know much about Japanese stand-up; most of what I know about it comes from watching tokusatsu and I imagine that's about as accurate as the American TV version of what the NCIS does. That said, I read a good description of exactly what the deal is with Aruto's comedy and why other characters react to it the way that they do. Basically, it boils down to the fact that Aruto's jokes are based primarily around wordplay and puns (something that made this show very fun for translators). This is a form of stand-up comedy in Japan, but it's a style that's very pass?. The best American equivalent I can think of is it's like if he went up on stage and started doing Henny Youngman-style "Take my wife, please" shtick.

- When the show first came out, Toei really played it up as the start of a new era for Kamen Rider. I'll be really curious to see what you think about how well this did or didn't work by the end of the series.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DreadBringer

Izu izu (Is is, that's a show not by Aruto, I̶z̶u̶ ̶c̶a̶n̶ ̶b̶e̶ ̶o̶f̶f̶i̶c̶i̶a̶l̶l̶y̶ ̶r̶e̶f̶e̶r̶e̶d̶ ̶a̶s̶ ̶"̶I̶s̶"̶)

Toei: "Officially, her name is 'Is.'"

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