[Kamen Rider Die]

KAMEN RIDER ZERO-ONE EPISODE 10 - “I AM THE ACTOR OOWADA SHINYA”



Ha ha, what?! A two-parter for the story about the making of a TV show?

I don’t know if this is the series going all-in on two-parters going forward, or just some supreme confidence in this story, but I was a little shocked when I got to the end of this episode and there was a cliffhanger waiting for me. I don’t… why? Why is there more of this cute-but-insubstantial story?

What’s here is sort of interesting, but I can’t say it’s really sticking in my memory. It’s one that pushes Aruto and Izu to, if not Extra status, then definitely to a background role. (I would not be even a little surprised if I found out this story was constructed to give the actors for Aruto and Izu more time to film parts of the winter movie.) He’s here to witness events, but he doesn’t spend much time getting involved with either Oowada, the human actor; or Enji,the Humagear actor. Hell, the first fight of the episode he is (hilariously) barred from participating in! Aruto’s in this episode, but he’s not really in this story.

It’s a story that splits its time between the growing dysfunction of the AIMS Squad, and – weirdly – a short story about Assassin-chan (that’s what my subs call him, anyway) and Oowada forming a close bond over a couple scenes. Both plots have their strengths, but neither one really develops into anything that makes up for Aruto’s lack of involvement.

(The most perplexing thing is that everything about both stories are 100% up Aruto’s alley! He loves getting people to see the value in Humagears, and he loves fighting MetsubouJinrai with AIMS! If you’re going to build an Aruto-light Zero-One story, maybe don’t make it full of the things that define Aruto stories?)

Of the two, I think the Oowada/Assassin-chan story comes off the best. From Oowada’s side, it’s him needing the challenge of acting against an engaged performer; acting, instead of just running lines. Enji’s great at conveying what’s on the page, but he can’t really be in a scene with another actor. Assassin-chan’s aching to change and grow, so he’s the perfect student for Oowada, with the irony of that pairing probably forming our story in the second part. They get a couple cute scenes, but that’s about it for this time.

The AIMS stuff… man, I want to like it! I like Fuwa and Yua! I love seeing Rushing Cheetah! The action in their scenes is very very fun! But this was a sort of bland storyline where Fuwa’s upset that Yua is covertly working for ZAIA, but not so upset that he extracts an apology, or her reasoning, or a vow to change. Instead, he’s just like You Do Yua after she thanks him for his help and warns him she’ll probably betray him again. There’s a vague thing in there about making decisions on gut instinct and hope rather than an inflexible code, showing that Fuwa learned something from last episode, but it’s too weirdly applied to a woman who is clearly working against the public good. (She's at least terrifying the public, if not actually getting people hurt.) Fuwa’s real equanimous here, to a degree that had me wishing for his previous terrifyingly righteous anger.

This would all be totally fine as some Aruto-light one-off, a chance to share the spotlight with underserved characters. But a two-parter? That spends the first half shrugging its shoulders at Yua’s recent transgressions and doing The Main Zero-One Plot without Zero-One? Can’t say I’m a big fan of that approach.

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KAMEN RIDER ZERO-ONE SO-DO AI 10: DODO MAGIA



Since he’s one of the main characters this week and we will never ever ever (maybe) have another form of his to talk about, let’s take a look at the Dodo Magia SO-DO!

It’s a one-box figure, which means two things, generally. The first is that you’re getting not much in the way of armor pieces or accessories. This guy comes with an extra pair of hands, the attached pauldrons, and that’s it. No stand, even! The other thing about a one-box figure is that you are probably going to be applying a ton of stickers. Which you definitely are here!!!

There’re twenty-six stickers for the Dodo Magia (not counting the nameplate for the unincluded base), which is around double what was included for the two-box Jin and Horobi figures. Combined. Every bit of red below the helmet is a sticker, and even the helmet has a few stickers for the eyes and headphones. You are more or less wrapping the entire bottom half of the figure in foil, like he’s a Burrito Magia. It’s not a terrible build, though. The stickers are mostly large enough to manipulate easily, and the finished product is nice looking for a 400 yen figure.

And it’s cool that they even eventually made this figure? He snuck out in the last retail wave for Zero-One SO-DO, which is a testament to how cute this villain (?) design is. The Dodo head is a comedy design, with nothing particularly menacing about it. It’s a suit to clown on, to pity, and maybe to find some humanity within. For an assassin that’s working to render humanity extinct, I think it’s an adorable suit?