[DreadBringer]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

KAMEN RIDER ZERO-ONE EPISODE 16 - “THIS IS THE DAWN OF ZAIA”

He’s an interesting character, Gai. I don’t feel like he’s more fully-developed than when he was last trying to give Hiden Intelligence a black eye, but there’s some fun new details. Him being the inverse of Aruto is clever. Gai manipulated a race of robots to become a powerful, rich industrialist, while Aruto became a powerful, rich industrialist to protect a race of robots. I don’t know if his scheme to takeover Hiden via a satellite trained to despise humanity and a robot death cult is particularly exciting to think about (it feels a little bland right now), but I appreciate his casual Oh I Taught A Robot To Hate People thing. That’s a fun energy for a villain speech.

Yeah, now it's revealed, the true source of why there are terrorist attacks in MetsubouJinrai.net and Humagears turned into something more unsafe. It's the worst form of how Aruto and HIDEN Intelligence had to face a competitor that tried to bring them down, in Gai and his ZAIA Enterprise. All about the dangers Humagears pose can be traced back into Gai feeding human negativity to Ark, making it genocidal and taking some Humagears as its underlings too like Horobi and Jin. Gai is the very target Fuwa should direct his anger at. This is done to discredit HIDEN and Humagears, but of course this is more than just taking down company, but also causing genocidal deaths, displaying how hatable Gai is to done so much more than just being company rival. As a company president, of course Gai had to keep his public image good as well, which unfortunately he had all the means to do to just deflect blames from anything he does to another party like claiming it's Ark's decision to become genocidal.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

The stuff preceding it was entertaining but perfunctory. Neat to see Shining Assault Hopper go all out with dazzling new weaponry, but, like, Jin isn’t exactly Final Boss material. There’s pathos to his inability to even attempt to explain why humanity should go extinct, exposing both the hollowness of MetsubouJinrai’s philosophy and the failure of humanity to teach Humagears how to live, but Horobi was the bigger villain to defeat. Taking out Jin’s just mopping up. It’s a well shot fight, but nothing with any real drama behind it.

Jin isn't Final Boss material... because he's not, never, a Final Boss. As you've seen in this episode too, Horobi is beaten, but he's tied into a seat and re-awakens at the end, so it's not the end for MetsubouJinrai.net, only their central antagonist role. Not all dads are dead. Other than that though, you previously talked about the bad consequence of Fuwa's revenge, and now Fuwa actually felt it (other than how, Gai, the real source of his misery, has appeared), he questioned whether his whole quest for revenge was worth it, especially after seeing the defeated Horobi as nothing more than a hunk of metal. I forgot that here Aruto had a bit more sympathy to Jin that I remember, regarding how much he hated Jin before (for plausible reasons), regarding him knowing about how Humagears learned good or evil. Jin is a product of abusive upbringing from Horobi, thus bad teaching leads into a psycho.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

KAMEN RIDER ZERO-ONE SO-DO AI 07: KAMEN RIDER ICHI-GATA - ROCKING HOPPER

I really like the Ichi-Gata suit. It’s a fun Reiwa take on Showa, creating something in the context of Zero-One’s aesthetics that still looks like it could be 50 years old. It’s got the vague Forceriser design (strapped-together armor over a bodysuit), but moved around and evened out, thanks to the Cycloneriser. It’s more symmetrical, with an actual design sense behind it, rather than Stolen and Hotwired. The little scarf/muffler is adorable, I like the sad Showa eyes it’s got. Very clever take on something that needs to feel from a different era.

So you'd like the suit, despite on how Soreo was handled in Reiwa First Generation (which'd be good to look at the suit objectively, moreover the Showa take). Other Showa trait is that, his name "Ichi-Gata" (Type-1) contrasts with Hongo's "#1" (ichi-gou), his suit has teal armor on a black bodysuit and his helmet has pink eyes, imitating the color scheme of Rider #1's original appearance (officially dubbed "Old #1") as well as "Hopper #1" from Kamen Rider The First. Ichi-Gata has an extended collar with red accents, referencing Rider #1's iconic red scarf, and the energy effects give the appearance of a full red scarf of his own. His transformation belt is the CycloneRiser, a silver and red repaint of the MetsubouJinrai Force Riser; this serves as a combined reference to Rider #1's own belt (named Typhoon, painted silver and red) and his motorcycle (named Cyclone). His pre-transformation pose is reminiscent to Hongo's iconic arm cross.