[Kamen Rider Die]

KAMEN RIDER ZERO-ONE EPISODE 22 - “EVEN SO, HE DID NOT DO IT”



Ha ha, right?

Favorite part of this episode is Fuwa grudgingly doing his job and making a positive difference in the life of someone else, rather than just endlessly seeking vengeance for his own grudges. It’s nice! I like Grumpy Fuwa, interviewing witnesses and rooting out criminals. Him having to do all that with the help of a Humagear defense attorney – to the point where Fuwa copies his catchphrase! – is icing on the cake.

I really enjoyed how the courtroom stuff came together, and I think I’d like this episode more if it had stuck to that. There’s a larger part of this episode that’s dedicated to the philosophical argument between Gai and Aruto, and that part… not my favorite?

Some of it is that Aruto’s plotline for this episode is him learning stuff Gai already told the audience a half-dozen episodes ago. Aruto acting all aggrieved at the reveal that Gai taught Ark to hate is mostly uncompelling, because we’ve already processed that information and used it to understand Gai’s character. It’s new info for our heroes, but old news to the viewer. There’s a bunch of this episode that’s just Aruto And Friends catching up to Episode 15 or whatever, and I found that a little tiresome.

It all culminates in Zero-One versus Thouser via the Metal Cluster Hopper key, and… I don’t know? I sort of liked how it visualized the toxicity of hatred, and how the Ark and Gai’s dim view of humanity meshes with Aruto’s rage to create something unstoppable and unsympathetic. And the fight itself was pretty cool, to see a completely immobile Zero-One just wipe the floor with Thouser. But it all felt sort of random, both in the creation of the Key (I guess Gai had Collected Enough Data for the new form to be made; I don’t love that story beat) and its placement directly after the big Phoenix Wright moment. Tonally, this episode is pretty all over the place, not least of which when the final scene is Izu going That Was All A Giant Bummer So Tell A Joke Quick. The episode lurched a lot. The cute courtroom drama didn’t sit that great beside Aruto screaming incoherently at Gai, and the climax of the episode suffered for that dissonance.

But, still, I liked more of this episode than I disliked. The courtroom story was excellent, and it looped Fuwa back into the main narrative in a way that makes me miss Yua all the more. (She’s just Gai’s secretary now! That super duper sucks!!!) But the horrifying depths of the Gai/Aruto plot felt out of place, and the Dangerous New Form stuff felt random and undercooked. Mixed bag!

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KAMEN RIDER ZERO-ONE SO-DO AI 06: KAMEN RIDER ZERO-ONE - METAL CLUSTER HOPPER



Much like the live-action counterpart, I think this figure hated me? And wanted to destroy me? The bulk of the building and stickering was unexpectedly adversarial. I popped off the Driver to sticker it, and it went flying across the room. After I eventually found it, the silver sticker for the center of the Driver adhered far to one side, and then couldn’t be moved. The neon COLOR stickers for the legs needed to be bent and shaped, and they really did not want to be. This thing was like five steps, and four of them were a pain in the ass.

The end result is an okay figure? There’s a bulkiness to Metal Cluster Hopper that I don’t think this figure really emulates. Everything needs to be a bit more pointy and extreme, but it’s, like, normal Zero-One but metal. I don’t know. It’s okay, but it’s missing the inhumanity of Metal Cluster Hopper.

Which is another way of saying that I really liked the debut for Metal Cluster Hopper, and I wanted more from its SO-DO. The live action suit goes big with its presence – huge metal spikes everywhere – and goes small with its performance. The debut is just Aruto locked in a metal cage as the Ark demolishes Thouser, and everything offensively is the suit, nothing from the man inside. The design of the suit really conveys Prison, and that’s a neat concept for a new upgrade. It’s basically Silver Hazard Form, but I like Hazard Form a ton, so I don’t mind it that much.

So, yeah, great suit for the TV show, but just an okay figure for SO-DO.