[Kamen Rider Die]

KAMEN RIDER ZERO-ONE EPISODE 29 - “OUR DREAM WON’T BE BROKEN”



So, let’s talk about Fuwa.

His arc over the last dozen episodes has been incredibly weird. It’s felt tangential at best, vestigial at worst. The Job Battle arc was about two warring captains of industry with diametrically opposed views about the role of technology in society. Meanwhile, Fuwa is increasingly isolated and irrelevant, fruitlessly trying to crack a case with his twin tools of Shouting and Randomly Being In Places. He’d sometimes intersect with an Aruto plot, but mostly just as a narrative device to wrap up some story he wasn’t even around for. He’s been inconsequential to a story about the future of technology in society.

But then this episode rolls around, and it’s the exact opposite. It reframes the entire Job Battle story as about something far more interesting than just Humagears Good or Humagears Bad: the role of the average person in a world where corporations are deciding what the future looks like.

Fuwa’s story becomes a kind of third path for a story debating whether technology is an obstacle to human development or integral to it. The third option is to disregard those binaries, the Yay Robots or Boo Robots story we’ve been served, in favor of a focus on human decision-making and desire. Regardless of technology, you’re still a person. You still have innate complexity and aspirations. To cede that complexity, or those aspirations, to some indifferent corporation that views you as a product… why entertain that reality? The point of any choice should be to better allow for your growth as a person. Technology isn’t a blessing or a curse; it’s something that you interact with to the extent that it’s bettering your life.

Surprising to see that sort of resolution from Fuwa, but the story more than supports it. There’s all of the Naki stuff, sure, but there’s also Yua’s stunning inability to throw off the shackles of a company that doesn’t value her, or how MetsubouJinrai can’t act against Ark’s plans for Fuwa. Everyone’s making decisions for Fuwa, or refusing to make decisions for themselves, so it’s inevitable that he’d only be able to free himself from this trap by making some decisions of his own.

We finally get Fuwa’s But Why Heroism here, and it’s nicely conveyed. It’s shades of Cross-Z, where Fuwa’s psychological inability to conceive of a future beyond warfare makes him more receptive to Aruto’s belief system. Fuwa doesn’t have a dream, but as long as he stays true to himself, maybe he’ll figure out a dream someday. It’s not Aruto’s big-hearted hope for uniting humanity and Humagears in a perfect future, but it’s more beautiful and optimistic than Fuwa’s previous dream of Killing Them All. These sorts of Buy Why Heroisms aren’t my favorite (I much prefer the specificity of almost any other Rider), but I think Fuwa comes by it so honestly and forcefully that it’s hard to say it doesn’t work.

And, like, to follow it up with maybe the best fight sequence this show has ever seen? Gilding the lily! The energy of the fight is off the charts, utilizing both the Very Special Episode choice of holding the theme song until the climactic fight (always works!), and some incredibly clever wirework. When Rampage Vulcan flings Valkyrie, and the camera goes with? INSANE. Such an astonishing fight, high fives all around.

This was a pretty fantastic episode. I wasn’t expecting the conclusion of the Gai Vs Aruto arc to be a celebration of Fuwa’s resiliency and individuality, but I love that it was. This was a story that ended up being about how people get lost in the shuffle when corporations go to war, so it’s only right that a street-level grunt like Fuwa should be integral to the finale. Smart episode, front to back.

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KAMEN RIDER ZERO-ONE SO-DO AI 07: KAMEN RIDER VULCAN - RAMPAGE GATLING



Sorry, Fighting Jackal Raider, you’ll have to wait. Today, we talk about RAMPAGE VULCAN.

This is the last of the pre-built SO-DO I’ve got. I don’t know why I randomly built this guy out of AI 07. I didn’t build the other two figures from the wave at the time, nor anything from the sets directly before or after it. Weird! I think the gold’s mostly painted. The stickers look to be minimal on the body: a couple around the ribs and belt, some accents for the animal arm, a few for the face. The rest are all for the wings, which I recall being arduous to get right and flat. Still, figure looks surprisingly accurate for how ornate the costume is.

Which is a fun choice, making this ultra-detailed costume for Vulcan. I like how it’s explicitly an upgrade for the Shooting Wolf design, not for the Assault Wolf design. It’s got that old Shotriser asymmetry, but now with regal gold detailing and a more outgoing multicolor fringe to half the helmet. It’s a suit that symbolizes the way Fuwa is pulled between different worlds, but has harnessed that struggle to create his own power. (I love how the Henshin is him just weathering this barrage of shots, and standing firmer because of it.) There’s more explicit heroism to Vulcan now.

I like this suit a lot. Just a phenomenal representation of Fuwa’s journey so far.