[Kamen Rider Die]

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Originally Posted by Enchilada645

And so the hilarity of Gai Amatsu continues... like dude, I don't care if you have a bomb collar on Fuwa... do you really think the dude who can force himself to stand as his insides are torn apart (Thank you Assault Wolf) is going to listen to you cause you make his brain painfully go "brrrr"? Of course not! Fuwa will get used to that pain, he will override whatever other will is inside him and he will kick your ass!

It's almost impossible to believe that Gai is running the Metal Cluster Hopper Strategy again, after Aruto took the last cursed power-up and repaved a street with Thouser's face. The last time wasn't even some minor variable that Gai hadn't accounted for; Aruto won by being the exact same person he always was!

There's some humor - and a little bit of character work - to Gai's absolute blindspot on how much shit he can make people eat, but as a storytelling choice? Not the best!

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Originally Posted by Frontier

Even when he lost everything and the people who were skeptical of him felt validated in that skepticism, Aruto remained steadfast committed to his dream and continuing to try and achieve it even when everything is basically taken away from him.

Yeah, I didn't really have a space to talk about it, but I adored Aruto internalizing Hiden's defeat as his defeat, but deciding that he just needs to do a better job of advocating for Humagears. He didn't look at intolerance as a failure of society, he looked at it as a solvable problem, one that needs to be met head on and eventually defeated. It's Fuwa's lesson from a half-dozen episodes ago: if people have been taught something bad, teach them something good to counteract it.

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Originally Posted by DreamSword

Let's just say that with my own personal experiences, this really got to me. And yeah, I get it; That was most likely not what the staff were trying to showcase given this is a Japanese show and all, but man, it really worked on me.

Great episode all around.

You and I have talked about this elsewhere, but I did enjoy this story confronting the They're Stealing Our Jobs fallacy that conservative politicians like to spin up. I wish it'd been more of a focal point, but there's some interesting stuff in here about immigration, unskilled labor, capitalism, and how intolerance gets weaponized for political/financial gain.

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Originally Posted by cosmicrescend0

Oh hey, we get to crack open Yua for a bit. I.....not sure how we feel about this? The exploitation of workers that grinds their hopes, dreams, and resolve into pure dust, for the sake of the elite who continually profits of all that, I understand that very well. Yua not even giving an answer when asked why she wanted to be apart of ZAIA.......I feel half "wow! This is a cool move to emphaize how being a slave to the system has wittled her down to the point to where she can't even really remember why she might've been excited to work with ZAIA in the first place!" and half "man this is really frusturating not to even get a crumb of more backstory/motivation for a character that been around since Ep 1, and now it's nearly Ep 30!"

I still don't love how this show avoids any insight into Yua's character (this episode is Fuwa literally screaming at Yua to defend her actions, and her defense is just NUH UH YOU ARE), but I sort of liked how they used her lack of development into a counterpoint to Fuwa's journey. Fuwa doesn't have a dream, but he'll keep fighting for his freedom until he has one. Yua, on the other hand, is so deep in her subjugation that she can't define herself without being under Gai's thumb. She can't even conceive of the concept of a dream, because her identity is 100% a lackey, a tool. Fuwa sees enslavement as a prison, Yua sees it as a comfort.

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Originally Posted by cosmicrescend0

And that's not even including the whole "chance said tech could come to life and kill you" thing! If something like the Humagear-run city was announced in real life, I'd personally be wary of the whole thing, and probably wouldn't agree to live there if I was given the offer.

I laughed pretty hard when a well-meaning Aruto informed a skeptical crowd that the Humagears don't rampage nearly as much as they used to. This is... not a great pitch!!!

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Originally Posted by Nokination

I don't have much to say on this episode, but I really like the Rampage Vulcan suit, it might even be my favorite in the series.

It's a very cool suit! It's probably my favorite of Vulcan's suits to date.

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Originally Posted by Androzani84

And so, the competition is over. And all I can share is that it was only now that the producers remembered that Aruto could only become Zero-One if he was the president. How they resolved that? well, I have a meme prepared.

The next episode A New Arc thing tells us that Aruto will be Zero-One again sooner than later, but I like how his mission and dream aren't dependant on that role. He's okay going grassroots for a while, changing the system one person at a time. That sort of dedication is more interesting to me than him detonating hacked robots or whatever.

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Originally Posted by TF RyuShin

This culminated in Bingo's two parter where Gai made such a stupid decision to forcefully Force Riser to Bingo in front of Izu, who we also established she can make recording in her head. I will always criticize this part of the arc since it was established that a Humagear can still go berserk even without being hacked by Force Riser. I think the era for Force Riser's usage had gone past and I think they should just focus on how giving negative emotions to Humagears could lead them to go rogue. It would be much better if Gai just kept on with this sharp tongue and used that as a catalyst to 'hack' Humagear. This way you could easily lower Hiden's image even more and establish t
how dangerous Humagears are; killing two birds at once.

Well, two things.

First, the show establishes that Humagear recordings aren't exactly bulletproof evidence. If Aruto used Izu's recording to try and tarnish Gai's reputation, Gai would inevitably turn it around on Aruto. In a PR battle, Gai's always going to win.

The second thing, though, is that Gai's increasingly public machinations are useful in portraying his confidence, bordering on overconfidence. He doesn't need to hide in the shadows; he wants to be seen as humanity's savior. Having Gai theatrically demonstrate Hiden's weaknesses is exactly where his character is at by this point in the series.

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Originally Posted by TF RyuShin

Sorry if this ends up too long but I finally could let out my feelings and frustration in this arc. Trust me, I also love this arc as much as Fish and DS but I also relate to some people who felt disappointed and dissatisfaction with some misstep that Zero One took in this arc . I gave a such a criticism like this because I know Takahashi could still perform even better and brings his A to the game.

I get it! I'm glad you were willing to state your criticisms in detail, and I appreciate the insight into your experience with these episodes.

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Originally Posted by Kurona

I've rewatched this fight scene countless times by this point; it's one of the high points of a series that is CONSTANTLY challenging what a high point for fight choreography in Rider looks like and, obviously, it represents one of the best things ever. Just a phenomenal time

Right? Golly, what a fight scene. Movie-level quality, but with so much more emotional energy to draw from. Almost can't believe that they capped this arc off with a massive Fuwa victory, but it's so smart of them to do so.

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Originally Posted by DreadBringer

But Fuwa's story here also supported Humagears in how the previously one of the most anti-Humagear person lets go of his grudge against Humagears here and focused on the responsible one in Gai and ZAIA. So even Fuwa had stopped pinning blame on Humagears, showing that Humagears aren't the deadly tool, outer circumstances made them a deadly tool

Absolutely. It's nicely subtle, how Fuwa isn't suddenly like I WAS WRONG ABOUT EVERYTHING and dedicates his life to saving Humagears. He's willing to make individual judgments, and keep his solutions to what works for him instead of forcing them on others. It's a neat view of how intolerance can be rehabilitated in more realistic terms, you know? People don't do 180s in their lives when it comes to ingrained beliefs, but they can sort of step back and try and see individuals instead of monolithic blocks. Fuwa's getting better because he's owning his emotional state, rather than making it some other group's responsibility.