[Kamen Rider Die]

KAMEN RIDER ZERO-ONE EPISODE 33 - “ARE DREAMS REALLY THAT IMPORTANT?”



This is a show about dreams, which is why it never felt like Yua fit in.

It’s not that she didn’t have a dream in the same ways that Fuwa didn’t have a dream. She wasn’t consumed by rage, unable to see beyond the horizon of her hatred. She was too pragmatic for that. She’s an engineer. She understands technology, and how it can assist humanity. But, like, assist humanity the way a traffic light does, or the way an electric toothbrush does. She creates technology that makes human beings safer, or more productive. That’s it. She doesn’t make technology that emotionally or psychologically enriches human lives, because that’s unquantifiable. She follows the data, and works to make things more efficient. Humagears were dangerous, so they needed to be stopped. ZAIA Specs were safer, so it was only right for her to support Gai’s takeover. The world is a place with cause and effect, but everyone she fought was arguing for unverifiable phenomena; for wishes instead of results. She was never a villain, she just couldn’t understand the value of fighting for a dream.

So Yua probably found the last dozen episodes as frustrating as we did, with everyone around her agitating for a response she couldn't give. Everyone’s shouting at her about dreams, and that’s not her. They’re decrying tools, but tools serve a reliable purpose. Tools are dependable, while dreams aren’t. Fuwa and Aruto kept pushing her to define herself by their terms, by their metrics. She couldn’t care less if people are sad about their robot friends not being around, because sometimes that’s the price of progress. Better solutions inevitably disadvantage the opposition, and folks will cry about that. It doesn’t make it any less important to make technology safer for the public. And that’s been the one constant for Yua since the first episode: technology should always make the public safer.

We’ve been wondering for a while what would be the straw that broke Yua’s dedication to ZAIA and Gai, and it’s the most obvious thing in the world. When she sees that Gai is using technology to make people less safe – to actively harm someone like Fuwa – she’s had enough. It’s not about the theories or the possibilities or the dreams. It’s about seeing her technology be used to hurt people, right in front of her, and saying No. Gai’s done a million shitty things, but they could all be couched in the idea of a safer, more productive humanity. With the reveal that he’d psychologically tortured Fuwa just to make him into a weapon, Yua’s seen enough. There’s no alignment between her worldview and ZAIA. She can’t continue to work under someone who fundamentally doesn’t care about who his technology harms, since it’s the biggest thing she cares about.

This is a show about dreams, but dreams need to be tempered with an awareness of the world around you. Characters like Fuwa and Aruto can bet their lives on optimistic empathy, can tilt at Thouser-shaped windmills, and probably win the day. For the rest of us, we need to make sure our goals are achievable. We can pursue a goal without trying to make a dream come true; knowing the difference is sometimes the only way to succeed in this world. A character like Yua is here to show us that a little pragmatism might be the missing ingredient to a story about living in a way where everyone gets to be happy.