[DreadBringer]

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

KAMEN RIDER ZERO-ONE EPISODE 34 - ?THIS IS HOROBI?S WAY?

For the first time in a long time, we?ve got an episode without Gai as the antagonist ? a role I was incredibly tired of him occupying ? and it?s at best a lateral move. Horobi?s back on his bullshit, which is smirking and saying God Told Me To, and I don?t find much of interest there. Horobi should come across as either an impassioned zealot or a charismatic cult leader, but he might as well be a DX toy that only plays its two or three recorded lines. Every strategy is just some watery hate machine telling him to go do villainy, and then he does it. It?s the repetitiveness of Gai?s one-note Blowing Aruto?s House Down thing, but without even the smarmy hateability of Gai?s performance.

Actually yeah Horobi's real a̶r̶k̶ arc does start here, but it seems that you're just not invested in it. Dunno if you'd receive this better when this started earlier as, Jin's arc also started quite late, at ep. 25. Now Horobi gotta face someone who disagrees with him more, and quite have some heart-to-heart with them, of course with none other than Aruto, changing from previously rejecting temporary team-up with MetsubouJinrai.net. But after knowing Horobi's origins, Aruto'd want to reason with him and talked about him straying away from his origins as a nurturer Humagear. Other than that, Midori also talked about Horobi being created to help humanity later. Though for now, Horobi is hypocritical of killing his own kind and excuses it with his hatred of humanity ("corrupting" them, and reminder that Horobi was an abusive dad to Jin), and created an irony that, Horobi previously was created to nurture next generation humanity, but due to MetsubouJinrai.net, seeks to eradicate humanity instead.

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

And it?s? like the Ark stuff is so distractingly hollow that I hate to see this show regressing back to it, even if it?s just to deconstruct it in the next episode. The Ark is supposedly destroying a sinful humanity to create a world that?s safe for Humagears, a plan which requires the destruction of:

-humanity
-Humagears who like humanity
-Humagears who are useful as weapons against humanity or other Humagears
-Humagears who are nearby
-Jin, once

It?s a robot death cult whose M.O. and stated objectives are so diametrically opposed as to be instantly satirical, and yet we?re still having them as a main plot! In Episode 34!!! Jin?s return from the grave was a breath of fresh air, since it had a baked-in rejection of the first act?s The Ark Wills It routine. Horobi?s schtick was tired twenty episodes ago, and I care for it even less now.

It was implied that Ark is fighting for a noble cause for Humagears, but in reality Ark is more of embodiment of malice and hatred itself, pure spite, rather than something fighting for the good of Humagears, so while it still won't be a good character to you, there still are no good intentions regarding it. It's fully in character for Ark to not care about even Humagears. Metal Cluster Hopper before was being coded from pure evil. It before controlled Metal Cluster Hopper with visible pleasure in its attacks against its own Magia just as happily as it does Raiders.

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

This show?s success has maybe been in spite of the antagonism of your Horobis and Gais, not because of them. The best villain this show has ? and the one whose complicated, nuanced menace is as fresh now as it was in the premiere ? is society itself. When this show wants to ask unanswerable questions about the ways we view one another, or dig into the difficult work of helping each other succeed without losing our own perspectives, it?s as tense and poignant as any other show?s endgame. Whenever this show needs to have someone for Zero-One to detonate, I feel like it?s paper-thin and unconvincing. Horobi?s from a dumber, more binary version of this show. I sincerely hope the next episode treats him that way.

I don't know what do you define "success" or not regarding KR shows, because so far, no matter how bad (or badly received) a series is, no Rider series has been stopped midway due to "failure" or such. Unless you'd refer to the merch sales, which wouldn't be story-related, but yeah iirc for this one no Rider show had huge failures on this. Other than that, the Yua's part is also still a setup, thus won't talk much about it yet, other than how there's a slapstick regarding her and Fuwa which I wondered if it's comedy effect or it's also canonical for Yua to know the ways to KO Fuwa (as she's a fighter). Her hair being tied up may be an indicator of her having more relaxed personality now (though striking Fuwa like that still isn't nice). For the Gai part, yeah his previous defeats are tiring, but this one's satisfying to have ZAIA Spec also exposed as unsafe too.

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

KAMEN RIDER ZERO-ONE SO-DO AI 06: TRILOBITE MAGIA

I think the Trilobite suit is pretty neat. It?s just a Robot Skeleton, but that?s an almost perfect idea for a starting point. The MetsubouJinrai takeover turns a Humagear inside out, so here?s this black suit with silver bones and musculature. It reads real well from a distance, and looks menacing as it lurches in a group. Really solid mook suit!

AS their name implies, it's based on Trilobites, an extinct marine arachnomorph anthropoid species, and their face masks heavily resemble a fossilized Trilobite. Those wearing the same gray trilobite-shaped face mask, also symbolizes that they've lost all identity. Other than this though, the design is also based on Shocker footsoldiers (Showa).

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Originally Posted by Sh Ranger

While prejudice can and often does come from conscious thought, I agree that some of it is the fault of culture that imprints those bad feelings in us. That's why so many people don't understand that they have prejudice, don't understand that they're doing anything wrong. The same kind of prejudice that Gai has towards HumaGears, coming up with mean excuses to frame them as being dangerous and unreliable, which fits in to his oblivious trait.

It also seems that, culture is also something that is put on pedestal above most anything, and that moral relativism view is pushed. To push the idea that good vs evil does not exist, solely "good/bad for my personal interests", treating everything as subjective, with one of the excuses being culture; good/bad is only a random construct of random culture. So calling out bad deeds as something bad is discouraged, while you can't object against how a culture is made. In short, culture justifies everything. While understanding culture is something good, this (or mainly moral relativism view) seems to blind people of recognizing the problem of prejudice, silencing those who call out the bad deeds in the name of culture.

Gai though isn't only like that to Humagears, he was an awful boss to Yua and the others, used humans as a tool like Humagears, is a parasite to humanity who steals powers from more talented people around, and claiming that the Ark's judgment is exactly what mankind deserves. He wants to preserve his image, so why would he admit that he's wrong? (this is also one of many reasons humans won't admit their wrongdoings, ego, not only prejudice)