[Kamen Rider Die]

KAMEN RIDER ZERO-ONE - “SUPER JOB WAR BATTLE ETC.”



I’m so tired!

This one was a grind, man. It’s a clever enough concept – Team Zero-One explains a bunch of jobs to Fuwa, then realizes he’s not suited to any of them because his entire skillset is Yelling and Randomly Being In Places, so all he can be is a Kamen Rider – but the execution is not great.

The first half of each episode is relatively strong, as the jokes come fast and mean. (Everyone’s like Oh Fuwa’s Too Fuwa To Do This Job, and they’re right, but it’s so mean. This guy just had a breakdown!) But then the second half of each episode becomes more and more just, like, whole scenes from episodes? A little joke at the front or back, but then a whole scene of some random thing. The topic should be Jobs, but we also skirt around Fuwa’s various failures, Yua’s resignation from ZAIA, and a weird amount of Gai plots. The definition is real loose, and it makes the back half of each episode feel like the producers completely ran out of ideas.

And then it’s all a dream, which is fine (like, who cares?), but then they try to wrap this all up with a moral and totally bungle it. Fuwa’s lesson is that he’s meant to be a Kamen Rider – he’ll suffer to do the job, but he’s not built to do anything else. Fair, sure, whatever. But Aruto’s like We Learned That Jobs Are Good And Teamwork Is Important, and… no? No, Fuwa definitely did not learn that? The dream versions of his friends just busted his balls for an hour, and reminded him CONSTANTLY that anything requiring collaboration with teammates or leading others was well beyond Fuwa’s capabilities/interests, and his value is in following his weird impulses until it results in justice somehow. He definitely didn’t learn the value of flower arranging!

Pretty much the worst of these specials? Nominally funny (everyone’s so casually dismissive of Fuwa!), but barely enough runway on this for a 15-minute special, let alone two full episodes. Very glad I’m done with these clip shows! This one almost broke me!

(Fuwa’s “gorilla” drawing is perfect, though.)