[Sh Ranger]

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

KAMEN RIDER ZERO-ONE EPISODE 38 - ?I AM 1000% YOUR FRIEND?

I'm watching this episode, though, and... it?s honestly one of my favorite moments in Zero-One, because it?s beautiful. It?s perfect. I wasn?t laughing, but I was almost crying.

I get that it?s probably not going to work for everyone. It?s a bold swing to follow last episode?s casual suggestion of multiple homicides with this episode?s attempt to resolve Gai?s childhood trauma. Gai?s seemed an absolutely irredeemable character, and I get it if this turn comes far too late (or far too random) to be convincing.

For me, it worked perfectly. I love the mundanity of it all: how Gai was a kid with a shitty dad, and he couldn?t process those feelings of inadequacy, so he pushed himself to be a hyper-competent asshole. He had this one friend, an AI from Hiden Intelligence, and the loss of it became this psychic wound that warped him in the weirdest ways. His hatred of AI was the absence of a friend; his desire to take over Hiden was a chance for a connection to something that used to make him feel worthwhile; his push to grow its profits at any cost was proof that his affection for Thouser was reciprocal, and valuable. It?s all sort of pathetic, but it?s a recognizable kind of pathetic.

I totally cried. Back when the show was airing, I went in to this episode knowing it was going to be about Gai's redemption and I was determined not to sympathize with him at all. But that was exactly what Sakuragi wanted me to think, since he worked so hard to obscure any redeeming qualities about the character. That was genius. In 20 minutes, I changed from wanting to punch Gai to wanting to hug him.

Suddenly, all the foreshadowing made sense. Him calling Isamu a "stray dog" was projecting his own feelings, cause he's been astray for the last 35 years chasing perfection and dismissing anything else as an unnecessary distraction, that's what his father's psychological abuse did to him. It's important to emphasize that despite his youthful looks, Gai is a middle-aged dude, he's been learning the wrong things for decades, so it's harder to get through to someone like that. In a way, he's like the Ark, he relinquished his capacity for love and kindness in childhood, represented by Thouzer, leaving nothing left to make him sincerely happy.

That's why his start on the road of redemption is believable, as his evil was caused by his ignorance to what he was doing, the consequences of his actions on the world around him. He never took the chance to look at himself, on the inside, until now. It's only after a pep talk by a HumaLexa and Zea giving him Thouzer back that he saw what a terrible person he had become. Thouzer, being designed for therapy, was immediately able to see what many of us couldn't, that Gai was "lost", felt like he "wasn't worth a percent", etc. We dismissed him as an irredeemably bad person, but Thouzer showed us through his own eyes that deep down, Gai was actually a suffering person in need of help and love, but too ashamed to ask for it. After this episode, I wasn't fully prepared to forgive him, but I could give him a fraction of that forgiveness and the space to start anew.

Easily my second favorite episode, after 29.

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Originally Posted by Switchblade

That said, it absolutely worked for me and I legitimately got teary eyed when I watched it. I've always had pets and I've loved them all deeply. I had to put down my 15-year-old cat last month after a months-long battle with cancer. The anticipatory grief alone almost wrecked me. I have also always over-empathized with inanimate objects. I was a stuffed animal kid well into elementary school and there is absolutely a teddy bear whose reconstruction would be like regaining a family member for me. Everything about Thouser (the dog) was custom-made to appeal to my emotions and this episode hit me like a truck.

Damn! As someone who loves cats, I give you my condolences. That really sucks. I've experienced the loss of beloved pets as well, even neighbors' pets. I feel like the waiting part is even worse than the actual death, it's heartbreaking seeing them deteriorate until they eventually die. Gai's reunion with his old robot dog is like wish fulfillment to me, the desire to see those cute animals once more.

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Originally Posted by Rei

That said, of course this episode is not perfect. There are a few bits I would have like changed. One of course is Gai absolutely deleting every one of his crimes, completely unneeded and his development as a character afterwards would be much stronger had they left out this scene.

Honestly, it's the opposite for me. I think it works even better without the external pressure of all those crimes, severe enough to send him to jail for a very long time. Since it's only the evidence of his coercion and assault of Jun that Aruto actually manages to hold on to, it means that the conclusion Gai reaches is more of his own will, with a little help from some AIs. It gives Gai the autonomy to decide his own atonement. He hasn't deleted the crimes, he deleted the evidence, but he'll continue to carry the burden of those crimes on his conscience as he fights to make up for them, which is a very Kamen Rider thing to do.

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Originally Posted by Kurona

Oh this is the episode they used the bike for a scene?? I guess there is something I like about this episode then

Are you somehow immune to Thouzer's inherent cuteness?