[DreadBringer]

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

KAMEN RIDER ZERO-ONE EPISODE 37 - “NO ONE CAN STOP IT”

But almost every detail within the episode is one that needed a little bit more space to breathe, or another scene to elevate it. The Ark’s strategy in this one is the weakest element, since there’s almost nothing to be gained from drawing out Thouser. It means that Gai is fully aware of the Ark as an adversary, and neither Gai nor ZAIA is eliminated in the process. The Ark tipped its hand, and all it got in return was calling dibs on the weekly Thouser Destruction. The motivation for the entire battle is likely just the Ark getting a chance to gloat over Gai, but it’s not a great strategy from a normally patient, plotting villain.

Actually, for this evil vs evil fight, Thouser gets some credit, outside of the humiliating Thouser week, he managed to put quite decent fight against MetsubouJinrai.net, he jacked Naki's powers to put down everyone but Ark (a reminder that, they outnumber Thouser 4 to 1). Speaking of Gai here, last bit of his cruelty is shown here in the staggering 1843 complaints about him, which the list includes age spoofing, illegal auction bidding, illicit sales, misappropriation of company finances for personal benefit (i.e trips to beauty salons and hot springs, haircuts, etc.), plagiarizing technology from other companies, possession of a fake bank account, sexual/moral harassment, tax evasion, and many more. Though there's comedic petty ones like buying unnecessarily large quantities of expensive tea and faking reasons of absence. And before too Gai caused more chaos by providing Raidriser to defend against ZAIA Spec rampage, which, actually would be providing even more dangerous tool to the public, people using Raidriser to commit crimes unprovoked for example.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

Fuwa and Yua’s little moment in the hospital is another scene where the actors have enough rapport to find fun notes and heartfelt emotion, but the placement is random and weird. Fuwa has never been the guy to… I was going to say “dwell on the past”, but, uh, that was his entire character for the first half of the show. But he was never the guy to hold stuff against Yua, so her need to come clean and apologize finds a mostly perplexed and distracted audience in Fuwa. (He’s got a lot to do this week as Emergency Morale Officer!) Yua’s overwhelming guilt and shame over the preceding *gestures at entire series* is likewise sort of overblown, since it syncs up with a non-Fuwa plotline from last week. There’s kind of no reason to have this scene happen here? A lot of what she brings up is stuff from a dozen episodes ago, and it’s nothing Fuwa’s even referenced recently. I like the weird beat of Yua needing to unburden herself thanks to Ai’s therapy, but it doesn’t really feel motivated by recent events.

It's probably an evolution for Yua, from someone who's more cold and aloof before, she's overcompensating it, but she's now more open and honest to at least Fuwa, to apologize for more minor things too (and acknowledging that Humagears aren't tools, at least Ai). It's an evolution even from here as she tried to cover it up in a tsundere remark, but Ai pushed her to open up instead. Though yeah Fuwa didn't hold it against her and was caught off guard by her apology, but then again he used it to remark on how Ai is really something else, and a proof about Humagear's usefulness, and that Yua should give her back to him at some point.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

Aruto’s plot works the best, since it’s dominated by gray areas and fun scene partners. I don’t really care too much about the liberation of Hiden Intelligence from ZAIA (it’s fine, but typically random; Gai’s been up to shady shit since minute one, but I guess this was the line that got drawn), but I liked seeing Fukuzoe act as a supportive figure for Aruto. Fukuzoe is 90% comedy relief for this show, and 9% someone for Aruto to embarrass, but I love when shows build an episode around the 1% of a guy like this that is a three-dimensional human being. Fukuzoe cares about Hiden Intelligence, and he’s used to Aruto’s optimism. When he sees Aruto bummed out about the likelihood of Humagears being so advanced that they can’t be constrained by human morality or human weaponry, Fukuzoe’s there to be an employee, and ask his President to be the beacon the company needs; to care more than anyone else. It’s incredibly sweet, and if it’s the result of a plot that feels somewhat haphazardly instigated, I don’t care much. The effort put into the scene by the two actors, leveraging this background joke into something resolute and hopeful, was worth it.

This is quite a repeated one when Aruto lost trust of Humagears which got him reminded by Fuwa before, but now it's done by one of his resenters Fukuzoe. By caring about Hiden Intelligence, from the start, he had been nothing but a thorn in Aruto's side, wanting him removed as Hiden Intelligence's President, hoping him to fail, scheming with his subordinates to drive him away, etc. But as caring about Hiden Intelligence is about upholding its ideals, the potential artifical intelligence and Humagears hold for the future of humanity (and as a longtime employee), he'd eventually acknowledge Aruto for this, as no one had campaigned for them more than Aruto, and that they need someone who will stand up for them even when nobody else will.