[DreadBringer]

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

Oh, I just mean that he's still sort of a pain to be around. He's an asshole in the more pedestrian sense, where you definitely don't want to be stuck talking to him at a party. He's still pretty stuck-up, even if it's in a less insulting way.

About other's reaction? I'd think Gai is annoying to be around because of course, they can't ever forget that it's the man who caused all the problems in the series. It'd be a reasonable grudge and distrust against someone formerly depraved. For a man like him, assholery (I still think there's none of it, about Thouser whimpering?) isn't required to have others don't want to be stuck... his very existence does.

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

KAMEN RIDER ZERO-ONE EPISODE 40 - “TOWARD MY DREAM AND MY DREAM”

I really liked where this episode ended. Beyond the catharsis of seeing Aruto humiliate the Ark via some absolutely jaw-dropping action choreography (I’m particularly a fan of using a bunch of Zero-Two doubles to pop in and out of frame, to make Aruto feel impossibly fast), I love how this ending reinforces the series-long notion of interconnected fates. Aruto’s argument in favor of human/Humagear coexistence is that things like happiness, or success, or contentment aren't – if you’ll pardon the expression – zero-sum things. Someone else doesn’t necessarily succeed at someone else's expense; we can all succeed together. Aruto empowers Izu to be better, which in turn empowers Aruto to be strong enough to defeat the Ark. We can win by helping others win. I love that message.

The simulations reminded us that, for all the technology and powers the non-Humagear Riders have (or any human Riders period of all franchise), they're still only human. And Ark very well knows this. Ark doesn't kill Aruto, Fuwa, Gai and Yua with flashy finishers, he kills them with little more than single, mundane bullet each. This also shows that Ark doesn't play around (along with exploiting the Rider's human weakness), in Ikazuchi's body he breaks into Hiden Manufacturing to prevent the slightest chance of Aruto figuring something out by killing him, then after playing with Jin for a bit and doing the deed, basically kills the others, and Gai, with quick, pin-point shots to the heart. He doesn't even give the chance for Fuwa to fight back, interrupting his transformation by destroying his Rider Models before killing him.

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

Until they murdered the rest of the cast, and I was like Oh It’s Just A Dream. The stakes basically evaporated, and I was just biding my time until the twist was revealed. Which somehow got worse, as the twist was that Aruto was psychologically torturing Izu (who consented?) until she hit her Singularity Point and coughed up an upgrade that could beat the Ark. It’s… boy, I don’t love it? It takes something enormously affecting, like Izu crying over the body of her dead friend, and turns into some sort of Heroic Prank, and that’s a kind of a horrible way to evolve the core relationship of this show. It shortcuts it in ways that may help the heroes succeed today, but at the cost of a more honest and thoughtful story.

Ark's main thing is its adaptive and calculating nature, and in this part, Aruto and Izu's direct link to Zea ultimately pays off this episode, through those links Zea was able to formulate and fill Aruto in with its plan within the seconds it took for Ark to rip off the Zero-One Driver, as well as revive itself by linking itself to Izu (something Ark didn't foresee). However, there's something bad for Izu from that, despite her boosted abilities like producing Progrise Keys, Drivers, and simulation capabilities, the last one is the reason she's able to run thousands of simulations of Ark's plan, and grieving in the process. And... her sadness is what's required to create Zero-Two, as her Singularity requires to experiences an emotion she’s never felt before while running Zea’s simulations. So it's about Ark vs Zea war, and Zea defeating Ark, but at the cost of Izu's smile. There's... an expense here of Zea winning.

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

KAMEN RIDER ZERO-ONE SO-DO AI 09: KAMEN RIDER ZERO-TWO

I generally like it. I think it cleanly communicates Upgrade Zero-One form, even if it doesn’t really nail Designed With Izu. The decrease in COLOR and increase in red and silver keep the suit itself firmly ensconced in the Zero-One aesthetic, and the blocks of color are pleasant to look at. (I know the red gloves and Two of it all are Showa references, but I don’t truck with Showa. Feel free to gush over that aspect if you’d like.) There’re some in-universe aspects to the new Driver that I feel like are too over-thought – I’m not sure we needed to define the central emblem as a link between Aruto’s family, considering this suit already has to shoulder the thematic weight of humans and Humagears working in unison on a dream – but the Driver itself is solid in design. Which, yeah, that’s sort of my whole thing about this suit: I don’t know if it’s hitting all of the beats it wants to, but I like looking at it enough to not really care.

Like some of the other final form upgrades (actually this one's just a new version, enhanced version of base Zero-One, which is why the design resembles it more), Zero-Two has all various Hopper forms powers; improved version of Ichi-Gata's energy scarf, the speed from previous Hopper forms, predictive abilities of Shining Hopper, the strength and defensive power from Metal Cluster Hopper, and Cluster Cell constructs from the Progrise Hopper Blade. Shining Hopper tests 25,000 scenarios per prediction, while Zero-Two tests 2 trillion. Aruto's humor rubs into even Zero-Two's henshin jingle, exaggerates the "to" in the jingle, as it's Zero-"Two". Zero-Two also has a similar name and theme to Nigou (#2) and also patterned after a grasshopper, with a suit featuring red gloves and heavier silver accents. And, Zero-Two has Zea's AI working with Aruto directly instead of Aruto's consciousness being sent to Zea, so Zero-Two is also the culmination of humans and AI working together as Aruto envisioned.