[DreadBringer]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

KAMEN RIDER ZERO-ONE EPISODE 43 - ?THAT IS A HEART?

Those movies could be fun, for sure. This episode has some outstanding fight scenes (I love the shots of Ark-One in darkness, referencing Aruto?s misery), and some beautiful staging. It?s consistently entertaining to look at. But there?s a narrowness to what the episode?s talking about, and it?s reductive in ways this show largely avoided in the past. We?re not really talking about how society decides which people have value, or how working classes view their necessity to capitalism, or how marginalized people balance utility and independence within oppressive systems. We?re talking about the poisonous nature of revenge, and how violence begets more violence.

And here lies the biggest issue in Horobi, outside of his (or others like Ark's) power ofc, his inculpability. Though Ark-uto had his fall from grace, it's still caused by Horobi, Horobi is the one who triggered back Ark by killing Izu, thus making Ark-uto hateful, and feeds Ark by that. In his mission to prevent Ark, Horobi ironically just re-activated it again, and of course, he'd shift the blame to only humans being inherently malicious, ignoring why Ark-uto feel like that, yet he condems Ark-uto when the same thing happened to him, ignoring the whole time that Humagear's dark emotions counts just as much as humans for Ark to operate. Above the poisonous nature of revenge, this is the problem of never owing up your actions, and in this context, Horobi would be just more and more unrepentant no matter how many damage he'd cause via his hypocrisy. This is also about self-fulfilling prophecy, which can be caused by an obsession to avoid something; Horobi feared humans creating an Ark, yet he's the one who did it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

It?s fine, as a concept to explore with these characters. It?s just the Dig Two Graves lesson, but that?s got a ton of inherent drama. Doing a story where Horobi denies his own emotional needs to the detriment of his support system, while Aruto demolishes a year of goodwill to try and stave off despair, that?s a story you can tell in this world. But it?s simple, you know? It?s straightforward in the way 70-minute summer films frequently were. It?s about two forces in opposition, so everyone outside those two forces is relegated to the sidelines. Naki and Ikazuchi are back from their spa day, but they only get a single scene to tell Jin things are getting out of hand without actually, uh, helping him. Thouser and the Shotrisers (18+ show this Monday at the Metro, doors open at 9pm) spend most of the episode going to different rooms and expositing. (Good fight scene with Ark-One, though, for real.) The Humagears as a culture don?t get a say in what?s happening, other than it sounding like Horobi?s accidentally driving more of them crazy. It?s just a story about Horobi and Aruto.

This part continues to show Horobi being dedicated to his utter hatred for humanity. The reason why he brushes off Jin's suggestions and even threatened him is because, having a heart is a human trait, and Horobi acknowledging it would mean he's not different from the very humans he wanted to destroy, a "hypocrite" (when he's already one for various reasons). His misantrophy isn't as simple as in only killing all humans, he's extremely clouded in his judgment to humans and would view every single thing humans do/have in negative light. In his point of view; Humagears learning from humans are implanting malice on Humagears, because humans have malice and learning human traits would certainly mean malice is part of them. Humagears working with humans means they're conspiring to achieve a malicious agenda, because in his mind, humans only do something malicious. Humagears tolerating humans mean they're ok with letting the world get destroyed because they're keeping the malices on the Earth exist. Etc.

On the opposite end, Jin no longer has a prejudice towards humanity, it must be since ep. 36, but he showed it here, as he points out to Horobi that humans can't be blamed for anything, and that it's Horobi's malice that drove him to kill Izu, not the "justice" he envisioned, as malice isn't exclusive to humans Jin also clearly spoke for human's favor here. But other than what Izu said about learning from biased data, what should be learned (including me too, can be hard) is that, individuals aren't groups/hive minds, can be different among each other, and entire species shouldn't take the blame if there are bad apples among them. U̶n̶l̶i̶k̶e̶ ̶h̶o̶w̶ ̶s̶o̶m̶e̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶e̶d̶u̶c̶a̶t̶i̶o̶n̶'̶s̶ ̶g̶r̶o̶u̶p̶ ̶l̶e̶s̶s̶o̶n̶s̶ ̶h̶a̶v̶e̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶e̶n̶t̶i̶r̶e̶ ̶g̶r̶o̶u̶p̶ ̶t̶a̶k̶e̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶b̶l̶a̶m̶e̶ ̶o̶v̶e̶r̶ ̶o̶n̶e̶'̶s̶ ̶m̶i̶s̶t̶a̶k̶e̶s̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶e̶n̶c̶o̶u̶r̶a̶g̶e̶ ̶"̶s̶o̶l̶i̶d̶a̶r̶i̶t̶y̶"̶.̶

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

The two of them have spent the past couple episodes switching between who has the moral high ground, and the irony is that neither of them do by the end. They?re both killers, and they?re both villains. Hatred?s turned them both into vessels for destruction, with nothing to show for it but more hatred ? directed inward and outward. They?ve both lost people close to them, and are becoming a living rejection of those victims? dreams in the name of vengeance. I liked this show better when it was about how society did that, but there?s still some artistry to a story applied to the individual.

Tbh, the series painted Ark-uto as a villain here, but while Ark-uto's certainly a lot darker and more unscrupulous than his usual portrayal, they didn't really show actual villainous behaviors from him. He's only out to kill Horobi, a genocidal, hypocritical terrorist, but against others, he didn't do malicious shit at them, just being rougher than usual. He only defended himself against Riders who attack him first, and he held back to only disable their devices. He also didn't intentionally kill Jin (it's due to him shielding Horobi), and actually had remorse at doing so. These are similar to how many secondary Riders operate at the early of the series, being ruled by darker emotions and clashing with others for their views, and none of those secondary Riders are evil (except Kusaka, or Kaito at the end). He's portrayed as a villain here due to his darker emotions feeding Ark thus is one of the catalyst for the war? Ark-uto became morally ambiguous at this point, but consequence isn't a part that determines morality, and it'd be Azu and Ark's fault to launch the war itself and manipulate Ark-uto. Him accidentally killing Jin, while disastrous, is something that can happen any kind morality; recklessness.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

KAMEN RIDER ZERO-ONE SO-DO AI 10: KAMEN RIDER ARK-ONE

The thing I like best about this suit is how the breastplate looks like a screaming Humagear face. The red eyes, and the open mouth? it?s a million miles away from a happy grasshopper, you know? There?s an anger to so much of this suit, and I love that. The harsh black/white coloring is a worldview without compromise or empathy: us vs them, victors vs victims. The red cuts through blocks of color to indicate that while the facade may be cold and unfeeling, underneath it?s all rage and fear. Gorgeous villain suit design.

And this is not something Ark-uto needed if he only wanted to take revenge against Horobi only. He already had goddamn Zero-Two Driver, something not an Ark remnant, and it's much more powerful than Horobi, and even more powerful than Ark-One Driver too, albeit the Ark-One Driver is still something that outlcasses everyone. At that time, Aruto already had much more powerful equipments, including against Horobi if he can defeat Ark before, and here it's just proven, Horobi is no threat against Aruto in the fight, he can't do anything against him. Though there can be more complicated stuff outside of Ark-uto beating the tar out of Horobi, like people attached to him such as Jin sacrificing himself for him or the escalating war, but that shows the threat is still Ark, and Azu. With his current equipment Horobi can't be a big threat to Aruto, and ended up just a pawn to Azu, and she's the one to give him new equipment here too. Unless you refer for the people caught in the crossfire in Horobi's crusade too regarding Horobi being a threat (I'd think it's Ark's stuff).