[Kamen Rider Die]

KAMEN RIDER ZERO-ONE EPISODE 45 - “EACH ONE’S FUTURE”



Solid effort.

The thing I liked the best was the idea that, when it comes to breaking a cycle of violence, it doesn’t matter who breaks it. Looking for who’s most at fault was dooming Aruto and Horobi to horrible futures for them, and probably the rest of the world as well. Aruto killed Jin, but Horobi killed Izu, but humans created the Ark, but MetsubouJinrai blew up Aruto’s dad. It’s blame all the way down the list, but that can also be their liberation. Everyone’s at fault, and everyone’s angry, and everyone feels sorrow, and everyone feels regret. If we can see ourselves in the people who wronged us, or that we’ve wronged, maybe there can be an escape from things like vengeance and hatred. The heroic thing is to be the one to make the first move.

Other than that… I mean, it’s an ALL ACTION FINALE, which was a blast to watch, but I’m sort of at a loss to talk about. It’s just Aruto and Horobi, and their reconciliation. That’s it. That’s the plot of the episode. There’re little data points around the edges – Jin’s two-stage regeneration, which mostly works as a Greek chorus for the fight – but this isn’t a story that anyone else can participate in. It’s up to Aruto and Horobi to fix their/society’s core issue, or die trying.

Once that’s done, it’s just epilogue stuff for the cast, including teases for what look to be 800 pieces of post-show content. (Like, I think everyone in the credits sequence gets a dedicated post-show movie or special?) It's little snapshots that form grace notes for a group of weirdos, and I'm sure I'll want to dig into them more when I hit those other projects. Well, except one thing.

I’m sure we’ll be seeing more of Izu’s journey/resurrection in REALxTIME, but I thought the scene she has with Aruto here was very sweet, for a couple reasons.

The first is that Izu was the one who was there for every step of Aruto’s journey from terrible comedian to hero of Humagears -slash- terrible comedian, and now he can be there for every step of her journey from blank slate to best friend. The opportunity to pay back help, to let the lessons you’ve learned be passed on to others, that’s such a core philosophy of this show. No one succeeds by themselves.

The other is that, like, Aruto’s her dad now. This episode’s overwhelmed with the trauma of lost children and lost parents, so the nice conclusion to that is Horobi having a future with his kid, and Aruto becoming a father to Izu. It’s a chance to let go of previous generations’ guidelines and outlooks, and an opportunity to start a different cycle: one of respect and individuality, where everyone gets to jump towards their own dream. Like, this was a story about inherited biases and generational trauma, but here’s an ending where people are trying to atone for that and create a generation that doesn’t have to carry their baggage.

Yeah, that’s a good way to end this series.