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06-18-2022, 12:16 PM | #21 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
Join Date: Aug 2019
Location: Chicago, IL
Posts: 6,159
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Very excited to see you starting Zero-One! I swear I'll actually keep up with the thread past the first few pages this time. You just go so fast! And thank you for the So-Do shout out! Miss seeing you in the candy toy thread, even if I now have my own huge backlog of unopened cases.
(And, boy, SO-DO backlogs! Occupational hazard! I feel like "Unopened SO-DO Boxes" should be a stat available on our ID squares...)
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06-18-2022, 12:46 PM | #22 |
The Immortal King Tasty
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: Every diner you've ever been to.
Posts: 3,833
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I don't know if it makes anyone smile, but I'm definitely right here if those TV-Nihon subtitles for this show ever give you any trouble!
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06-18-2022, 01:24 PM | #23 |
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Join Date: Jan 2020
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KAMEN RIDER ZERO-ONE EPISODE 1 - ?I?M PRESIDENT KAMEN RIDER?
It really clicks in when the cute lady assistant shows up to deliver a driver to our title character, to better help him defend a group of civilians from a monster attack at a public place. But even beyond that, there?s the way Aruto's story is so central to this episode; the way the A.I.M.S. team is sketched in without necessarily being drawn into the narrative; the way MetsubouJinrai.Net is clearly Gathering Data, one of the few disappointing hallmarks of early Ex-Aid; the way a young man dedicated to helping people one way, takes a left turn to help people in a different way. Quote:
That last aspect was my favorite part, and the emphasis on it was what really elevated this episode for me. Ex-Aid had Emu start as a doctor, and become a Kamen Rider, but still work as a doctor. Zero-One has Aruto pursuing his dream of being a(n objectively terrible) comedian, and then says No to him, somewhat definitively. His dream was to make people happy, and now he?s being asked to run a company while defending humanity from a robot death cult -slash- liberation army. (Tokusatsu is written by the winners!) But in doing so, he can give people the safety to be happy. He?s not actively doing the thing he wants, but he?s providing the conditions for it to be done. I like that message, that we can sometimes mistake the path for the destination, or the process for the result. Aruto wants to make people happy; why does it have to be as a comedian? Why define yourself one way? Why stick to one definition?
But I think you're understating Aruto's main motivation here, if you talk about how he mainly wants to make people happy by defending humanity from robots. Like, fighting Magia is the last resort for Aruto. Aruto wants for humans to also appreciate Humagears (there'd be something relatable by this personally but I'd save it for later) and actually wants for them to co-exist together. MetsubouJinrai.NET also consists of.... Humagears. Quote:
And that seems like it could be a big theme for the season, what with robots overcoming their programming and humanity deciding how much of their society they want to leave up to a new lifeform. Exploring the parameters of freedom and self-sufficiency, trying to figure out how to integrate technology into society without abandoning our humanity, using industry with empathy, that all feels like stuff this show wants to touch on, judging from this first episode.
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And, like, even beyond thematic reads and fun morals and Ex-Aid structural callbacks, this was just a ton of fun. The action choreography was exceptional, Izu?s got cute chemistry with Aruto, and Aruto?s split-second decision to become Kamen Rider Zero-One (the ferocity of his acceptance was such a great counterpoint to his normal easy-going haplessness) was a glorious Rider debut. You can see the bones of Ex-Aid in there, but the finished product has successes all its own. Fantastic first episode for our first Reiwa Rider!
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KAMEN RIDER ZERO-ONE SO-DO AI 01: KAMEN RIDER ZERO-ONE RISING HOPPER
I like the little grasshopper face in the torso armor, and how the red of the eyes comes back in on the boots. There?s always so many interesting touches on Rider suits, and even a fairly straightforward design like this one manages to weave in some fun details.
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The most complete non-wiki encyclopedias for Kamen Rider series (currently only found Ryuki and OOO's). Last edited by DreadBringer; 06-18-2022 at 01:26 PM.. |
06-18-2022, 02:35 PM | #24 |
I have a problematic type
Join Date: Jan 2012
Posts: 10,434
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Yay, it's Zero-One time! This is a show that I have pretty ambivalent feelings towards. There are some aspects of it that I absolutely love and some elements that frustrate me deeply. Looking forward to seeing this thread play out.
Some initial thoughts: - I. Freaking. Love. The Zero-One suit. I love almost all the suits in this, honestly. I do not know off hand who did the suit designs for Zero-One but they absolutely knocked it out of the park. I don't like it when Rider suits get too bulky; that was a big problem I had with both Ex-Aid and Zi-O's approach to power-up armor. Zero-One really nails its more streamlined aesthetic, though. It's not a very complex suit, but it looks so good with just the basic black body and a few pieces of brightly colored armor that visually pop right off of it. Easily one of my favorite default suit designs of all-time. - Aruto, specifically his stand-up comedian aspect, always felt like he was someone that should annoy me, especially given my longstanding and vocal animosity towards loud comic relief characters. I really give the show and the actor credit that I pretty much loved him right out of the gate. One of the things, in particular, that endeared me to him is that the big joke about Aruto as a comedian is that he's not funny and the show doesn't try to pretend that he is. I do not know much about Japanese stand-up; most of what I know about it comes from watching tokusatsu and I imagine that's about as accurate as the American TV version of what the NCIS does. That said, I read a good description of exactly what the deal is with Aruto's comedy and why other characters react to it the way that they do. Basically, it boils down to the fact that Aruto's jokes are based primarily around wordplay and puns (something that made this show very fun for translators). This is a form of stand-up comedy in Japan, but it's a style that's very pass?. The best American equivalent I can think of is it's like if he went up on stage and started doing Henny Youngman-style "Take my wife, please" shtick. - When the show first came out, Toei really played it up as the start of a new era for Kamen Rider. I'll be really curious to see what you think about how well this did or didn't work by the end of the series. Quote:
Kamen Rider fandom: |
06-18-2022, 03:04 PM | #25 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
Join Date: Aug 2019
Location: Chicago, IL
Posts: 6,159
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But in my particular experience, I was actually looking into where's the comedy part, he seems to just make some sentences with puns, and that'd be actually not a comedy at all (though yeah, puns can be commonly used to joke around, including me, actually one of my main attempts for that, but for the creativity part)
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My subs all have it as Is, and I definitely decided in the writing to ignore that. It's nice when we can all agree on things, like how the color on Rising Hopper is
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06-18-2022, 03:50 PM | #26 |
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Join Date: Apr 2014
Posts: 2,481
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I am actually deeply touched by being mentioned as one of the people who got you into SO-DO. That means a lot, thank you Die!
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06-18-2022, 04:07 PM | #27 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
Join Date: Aug 2019
Location: Chicago, IL
Posts: 6,159
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Thank you, buddy!
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06-18-2022, 07:24 PM | #28 |
Ex-Weather Three leader
Join Date: Jan 2012
Posts: 10,616
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Gutbuster Taro's abs were a Premium Bandai exclusive.
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06-18-2022, 07:55 PM | #29 |
Kaiju or Hero?
Join Date: Jan 2021
Location: Even I Don't Know Anymore.
Posts: 1,398
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I just looked at her (proof of identification) and yes, it would seem that is her official name. But I'm going to ignore that and continue to call her Izu.
A certain other character's name is certainly going to have an extra letter attached... I remember that. I laughed when I saw that get announced (I guess that really does make him a better comedian than Aruto). |
06-18-2022, 07:56 PM | #30 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
Join Date: Aug 2019
Location: Chicago, IL
Posts: 6,159
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KAMEN RIDER ZERO-ONE EPISODE 2 - “ARE A.I.S ENEMIES? ALLIES?”
Ha ha ha, Fuwa. A lot of other things happen in this episode – MetsubouJinrai.Net is exposed to the public as the perpetrators of the recent Humagear rampages, Aruto struggles with everyone looking to him for answers, his dad was maybe a Humagear (?) – but the big news this episode is the time we spent with the AIMS crew, and Fuwa in particular. Fuwa’s great. He’s great. He’s all rage, and nothing else. He had a formative trauma, and he let it envelope him in unquenchable fury. The rules are irrelevant, if they stand in the way of his mission. The entire world exists to bear witness to his vengeance. He’s an investigator that asks no questions, and shoots every suspect. His Henshin sequence is him breaking open a collectible and shooting himself with a violence that protects him from the world. He reminds me a bit of Nago from Kiva, in how hilariously psychotic he is. The actor plays it entirely straight, which (if anything) makes it even funnier to me. He’s the latest in a line of absolutely bonkers secondaries, the newest lunatic with a grudge that Isn’t Here To Make Friends and considers the title character to be a potential Finisher recipient, and nothing more. And those are all good things! The second and third Riders from Ex-Aid were cut from that cloth, bound up in the ways they’d be wronged by the universe and desperate to pay it back. I like that arc, the guy who slowly finds something to live for other than revenge and regret. Nago, again, got to be one of my favorite characters in Kiva, and had maybe my favorite arc in the final few episodes. (A lot of that was the show leaning into Nago’s continuous failures and unceasing self-regard as a source of comedy relief, but still!) As funny as these one-note psychopaths can be, I do usually end up connecting with their inability to overcome trauma, and the ways recovery and catharsis can seem impossible when you live too long inside your grief. It’s gloriously melodramatic, but occasionally devastating. Along for the ride this episode is Fuwa’s (presumably) long-suffering co-worker Yaiba, and she’s already my favorite character on the show. I’m a sucker for competent women surrounded by abject failures of masculinity, so it follows that I found Yaiba to be a very entertaining foil to Fuwa’s ridiculousness. She’s a cop whose partner thinks he’s a soldier, and you can see on her face that way too much of her job is keeping this dude from trying to eat the face of every robot he sees. As a mismatched buddy cop team for a toku show, they’re amazing. Great episode, across the board. I liked how the story tried (maybe a little too bluntly) to contrast Aruto’s sense of protection with Fuwa’s sense of righteous fury, especially through the by now standard eye-catching fight sequence. The fight through the shipyard used so many cool techniques – some POV shots, some multi-level moves, some slo-mo, and a beautifully staged finisher from Vulcan. This show’s proficiency with fight choreography… I feel like it’s going to be this thread’s I Forgot To Mention The Suits? It’s so good, and I barely feel like I did it justice. Still! Just one more element of a really fun second installment. — KAMEN RIDER ZERO-ONE SO-DO AI 01: KAMEN RIDER VULCAN - SHOOTING WOLF Speaking of second things! Kamen Rider Vulcan! I like the two Shotriser suits a whole lot. (I also like how the show works the word Rise into so many things? Good branding, and I like the emphasis on things becoming more than what they began as.) Unlike the clean symmetry of the Zero-One suit, Vulcan has a more unfinished asymmetry. It looks less agile, more destructive. Little spikes come off the blue parts, and even the torso looks angry. It’s a great color scheme. I’m not gonna be like All Secondaries Should Be Blue, but I think it’s generally a smart move. It’s got the same red piping, to tie in with Zero-One’s suit, but we’ve got blue over a white undersuit, rather than COLOR over a black undersuit. It nicely casts Vulcan as cool, imposing. Something about that blue and white just says that this dude is not going to save anyone. Another winner of a suit!
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