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08-05-2022, 08:03 PM | #681 |
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Join Date: Jan 2020
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KAMEN RIDER ZERO-ONE EPISODE 34 - ?THIS IS HOROBI?S WAY?
For the first time in a long time, we?ve got an episode without Gai as the antagonist ? a role I was incredibly tired of him occupying ? and it?s at best a lateral move. Horobi?s back on his bullshit, which is smirking and saying God Told Me To, and I don?t find much of interest there. Horobi should come across as either an impassioned zealot or a charismatic cult leader, but he might as well be a DX toy that only plays its two or three recorded lines. Every strategy is just some watery hate machine telling him to go do villainy, and then he does it. It?s the repetitiveness of Gai?s one-note Blowing Aruto?s House Down thing, but without even the smarmy hateability of Gai?s performance. Quote:
And it?s? like the Ark stuff is so distractingly hollow that I hate to see this show regressing back to it, even if it?s just to deconstruct it in the next episode. The Ark is supposedly destroying a sinful humanity to create a world that?s safe for Humagears, a plan which requires the destruction of:
-humanity -Humagears who like humanity -Humagears who are useful as weapons against humanity or other Humagears -Humagears who are nearby -Jin, once It?s a robot death cult whose M.O. and stated objectives are so diametrically opposed as to be instantly satirical, and yet we?re still having them as a main plot! In Episode 34!!! Jin?s return from the grave was a breath of fresh air, since it had a baked-in rejection of the first act?s The Ark Wills It routine. Horobi?s schtick was tired twenty episodes ago, and I care for it even less now. Quote:
This show?s success has maybe been in spite of the antagonism of your Horobis and Gais, not because of them. The best villain this show has ? and the one whose complicated, nuanced menace is as fresh now as it was in the premiere ? is society itself. When this show wants to ask unanswerable questions about the ways we view one another, or dig into the difficult work of helping each other succeed without losing our own perspectives, it?s as tense and poignant as any other show?s endgame. Whenever this show needs to have someone for Zero-One to detonate, I feel like it?s paper-thin and unconvincing. Horobi?s from a dumber, more binary version of this show. I sincerely hope the next episode treats him that way.
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KAMEN RIDER ZERO-ONE SO-DO AI 06: TRILOBITE MAGIA
I think the Trilobite suit is pretty neat. It?s just a Robot Skeleton, but that?s an almost perfect idea for a starting point. The MetsubouJinrai takeover turns a Humagear inside out, so here?s this black suit with silver bones and musculature. It reads real well from a distance, and looks menacing as it lurches in a group. Really solid mook suit! Quote:
While prejudice can and often does come from conscious thought, I agree that some of it is the fault of culture that imprints those bad feelings in us. That's why so many people don't understand that they have prejudice, don't understand that they're doing anything wrong. The same kind of prejudice that Gai has towards HumaGears, coming up with mean excuses to frame them as being dangerous and unreliable, which fits in to his oblivious trait.
Gai though isn't only like that to Humagears, he was an awful boss to Yua and the others, used humans as a tool like Humagears, is a parasite to humanity who steals powers from more talented people around, and claiming that the Ark's judgment is exactly what mankind deserves. He wants to preserve his image, so why would he admit that he's wrong? (this is also one of many reasons humans won't admit their wrongdoings, ego, not only prejudice)
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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; 08-05-2022 at 08:41 PM.. |
08-05-2022, 08:16 PM | #682 |
Kaiju or Hero?
Join Date: Jan 2021
Location: Even I Don't Know Anymore.
Posts: 1,397
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Yua redemption and Horobi being Horobi.
I forgot how much I honestly liked Yua's redemption until I read some of the posts here to refresh my (terrible) memory. Could it have been done better? Sure. But I'm perfectly fine with what we got instead. It works for her and Fuwa, who also has great spotlight this episode (and maybe it was this episode or the next, where Naki exposes his sense of humor, which was pretty funny), so yeah, I liked this episode. Horobi Episode, while I don't think I completely dislike him, I can agree he is just "Enemy General" of the show and not much else, but with how the ARK is just nothing but hatred, malice, and contempt (thanks, Gai), I do like this approach better than just "Humans bad, robots good" that these kinds of stories usually end up being. Also, hoping I didn't end up spoiling anything with how bad I am at remembering events. These later episodes are blurring together for me.
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08-06-2022, 12:43 AM | #683 |
Precure enthusiast
Join Date: Dec 2021
Location: Amongst the Cosmos
Posts: 304
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Whoops! Been so busy with school prep that I've been slacking.....Time to catch up with Episode 33 and 34!
33......For me, Yua's big moment really feels like a "Yeah i *totally* get what you were going for with this character, but so many chunks of this plot felt kinda undercooked that I'm not sure whether to feel relieved or disappointed at this resolution?" Fuwa having fake memories sure can be a divisive topic among fans, but personally I didn't mind. Love-chan is a fun Humagear, and that's about it for 33! Episode 34! - I've never seen someone eat lettuce like that, so that bit is kinda engrained in the brain (a whole leaf? at least cut it up or something....) -Kinda sad this is one of the episodes where we sorta have to skim over the Humagear of the Week and their career for the sake of the overarching plot, I think this is a very interesting topic, yknow.....(To be more spefic, I wish we got more parallel between the father/son duo and Horobi/Jin, seems like a missed opputurnity...) -"Humans do nothing but destroying the environment", and not even 3 minutes after Horobi's goons are shredding up the vegetables. Seems a bit....? -The gag with Fuwa showing up a bit too late, hysterical. Never change, Fuwa. (The chop too!) -Yua doing Naki's extraction because she feels responsible for robbing Fuwa of his past, that's nice. How unfortunate that Naki......is suddenly evil now? Like yeah maybe doing this operation in the Daybreak base where the empty Humagear shell could potenially auto-connect to Ark as soon as the Naki's data has finished transferring..... - "Becuase Ark wills it/Everything is for the sake of the Ark/Something Ark something extinction something human malice something"........man, is that all you can say, Horobi? There's a point to be made about Horobi in comparison to other Humagears: I don't think he's reached Singularity, he's as dependent on Ark as any normal Humagear is to Zea pre-ZAIA buyout. He's kinda outdated, in a way. Can he even see the road he's walking down? (Yeah yeah, murder all the humans and connect every Humagear to Ark. Tell me Horobi....what happens after that, when all of Ark's desires is fufilled? Do you even have an idea what a Humagear-ruled soicety looks like, what will you take or discard from the things human soicety has left you? Oh I remembered....you're not doing the thinking here, Ark is!) I wish trying to "crack" Horobi was less about "Remember what you were bulit for!" and more "Is a life like Horobi's truly fufilling, even for a Humagear?"or something like that. -Anyone feel a bit....interested in the reveal Soreo was the blueprint for every other Father-type Humagear. (Like I feel the assumption we're supposed to make is that Korenosuke went "Wow! This Humagear I made for my grandson is really helping him out, lots of other struggling kids could benefit from this!!", but "huh, my grandson lost his parents...this might be the perfect time to give that new Humagear concept we've been working on a test run!" could also be true, lol) |
08-06-2022, 09:55 AM | #684 |
Standing By
Join Date: Feb 2020
Location: USA
Posts: 2,089
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It also seems that, culture is also something that is put on pedestal above most anything, and that moral relativism view is pushed. To push the idea that good vs evil does not exist, solely "good/bad for my personal interests", treating everything as subjective, with one of the excuses being culture; good/bad is only a random construct of random culture. So calling out bad deeds as something bad is discouraged, while you can't object against how a culture is made. In short, culture justifies everything. While understanding culture is something good, this (or mainly moral relativism view) seems to blind people of recognizing the problem of prejudice, silencing those who call out the bad deeds in the name of culture.
Gai though isn't only like that to Humagears, he was an awful boss to Yua and the others, used humans as a tool like Humagears, is a parasite to humanity who steals powers from more talented people around, and claiming that the Ark's judgment is exactly what mankind deserves. He wants to preserve his image, so why would he admit that he's wrong? (this is also one of many reasons humans won't admit their wrongdoings, ego, not only prejudice)
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08-06-2022, 10:24 AM | #685 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
Join Date: Aug 2019
Location: Chicago, IL
Posts: 6,159
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Ark can't determine a solution to evil that doesn't involve committing acts of evil. Unfortunately, evil is all it knows. When you only have on tool at your disposal, what else can you do? Ark is the Gai to Horobi's Isamu, with how Horobi believes he's doing good for his kind but doesn't think critically about Ark's methods, he doesn't have singularity, he doesn't know how he's supposed to function as a father to his son, or what a world without humans would be like. The prejudice is on both sides of society, since everybody is conditioned to hate each other and reject them as evil, without stopping to see the evil in themselves.
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I don't know what do you define "success" or not regarding KR shows, because so far, no matter how bad (or badly received) a series is, no Rider series has been stopped midway due to "failure" or such. Unless you'd refer to the merch sales, which wouldn't be story-related, but yeah iirc for this one no Rider show had huge failures on this.
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I was at a small restaurant a few months ago with a friend, when the restaurant owner came out with some organic basil he'd bought from a local grower. The owner went around to each table, talking about the basil with glowing, life-altering terms, and asking people to try a leaf. Just, like, eat some basil. Very much reminded of that weird experience with Aruto's snack of a single lettuce leaf.
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08-06-2022, 09:31 PM | #686 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
Join Date: Aug 2019
Location: Chicago, IL
Posts: 6,159
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KAMEN RIDER ZERO-ONE EPISODE 35 - “WHAT DO HUMAGEARS DREAM OF?”
Episode 35: "Thanks for the feedback! What if this episode was almost entirely devoted to a conflict between Horobi and Gai?" Not my favorite episode! I don’t think it does anything egregiously wrong – it’s not an episode I want to scrub from my memory or anything – but it’s so heavily devoted to telling a story that marginalizes Aruto and the Shotrisers (who are also playing this Sunday at The Hideout; doors open at 8pm) that I found myself only vaguely entertained by the fight choreography, instead of drawn into the storytelling. I just don’t care who wins in a fight between a hypocritical terrorist and an egomaniacal capitalist? Is that rude to say? There were things I liked, though. I found the hospital interludes with Naki, Fuwa, and Yua to be an episode highlight, and maybe a series highlight. I was always 1000% uninvested in Fuwa’s Secret Past, mostly because it’s only been brought up recently, and Fuwa himself barely cares about it. The reveal that he’s just some boring, unexceptional dude is both a hilarious subversion of Yua’s quest to uncover the truth, and the smartest decision this show could ever make. Fuwa’s past fundamentally doesn’t matter. We’ve already gone on Fuwa’s emotional journey. We've watched him shed the intolerance and anger he’d shielded himself with for over a decade, and rebuild himself into a hero who protects anyone or anything that needs protection. There’s nothing from his past that would help illuminate his character, because we already had 30-plus episodes of illumination. The best choice is to defuse it all with a joke. (Taking the Fuwa’s Just Basic joke and then elevating it by having Naki deliver an affectless take on Aruto’s gags, at which point Fuwa is exposed as a dude who can’t help laughing at puns? That’s just the icing on a very delicious cake.) Aruto’s role in this episode was interesting, if a little too beholden to daddy issues for me to praise it. There’s some heroism to be found in Aruto’s desire to reignite Horobi’s paternal instincts, and put the blame for MetsubouJinrai’s terrorism back on Gai’s plotting, but I think it’s a plot that doesn’t completely square that circle. There’s no real remorse from Horobi, and only a slight indication that he doesn’t view Zero-One as negatively as he does the rest of humanity. But, like, MetsubouJinrai is completely reformed! The Ark is still setting their agenda! I don’t love a story where the hero gets out on a weird limb just because he’s reminded of his dad, you know? There’s a lot of projection in Aruto’s plot this episode, without anyone really pushing back on his potential naivete (that would be Fuwa’s job, if he weren’t in the hospital!), and that leaves his story not totally clicking with me. But the bulk of this episode was concerned with the battle between ZAIA and MetsubouJinrai, and I really liked… how it was shot. Great staging for the opening of the battle, with Horobi and Thouser’s Henshins centered in the frame, flanked by mooks. Fun back and forth combat between the two generals, with each of them getting cool finishers. And I like how Horobi’s saved by the people who have faith in him, while Gai is beaten ONCE AGAIN by assuming his adversaries will eat an endless amount of shit. It’s a nice encapsulation of the show’s beliefs. It’s just that the stakes are… I don’t care? I don’t care about Horobi (yet?), and I don’t care about Gai. Either one of them triumphing over the other is unappealing and mostly uninteresting. Aruto’s left to act as a slightly-delusional voice of support, Naki’s only around for the finale, Jin’s nowhere to be found (did he have an appointment or something?), and the Shotrisers are cleaning up their mess from last episode. There’s no one for me to root for in the back half of this episode. We’re probably three episodes – at a minimum – from Horobi being in a place where I might see him as worthy of redemption. (When Aruto’s like Follow Your Dream, I was having really vivid flashbacks to Phoenix’s spotlight story from Wizard. Maybe don’t tell the unrepentant villain to do the things that make them happy!) And Gai’s, like, Gai. He exists on this show to get humiliated. What stakes am I supposed to be invested in for this episode? Sort of a bum note to go into the COVID Era* on. There’s still some really great characters on this show, and interesting topics to cover, but not every episode mixes them together in the best ways. — *PROGRAMMING QUESTION So, let’s talk about the COVID Era! I’ve got a bunch of stuff, but I’m not entirely sure I’ve got it scheduled correctly. Over the next few days, I’m planning on covering the following specials in the following order: -Episode 35.5 -President Specials 1 and 2 -Shooting Special -Super Job War 1 and 2 Is that right? Should anything be moved around? Any feedback would be appreciated!
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08-06-2022, 09:40 PM | #687 |
Some guy. I'm alright.
Join Date: Sep 2019
Location: Michigan
Posts: 4,394
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Loved this two parter. Was very invested in the evolving dynamic between Horobi and Jin. Also yes, that order for the COVID episodes works fine.
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08-06-2022, 09:54 PM | #688 |
Alias: ZeroEnchiladas
Join Date: Aug 2015
Posts: 2,570
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Not much to say about this episode other than... I really liked that they brought back Horobi's cool finisher.
I also noticed that unless Horobi starts at an advantage, whether that be a surprise attack or getting the jump on his opponent, he loses. Every time it's a straight fight he loses to some degree, but if he somehow gets the drop on a person, he's usually the one in control. Just... something interesting to note tbh. Quote:
*PROGRAMMING QUESTION So, let?s talk about the COVID Era! I?ve got a bunch of stuff, but I?m not entirely sure I?ve got it scheduled correctly. Over the next few days, I?m planning on covering the following specials in the following order: -Episode 35.5 -President Specials 1 and 2 -Shooting Special -Super Job War 1 and 2 Is that right? Should anything be moved around? Any feedback would be appreciated! 1. Presidents Specials 2. Shooting Special 3. Super Job War 4. Episode 35.5 |
08-06-2022, 10:34 PM | #689 |
New Member
Join Date: Mar 2022
Posts: 89
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I can't think of much to say on this episode, but I won't lie, I only watched the two President Specials and episode 33.5, the Shooting Special seemed unappealing to me after already watching two recap episodes, and since I binged the show after it was completed, the Super Job Wars episodes covered material that was still too fresh in my mind for me to be able to enjoy them.
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08-06-2022, 11:26 PM | #690 |
Precure enthusiast
Join Date: Dec 2021
Location: Amongst the Cosmos
Posts: 304
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It's Episode 35!
-The hospital bit is easily one of my favorite moments in 01 ever. For someone who doesn't feel as strong about Yua/Fuwa's dynamic as the show wants me to feel, I think Naki is an interesting third wheel to attach to that dynamic? Too bad they're already back with MJBR... -Oh hey, looks like the first person on Naki's "I want to fufill the dreams of others in order to find my own" list is Horobi, how unfortunate for everyone else! -Hey, we get more Horobi stuff...it's....Something, Alright. Aruto wanting Horobi to see himself as more than an avatar for enacting Ark's desires, as an actual indiviual with his own dreams and desires, that's a pleasant enough idea. Doing it through "Remembeeeeeeer you're a father!", I'm not really fond of? Like yeah, most parents would go through great lengths to protect their children, but that isn't all that parenthood is, nor it is an idea exclusive to it? Ark's last directive was to revive MJBR after all, you obviously can't do that if Jin gets scrapped. (I feel like the whole argument for emerging feelings of parenthood could have a heftier argument if they did a little more with Horobi and Jin's dynamic during Jin's revival? Parents watch over the growth of their kids, attempt to guide them to what they think is right, and praise them for moving forward. With Jin going through a major growth, I thought it would've been a bit more interesting to get meatier convos about the newfound gap between the two's diverging viewpoints.....) Oh damn, I thought COVID era was slightly later, but here we are! I've only watch 35.5, so I'm sure this'll be a good time. |
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