[Kamen Rider Die]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Switchblade

I do not envy anyone trying to be a completist in the Reiwa era. There are so many of these different miniseries and spin-offs these days it feels impossible to keep track of them all.

The bigger problem is how much those spin-offs and mini-series begin to incorporate multiple shows. I mean, actually tracking down everything via wiki pages and Fully Authorized Enthusiast Sites is practically a part-time job nowadays, but the weird hiccups of needing to stop midway through a set of specials because carrying on with it might ruin a show I'm about to watch? That's a little more frustrating!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Androzani84

In all honesty, I?ve gotten a whole lot more out of the Genms miniseries than the main movies that were marked as the continuation of 01.

To the point that I?m actually continuing my feature from the series proper here.

Progrise: This company is mine. President: Dan Kuroto.

Singurise: When the five horns cross, the Thousand-Ark is born. Presented by Ark!

Hey, I've got that set on order! Very excited to play around with it!

[AkibaSilver]

I wasn't a huge fan of this one? I think I might have just been burned out on side-piece fluff, because this one, trying to make a wider narrative out of what are effectively 10 minute shorts, didn't really land? It's cute and all, but trying to reach too high, with the Ark being back, Huma-Gearnm (which I totally didn't spoil like 2 days ago when I mentioned Kuroto robot, whoops), and hints at Smart Brain. I guess we'll see how Outsiders goes.

[Kamen Rider Die]

Quote:

Originally Posted by AkibaSilver

I wasn't a huge fan of this one? I think I might have just been burned out on side-piece fluff, because this one, trying to make a wider narrative out of what are effectively 10 minute shorts, didn't really land? It's cute and all, but trying to reach too high, with the Ark being back, Huma-Gearnm (which I totally didn't spoil like 2 days ago when I mentioned Kuroto robot, whoops), and hints at Smart Brain. I guess we'll see how Outsiders goes.

It definitely feels a little overstuffed for 10 minutes, what with how all the Zein information is done in an quick info-dump... but, I don't know, I liked that? I liked how busy this thing got, and how instead of the usual Inciting Incident > Plan > Fight progression, we kick it off with Gai and the Ark working together to resurrect Kuroto, and then have to work backwards from there. Like, yeah, it's messy, but I appreciate them trying to go bigger with the concept.

[Kamen Rider Die]

KAMEN RIDER ZERO-ONE SHORT ANIME: EVERYONE’S DAILY LIFE



SPECIAL GUEST POST BY DREAMSWORD

There are alot of threads in these forums. Some you can be choosy about whether you read them or not, but others can have a big impact on how you view and interact with others. Today I'd like to tell you a story about one such thread creator who certainly influenced me.

There once was a man called Kamen Rider Die. In any attempt to vent his frustrations, he joined a random Toku board known as TokuNation to shout about Kamen Rider Ghost.

"I can't believe what this show is doing to me!" he'd exclaim.

And amidst all of the excitement, his beloved SO-DO Ryuki figure popped out of his pocket and ended up falling into a nearby sewer drain.

"MY SO-DO FELL INTO THE SEWER!?" he'd exclaim.

Die quickly scurried over to the open sewer drain, and to his surprise, it was currently occupied!

"The heck? Are you a Ninja Turtle!?" he'd exclaim.

And out from the sewer drain arrived a man known as Name.

"Actually I'm an Avenger. Anyway, a few things dropped down here a second ago. Was it a SO-DO Build Genius or a SO-DO Hazard Build? Or if ya like, we do got some neat anime down here you could watch." Don't ask why Name would ask any of these questions.

Die replied with "Do you have Naruto!?" his all time favorite anime.

Name stared at Die dead in the eyed and asked "Why the heck would I have Naruto? You know what, you're not allowed down in my sewer anymore." And with that he dropped back down into the sewer drain.

But then suddenly En-chan appeared out of the same sewer!

"Do you have my SO-DO!?" Die exclaimed.

"Sorry man, I only collect DX Toys." En-chan then too sank back into the sewers.

Distraught and unsure of what to do, Die then for some reason went all the way to the UK to try and make sense of his predicament. There he came across a man known as Androzani. Die would attempt to plead with the man, only to later find himself leaving the area after having bought a ton of roleplay belts while in some sort of trance.

Die, now convinced he had gone crazy, decided to continue on with his reviews and outlook on the various Kamen Rider shows, all while building and stickering various SO-DO figures as a means to fill the void left by losing his beloved Ryuki. His own sort of punishment game, if you will.

However, this would in turn inspire others to begin writing their own reviews. Some in agreement with Die, some not, but all aimed towards the common goal of outlook and discussion. But that was not enough. He needed more. He then one day realized that some random guy called DreamSword had begun to muscle in on his turf, and, when the moment was hot, hijacked DreamSword's own thread to review the Zero-One anime shorts. It lead to many a great applause, and despite the ill fated Ryuki figure not returning, the void was filled via tons of other Ryuki-related content (drained from DreamSword).

So as you can see, the lesson here is that Die will always find a way to one-up the competition, by any means necessary. Which is why it's such an honor that he brought me in to review the Zero-One anime shorts for him as I am the Only Anime Fan on these entire boards and really, who else would be qualified, right? So without further ado, let's start with... with...

Die's right behind me, isn't he?



Man, after I so kindly pitched in on DreamSword’s anime thread, this is the thanks I get? Unbelievable.

Hi, yes, Kamen Rider Die here. I watched this anime!

Pretty excellent batch of shorts to send off this Zero-One thread, which is a very pleasant surprise. I’m not really an anime guy, so when DreamSword volunteered to cover them in detail for his Toku Anime thread, I was like They’re 1000% Yours. But then everything else got done, and I had a night, so I figured I’d give them a once over, even if it’s just to direct everyone to DreamSword’s more robust analysis from the perspective of an anime aficionado.

Except, I liked them? A lot?

It helps that they’re barely animated. The emphasis isn’t on dazzling fight scenes or emotive facial expressions or staggering set design. This is some Flash-era stuff, possibly fully animated on a Nokia N-Gage. (I have not checked the Wiki!) The charm of it - and it is SO CHARMING - is in the vocal performances, and the increasing absurdity of the episodes.

Like, first episode? I did not think this was going to work for me. It’s cute, Izu sort of torturing Aruto, but it’s only one joke. Good joke, but: one joke. The second episode’s in the same vein, where Yua tortures Fuwa at a theme park. Fuwa’s inability to match Yua’s food-and-terror routine is a good gag, but it doesn’t really change or grow as the episode progresses.

Then we get to the MetsubouJinrai episode.

Maybe the best MetsubouJinrai thing of all time, and that’s before the bonus segment where the actors actually play MetsubouJinrai Game. (OF COURSE Ikazuchi loses. And Naki wins!!!) It’s such a fantastic bit of escalating comedy, as the Humagears get more and more obsessed with this goofy party game, and the punishments get more baffling. (Naki flirting with Ikazuchi was absolutely the best one, which is why it ended up in the credits.) I wish this episode had been the plot of 01hers: Kamen Rider MetsubouJinrai instead of what we got, and I liked that movie.

The remaining two episodes are very good (Gai as just the most annoying anchor for ZAIA employees is brilliant), but this series peaks hard at Episode 3. Nothing in the world is going to measure up to MetsubouJinrai Game, which is likely why the game returns in Episode 5, giving us the hilarious image of four Humagears teaming up to force Aruto’s loss. It’s the most thrilling defeat, and I wish it were how the Ark-One story concluded.

These little barely-animated bits of humor were such a nice way to wrap up Zero-One. It’s like the gag video at the end of a season of television, where the curtain gets pulled back a little in celebration of getting to the end. It’s funny, but overwhelmingly warm and kind. This is how I want to remember these goofballs. Just like this.



okay maybe not just like that

[Switchblade]

Excellent chance for me to build off of my previous post: I have straight-up never heard of these.

[Enchilada645]

Kabedon

[Kamen Rider Die]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Switchblade

Excellent chance for me to build off of my previous post: I have straight-up never heard of these.

They're very fun! If you only have time for one (although you could watch all five in a half-hour), watch the the third one. It's outstanding.

[DreamSword]

Man, the guy who wrote that opening bit sounds really full of himself. Never have him post here again!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Enchilada645

Kabedon

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

They're very fun! If you only have time for one (although you could watch all five in a half-hour), watch the the third one. It's outstanding.

I agree! The third episode is SO GOOD. It contains something that I really wish Zero-One proper had: MBJR growing as a family unit, since that was a big part of the story.

But yeah I loved all of these shorts. Super charming and really funny.

[DreadBringer]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

KAMEN RIDER ZERO-ONE 01HERS: KAMEN RIDER VULCAN AND VALKYRIE

This is another movie that I didn’t love, despite respecting its take on passing the torch. Fuwa and MetsubouJinrai are relics of another time, another war. Their solutions were always going to be measured in battles and destruction. What the future needs is people like Yua, who can see both sides of a conflict and work towards common ground. She was a tool who became a leader. She’s a soldier who questioned her mandate. She’s someone who saw beyond technology’s use to find something that reflects the soul and hopes of humanity. If anyone deserves to be the voice of reason in the future, it’s her.

There are little solvings because, well, Arkland won, and though he didn't mass produce Solds, they didn't make the situation better here. I've had some (unanswered) questions regarding the cycle of revenge message this series had in my reply for ep. 45, but if this movie goes for that message, it's just blatantly poorly executed, with a successful vengeance campaign set by Arkland as well as how potential peace can be achieved by more bloodshed; eliminating most sources of the conflict like the victims of this movie, pretty much most of the current generation. Otherwise, this movie had things going worse at the end with the public trust on Humagears turning worse, and the government likely going to repeat history. Yua and some Solds did break into the conversations, but it's vague if it's successful or not.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

Too bad she mostly eats shit in this superhero story, though! The grim inevitability of this film means that Fuwa’s sacrificial nature was always going to be put on a higher pedestal than Yua’s empathy and self-control, but MAN does Justice Serval just exist for one brutal beatdown by MetsubouJinrai. I like the suit better of the two new ones (Lightning Hornet’s a fun base for it), but Yua’s bold new upgrade is just more grist for Fuwa’s feral heroism.

Yua seems to embrace justice more here to act as something unbiased that they have to take care of all lives, while Fuwa dismissed it and live by one's own rules. Seems that here Yua's a better person than Fuwa as Fuwa's belief is ?bermensch type which is often adopted by dangerous people so that they're not bound by society norms that may stop them. Fuwa protecting what he likes and destroying what he dislikes can potentially go off the rails if what counts as dislike is just petty reason like being annoying, though Fuwa's current state is unlikely to reach that conclusion.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

Fuwa… it’s so funny, to see Fuwa as the mediating voice in a MetsubouJinrai rampage. That’s a cute final story for him, trying to tell violent Humagears that they’ve warped the message of a Humagear terrorist organization. Like, the deranged lunatic of the early Zero-One episodes is the one fighting for the soul of his former enemies. That’s a neat summation of Zero-One’s goals as a story, that we need to better understand the next generation (of technology, or of people) rather than resort to aggression and mistrust. Fuwa’s this story Working As Intended, but he’s still too violent to stick around.

Honestly, both Fuwa and Yua kinda screwed up by misinterpreting what's going on with MetsubouJinrai.net, as in reality the 4 members are forced into one mind with no control on their actions, yet those 2 think the MetsubouJinrai.net is trying to represent warped sense of justice deliberately for Fuwa to destroy it. I wonder what if they didn't misinterpret and likely explain on how unexpected things happen in MetsubouJinrai.net that they're turned into a hive mind, so they aren't losing hearts or something like the public assumed. They seem to only prioritize giving toku fights by having this interpretation used for Fuwa to go berserk on MetsubouJinrai.net using Lone Wolf. And here also showed that the series made Fuwa suffer worse fate than Gai.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

The two main Swords, 9 and 20, are okay. They’re very clearly Proto Fuwa and Proto Yua, filling the Doctor Who companion role of asking questions and getting lectured by the main characters. I liked them being in the film as a way of demonstrating Yua and Fuwa’s growth, but they were never really more than plot devices. They didn’t come across as characters to me.

Yeah, the Sold 9 and 20 have Fuwa and Yua preaching on them respectively to compare the development they receive compared to the initial state represented by those 2. Though the ending also kinda undone that by them being silent and motionless on the background, which turns them into emotionless soldiers again which the movie tried to break off.

[Kurona]

Get used to these (which it doesn't sound like you'll have a hard time doing!) because it seems these anime shorts are just a thing for Reiwa Rider now! It's a bit like the second coming of net movies and I happily welcome them! As someone who doesn't like either 01 or Saber as a whole I thoroughly enjoyed both their anime shorts series and highly recommend them to anyone. Just a great laugh, and I hope someone subs Revice's set soon