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Thread
:
Kamen Rider Die watches Kamen Rider Zero-One (and builds SO-DO)
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06-30-2022, 09:48 PM
#
232
Kamen Rider Die
Kamen Ride Or Die
Join Date: Aug 2019
Location: Chicago, IL
Posts: 6,159
KAMEN RIDER ZERO-ONE EPISODE 12 - “HERE COMES THE GREAT DETECTIVE”
Just an absolutely delightful episode of Zero-One. I honestly don’t know what else there is to say about it? I don’t get paid by the word around here, so that might be the entirety of this discussion, from my end:
Delightful
.
__________________
Currently working through:
KAMEN RIDER ZERO-ONE
Okay, I can try to talk a
little
more about it.
It’s as hard a pivot from last episode as possible, while still being an explicit continuation of two main plots and a few subplots. Tonally, we went from The Walls Are Closing In to A Wacky Relative Comes To Town, and it all somehow still works? It’s the majesty of this franchise, generally, and this show, specifically. You can swing incredibly hard to darkness one episode, and then the next episode go right back to selling toys (NEW PROGRISE KEY YOU GUYS
OH MY GOD
) and having goofy escapades the next.
It works this time because even the dumbest stuff is grounded in character knowledge, and it’s all in service of tightening up the threats around Aruto. There’s a goofiness to this episode that can seem like ineffective wheel-spinning, but there’s a point to all the weird gags and non-sequiturs.
Which is as good a place as any to talk about this story’s big new character, Was! He’s the Humagear big brother to Izu, and I absolutely love the Was/Is joke. Hiden Intelligence is the corniest company on the
planet
. (I’m sure it’s Wazu or something, but the joke works better as Was, and I gotta assume that's how it was intended.) Everything about him is like the Joke Version of Izu, which predictably makes his little sister the Izu Version of furious. He’s adorably unassuming, like Columbo mixed with Fozzy Bear. His headphones are old-fashioned cans instead of the slickly modern designs the newer Humagears wear. He’s cartoony in his detective cosplay, and impossible to take seriously.
So, naturally, we spend half the episode wondering if he’s either an idiot or a distraction, and then the other half marveling at his intuition. The arc of it all… I mean, it’s nothing special in its bones. Eccentric detective arrives, everyone laughs at his presentation, he’s actually more on the ball than anyone, etc. It’s as standard a take on this stuff as you’d imagine/fear. But the ways it's all hooked into weird angles like Izu’s thoughts on Humagears, the brilliant addition of Fuwa to the mix, Aruto’s role as comedic decoy (the role he was born to play!), and the dotted-i of Assassin-chan’s “resurrections” makes the template
deliciously
palatable.
There’s some thematic material in here, but it’s boilerplate Humagear stuff. Was succeeds because he’s more clever than a normal Humagear, and his successes multiply those of the humans around him. Aruto’s trust in Humagears is repaid, and Izu learns an important lesson in faith. But, honestly, I don’t care about any of that this time? I wanted to have fun watching Zero-One, and this was one of the most fun Zero-One episodes I’ve ever watched. Incredibly funny, thrillingly dramatic (I loved how Aruto got under Yua’s skin! On the one hand, I’m not sure it’s ethical for a company to supply employees to its own governmental oversight; on the other hand, I think that’s
exactly
why it’d actually happen), and full of well-choreographed action. This didn’t exactly expand my understanding of ethics or tolerance, but it was a blast to watch.
—
KAMEN RIDER ZERO-ONE SO-DO AI 03: KAMEN RIDER ZERO-ONE - SHINING HOPPER
Lightning Hornet! If only you’d appeared in this episode, this could’ve been your review! Unfortunately, the only new suit in this episode (that I think I have a SO-DO for) is Shining Hopper.
It’s the first Zero-One upgrade form, and the episode is almost entirely dedicated to debuting it. (In a
good
way?) It’s introduced with trepidation from Was, and confidence/smugness from Izu. The production team is so committed to making this suit seem awesome that they made its Henshin sequence the cliffhanger of the episode. It’s a big deal suit!
I think it’s okay?
It’s a funny concept, I’ll give it that. The transformation is real Yo Dawg I Heard You Like Grasshoppers, and the suit is just Extra Grasshopper Parts. It’s like Hyper Kabuto’s helmet crest, but
grasshoppers
. I laughed at the part where the undersuit got super defined abs?
Other than that…
eh
. Rising Hopper is almost
too good
of a suit, where every single form change – and now upgrade – feels like a small-to-large step down in quality. This suit’s fine, but Rising Hopper is
perfect
. This suit plays up the gangly height of a grasshopper, but it misses the stylized feel of Rising Hopper that added heroism to the recipe. This looks like a more serious Zero-One, and that’s not what I want?
(It’s also an upgrade form that barely feels necessitated by the plot? The satellite starts making the key before anyone even asked it to, which feels like a story beat that’s going to get dealt with, but the usage in this episode is super ambivalent. Was even suggests using the last big form change, instead!)
The SO-DO figure doesn’t switch that up too much. It’s a fine figure, but nothing special. All the black of the suit means there aren’t a ton of stickers, but most of the ones that
are
here are a pain in the ass. It’s tiny stuff, or curved stuff. It’s hard to line up most of the stickers, which isn’t fun. I think it came out alright, but I definitely screwed up some minor things. (The feet, maybe the shoulders.) As the representation of a suit I’m not crazy about, I think it looks just fine.
(Also!
I’ve got a thread going for all of the SO-DO I’m never going to build!
Maybe you’d like to add them to your collection? Or start a collection, using them? Take a look!)
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