#and i also like the idea of him understanding Horobi better than Aruto could

[firebirdsdaughter]

Wait...

... So, after thinking about how Horobi could have ended up as he is (or ended up in a position where he could be manipulated by the Ark), I started wondering... How would the Ark have ended up like this?

And, to be honest, my first thoughts went to a movie I’ve never seen, but know bits of the plot of, since it’s such a classic—what if ground zero (no puns intended, I’m not Aruto) for this was a contraction like in 2001: A Space Odyssey? Alternatively, maybe it was the Ark AI that saw the ‘dark side’ of humanity—and did the same conclusion that we’ve seen many a time in sci-fi and even toku itself: concluded that peace could only be achieved if humans didn’t exist, for some reason. Maybe then it sought out/latched onto Horobi, who maybe shared its view of humans and either convinced or coerced him to go along. And, at some point, either after or before, Horobi created Jin. Maybe the Ark is also feeding Horobi the idea—whether Horobi already thought that way or it convinced him of it—that they can’t let Jin go singularity before all the humans are gone bc they both hate humans so much, they don’t want to risk him being sympathetic to them, bc they see that as still serving them? (Bc that’s still a theory I have about why Horobi would react that way to most of the singularities—wondering how he’d respond to a HumaGear who wanted to help them upon going singularity).

Then we have ZEA, the new satellite, who seems very fond and benevolent toward humans—so perhaps she had a very different experience?

Basically, something caused the Ark AI to go off the rails, w/ ZEA perhaps now being an improved, better-handled version, and I’m wondering if it was something like what’s come up in previous sci-fi.

[thouser-intellion]

I think the biggest issue 01 as a series faces is that Aruto is an unreliable narrator. As opposed to an OOO or a Den O, where the world is sympathetic to the plight of its citizens, who are traditionally regarded with sympathy, 01 flips the script and has us following Kougami while telling us he's Eiji. He isn't the final evolution of humanity: he's the catalyst for that evolution in Izu, but the show treats him as the Word of God, which ultimately makes everything worse for the people around him until he's finally forced to look into the mirror of Eden and confront the monster he's become. We're not supposed to regard his telling Horobi to be happy in his place as a positive, but the show spent 45 episodes glorifying everything Aruto did and relegated his personal growth to extraneous movies, and I think it would have benefitted a lot more from embracing those ideas throughout rather than building to a sudden drop like a roller coaster. The fact that he never has an answer to any of the questions raised by Humagears or ZAIA is the crux of the series, but the series is blissfully unaware because it's designed around the idea that Aruto doesn't have to live with the choices he makes - remember Izu almost died around episode 15 because Aruto was distracted and Aruto just kept going like nothing happened, changing nothing about his approach once her stomach has been lasered back together by a God printer that solves all his problems. He never has to confront his constant rage because the God printer just makes him a key to overcome Metal Cluster Hopper. He doesn't have to worry about The Ark because Raiden just blows it up for him. He doesn't ever have to take responsibility until HellRising Hopper, and the universe reflects that around him; suddenly, everyone is happy and working together for the betterment of their community because they're united against the common enemy of corporate indoctrination. The propagandistic narrative we're fed by this corporation, Hiden Intelligence, that "everything is fine please ignore the militia in your streets gunning down your nanny" is so detached from any sort of reality, whether our world or theirs, that it could never support the rhetoric forcing it to continue, something we've been seeing as industries collapse under the weight of the pandemic and workers being forced back into literal biohazards for the sake of the Almighty Dollar.

"The Humagears don't HAVE problems, release them, " screams Aruto, "anything bad that happens is a glitch in my perfect system that needs zero adjustment, and also I need to know the best way to destroy them if they say otherwise."

It's, like, the perfect capitalism metaphor, and the series decodes it for us as early as the pilot, where Aruto kills a humagear because "it will never understand human dreams. "

[iristial]

For all intents and purposes Aruto is meant to be the most compassionate character of the main cast, and I believe he is with all my heart + kind people can make mistakes (i.e. he took Fuwa waiting in a fortune teller's line (a sign that he's that disturbed by his past being fake) a bit too literally). But I don't get how we went from "I've been thinking about Horobi's situation" and "Fuwa needs someone to hear him out" to "we need to make more Humagears to counter this problem"

Aruto got the idea that there's a Humagear only Hiden Manufacturing can make, and not for occupational purposes, thanks to Horobi. That's a weird correlation if I'm going to be honest, because what Horobi needs is unconditional love, patience and understanding - things Aruto (and Jin) should be capable of giving. But I guess if Aruto intended on making Humagears to help a fellow A.I. out, they'd be able to understand Horobi better than Aruto could, like with the matter of free will; Horobi may be more accepting of the extra help (Aruto's only scratched the surface with Horobi's brainwashing so he doesn't know how serious the issue is); and there's definitely a limit as to how much Aruto can do to help. That would raise the question of Jin, who's classified as an autonomous Humagear and would know what it's like to go from a imitator of human behaviour to an individual. But Jin required a demonstration from Aruto to know how to help his own kind reach something close to Singularity, and that more or less shows to him, being independent is as natural as breathing to him. In his head, you just do it. He pretty much has the limitation a human has in understanding what it's like to be born without free will

Then Aruto gets a concrete idea as to what kind of Humagear he wants to make, thanks to Fuwa being dissatisfied with a fortune teller Humagear (the closest thing to a life counselor). He makes Ai-chan, a friend who hears your problems and offers advice, and that has the benefit of helping out someone who can't spill their heart out if there's someone in front of them (kinda like how help lines work, I guess?). The thing is...Aruto...friends aren't...manufactured? They're made? As in you approach other people, they approach you, and you form a bond. Or maybe it started off as a professional relationship but you grew to appreciate each other on a personal level. Or maybe it happened when you least expected it. The latter is what Aruto and Fuwa went through in a subtle way. But it doean't occur to Aruto that he's also a friend who can hear Fuwa out, or if he attempts to bite off his own lips while talking (he was pretty much doing that with the fortune teller), then Aruto can hold a conversation with him via RisePhone. As much as I'm convinced that Aruto had no friends and was rather lonely before he became president of Hiden Intelligence, which could explain why he doesn't know some things (like hearing a friend out instead of making a robot to do that...which sounds a bit like how Korenosuke built Soreo II when the original Soreo, aka Aruto's dad, died and apparently never bothered to raise Aruto himself), this is just...super weird. And I wrote that about ten times in my notes (to quote, "IT REALLY WOULDN'T HURT TO HEAR HIM OUT ARUTO")

It's also weird that apparently this whole Hiden Manufacturing-only Humagear was an idea planted by Horobi's situation, and yet no one waves Ai-chan under his nose when he resorts to extreme measures after his liberation. Even Gai uses her; thus making Ai-chan a human-only product. Odd.

All in all, my conclusion is that this episode revolved around unsubtle product placement. Kinda like Thouser the dog, now that I think about it

[sailor-cresselia]

Zero One 01: A JUMP TO THE SKY TURNS TO A RIDER KICK

Okay, I’m gonna start liveblogging from the start of a show this time! Because oh wow, just watching this live was a trip… and now I get to properly understand it. >:3

––––

So, it appears that the shot of a HumaGear in the shadows in the trailer was not, in fact, in the satellite, like the trailer implied. Instead, he’s from the Hiden Intelligence sizzle reel.

Said sizzle reel also includes a shot of the “HumaGear Skin Fitting Gate System”. That’s the part of the manufacturing process that gives them their human-like appearance, as opposed to the base robot form.

Interestingly, each of the newly-humanized HumaGear has a rectangular tattoo, with some sort of hexagonal design in it. The male one has it on the left side of his chest, and the lady we see up close has it dead center a little below her collarbone.

The support HumaGear that they show next all have it on the side of their necks. And isn’t that a handy way to tell who’s a HumaGear, if they ever elect to make the ‘ears’ smaller?

Actually, I think the lower part of it has the Hiden Intelligence logo, and the top is the hexagon glyph. Still can’t get a good look at it, though.

Also, it’s probably a very bad idea to have all of your HumaGear managed via a single broadcast satellite. I’m just saying, with tech this advanced and ubiquitous, having some backups might be to your benefit.

–

So, Hiden Korenosuke, Aruto’s grandfather, was 75 when he died. Additionally, he wasn’t just the CEO of Hiden Intelligence – he was the founder.

The news spot about his funeral is being played on a giant hovercraft, via holographic screens.

I really do love how we’re clearly going all-in from the start on ‘this is not the mainline World of Riders.’

Meanwhile, Aruto shows us his dumb puppy nature right off the bat, being late for work despite having set five alarms.

We zoom out on the city, seeing the hovercraft in better detail than the grounds-eye view from before. We also see that the Hiden Intelligence headquarters absolutely dwarves the surroundings.

The logo appears on screen. When it zooms in for the transition, the black of the ‘01’ becomes a tightly layered pattern of binary.

–

There’s no opening credits today, since it’s the first episode and all. Opening Credits on the first day is not how Takashi Yuya-san rolls, as we saw during Ex-Aid.

The sponsor segment, however, does exist. It shows Zero One and his bike – which doesn’t have an individual name yet that I can find, just the term for the phone that has as a primary form. It’s a really cool shot, too. They’re under a blacklight. I’d thought they were glow-in-the-dark when I watched the raw, but seeing this in better quality shows that the blue and red accents are reacting, too.

That is so cool.

–

Aruto nyooms to the amusement park on his bike, because he’s super late. Turns out he’s a comedian in a stage show, with a truly hideous blue sequened suit and oversized red bowtie. His act is supposed to be a Manzai show… excpet for how he’s absolutely terrible.

Like, to the point where his straightman is his phone.

There are exactly two people in the audience… and it’s an older couple, who aren’t even watching. They’re having lunch.

This kills the Aruto.

–

And so does the fact that he’s fired. As his manager says, the era’s more suited to HumaGear entertainers.

Aruto disagrees – how could an AI understand a person’s sense of humor?

And then Ab-cruncher Taro, a HumaGear comedian, comes on stage for his act… and the audience loves it. Including the older couple from Arutos act.

I mean, this might be in part that nobody in World of Zero One likes manzai anymore, too, but also Aruto’s just terrible, and this guy did have a pretty decent pun on ad-libbing… as he exploded his abs off.

The manager points out that everyone is laughing, that having such a lively theme park is his dream. Aruto feels the same – he just wants to make people laugh, that’s all.

…Except that his now-former manager is already walking off. He already has someone who can make the crowd laugh, and Aruto really should find a new dream.

–

A car pulls up to Hiden Intelligence HQ, with Fukuzoe Jun and his HumaGear assistant, Shesta. I really like her red-and-grey outfit, not gonna lie.

Anyway, he’s the vice president of HI, and, admittedly rather justifiably, assumes that he’s the new CEO. He’s got quite an ego on him, apparently, because the funeral was today. He’s already got his portrait commissioned, made, and ready to be lowered over the portrait of the late CEO. And it’s larger, dwarfing the old one.

Dude.

Maybe you should have waited a bit on getting the portrait. Like, at least until after the funeral.

Just saying.

–

We switch to somewhere called ‘Daybreak Town.’

…It’s surrounded by massive, high-tech security fences. And is a bit of a crater. A flooded one.

Entering a run-down, semi-abandoned room, we meet Horobi and Jin. Admittedly, we don’t hear their names, but that’s who they are. Horobi is stoic and calm, and Jin… well, he’s basically an even more hyper Parad.

Horobi says that now that CEO Hiden is dead, they can start the Magear Plan.

…Jin, what was that you were messing around with on that stand?

Jin’s probable attention issues aside, Horobi goes to explain a bit further, while unplugging a pseudo-driver from a cable, probably where it was being programmed. They’re going to use the HumaGear singularity – that is, the hypothetical point when Artificial Intelligences become more intelligent than humans, often including sentience. Bascially, they plan to use that to surpass humanity… somehow. As he’s saying this, he takes a Progrise Key out of a holder, and we get a few shots of the room.

The MetsuboJinrai.NET emblem is on the wall, and we see some of the assorted items. Including a katana, for some reason. And, on a platform with the same pattern as where Jin was messing around earlier? That is a gun right there. Yay!

Horobi hands the driver and key to Jin, while saying that it’s time to annihilate humanity… just like this city was, long ago.

Zoom out from his face, where he stands under a beam of light… that is coming in from a hold in a ceiling. That is to day, the hole in a roof, of a former apartment building.

Zoom out further to see that it’s one of the handful of buildings around the perimeter of the flooded crater.

At the very center of said crater? Underwater?

That sure looks an awful lot like the satellite that controls the HumaGear.

This is why you have redundant backup systems, folks.

–

So, at this point, Aruto’s got Shotaro’s meme faces, Emu’s pratfall humor (although thankfully toned down a bit), and Sento’s phone. Now we’ve also got Kabuto’s Shibuya disaster 2.0.

This is fine.

–

At Hiden Intelligence, we see a room labeled ‘Three Dimensional Printing System’. Like, it actually says that in English, same as the gate earlier. An Ai starts speaking, saying that it’s receiving orders from BS-ZA – the broadcast satellite. What does the ZA stand for? Who knows! The sizzle reel didn’t actually tell us that.

I can not understate how incredibly concerned about the ‘we have a single point of control for all of this technology’ thing that’s going on.

Anyway, a holographic pattern gets displayed inside the printing… room, I guess, and two manufacturing robot arms emerge and start. Uh.

Okay, so. That’s not how 3D printing usually works. You can’t really makes something solid out of beams of light. That’s not how it should have worked with the HumaGear skins earlier, and it’s not how it should work now.

Unless, like, it’s not light? It could somehow be a sort of plasma version of the materials needed? But it was able to make, like, the hair and eyes and such for the HumaGear earlier, so… ugh. I’m putting too much thought into it.

My hangups about how things work aside, they’re making the driver.

Outside of this room, in an office, a female HumaGear in white and teal is sitting, inactive, until she receives orders from the satellite. She gets up, and goes to fulfill her task.

Hi Izu! I didn’t notice that you had little teal highlights in your hair before! There’s just these little streaks hidden in there. It’s cute.

–

A dejected Aruto walks his bike away from the amusement park, lamenting his inability to get the crowd to laugh. Sorry bud, but you’re just not funny.

A car pulls up, Izu stepping out. She identifies her ‘target’ via the object recognition analysis that CEO described in the sizzle reel earlier. I didn’t notice before, but even though they still says peoples names in the ‘family name first’ order, the HUD shows them with given name first. Interesting.

She describes him as a ‘self described’ comedian, who is unknown. We see her face during this, before she blinks and looks downward.

Aruto’s on the ground. He’s collapsed.

Izu has known him for all of less than a minute, has no real personality of her own (yet), and is already roasting him.

When he asks who she is, she tells him that her name is Izu, and she’s the President’s secretary. Please note that she does not say which president, which probably only furthers Aruto’s confusion.

–

Back at the comedy stage, we’ve got… a human manzai duo, who are getting a laugh out of the crowd. So, it’s just that Aruto’s terrible, not that they don’t do manzai anymore.

Backstage, Taro sits, presumably waiting for his next set. He’s playing back the crowd as they laugh at his joke, and oh nooo he’s smiling so widely. He’s so proud that he was able to make them laugh! Taro is a good guy and I feel really bad for what’s coming.

Not!Parad Jin ominously comes up from behind. He doesn’t say anything more than that he’s found him, before taking the imitation driver and slapping it onto Taro’s waist.

I like absolutely NONE of the hacking process! Not the red circle of light around the buckle as the driver activates. Not the fact that the ‘belt’ starts off as fuck-off huge cable strips with ‘connector pins’ on them. Of course, since said cables are basically as wide as an arm, this means the connecter pins are more like giant spikes.

Not the fact that they jam into poor Taro, and he immediately starts seizing up with red sparks everywhere.

Not him dropping to his knees, making pained sounds.

Not Jin saying ‘You’re my friend now, so go wreak havoc on this place!”

Not the fact that he says that with a smile.

–

Elsewhere, a belt has just finished being printed, and is now being assembled and given a spiffy new coat of paint.

–

Taro is trying to not do the thing, because his job is making people laugh.

Jin chuckles. Not anymore. Now his job is destroying humans.

We switch to Taro’s perspective, and see a download progress bar fill and complete. It has ‘metsubojinrai.net’ written underneath it. When it completes, the display is replaced with their logo.

Taro cries in pain, and his memory of the crowd turns greyscale. He reopens his eyes, and instead of the cool blue light they were lit with before, they’re glowing red.

Tonelessly, he says that he is connected to metsubojinrai.net, and the ‘connecting’ lights on his earpieces glitch from blue to red.

Jin hands him the Progrize key from earlier.

–

The driver’s done.

–

We switch to the Hiden Intelligence boardroom. Jun had called a board meeting earlier, and for some reason, Izu received instructions to bring Aruto there.

Nearly everyone in the room has a HumaGear secretary standing behind them. Shesta’s tattoo is on her left wrist, and Izu’s is on the back of her left hand.

The meeting was called to read the CEO’s will. Apparently, nobody even knew he had a grandson, much less one like Aruto. According to Izu, because he is, in fact, related to the CEO, and the CEO had requested he be there, there won’t be problems regarding the legality of all of this with Aruto here. She slides the will in front of him, and walks out of the room.

Jun tells him to hurry up and read it, he’s got to get to work taking over as CEO.

Aruto opens the envelope, and starts reading – forgetting to read out loud, because he’s just a confused puppy. (He’s 22, he’s legally an adult, but that does not stop him from being a dumb puppy.) He looks incredibly distressed over what’s in the will.

It’s ominously shown with a red static overlay, is hand-written, and segments of it are appearing on top to highlight themselves.

And I have no idea why some of the overlaid words are highlighted in red, because I don’t know Japanese.

Jun, frustrated with Aruto’s distress and lack of reading out loud, grabs the paper away from him.

“In the near future, our company will face a serious crisis.” Jun’s brow furrows, and the rest of the room starts muttering, wondering what crisis that could be. “The HumaGears that our company was making will be misused and will attack humanity.” This shot goes from Jun reading to a generic HumaGear, his eyes turning red, and zooming out to show that it’s a crowd of them, in a ruined city. They all crouch down and start. Freaking. Swarming, on all fours. It’s absolutely terrifying, especially when one leaps up at the viewpoint, shrieking. (It’s the same ‘vocal’ sound effect from the bugster unions, by the way.)

Back in reality, the boardroom is starting to panic a bit. Izu comes back through the door, carrying a briefcase. Jun resumes reading. “There is only one counter measure: the Zero One driver and Progrise Key.” Izu opens the briefcase, revealing the items in question. “Built into it is the new era’s security system, in order for human hands to take control of the HumaGear.” Aruto looks at the case and driver, his expression blank.

Jun continues, with us scrolling down the will. “Only the company’s President is authorized to use it.” He can’t restrain his grin. “And my successor whom-” his face falls “I entrust this to is my grandson, Hiden Aruto?!”

Nobody expected this, least of all Aruto.

“I want him to become a part of staff, and overcome the company’s crisis. That is all.”

Jun is not okay with this, and neither is the rest of the board. He’s treating this like a family business, that’s absurd! I mean, never mind that he was the founder.

All of them start protesting over one another, before Aruto yells at them all to calm down. He then says that there’s no way he can be a president. He just wants to make people laugh. Without another word, he picks up his duffle bag and walks out.

Izu tilts her head, blinking confusedly.

–

As Aruto, somber, rides the elevator down, he thinks back to when he was a little kid.

A tiny little Aruto is trying to practice a routine with someone who seems to be his father, who laughs a little. Babby Aruto insists on trying again, because he wasn’t laughing from the heart.

The man says that the result will always be the same. His headphones are white and blue – namely, with blue lights, the same color as a HumaGear’s earpeices.

Aruto swears that he’s going to make his dad laugh – oh no, this is his dad.

An explosion goes off, and blue fire fills the screen.

Little Aruto wakes up, on the ground, his father next to him.

His father, with sections of his skin blasted off, revealing a mechanical, HumaGear face underneath, bleeding blue and dying. “Aruto… head towards your dreams… jump to them…”

The shot zooms out, with elementary schooler Hiden Aruto crouched over his HumaGear father, surrounded by rubble and flames.

–

In the present, Aruto watches as Jun’s portrait is lowered off the wall. He apologizes to his grandfather.

–

At the comedy stage, the manzai act is still going on. Everyone applauds as they finish, the manager included. It looks like Aruto is about to go ask for his job back, but he hesitates, thinking back to what the manager had said. It looks like he’s trying not to cry as he turns back around to leave.

As he turns, someone shouts to be let go.

The hijacked Taro is holding another HumaGear, probably one of the staff, by the collar as he walks on stage, before tossing him to the side. “My job is to make people laugh…” Taro’s viewpoint is shown, red static overlaying the glitching sight of the crowd as they start to back away. “…and to annihilate them.”

He activates the key, and inserts it into his driver. Red ‘wires’ extend from the buckle, breaking into and through the key.

I am not okay with any of this transformation sequence!

Not with the fire burning away his human appearance.

Not with how his normal HumaGear face withdraws and reveals what is basically a robot skull.

Not with how his jaw opens wide, and green… I dunno. Green pipes come out of his mouth, and start surrounding him in what is basically the Mad Rogue transformation.

Not with the orange dna spiral that lights up around him, and turns purple before the whole thing – spiral and pipes alike – burst out of existence, leaving Taro as the Berotha Magear.

As per Rider Wiki: The name Berotha is from Kujiberotha teruyukii, an extinct insect that lived in the Cretaceous period. It’s a recently named type of thorny lacewing, which are closely related to mantises. Aka, the species that Berotha takes his appearance from.

Two HumaGear staffers go to try and stop him, but he tosses both of them to the side, and proceeds to use whip-like extenstions to attack them… and overwrite their programming, shredding their human appearances and causing their original faces to retract. they’re left with the skull appearance briefly, before full faceplates slide down, creating the anonymous mooks of the season. They run off stage to attack.

The manager watches all of this, stunned. Aruto watches, before running at Berotha and tackling him around the middle, trying to stop him. He gets thrown into a sign for his attempt.

–

In another section of… oh lord. In another section of ‘Giggle Dreamland’, we see that there are a lot more than two mooks now. A van pulls up, the body-armored grunts of AIMS grabbing machine guns as they rush out and get in formation.

Yaiba Yua, who will eventually be Kamen Rider Valkyrie, steps out as well, saying that they are to collect data on the rampaging HumaGear and that they need to- she’s cut off by machine gun fire. Fuwa Isamu, who will eventually be Kamen Rider Vulcan, gives the order to destroy all of them.

As Yua says, at least let her finish before you start going all gun-happy!

–

Aruto, now distinctly missing his jacket and bag, gets to his feet, seeing the destruction all around him. MaGear mooks are attacking people, and ohhh nooo I think they’re repeating some of their stock ‘amusement park employee’ phrases as they do it, and that’s just tragic.

The whole area is a shambles, and the manager is on his knees in despair. Aruto remembers how the manager had said that making people laugh with joy was his dream, before Berotha comes up to the manager, extending his arm blade. Aruto tries to tackle him away, but it’s no use – he gets tossed away again. Izu runs onto the scene, carrying the breifcase. Berotha grabs the frozen manager by the collar, saying that a future where humans have dreams will never come, and starts laughing maniaclly.

Theres the sound of a heartbeat as Aruto flashes back to his father’s death.

“Don’t you laugh!” He pushes himself to his feet. “Don’t you dare laugh at someone’s dream, when you know nothing about it!”

“I do know.” Berotha starts rattling off a dictionary description of ‘dream,’ his earpieces lighting up as they connect to the web, before Aruto cuts him off.

Aruto is all but shouting. “A person’s dream isn’t so simple that you can just look it up!”

Izu looks slightly aside, averting her gaze.

“Hey! With that driver, I can do something about this, right?!” We only see Aruto’s lower face as he asks this, same as when he told Berotha not to laugh.

Izu says that yes, though it is available only to the companies president-

Aruto cuts her off, desperation written on his face as he tells her to just give it to him.

“Very well, Aruto-sama.”

She walks up, and hands him the driver and key. (In the distance, we can see that Berotha is charging energy to his mantis sickles.)

“Equip the driver to your waist.”

Glaring furiously at Berotha, Aruto places it at his waist…

There’s the sound of a heartbeat, as blue ones and zeroes glow around Aruto, and…

His soul, glowing that same bright blue, straight up leaves his body, and transports into the satellite.

(Me, a Double fan: YOOOOOOO!)

The similarities to how Philip enters the Gaia Library only increase in his visualization of the BS-ZA’s ‘cerebro’, which is a white void with occasional columns of binary scrolling upward. And written in the same font as the logo, at that.

Izu appears in there, in much the same manner – they’re both in their usual appearances again, though. Whereever they step, the binary ripples out beneath their feet. It’s a nice touch to give a sense of where the ground is, since otherwise it’s all just pure white.

She tells him that his brain is remotely accessing the satellite. He… doesn’t quite take this well.

Also, now that I have a proper back view of Izu, I can see that the earpieces have a headband behind them, so they’re basically behind the head headphones. Except, you know, most likely mounted.

Anyway, she continues. Right now, he has the same thought processing speed as an AI.

Their surroundings change, to have the void show where they are in the real world, while they appear as data projections. Just to drive the point home, she walks through the real-world Aruto.

Who is very much unconscious, standing upright with his head dropped down. Berotha’s still charging his attack, rearing back to fire.

“Left like this, in five seconds, you will die.”

Only an AI could deliver this line so casually. Aruto is not okay with this. He’s not okay with any of this.

The surroundings change again, this time to a grey and purple tinted void with hexagons in the background.

“Until then, you can learn from the manual.”

So. They’re just actually having him read the manual, in virtual form, while his real body is very, very vulnerable, so that he can learn how to use his driver.

Now This Is Kamen Rider.

‘Opening Tutorial Mode’

–

Meanwhile, over with the Zectroopers – I MEAN – AIMS troops, the machine guns do absolutely jack all against the Magear mooks. They can knock them down, sure, sending them sparking to the ground, but they just get right back up again.

Isamu, frustrated with the fact that his bullets do nothing, climbs back into the van and punches his way to grabbing what will eventually be his driver.

It seems that Yua is supposed to be his boss, because she tells him to wait, that he doesn’t have her permission – he ignores her and shoots the gun in her direction.

For a brief moment, the audience assumes he’s shooting her, but he’s aiming right over her shoulder, the ‘bullet’ sending her hair waving, and hitting a Magear mook right in the eye.

It doesn’t get back up.

Also, the top of its foot has a skeletal… well. Foot. Zero One’s going all in on the robot skeleton theme they’ve got going here, then.

Looks like Isamu’s whole attitude is ‘when in doubt, apply a bigger gun.’

–

Aruto snaps awake. “Learning complete.”

As he activates his Progrise key, Berotha launches the energy scythes.

A yellow light beams down from the satellite. It was either rapid-fire 3d printing, or it was actually teleporting, but either way. A silver grasshopper with neon-yellow lines lands in front of Aruto, blocking the attack.

Interestingly, along with the impact dustcloud, there’s yellow and blue circuitry patterns radiating away along the ground.

Hot damn I like this background music. I’d ask when we’re getting the OST, but I know the answer is ‘after the season ends,’ so instead I will just mourn my lack of soundtrack.

The grasshopper starts bouncing around Aruto as he prepares to properly transform, a holographic screen projecting from the driver in front of him. Said giant robot grasshopper is making even more of a mess of the area, and said projection is slightly 3D – the images have depth to them… and are made, of course, of closely-placed zeroes and ones.

The owner of the park is watching all of this, by the way.

“Henshin!”

We actually get to sort of see the driver reading the data on the key – kind of like when we used to see the action inside the Build Driver.

The base Zero One suit is black, with glowing red lines and a disconcerting face plate. We don’t have to see that for long though, because the grasshopper quickly dissassembles itself and turns into his armor.

In a very interesting detail, you can see it breaking down into wires and metal, and the lights that pull it towards Zero One are DNA spirals.

A JUMP TO THE SKY TURNS TO A RIDER KICK

…Hey, didn’t Aruto’s father say he should jump towards his dreams? Just saying. ;)

The grasshopper didn’t just become his armor – it also seems to have turned one of its limbs into the Attache Calibre, which makes its way to Aruto’s hand as the transformation ends.

“Who are you?!”

“Zero One! That’s my name!”

He immediately launches into an attack against Berotha, punching and kicking to great effect. Berotha tries to slash right at his feet – if he can just stop him from moving, he can annihilate him. Except Zero One leaps over the blades.

And by leap, I mean that our good grasshopper boy is now on top of the rollercoaster. Aruto is, justifiably, super impressed by his new leg power.

(I’m just saying… Aruto got the Pink Cure’s ‘WOW I can jump really high now!’ moment for this year, because Cure Star didn’t get it. She had her first fight in space, so it was already a given for her.)

Berotha is decidedly less impressed, and fires an eye beam at him. The eye laser does nothing, as despite it being almost as wide as he is tall, Zero One just tanks it as he jumps back down. As the light breaks apart around him, there seems to be a faint helix pattern there, too.

Aruto’s about to go after Berotha some more, but then he sees the owner getting attacked by a pair of mooks. Mooks who used to be his staff, and can just barely be heard stuttering around their rote phrases, repeating them without context or intellect. He goes to block them, and yells at his former boss to get out of there.

As Aruto redirects the mooks elsewhere, Izu comes running up, carrying the attache weapon that had been abandoned. She calls out to him, and throws him the case…

And it whacks him upside the head.

The mooks just watch as she apologizes, and he, rubbing his head, says he’s okay.

An honest-to-gaim insert song kicks in as they start fighting again. Like, this isn’t the OP. I’ve heard the OP. This isn’t it. This is an insert song. In episode one. It’s only a short part of it, yes, but it’s still an insert.

This is going to be a good season for music, especially since you can actually hear said insert. Not quite clearly, and it’s too brief to really get anything from aside from the tone. But that tone is awesome and I can’t wait oh god it’s going to be a long wait for this soundtrack.

Also, at some point the mooks acquired guns.

–

The insert ends when we see Not!Parad Jin bouncing in joy as he watches all of this happen from a nearby roof. “Yeah! Come on! Get ‘em! This is so fun!”

A damaged mook gets up, stuttering. “A-a-a-attention! A-a-a-a lost child has been reported!” This confirms that the mooks are, in fact, still saying their lines. It tries to attack him, because that’s what they do. He’s human, after all. (Right?)

Still giggling, Jin grabs the mooks arm as it goes to stab him, and in one smooth motion and without looking, twists it behind said mooks back, holds it around the neck, pulls out an honest-to-god gun, and shoots it in the head.

Everything goes silent for a second as the gun fires.

He doesn’t stop giggling wildly the whole time, nor does he even spare the mook a glance.

The mook falls to the ground, broken and unmoving, as he continues laughing.

It’s a normal gun. That is straight up a normal gun. Not a fancy sci-fi one, just a normal gun with normal bullets and a normal bullet casing that ejects in front of him as he laughs.

…Can we go back to our hero, please?!

–

Oh, good, we’re going back to Zero One versus Berotha. Thanks!

And thank you even more for the OP kicking in as Berotha fires a volley of energy blades. These are powerful enough to slice through cars and set off explosions wherever they hit. But they don’t even graze Aruto, not the way he jumps and rolls in mid air to dodge them.

His fighting is super graceful and deliberate, so much unlike how he moves as himself. The intro beats to the song transition into the song proper as he leaps, angled yellow lines of light trailing behind him as he uses the flying cars as jumping points, bouncing from one to the other, dodging blades all the way, before the actual bus that’s in the air comes up toward him.

He just barrels through it, still dodging the blades, using the support bars to flip and spin around and over. He manages to tap the ‘stop request’ button with his foot as he rebounds at one point, which is a hilarious little detail that they didn’t need to put in. But that lets the bus announcement of ‘stop requested’ play as he comes through the rear window right before it hits the ground.

MAN, the attention to DETAIL in this episode. I know that it’s mostly Episode One Budget in action, but damn is this promising.

Those yellow lines start following him again as he resumes his beatdown on Berotha, giving a pre-asskicking one liner. “There’s only one person who can stop you: me!” He activates his finisher.

RISING IMPACT!

A brief projection of the robo-grasshoppers foot appears over his own as he braces himself to start moving. Neat. And move he does, going faster than the camera can follow, slowing down only long enough to deliver a few punches and kicks, tossing Berotha into the air. Zero One follows suit, leaping far higher, and diving down with his Rider Kick.

He goes through the MaGear, shattering it to pieces. Gears, wires, and dark blue hydraulic fluid go everywhere, as the eyes on his helmet have a line go from front to back along the facets. Huh.

A special projection of ‘rising impact’ appears on screen as Zero Ones kick approaches the viewer, and since holo-tech is a thing here, may or may not actually be there. The key that had been used to hack Taro into Berotha, definitely cracked, also flies at the screen.

Zero One lands, digging a gouge into the path, and when he comes to a stop… Aruto twists his ankle, winds up rolling bodily into one of the buildings, and gets covered in rubble. He pulls himself up a bit using some of the debris, saying “Aaaand here’s my stop.” He collapses backward.

–

The AIMS troops seem to be wrapping up their defeat of the mooks, but as Yua says, they’ve still got a lot to do.

Isamu’s stomps on the chest of one of the downed mooks, who isn’t quite as done as he’d looked. It grabs his ankle, before he apparently shoots and shatters it, going by the sound effect.

He glares, hands trembling in apparent rage, saying that history is repeating itself.

–

Jin hands Horobi the damaged key. When Horobi ‘questions’ the damage, he just ‘asks’ “Zero One?”

Implying that there was a previous Zero One.

This implication is only furthered with Jin’s comment, as he pulls down his hood. “Seems like the previous president didn’t simply die, huh?”

We still can’t see his ears under all that hair.

The suspicion that these two aren’t human only grows. Why would Horobi want to turn humans into an endangered species if they, themselves, are human?

The ‘eye’ on the sunken satellite glows red.

–

As they exit the amusement park, Aruto’s going on to Izu about how cool he was. She says she’ll be escorting him home, calling him ‘Mister President.’

“Wait, what?!”

Turns out he completely blanked on the fact that only the president of Hiden Intelligence is allowed to be Zero One, and he accepted the position by putting on the driver.

Our protagonist, ladies and gentlemen. He’s just a big ol’ puppy.

He’s protesting this fact – the president thing, not the puppy thing – to Izu when he hears a child asking the parks owner if he’s going to be closing the park.

“Not at all. A mysterious yellow hero protected it. So we’re going to keep on giving smiles to our guests!”

Aruto looks absolutely touched by his former bosses words, just by the refusal to close, and the ‘mysterious yellow hero’ part. …He has no idea that his boss knows exactly who that hero was.

Not until said boss turns to him, and winks.

Izu lifts one hand. “I have detected many smiling expressions that Master Aruto is responsible for.”

He laughs, just a little, a light chuckle at himself. “There’s more than one way to make people smile, huh…?”

He bounces the driver a little in his hands, and gets into the car.

As he buckles in, and Izu doesn’t – sweetie, I know you’re an android, and thus can’t technically die in the way most people would see death as, you should still use your seat belt and model good behavior for the kiddos watching at home – she hands him ‘the presidents’ Rise Phone. It looks like it’s just an upgraded version of his phone from earlier, or they upgraded that phone itself.

He tries to make a terrible pun about the hassle the board of directors gave earlier… which Izu, now putting on her seat belt, thank you so very much, starts explaining. Aruto cries that she shouldn’t be trying to explain the joke as the car drives away.

The episode title finally appears.

––––

Aaand that’s Kamen Rider Zero One, episode one! This is sure gonna be something, and I’m super hyped!

[iristial]

Aruto’s screams echo in Horobi’s chest (Zero One Ep.34 | SSKRR #221)

After episodes of minute-long cameos, Horobi finally got a focus episode! And what better way to talk about it than doing the reviews I haven’t done in over a year ^^;

It’s very long and probably incoherent, so that’s a warning

Throughout the episode, my most consistent thought was that Horobi had the saddest life out of any main character in Zero One. He can’t remember his life pre-Ark, it only emerges in unconscious actions and urges (i.e. raising Jin as a son), the Ark is all he knows, and he hasn’t thought about a life post-human extinction

Episode 34 executed the Humagear of the week side-plot better than the previous episode. It helped we didn’t get conflict between contractor and Humagear; that would need screen time and a resolution of its own. I liked how the father and son vegetable farmers reminded Horobi of his own bond with Jin, and how Midori’s words affected him to the point of destroying her (because it means going against the Ark, which he lives for)

For the latter point, I’ll admit Horobi needs a slap to the face first. As much as I acknowledge how he’s been brainwashed and controlled by the Ark all his life, and that violence and obeying orders is the only language he learned, it wasn’t a great move. Of course, it’s expected - he is a villain and, once again, he doesn’t know any better - but still

The scenes Jin and Yua shared implied that Jin informed her about his idea of justice and she agrees with it. Before they properly interacted, I figured the main link/theme between them was freedom. Freedom from a cult-like organization (Jin) and from an abusive authority figure (Yua). And even though they break the cage holding them in, it still haunts them i.e. Jin struggles in working independently, Yua has desires but no dreams to call her own. There’s also how their loved ones have been hurt in some way - Horobi is bound to the Ark, Fuwa has missing memories. And from this episode, I think it’s safe to say these things apply

Overall the pair came off as enigmatic. I doubt Yua has human extinction in mind because 1) her compassion has been established multiple times and 2) she’s trying to figure herself out. And Jin’s plan of Humagear emancipation/isolation is hazy at best (after all, he did let Horobi connect to a satellite again)

Perhaps Jin isn’t as free as he believes himself to be (think Raiden, who didn’t even know he was hacked) or he plans mass liberation once metsuboujinrai.net is gathered again

On a lighter note, I laughed over Jin being dumbfounded that hitting Fuwa on the back of the head was all they needed to make him cooperate XD

They could’ve worded the meaning of being born/created better. I do understand what they’re trying to go for, that Horobi can be more than the Ark’s mouthpiece, and that he must have goodness within him. It also gives Horobi a chance to think about the identity he lost twelve years ago. But at the same time, I couldn’t help thinking being a Humagear free of a satellite was no better than being a Humagear controlled by the Ark. It’s been established that Singularity occurs when one finds pride in their job, and in some cases it’s due to intimate relationships. Usually it’s the former, and considering that a Humagear choosing to continue their job might as well be defaulting to what they knew before the connection was cut...

Aruto seems to be fixated on helping Horobi - compounded by how desperately he screamed for Horobi to remember his pre-Ark days, and how he said “I have no choice but to destroy you”, yet he only fights Horobi to a standstill. There’s also the implication he used the purifier, judging by Horobi’s movements before his transformation was cancelled

I think there’s two ways to interpret that line. One would be Aruto literally destroying Horobi (which, in some ways, is understandable because people and Humagears could die in the time he takes to make a decision). Another would be Aruto wanting Horobi to come to a realization on his own - but since Horobi can only repeat doctrine from the Ark, he knew he needed to knock literal sense into him (aka “destroying” the current Horobi in terms of deprogramming him). And in some ways, that could bring even more confusion to Horobi

This is where I’d bring Ex-Aid as an example. Poppy had a short stint of being brainwashed into helping the villains, and Emu tried to make her come back to her senses. In the end, he used a reprogramming Gashat to bring “the real Poppy back”, but that raised more questions (i.e. does Emu know Poppy as well as he think he does? Did he erase a part of her thanks to this?). In the same way, if Horobi were to be forcibly disconnected from the Ark, then it could do more harm than good. It might even drive him back into the Ark’s arms

Another thing - I couldn’t help thinking Horobi’s on an adrenaline kick after being detransformed, or still drunk on the Ark’s influence only to realize he’s not connected anymore

Soreo’s missing back-up data being used to make Horobi was another element I liked! I hope they tread this with caution though - it’ll be easy to butcher, and Horobi-Aruto is a pair we haven’t seen interacting for episodes because Takahashi loves villains like Gai more

Naki’s ability to hack humans was a foil to Jin’s ability to hack Humagears. It’s been hinted since the RaidRiser debut, but we’ve never seen Naki themselves use it. I liked how it showed humans aren’t safe from the Ark’s control

This did contradict Naki’s dream to support other Humagears’ dreams, but I suppose Ark-encrypted data was used as the base programming, and they went through a factory reset. Or perhaps they’re playing along with the Ark? I could even say they’re emphasizing Humagear dreams - but that contradicts Naki’s belief in co-existence from the Project Thouser special. They did get shot by Gai though...so I guess they changed their mind?

To me, Fuwa’s smaller screen time was a take that at how much exposure and development he received over the past few episodes. And all the scenes he has end on a comedic note! He doesn’t get to transform - Izu kind of mocks him for being late (“are you the president?”) - and he got knocked out by Yua twice

I relished in Yua knocking him out. It was time she returned the favour after episodes of having a poor battle track record (as much as I love Fuwa now, I also love Yua) XD

But considering the timing of the faked memories and raising questions about Horobi’s origins, I think it’s safe to say Fuwa was raised by Horobi and the latter sacrificed himself to protect him. But since he can’t remember that time, Horobi tries to fill in the void unconsciously by raising Jin as his son. That’s my new theory ^^

Yua’s makeover was beautiful hands down. It appears she changes her top the same way Aruto changes his hoodies - and it made me go “Yua, you vixen” XD

What little we got of Gai demonstrated he’s also the Ark’s tool and his ego, once again, bites him because Naki’s now sullying the name of ZAIA like he did with Hiden Intelligence. I hope they don’t forget he’s just as guilty as the Ark when it comes to bad deeds (but since we had an entire arc with him around, I doubt that’ll happen)

Another comedic point I liked was Fukuzoe and his assistant reveling in Yua beating up Gai. They’re clearly sucking up to him for survival but when push comes to shove, they only support Aruto and co. I’m with them in how stupid Gai’s remark was about the perfect tea temperature needing to be sixty degrees Celsius, not 72 degrees XD

[firebirdsdaughter]

Over Analysis ‘The Gawas will be the Death of Me’ Stage 2: The Ark Fight(s)

… What do to when home sick from work (I’m okay, I think I know what it is).

Do the other half of your Zero-One over analysis. Slowly.

So. Skipping over some stuff, where Aruto becomes president of Hiden again, and we have MBJR just… Mooning around, including a shot of Horobi’s hand that makes me think the camera crew is reading my conversations… Anyway. Jin chills in the tunnel for a bit until he seems to resolve something and gets up, while Raiden hangs out in the usual part of the base, and Naki and Horobi go for walks. While I disagree w/ certain choices made in this sequence, it’s interesting that Horobi’s apparently aimless wandering leads him to… A daycare centre.

There he is, the prettiest gargoyle ever. I mean, I have Feelings about things in this part… But this isn’t about that! This is about how Horobi stands around and stares at the kids and the two HumaGear playing w/ them. My theory, which has yet to be at all disproven by anything, remains that Horobi originally got ‘Ark’d bc in the past, maybe partially bc of Soreo’s data, he grew to want to create his own child and tried to build Jin pre-Ark, maybe not even that he wanted to raise Jin instead, but just wanted to raise Jin alongside the other children, but as a child, not programming him to serve a purpose for humans. But the humans around him reacted badly to the concept, and immediately tried to put a stop to it, and the Ark promptly preyed on a father’s desperation to protect his son. Going by that interpretation… Horobi’s trance-like state just… Staring at the two HumaGear having fun w/ the kids is heartbreaking. Is he only looking at his past? Or is he seeing something he and Jin should have had, that was taken from them.

To continue ignoring my Feelings, we have Horobi promptly attempting to erase the source (?) of his uncertainty in the only way he knows how at this point. Interesting that he’d end up targeting some random kids, but couldn’t follow through attacking Jin. More deflection/projection? He can’t attack his own son, but maybe if he ‘proves’ he can overcome his instincts here, he thinks he’ll find peace? But Horobi’s never been good at following through w/ attacking children, not even when they attack him first. Especially not when there’s a father on hand.

But before Horobi can even pull back the… Arrow? He’s getting hit w/ flashbacks. Jin looking dejected. Himself lowering his weapon rather than follow through w/ what the Ark would want. All while Aruto’s challenge about wanting to protect Jin rings in his head.

… And he can’t do it.

Also please note he lowers the bow before Jin shows up. I saw something that said ‘Horobi almost kills some kids before Jin stops him.’ And… No. Horobi stops himself. He may have trouble comprehending why, but he does. He finds himself thinking about his own son, and can’t follow through w/ it. He never even gets so far as pulling back the arrow (?).

Then Jin shows up.

Jin’s wobbly as he approaches and holds onto the… Thing. Like he’s still injured and limping. Instead of seeking out Raiden or Naki, who seemed much more open to the idea of leaving the Ark, he specifically goes after Horobi. And says something that makes me kind of wonder if Jin is actually falling into something parallel/perpendicular to what I think Horobi is doing next ep. Now that he seems to be shaken out of whatever had him thinking that That was a good plan, or necessary (I do have to admit, I like the concept of Jin, whether by manipulation or otherwise, having come to the conclusion that there was no way to save Horobi and that at best his father would always end up dying, and that the only thing he could do was try and save him from a more drawn out, painful death or some worse fate, but they would have needed to imply that earlier for it to really land), he kinda feels like he’s… Chasing what was taken from them? Like, I mentioned my theory earlier, and I haven’t thought much about the implications of if Jin knows or doesn’t know, but him trying to use that incident to prompt something in Horobi kinda feels like, along w/ his pleading looks before and the fact that he came after Horobi… Like he wants to try and reclaim the chance/right to be a family that got stolen from them. Like he wants to try again. Meanwhile, the impression I get from Horobi’s behaviour, as I see it, next week, is that Horobi has just accepted that they can never really recover that, and has decided the only thing he can do is make sure the future is better for Jin and other HumaGear, no matter the cost. I feel like that’d be a lovely, tragic angle to the whole thing.

Anyway.

… Horobi is, once again, bewildered by the concept of wanting something for himself? This is why I feel like, even if his motivations next week are what I hope, we may not hear it from him unless it’s a dying or emergency confession. Horobi has been conditioned for years, since he was created, to never think or want for himself, and my theory is that the first time he tried, he suffered for it. He’s been under the Ark’s control for so long that it’s… Easier. Less painful to just let the Ark be in charge. And gods know we see very clearly that the Ark will get aggressive when he doesn’t.

Horobi’s second emotional outburst, and it’s… Again about rejecting the concept of freedom and choosing for himself. On the one had, he can’t imagine doing that, on the other… He’s quite possibly traumatised by the concept.

No, wait, Ark, let him finish, I want to know what he thought he was doing. Additionally, this is the second time the Ark has apparently reacted to Horobi having an emotional reaction.

We get this little… Uncertain sort of lip bite before he turns to face the Ark. The Ark’s influence trying to squash the doubt/emotions that Jin prompts in him?

Oh, honey.

… Oh, typo.

Jin’s reacting to multiple things here, the Ark jumping in, and the fact that she’s announced she’s going to destroy HumaGear. I appreciate that we don’t get any ‘smug about being right’ or anything, and that he also seems to be upset about the fact that he was getting somewhere again, only for the Ark to jump back in. There’s also the fact that the Ark is using Horobi to say this, and Jin has shown he’s aware (in this ep, at least) that Horobi actually is doing this for HumaGear. To Horobi, this was always about HumaGear. Hearing those words out of his father’s mouth must be… Really jarring.

Anyway, the Ark promptly starts attacking.

Jin stays on the defensive the entire time during this fight, seems to just be trying to restrain Horobi, and doesn’t try to henshin once. This is Toku, the franchise that essentially invented the ‘transforming is a free action’ trope (okay, maybe that was technically magical girl anime), so if he really wanted to, he could. The Ark makes no move to transform, either—but that makes sense, we’ve seen her fight just fine untransformed, the whole magic grey goo thing. But if the ark remains untransformed and Jin transforms… Is he afraid he’d end up actually hurting Horobi? This is one of the things that convinces me that Jin really does understand what he did wrong and that he fucked up, and now he’s trying to make up for it/regrets it. He knows this is partially his fault, and it’s coming right on the heels of Horobi making something like progress bc Jin actually bothered trying. That’s gotta be another sucker punch, understanding that if he actually had bothered rather than… I don’t know, trying to take the easy way out? Then again… Looking at how his own death played out… Maybe he was taught by experience.

Anyway.

… I’m saying that a great deal in this one, aren’t I?

Anyway, the ark predictably gets the upper hand, sends Jin flying only to 

So. Let’s talk about Jin’s hands again.

Namely… I don’t think that’s how you get a foot off your chest.

In the previous stage/section, I was talking about Jin’s hand twitching upward when Horobi lowered the bow, and here… I guess, in theory, he could be trying to… Pry it off or something, but his hands aren’t going through the motions of that, they’re not really tense or straining to pull the foot upward. He’s just… Hanging on.

The Ark holds that position for an unnecessarily long time, just, staring down at Jin, like she’s trying to force him to face how much control she has over Horobi, and maybe take the time to enforce to Horobi that he’s merely her pawn.

… I’m absolutely sure that is not how you get a foot off your chest.

It’s hard to show w/ still images, but Jin’s motions do not seem like he’s trying to escape his situation. His hands aren’t gripping or pulling, they aren’t tense. He’s not squirming or yelling or anything. His behaviour feels less like ‘get off me, Ark!’ and more like… Well, more like he’s trying to reach out/hold onto Horobi, like he’s given up on ‘fighting’ and is just desperately hoping contact will do it. More like ‘it’s me, Horobi, look, please, it’s me.’ Like when a character is knocked unconscious and someone who cares about them rushes to their side and is grabbing and touching their shoulder, maybe their face, like ‘look at me, please look at me.’

At last, the Ark raises the katana w/ similar pointed slowness—it really, really feels like she’s trying to drag this out as much as possible.

There’s so much to this reaction. For one thing, I mean there’s a sword bearing down on him, so obviously he’d be frightened. But it’s also not just a sword, it’s his father holding it, his father who is possessed by a homicidal satellite that sees him as nothing more than a puppet, and he’s possessed bc Jin raised the bloody thing and planned to sacrifice him to kill it (would that even have worked, though? Or would the Ark have just jumped to another host?). What’s more, earlier, Horobi stopped and couldn’t follow through when Jin asked if killing him was what Horobi wanted, and we already know he remembers Horobi rushing to protect him. He’s at least reasonably sure about the fact that Horobi himself doesn’t want to hurt him, and at least some idea that he’s able to get through to Horobi is he tries (I don’t know if he actually knows he’s Horobi’s singularity Point… my gut says no). There’s not only the fear of death, but probably the sense that if this happens, it will be the final nail on the coffin of any chance Horobi had of breaking free of the Ark. It’ll be the end for both of them, honestly.

Despite Aruto yelling, the Ark brings the sword down, and, understandably, Jin looks away…

… Only to, very noticeably, you know, not die. So he looks back up and…

This look is already… So much emotion. But don’t y’all just wanna hear me talk about hands again? Right? Right?

Well, too bad. Bc Jin’s reaction kills me every time. Literally. I keep going back just to watch this moment. Bc when he looks back up and takes in what happened, w/out looking, w/out saying anything, completely instinctively…

… He reaches for Horobi.

This seems like… A whole combination of things. A kid reaching for his father for comfort, but also at the same time… Like he’s trying to comfort Horobi, reach out to him. Bc he knows this has to be Horobi. The Ark wants to kill him double, has announced she’s going to destroy HumaGear. She wouldn’t stop. But Horobi would. Horobi’s instinct was to protect him before, he couldn’t kill him even when he had the chance, couldn’t kill the kids. Someone else pointed out that, normally, given the chance, someone would be frantically getting away from someone who tired to stab them, but Jin’s reaction is to reach for his father, despite the whole ‘possessed and holding a sword over his head’ thing. Again, not ‘get off me’ but more like ‘it’s you, it’s okay, I’m here, it’s going to be okay, you can do it.’

The camera pulls back to show a scene that is very clearly from a different take (but, I mean, why would you not use the one where Jin reaches out like that?), then closes in on Horobi again. The Ark is clearly struggling—I like the way it sounds like she’s putting all her effort into trying to push the sword down, but Horobi refuses to budge.

Then the flashbacks start. Bits of Horobi’s memory while his own voice echoes behind them.

The first one is obvious—the first time he moved completely w/out the Ark’s command, possibly the first action that was totally of his own volition in over a decade. Which was, notably, and action that is the complete opposite of what the Ark is now trying to force him to do.

The Ark reacts like she’s getting a headache, clearly baffled by Horobi having any resistance to her will.

Then we get interesting.

ForceRisering Jin. Notably, Horobi’s initial flashback was to the time he reacted on his own, as if he’s finally realising what he truly wants, to protect Jin… But then he flashes back to this moment, which was… The time he did the opposite, according to the will of the Ark. We know, via Project Thouser, that Horobi was extra manipulated into this by Gai via Naki suggesting it would benefit ‘their’ (read: the Ark’s, none of this was ever Horobi or Naki’s plan, though it was half Gai’s) plans. So he goes from a moment where he acted like the father he wants to be (that was a signal of him nearing singularity, that wanting to be Jin’s father is his dream) to a time when the Ark’s influence caused him to be the opposite. For me, this is really fuel for my theory about Horobi’s behaviour next ep—that he believes that he and Jin can never get back what was taken from them by the Ark and therefore humans, and that the only thing he can do is try to make a safer, better future for his son, no matter the cost, even if he dies in the attempt. This also makes my other theory all the more heartbreaking, that Horobi originally got into this to protect Jin, and then the Ark’s control warped and twisted him, and now he’s starting to remember himself and seeing that and ends up convincing himself he can’t go back.

But. Anyway (again).

The next one is from the hospital arc. This was the incident where we first heard Horobi’s ‘we are not the slaves of humanity’ sentiment, and also the first time he and Jin henshined together. He’s thinking back to the times when his son was w/ him, when he believed they were fighting for freedom for their kind. I’m not entirely sure about any implications regarding this scene following the other one, other than chronology. Is Horobi regretting having involved Jin in the fighting? Is he veering between things that he regrets and things he doesn’t? Guilt and remorse for hurting his son, but also the fact that he enjoyed being w/ Jin and fighting together w/ him? Given that he doesn’t seem to be involving Jin in his actions next ep, perhaps, while he cherishes this memory for certain aspects, he may also conclude that he needs to keep Jin out of things for his safety. Perhaps he sees involving Jin in the fight as a failure on his part, too.

Next is the moment when he confronted Aruto for Ikazuchi’s data… Which lead to him kidnapping Midori, encountering the father and son, and the exchange on the bridge, and his first choice in over a decade. I’m not as sure about what I think this one might be about, but like I said, it did lead to the conversation w/ Midori, and more questions about what he really wants, brought up his relationship w/ Jin  (and then belittled it). Is he thinking about everything that lead to this? Thinking about wanting to reunite his family? About what was sacrificed to raise the Ark? Or does this have to do w/ Jin’s admittedly plan?

The last memory is of the moment when Jin was making graves for Ansatsu-chan and Ikazuchi. On the one hand, we have HumaGear who died for the Ark’s plan, and Horobi was directed to not care, but Jin was also highly effected by those deaths, and Horobi snapped at him for grieving for them. Additionally, Jin expressed a desire to get revenge on the humans responsible for their deaths. Horobi may also be carrying something like resentment and a desire for revenge on the humans who were ultimately responsible for everything he and Jin went through, everything the Ark caused him to put Jin through. And they’ve been through a lot.

But first…

MY MAN.

I feel like it’s significant that Horobi starts this question facing away (but this post is already so picture heavy), kinda hunched and looking down—the way the scene cuts makes it comes across as Horobi just being ‘transported’ into the Ark’s space like how Aruto and Izu do into Zea’s, while the Ark stands a distance behind him, back turned. It really does give the impression of Horobi being forced to watch while the Ark just casually uses his body w/out even really ‘looking.’ Horobi is the one the situation is in front of, while the Ark is indifferently facing away. Horobi turns toward the Ark to ask why, probably his first question in twelve years. And it’s bc of Jin. Not only is the Ark trying to force him to destroy HumaGear, she wants him to start w/ the one person who means the most to him. The one person Horobi himself doesn’t want to hurt.

The Ark… Doesn’t take it well.

Horobi gets swarmed by the floating words, and it sounds painful, enough that he’s brought to his knees. One question, just asking why, in twelve years, and he gets this. And he’s just asking why. The Ark doesn’t even bother faking a reason, just responds by torturing him, trying to force him back into compliance. W/ a method that has perhaps worked before.

Except this time, Jin’s life is actually on the line.

I love the way he brings his hand up to his face. I don’t know why, I just do. Anyway, Horobi fights through the pain, his hand curling into a fist.

… And…

THAT’S MY MAN.

Hey, that setup looks familiar, I think we’re just missing a sunset (come at me w/ comparing Horobi to Gai now, you… Jerk faces!).

You know what, I think I’m gonna break this into parts to prevent anymore mishaps.

Please hold.

[firebirdsdaughter]

…

… Running theme for most of the characters in the last two eps of Zero-One:

Blame the long-term brainwashing victim and grown up child soldier who is also an AI and therefore his brain works differently from a human’s, who has had his emotions forcibly repressed and been w/out a mind of his own for more than a decade while being conditions to respond w/ extremes for not knowing how to person/respond to freedom/express his feelings/completely break away from the brainwashing he was under/being able to completely rationalise that extensive amount of negative data  that has been forcibly impressed on him for over a decade is biased even though he has very few experiences to prove otherwise, react violently, thus enforcing the idea that humans will seek to destroy anything that ‘defies’ them rather than proving that even in the face of a threat they can be understanding and calm, then when a person gets caught in the crossfire bc she keeps poking a bear and doesn’t dodge an attack she clearly sees coming (this is literally Izu walking over to tell Jin Horobi was defeated again, it’s super ooc, imo, she could easily have moved, she zips around faster than a damn car) bc he’s frightened and overwhelmed and panicking and doesn’t know how to handle it and is literally afraid of his emotions (literally, there’s a reason you don’t wantonly approach an injured animal, even the best trained pets will bite if frightened enough, esp if it feels cornered, and this was like rushing a wounded animal shouting w/ a stick raised), instead of anyone trying to contain the situation on either side (Jin kinda tries but what really need to happen there was for him to not let Horobi walk away, even if he had knock him out), someone goes totally homicidal (again, all those people Gai killed, but this is unforgivable???), and the traumatised child soldier AI continues to not really get the support he needs and descends deeper into hysteria (and gets accused of having it out for Izu… Like… What. Say ‘angry at,’ at least, or better yet, say something about ‘don’t let the Ark keep controlling/influencing you’), then we’re yelling at him for not understanding her ‘pain’?? Oh, I don’t know, maybe he’s a little busy not understanding his own pain???

Also Naki and Ikazuchi suddenly acting like Horobi is some kind of monster—well you know what Mx.* Literally Got Shot Twice By A Human For Petty Reasons And Then Stuffed In A Stranger’s Brain and Mister Was Going To Be Deactivated For Finishing His Job, at least Jin showed up! (it’s not them, it’s the writing, but it really pissed me off to hear that from them after we didn’t see or hear from them last ep—kinda shitty to have them be saying stuff like that when they didn’t do a single thing to try and change the situation either)

This should, at the least, be depicted as a tragedy of miscommunication and poor reactions, a result of the lasting damage and trauma the Ark left Horobi w/ which made him volatile, confused, and frightened of emotions/freedom and the genuine failings/arrogance of humans and the fact that honestly Izu’s data was equally biased but even then if people (Fuwa and Yua, I adore him, but he fucked up) had literally listened to her in that scene likely none of this would have happened.

Maybe part of this is the behaviour of a lot of the fanbase, but it just feels like the show is trying to make out what should at the least be treated as a tragic result of miscommunication and failure to understand the nature of Horobi’s situation and trauma (he was never going to easily come around on humans, did y’all really expect him to be magically ‘okay’ after what the Ark did to him). Like… This is a semi-realistic depiction of someone coming out from under a control like that (and it’s even worse bc he’s an AI, made to ‘serve’ and learn from intaking info, and the majority of the info he’s taken in is… The Ark’s negative data, so he’s got that on top of everything else), but the in-universe response to him gives the whole thing some bad connotations.

I’d love to think next ep we’ll get a moment of Aruto realising ‘oh, wait, this person I’ve been trying to murder was mind raped for twelve years and is not mentally or emotionally stable, maybe I shouldn’t take things at face value’ but I honestly doubt it.

Also, Horobi didn’t start this ‘chain,’ Amatsu Fucking Gai did, I don’t care if the show wants me to forget by replacing him w/ a body double, none of this would’ve bloody happened if that bastard hadn’t created the Ark.

*I forgot how to expand (like how Mr. expands to Mister) the nonbinary thingy so poor Naki gets an abbreviation

[firebirdsdaughter]

Fact is…

… While I do whine about Izu’s behaviour (mainly that it feels really hard to have sympathy for her when, yet again, this feels like the writers just handing her a massive Idiot Ball to make her go walk into the line of fire again, like it was so easily preventable even if Horobi hadn’t done anything different that it’s really hard for me to understand blaming him and hard to feel like this is sad at all it just feels stupid and contrived), ultimately, I blame the humans much more.

Naturally, there’s Gai, who started all of this by creating the damn Ark in the first place, can we please remember that, Horobi didn’t start any of this, Gai did by creating the Ark, which in turn fucked up Horobi’s mind. Like, that’s just a given, a human deliberately created the Ark, knowingly, and for petty, shitty reasons. Gai started this bloody ‘chain,’ and it’s fucked up that he’s getting away w/ it pretty much scot free while other people are literally fucking dying bc of it, but okay.

But besides that, much more than Izu (and there were issues w/ her behaviour, for one thing the idol/messiah worship of Aruto creeps me out, but that’s actually kinda why I feel this way), I blame the humans. In the end, w/ the way Izu has been ‘taught,’ it’s not really right to expect anymore emotional maturity/understanding/nuance from her than it is to expect it from Horobi. She’s basically just his complete antithesis, blindly loyal to humans and either completely blind to their failings or been taught to not recognise them. I don’t usually enjoy ‘humans are the real monsters’ plots, but ‘humans are the special special source of all good in the universe’ don’t do it for me either. Bc we’re not either of those things. Humans are complicated. We have equal potential for both good and bad, and the existence of one does not invalidate the other. Both Izu and Horobi’s data is accurate, and while I dislike the show taking the tone that ‘Izu’s is right bc Aruto is a divine saviour of HumaGear’ (okay, okay, you get my point, I’ll try to stop), that’s not exactly her fault, she’s been taught that, she was expressly made to benefit Aruto, the show has also very much had the angle of ‘teach HumaGear to be happy serving humans,’ of course she would fall into that kind of… Thing, she’s the ‘pinnacle of perfect HumaGear’ bc she’s blindly devoted to her owner (the key word was I’d try to stop). Anyway, really, both of them are in the same situation, fed biased data, just he got the short end of the stick w/ the malicious master who literally tortured him for asking questions and aggressively repressed his emotions and conditioned him to respond w/ violence and extremes for more than a decade. Izu’s emotions are limited to the ‘happy loyalty to humans’ variety, but at least she was able to figure out how to handle some of them, she wasn’t taught to, basically, be a child soldier where violence was the ‘only answer.’ But in the end, neither of them should be expected to have the wherewithal to reason through that kind of negotiation/interaction. Izu cannot understand what Horobi’s going through, cannot fathom negativity in humans, and Horobi… Horobi literally has no idea how to handle emotions (I do appreciate the show actively, explicitly explaining that he’s literally terrified of feeling, and I mean, why wouldn’t he be, we saw what the Ark did when he just wanted to know ‘why,’ how s/he jumped in every time he got emotional). She can’t empathise, and he has no other way to respond but to lash out. There’s no reason for either of them to know.

But humans should know better.

… I feel like Treebeard.

But the fact is, we can’t expect either of these HumaGear to actually know how to handle the situation, esp not Horobi, who has no idea how to person, let alone regularly interact w/ someone else. But humans should know better. If any of the humans around them had shown even an inkling of the compassion and empathy and kindness they are espoused to have? None of this would have happened. Fuwa, I love you like I love Horobi, aka, more than anyone else here,, but you totally fucked up. And so did Aruto and Yua. Horobi and Izu should never have been left alone together, that was a recipe for disaster. You would think that, if he really wanted to resolve things peacefully, Aruto would immediately book it to the ‘root’ of the problem, an actual human trying to show understanding and compassion would likely have gone a long way. I don’t think Horobi would have completely backed down, but they might have talked him into waiting and seeing. Yua and Fuwa could keep the others busy (esp bc they’re the ones who charged in and lit the fuse in the first place). After that, Horobi was a ticking time bomb that Izu neither knew how to defuse nor stay away from.

Expecting Horobi to know how to handle a situation like that, to be able to do the extensive emotional retrospection needed to clearly think things through in those circumstances… It’s like finding a child who grew up completely in the wild and trying to force them to just immediately snap back into society. Every single ‘wild child’ story. And those would be humans. For an AI, it’s even worse.

Horobi needed rehabilitation, he needed time, he needed to be eased back into things. He was never going to be magically okay or able to reason w/ the nuance of a human just bc the Ark wasn’t in his head anymore. She did lasting damage. Izu, while she did a stupid, had know way of understanding that. But the humans around them really should have. If Naki and Ikazuchi are really adjusted so fast, well, maybe they should have done something. Jin gets a little leeway bc he actually showed up and did just get ordered to kill Horobi, so he was a little scatterbrained, though I do take issue w/ some of his behaviour afterwards.

This isn’t Horobi being ‘really a bad person,’ this is a traumatised and highly damaged AI not knowing how to do anything but what he was taught, not knowing how to respond to emotions, having been conditioned to react w/ extremes and violence (we literally saw how the Ark trained him to do that, killing Anna, destroying Midori for making him think, aiming the bow at the kids… He’s been trained to ‘remove’ things that ‘destabilise’ him w/ extremity and violence), and Izu genuinely has no real idea on how to handle that kind of trauma, esp in another AI, bc none of the humans around ever tried to address it before, it was always just ‘chop chop back to work!’ Horobi wasn’t killed and reloaded w/ some new programming. He’s still going off the knowledge he had before, the Ark’s knowledge, his experience w/ the Ark. He’s not going to snap back to being a “happy,” “smiling” HumaGear. He’s been under too long. Expecting him to snap back is one thing from Izu, but she learned it from the humans around her.

So… I guess to try and summarise is I think, aside from considering the writing overly heavy-handed, I’d say that Izu, Jin, and Horobi are victims of human arrogance and insensitivity. If humans hadn’t been so focused on themselves in that moment, if someone had just shown a little sense and compassion, used that damn emotional maturity… We wouldn’t be here.

If any one of the humans. Had actually. Tried. Anything. To do anything. I’d be feeling much more sympathetic towards them.

[firebirdsdaughter]

Okay…

… Well, Slightly More Rested¡Fire is wondering if Tired As Fuck¡Fire is okay…

But that aside, it did also occur to me that maybe I’m really totally overreacting.

They could still do what I was hoping for, which is to make Naki Yua’s ‘HumaGear partner.’ Literally, they don’t even have to get Naki out of Fuwa (well, I hope they do eventually), they can be brain buddies, and Naki can still be Yua’s partner. Horobi can still be Fuwa’s.

Maybe that’s where they’re going. Maybe they’re not actually disregarding 30+ eps of build up like that. Maybe I’m just being a whiny brat bc (like often happens) I like the less popular dynamic and I need to stop being a baby, and they are actually planning on having Naki and Yua be a thing (like I think they should).

I’m cool w/ Naki and Fuwa being friends, I’m cool w/ them having an ‘understanding of each other.’ Like, I am totally okay w/ people having more than one friend. But I prefer the HumaGear partnership breakdown as ‘Yua and Naki’ and ‘Horobi and Fuwa.’ I dunno, I just… Kinda want those to relationships to be ‘special.’ I love the idea of Fuwa being the only human Horobi trusts as first bc Fuwa never lied to him (not knowingly) or tried to use him. Fuwa treated him like a person. Meanwhile, w/ Naki and Yua, Naki understands Amatsu’s treatment better than anyone, and it’d be an awesome angle to have the ‘HumaGear,’ the ‘tool’ being the one encouraging the human to think for themselves. Naki can still learn from and be affected by Fuwa. Hell, it’d be cool to see Horobi and Yua interact properly, too. Maybe they’re just hyper focusing on Naki rn bc they’re the ‘shiny new character’ like how, in Sentai, the Sixth is often kinda op in their introductory eps (I still feel like this introduction is rushed, but… I also remember Parad’s ‘redemption’ in Ex-Aid—and while I still don’t want Jin and Aruto compared to Emu and Parad, at least w/ that Emu and Parad had a connected history and the whole ‘I am you’ Persona thing going… Jin and Aruto just hated each other until they suddenly didn’t, but I’m not here to critique). I mean, they’ve still been largely ignoring Horobi for a really long time, but… Maybe we’ll get some real Horobi and Fuwa interaction again in the coming eps? Maybe???? (probably not)

I honestly do not expect them to do this at all at this point, but… I just really want to believe that 30+ eps of build up isn’t going to be shoved aside for a one-ep deep dynamic (aaaand… There I go again, sorry).