#kr.zero one (01): episode 38

[iristial]

My annoyance and anger aside, I’ll never look at Kamen Rider Thouser the same way ever again

I mean, it was one thing to think that Gai was parading himself as almighty when his theme is a bug that can be stepped on, but it’s another to know this insane maniac named himself after a harmless toy dog

[iristial]

She cares, he cares, it's coming full circle

[iristial]

@zarahjoyce​ replied to your post “If it wasn’t for Fuwa on his way to visit Yua in the hospital with...”

I WAS WONDERING WHAT HE WAS HOLDING ahhhh

They were indeed flowers! 🌻🌻

It’s a bit blurry, but it’s the one shot where you can see all three flowers! The old Fuwa would’ve never done this so I thought it was super touching ^-^

[iristial]

[iristial]

If it wasn’t for Fuwa on his way to visit Yua in the hospital with flowers in hand, I would’ve rage quit this series when I started to see Aruto (read: Takahashi the writer) go into a sentence with the kind of music that screams “nostalgia time to redeem one evil bad man”

Except this one evil bad man is just plain bad.

[iristial]

The real captain of A.I.M.S

Never mind that Fuwa is standing right there, but I don't think the opinions of these specific officers necessarily represent the opinion of every A.I.M.S officer + they worked directly under Yua and probably got recruited after Fuwa left

Unrelated but I just want to point out that in the end, both Yua and Fuwa have been shown to care about their subordinates (Yua during the firefighter episode, Fuwa near the end of the first arc where he gets angry at metsuboujinrai landing hits on his men)

[iristial]

Episode 38′s preview seems to suggest Gai “still has good within him” because he’s prominently shown with a robot dog that’s also featured in what seems to be a flashback to when he was younger and loved technology for the sake of it. Nevertheless, I’m hoping this doesn’t mean they’re excusing how everything has happened the way it did because someone was feeling petty

[iristial]

Finished episode 38! No double rewatches for this one because I've done enough hysterical craughing (simultaneous crying and laughing) for one night

Since I avoided watching the episode because of the...redemption, so to say, I went with the mindset of "don't bother analyzing the Gai scenes" and it worked. Kinda. It helped that it only took up 1/4 of the episode, but see aforementioned craughing - and the rolling on the bed - and the obligatory phone throw. It's a parody of the worst villain redemption arc/episode, complete with dramatic thunder as eleven year old Gai *gasps* vowed he shall walk alone, Aruto joking that Gai actually loves Hiden Intelligence, and when sparkle sparkle intersection of the present Gai and past Gai happened. It's so bad it's funny. Still not worth losing my brain cells over, but at least I know it's not to be taken seriously (in a way)

On a more serious note, Gai's upbringing would garner sympathy from me...if it wasn't used to hand wave everything he did. Not to mention the lack of duality. Also, even if he's deranged at this point, I fail to see the connection between "actually loving Hiden Intelligence" and orchestrating events that caused the deaths of hundreds, if not thousands, and stripped Humagears of their freedom. Why are we sliding the one responsible under the table? There is a limit to responsibility (i.e. blaming the company who manufactured a knife a murderer used), though that doesn't apply here - and I know they were trying to make way for other developments, which is why arc three is hastily done and this exists...but I need to ask just. Why.

Aruto was peak tsukkomi here. The "you actually love Hiden Intelligence" joke was untimely, but it did make me snort, and he overall had the tone of someone who was Done with Gai's antics

I also liked that Aruto would choose the company he built over the multimillion company his grandfather made (and it existed 34 years ago, holy shoot). It's real unfortunate that it faced destruction in episode 40, and he never got a chance to revive the business...I would've liked to see him continue on this road. Maybe give the directionless Yua a chance to join, to find the place she belongs, because I feel like A.I.M.S isn't quite that + Fuwa saying she's got nowhere to go...hm, I don't think he's in a position to say that. Even if it was another way of stating Yua has to find her dream, Fuwa just doesn't mince his words like that

I've taken to calling the A.I.M.S. officers who first appeared in episode 30 as Yua's fan boys so when they popped up again in this episode, I was going "oh look, it's her fan club" xD

I'm wondering how she "guided them" when Yua was with the ZAIA version of A.I.M.S for three and a half episodes, and they just tried to destroy Humagears, but considering Yua does care for her subordinates (unlike Gai), I guess that's what they're counting on

Raiden's memories of Subaru resurfacing, even though the Ark took his data away...the heart overcomes technology indeed. And I hope they insert something resembling this for Izu 2.0

Ark!Jin holding up the SlashRiser reminded me of the times Horobi would use his katana for dramatic appeal. Those days were great

Aruto...driving his motorcycle...for the first time in like...I'm going to have to flick through my notes, it's been so long. I miss motorcycles. And I wish the others got one too...even if it's for a limited time

Every arc after the first one seems to end with a liberation. Arc two had Fuwa resisting the chip; arc three was a microscopic case, but Horobi did develop some awareness of himself (before episode 35.5 wiped that away); and arc four ends with Aruto and Horobi freeing themselves of their grief

[iristial]

the unfiltered takahashi rant.

I’m never going to show a picture of my face because I want to maintain some privacy, but I was so tempted to break that rule an hour ago. Words can’t express how done I am. And let me tell you, I didn’t want to go abroad a spiral of a rant. However, I’ve reached my limit.

In the event where you don’t want to read what I have to say, here’s the tag you can blacklist: #anti zero one

Now the rant.

I’ve been writing criticisms and praises and defenses of Zero One because I knew it was flawed, I understood why people dropped it, but I still liked it. I wanted to express all of that through this blog, and perhaps give content to people who are watching but don’t post in the main tags as I do. I kept going even though I knew I was spamming the tag, probably annoying people, and everything in between. All I thought about was potential of plot and potential of characters

Then Takahashi decided we must have Ex-Aid 2.0. We needed someone to die on Christmas 2019, because why not sacrifice the interesting villain group, and why not use shock value by killing the most popular character on the show. We had to get a human antagonist to emphasize humanity comes with its own evils - without even addressing the nuances of creating a species that could become self-aware and therefore independent. It’s like he copied and pasted the “viruses must be exterminated” conflict of Ex-Aid, except he forgot to alter some words, and now that’s a whole bag of implications in Zero One. We need a tournament arc that, not only turned out to be useless, but shoved the development of certain characters aside. We need Jin to come back on a new crusade, albeit sacrificing the precious minutes we had of a father-son relationship a lot of people loved. Complete with Jin trying to stab Horobi in the face. We need Gai to be as despicable as possible because his defeat will be so much sweeter...then you give him a toy dog and he’s protecting Aruto from the Ark.

What.

This is not what I signed up for.

“Takahashi’s writing style isn’t for me.”

“Being a fan means that even if things don’t go the way I envisioned it, I should see the good in what I get.”

“Give it some time, and I’m sure good things will come.”

“I’ll just pick out the good stuff.”

“There’s a fine line between complaints and criticism and I should ensure I’m doing the latter by watching the way I phrase things and letting the reader know I appreciate what he’s done.”

I’m no longer using these excuses for him. Yes, I should maintain basic decency as a fan - but Takahashi as a professional writer should meet me in the middle. And here I am, arching and leaping and drawing up bridges over plot holes and missing development that grows wider by the second...while Takahashi is doing who knows what with this show. He’s lucky enough to have created characters I genuinely care about - hence why I’m going to keep watching Zero One. I believe in them, the actors and the actresses. Not Takahashi.

This is reaching the point where I can call this the most poorly written Kamen Rider series I’ve seen - overall narrative wise. Then again, there’s a couple of series I haven’t watched even via random watch. Who knows. I’m not diving into that right now; otherwise I’ll be ‘justifying’ what Takahashi is doing. All I can say is that I owe Zi-O one big apology because despite being crammed with time travel tropes, it was more consistent (and on that note, I apologize for the times when I was harsh on it, I have no excuse). Zero One, on the other hand, is a hot mess right now. Maybe even garbage. It’s likely in a couple of minutes or hours I’ll say “it’s a mess but it’s my mess. My garbage. My guilty pleasure.” Just not now. I’m already wincing at all the fic writing I have to do to compensate for this.

And if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to see if I can dunk my head into a bucket of ice water.

[iristial]

*deep sigh*

*deeper sigh*

Even last night’s task of leaping over a chasm to try and explain why Jin’s so detached from Horobi now isn’t working because what else am I supposed to think, when he pulled out the SlashRiser to try and stab Horobi with it

“He tried to stab the Ark” - then he would’ve stabbed the belt - where it lies on the mid-section, the waist, somewhere that isn’t above the shoulder aka Horobi’s face

*drags my hands over my face*

This is why I went about picking out stuff I liked from the episodes and ignoring the overall narrative - otherwise I have to be reminded of Takahashi’s decisions

[iristial]

@firebirdsdaughter replied to your photo “Honestly me right now, skimming through episode 38”

As a die-hard Horobi fan, I am in physical pain right now.

As a die-hard Jin fan, I apologize on his behalf and implore you to keep Horobi in a safe place (but I’d also like to say that this was Takahashi at work, not *squints* Jin)

I like any version of Jin but this...why.

[iristial]

@firebirdsdaughter replied to your post “If it wasn’t for Fuwa on his way to visit Yua in the hospital with...”

I'm trying to fathom how his inability to write a second half of a season somehow got WORSE since Ex-Aid. Did no one proofread this?

I’m trying to fathom how Toei thought it’d be a good idea to let him keep writing when he killed Jin - on Christmas. That certainly doesn’t ring any bells...

I feel like he

Doesn’t consult the other writers to see if their episodes line up with his characterizations and intentions, which is why there’s some wonky parts

Just expects people to ‘get’ what he has in mind - but we’re not mind readers

Over-indulges himself with villainous characters. See Gai Amatsu, second arc

Is high off the success of Ex-Aid, which is why he seems so lax with Zero One, only to realize it isn’t quite working out and now he has to cobble everything together in a rush

These are only assumptions, but whatever it is - he clearly isn’t the type of writer who can write scripts on the fly

[iristial]

I’ve been sighing non-stop since seeing (portions of) the episode and this is the only thing I can use to comfort myself