Kamen Rider Zero-One E18 Review: Parking Lot Rumble

Kamen Rider Zero-One, Episode 18: This is How I Arrange Flowers

A bit of a slower episode, this one. The episode starts off with Izu and Aruto restoring the blown-up Ichirin Sakuyo, with a full data backup. It's something we've never seen before, and Izu establishes that as long as a Humagear isn't hacked by Metsubojinrai.net, you can basically restore them right where they were left off, which is pretty interesting.

The actual flower-arrangement competition plot isn't actually very interesting. We get the revelation that Grand-master Tachibana was actually cheating, giving Ichirin advice that would drag her work down as a way to sabotage her, which explains why Ichirin was so incensed and angered last episode. It does make the conflict a bit more disappointingly black-and-white as opposed to the more interesting confusion we had last episode on whether Ichirin achieving a sentient personality would also give her negative emotions like anger, envy and the like. Apparently, Tachibana's just a rat bastard.

Aruto confronts Tachibana about this, and Tachibana just tries to give an excuse about how it's just all a game, but Amatsu Gai takes his games seriously, shows up, declares the previous match invalid and threatens to absolutely sue and ruin Tachibana's career if he tries anything funny again. He wants to crush Hiden, but he has sportsmanship in just how he wants to crush them, y'know? Gai's a pretty interesting antagonist, and while hanging out with Aruto and Izu over tea we get to see a bit more about just what Gai is all about -- he notes that while Korenosuke was a great scientist, his views is that A.I. shouldn't coexist with humans, but be a stepping stone for humanity's evolution. Which is kind of an interesting, less benign way of Yua's "A.I. are tools" view, I guess?

We also learn something that's slightly interesting about Gai. Apparently he doesn't age in 12 years, being part of the same project that Korenosuke was. He gets a hilarious line when he claims he is "eternally 24", Aruto makes a gag asking if he's an idol, while Izu's scans reveal that he's 45 years old. Is he secretly a robot? Or does he just work off of the same sort of "the production team didn't want to bother with makeup, assume he ages gracefully" mentality that they use for the characters in Kamen Rider Kiva that show up in both 1986 and 2009? Or maybe Amatsu Gai's like half-robot or something. I wouldn't put it past the show to do that.

Then we get a bit of a fighty-fight! Yua and Fuwa confront each other in some parking lot, and apparently it's Yua that repaired Horobi and brought him back online? That bit wasn't really clear and the situation regarding Horobi between episode 16 and 17 had been so muddled, ambiguous and intercut that I felt like it could've been communicated a bit better. Yua's ambiguous answers cause Fuwa to claim that this is a betrayal, and we get a short but sweet little scrap between the two shot-rise Kamen Riders, with Vulcan fighting against Valkyrie. Valkyrie zips around the cars and is generally faster, but Vulcan's the eventual winner of the fight.

Gai then shows up on his car, steps out and talks about how he's going to protect his employee and Zaia's image, and we get five horns crossing and golden soldiers being born, and Kamen Rider Thouser, of course, beats the ever-loving hell out of Vulcan. He is the new toy, after all. Fuwa goes into Assault Bullet mode and briefly pushes  Thouser back, but Thouser unleashes his finisher and beats the hell out of Fuwa, then mocks him and calls him a stray dog before leaving with a clearly conflicted Yua.

Izu, meanwhile, has printed a second Assault Grip so that Aruto and Fuwa don't have to do what the Ex-Aid secondary riders do and steal each other's power-up item every episode, and the discussion about copying someone else's work turns into a passionate speech from Ichirin, who says that flower arrangement isn't just copying. It comes from the heart, and also beauty can change depending on the emotions involved, with Ichirin realizing that she didn't see any beauty in Tachibana's flower arrangement when she was angry at the person, and how it reflects the person's heart and all that jazz. Neato.

Tachibana, our villain of the week, is going pretty dang crazy in his own house, flashing back to what Gai and Ichirin said to him and just having a literal breakdown. At which point a mysterious cloaked figure shows up, talking about how his heart is shattered, then slaps a belt on him. More mystery! I definitely like it. Gai's... entertaining, but I don't think him alone would be enough to carry the show on his own.

When the flower arrangement rematch happens, Tachibana shows up all zombie-walking and angry and stuff, before yelling and going berserk, slapping the Buffalo Progrise Key and becoming a monster. We then get a three way fight between Gai, who just wants to beat up everything and everyone and show off Zaia's superiority, and Aruto, who is freaking out over the fact that Gai's talking about straight up murdering another human.

We get a pretty interesting fight that moves into a nearby field where Buffalo-Tachibana is just rampaging and horn-charging everyone while zooming around with the rocket thrusters on his back, and Aruto just trying to use Shining Hopper's glowing blue funnels to bind Tachibana, and Thouser just wants to beat up everything. We get Thouser doing a cool thing as he creates this giant lightning blade, slashes Aruto and immediately stabs it down onto the monsters. The show isn't that dark, so of course Tachibana survives the explosion, but I did really like the show acknowledging just how little we know about these human not-Magia monsters (they're Raiders, but the episode itself doesn't say it) and how they might play by completely different rules than the Magia.

Anyway, the episode ends with Tachibana winning the flower arrangement fair and square and apologizing to Ichirin, especially after learning that Ichirin learned her philosophy on flower making from Tachibana's own teachings. Aruto isn't bothered by the loss because it's another Humagear who learned something about human hearts. Aruto is a good egg. Meanwhile, Gai and Yua will continue investigating whoever stole the buffalo key. Fuwa is still interrogating straitjacket Horobi, who identifies the belt as a "Raidriser" and noting cryptically how the "comrade who passed on" might be behind you... but when Fuwa turns around, the hooded figure disappears.

Overall an interesting development with the human monsters. The overall story for this two-parter is basic but serviceable and it's ultimately more of a huge Thouser advert. Still a pretty solid episode though!

Random Notes:

• Know Your Magia Raiders: It's not said in the episode itself, but supplementary material gives Tachibana's monster form's name as "Crushing Buffalo Raider". 
• The mysterious cloaked figure is... is she the fourth member of Metsubojinrai? The 'death' part of their quartet? But she is talking about being humanity's guide or whatever and that seems like counter to what Metsubojinrai wants... but her being 'death' would fit with Horobi noting about a 'comrade who passed on'.
• I didn't notice it the first time, but people pointed out that they played Shining Hopper's jingle for Shining Assault Hopper. Shining Assault Hopper doesn't caues darkness to fade, it's all about no chance of surviving this shot. 
• The Gimmick Watch:
• "Blow! Raid Rise. Crushing Buffalo. This charge attack will send you flying."
• This is the first time we hear the string of noises when Thouser puts a key into his lance, this time using Yua's Lightning Hornet: "Thunder! Progrise Key confirmed. Ready to break. Thousand rise. Thousand Break. Zaia Enterprise!" The Zaia Enterprise part also shows up when he uses the Thousand Jack attack on Fuwa. 
• While arguably it is kind of poo-poo that the dude superhero ends up with a decisive victory over the girl superhero, but at least they're fighting on equal terms -- Valkyrie just happens to lose this specific fight. Comparing it to the dismissive way they treat the lady fighters in Kamen Rider Kiva, the other toku show I'm watching, it's a far, far cry. 
• I kinda feel like I expected a bit more from the Thousand Jack supposed power-stealing abilities, but it's basically just attacking Vulcan with a CGI wolf head in this case. 
• Speaking of Yua, she tackles Ichirin aside to save her from the Buffalo Raider monster, so while she views robots as tools she's still not going to let them be destroyed I guess?