Kamen Rider Zero-One: REALxTIME

Kamen Rider Zero-One: REAL x TIME

It took me so long to get to this. 

So just like the previous couple of series before it, Zero-One's final episode foreshadowed a villain that'll appear in a feature movie, and that movie acts as an action-packed epilogue for the series as a whole. I kept intending to review this movie, but kept putting it off and then got distracted (and, honestly, quite burnt out) with Saber. Better late than never, right? Frankly, considering how messy Saber has been, it's even more impressive how much Zero-One still managed to stick the landing despite it all. 

This movie itself is pretty fun, dealing with a lot of the loose ends left by the series. We do have the foreshadowing of Kamen Rider Eden in the final episode, but this movie also explores what the secondary characters end up doing in a post-Ark world, as well as giving Izu (Izu II?) some more of a concrete resolution. 

The movie opens in medias res, with Aruto as Kamen Rider Zero-Two fighting against Es/Kamen Rider Eden, the Rogue-looking dude whose movie-supervillain gimmick is misquoting the Bible. "God built the Earth in six days, I will destroy it in sixty minutes!" "From the moment we draw breath, the Lord bestows trials upon us!" It's always fun to have villains like these. Eden monologues about how his main plan is to 'set us all free' as the 'shepherd of mankind' and rants about how he's going to guide humanity into 'Paraiso Guardia'.

Meanwhile, his army of one-note-personality goons -- a long-haired caped man, a cute girl holding a doll on a chain, a thuggish looking guy, and a glasses guy with a cloak -- all transform into their generic-looking 'Crowding Hopper' forms, while Es gives a monologue about his paradise. They rampage and toss gas grenades, and we cut to other parts of the world where similar things are happening; and the rest of our secondary characters watch ominously. Pretty cool shots all around. We get the movie title, and then immediately afterwards, Kamen Rider Eden does a CGI attack that summons a giant pool of blood, creates blood spikes to block Aruto's super-speed, then crushes him in an "Eden Impact". God, I miss the noises of the Zero-One belts!

Es knocks Aruto halfway across the city after ripping off his... belt? The part of his belt that allows him to turn into Zero-Two, anyway. He uses that with the Thouser weapon and apparently it'll destroy the world in 60 minutes. Aruto gets saved from falling to his death by the CGI cyber-grasshopper -- only in the movies do these sort of more CGI-intensive gimmicks actually get to do anything beyond being present in transformations. Aruto finds himself in a Neon Genesis Evangelion-style empty train, and arrives at a station to see a bunch of people passed out other than a woman. It's not entirely clear what's going on here beyond a 'main hero gets defeated' thing, but I always enjoy these sorts of plotline. We had this in Ex-Aid's post-finale as well, where Emu ends up being taken out while his supporting cast deal with the enemies. 

So first-up we have AIMS, who engages the Crowding Hoppers. There are some pretty cool shots as AIMS opens fire on the enemy hoppers, while Yua turns into Rushing Cheetah to fight the lollipop girl Mua. Some pretty neat effects with Rushing Cheetah zipping all around the place. Another Crowding Hopper, Behru, shows up and snipes the AIMS goons from afar before unleashing gas bombs on the nearby civilians. The civilians, unconscious, get teleported to the endless train station that Aruto and the mysterious lady find themselves in, which makes it kind of clear that the train station isn't a normal place. 

Other action scenes take place in the city, too. Fuwa transforms into Vulcan and goes into Rampage Vulcan in order to fight -googles names- Lugo and Buga; and we get an unreasonably cool shot of Horobi jumping off of a skyscraper, transforming mid-air and slamming down and making a shockwave as he transforms. As their combined finishes take out the army of generic minions, weird digital stuff spins around their fallen forms. Izu shows up at this point to deliver a message from Aruto to Fuwa. 

Valkyrie, meanwhile, is using her bike! A Kamen Rider is actually riding a bike! That's such a rarity nowadays, holy shit. It's a relatively extended scene as far as these things go, too, and she just completely wrecks house with an army of the Hoppers. Between using her bike to bodily knock enemies around, or driving around a warehouse and stuff, it's actually pretty damn cool to see them use a bike. The two leaders of the Hoppers, Mua and Behru, shoot each other while talking about how they're wasting time. Shesta shows up and delivers presumably the same message to Yua. 

We get the 'flashback', so to speak, as Aruto shows the message that Es gives to Hiden Corporation before all of this happened. Es essentially challenges Aruto to a fight to see if he can stop the arrival of paradise. But as the audience (and now our secondary cast) knows, Aruto got defeated in the cold open. And now he's telling bad jokes to the mysterious lady in the empty facsimile of Japan, while trying to figure out who Es is and why he's trying to destroy the world. The primary theme of the movie also gets shown to us here -- in the flashback, Aruto tells Izu to stay behind and act as a messenger to his allies because he doesn't want to lose her again. Some great acting from Takahashi Fumiya here, you really can see the sadness even though he's smiling while talking to Izu. Horobi asks Izu some questions that gets her to think -- "is this what you want?" and Izu walks off, seemingly having gotten some emotional breakthrough.

While AIMS was fighting the Crowding Hoppers, Amatsu Gai attacks one of the Zaia heads, who claims to have been 'chosen for paradise', in order to find out what's going on with the mysterious cult that surrounds Es. Jin and Naki also separately aid Fuwa and Yua into investigating the Hoppers' true nature, hacking into their weapons and progrise keys to figure out the true nature of these enemies. 

Es summons a goddamn F-35 fighter jet to shoot Horobi and Fuwa, and we get the most glorious action scene in this entire movie. Dodgy CGI? Perhaps, a little bit, but I absolutely love the shot where Fuwa does his regular poses as he transforms into everyone's favourite form, Punching Kong... right as the fighter jet runs into him. As he holds on to the flying jet and tries to figure out how it's flying without a pilot, Burning Falcon Jin flies in and cheerfully gives exposition about how the red cloud we've been seeing throughout the movie are actually nanomachines. Jin panics as 'gorilla' falls off from the jet, before we get the jet flying around chasing Jin through the city. Jin leads the jet to Fuwa, who Rampage-Gatling's the jet and blows it up. We get a fun scene where Jin dropkicks Fuwa to prevent the wreckage of the jet from falling to him. 

Gai, Fukuzoe and Yamashita have been interrogating the cultist board member, and gives some exposition to Yua about the nature of the nanomachines. Turns out that they're a former partner of Zaia who specializes in medical technology, and the head developer is Isshiki Rihito, a.k.a. Es. Also, he's supposed to be dead! Aruto also finds this out from the mysterious lady, who says that Rihito suddenly 'changed' and 'lost his humanity'. The lady leads Aruto to a church, talking about how Es wants to destroy the world with Zea's powers. Horobi also simultaneously gets some information from Azu, who's just casually lurking around. Turns out that during the climax of the TV show, the Ark also happened to hack the nanomachines' AI. And Rihito transferred his consciousness to the nanomachines, allowing him to 'transcend humanity' and essentially survive after his death. It explains his self-regenerating powers during the fight with Aruto, and gives a whole backstory for him. It's... it's admittedly kind of abrupt, and while I do like the storytelling method of multiple characters finding out the backstory all at the same time, it's also... kind of awkward? 

Aruto, having realized what's going on and having heard the backstory from the mysterious lady, reveals that he can actually get out of the digital other-world with Zea's powers, but Zea wanted Aruto to meet the mysterious lady. He wakes up in the wreckage of the car he's fallen onto. And... and remember how I keep saying that only the movies get the budget for the bikes? Yeah. Ikazuchi shows up with a truck to deliver Aruto's motorbike, and he drives off into the auditorium that Es is monologuing to his white-hooded cultists. 

Es transforms into Kamen Rider Eden, with a pretty interesting effect of a mysterious, blue figure made up of veins flying all around him while Es himself gets reduced to red veins as well. The two embrace before the Kamen Rider pieces fly in and complete the transformation. "Imagine: Ideal Illusion! Eden: The Kamen Rider! The creator who charges forward believing in paradise." Aruto turns into Metal Cluster Hopper (a personal favourite!) and the two fight with their blades. Eden seems to have the upper hand with his ability to instantly regenerate from having his limbs blow off, but then it seems like his nanomachines are malfunctioning. There's a typical supervillain-being-deluded thing going on with Es convinced that his superweapon will bring paradise instead of destroying the world. Aruto manages to block the world-destroying kaboom, but Eden's attack still blows up the building they're fighting in and reduces it to ruins, while also knocking Aruto out of his transformation.

We don't see anything graphic, but Gai and the VP's make it clear that all of Es's cult has been killed in the explosion. They bring in some cameos from the show -- the lawyer Bingo, muscle-man Taro and the nurse Mashiro-chan -- to essentially comedy-torture the cultist they've caught. It's... it is sure a scene. I don't quite care for this comedy segment, but they discover a modified Zaia Spec that Es build in order to access the 'Thinknet', an underground website that he uses as a recruiting tool for his cult. We get the pretty interesting revelation that all the Crowding Hoppers -- including their anime-villain-squad human forms -- are all nanomachine-created avatars, and the true members of the paradise cult are just regular people that control these false forms with the Zaia Specs. Pretty interesting twist, actually.

Yua, Naki and Shesta apprehend one of the members of the Hoppers, and Shesta rather hilariously does a wrestling move on him. The VP's have a pretty great short scene where they act completely unbothered by the cultist talking about the destruction of the world, and gives a speech about how President Aruto has a goddamn dream. 

Izu arrives in the wreckage, trying to deliver a belt and key, but she's just confused at what she has to do. She decides to access Zea, at which point she meets with the... consciousness of the original Izu? It's a bit rushed, and I did wish that the movie does let us spend a bit more time with Izu II, but at least she does get a moment equivalent to a 'singularity point' in the home series. Sure, Izu I and Zea ends up providing a shortcut by merging memories, but at least Izu II does end up thinking about wanting to help Aruto on her own first. 

The rest of the good guy Kamen Riders converge on the paradise server, only to be faced by the four Crowding Hopper generals. Horobi solos Lugo and Buga, blowing them up with his cool scorpion-tentacle. Aruto confronts Es in the chapel, and in order to save the world, takes the Hellrise Key and puts it in his own belt. ("Hell's energy has destroyed the world. Hell Rising Hopper! Heaven or Hell? It doesn't matter.") It's not the first time Aruto has been forced into an evil berserking form, but this one looks particularly painful, especially with the black goop sloshing off of Aruto's face mid-transformation.

It's a bit that kind of comes out of nowhere. It's pretty badass, don't get me wrong, especially when Hellrising Hopper starts fighting with Eden with the dark smokes in the background. Pretty horrifying scene of Hellrising Hopper just rampaging and breaking Aruto's bones, too. Aruto's just screaming 'destroy, destroy!' before unleashing a Hell Rising Impact on an untransformed Es... but that blow is blocked by Kamen Rider Zero-Two. Who de-transforms to reveal herself to be Izu! And while it is a cliched moment, if there's anything in this franchise that has earned this sort of friendship moment, it is Izu regaining her memories and emotions. 

Izu tells Aruto how she still wants to laugh from her heart, how she can't lose Aruto yet, and Aruto (and the audience) cheer at this pretty goddamn d'awww moment. Aruto realizes his mistake at the beginning of the movie -- where he sends Izu off instead of trying to figure out what she wants like what he's done to all other Humagears. This segues into a speech from Aruto to Es, asking him if his actions will bring happiness to his loved one. With some intel from Horobi (who finds a human brain in the server building), Aruto gives exposition how Es is trying to build a perfect digital world for the consciousness of his dead fiancée Akane (she was killed during Daybreak) -- the woman Aruto meets in the digital world. And the perfect world includes, um, sending all of humanity into the digital world. Es is full of self-loathing, but Aruto gives this whole speech about how even artificial intelligence have heart, and Es's preservation of Akane's consciousness preserved her as essentially an A.I., and how Akane is waiting for Es. 

It's your typical anime movie plot, if we're being honest, but I did feel like it's consistent enough with all the talks of 'paradise' and 'illusion' throughout the movie. It's not particularly in-depth, but the movie does do a relatively decent job at explaining Es's motivations and making us empathize with him.

The leader of the Crowding Hoppers, Behru (a.k.a. long-hair cape guy), figures out what's going on at around the same time. Realizing that Es wanted to kill all of the cultists and that the whole 'paradise' thing is a sham (what did Es promise them?) Behru and a group of cultists show up and gun down Es in the chapel. Es refuses to let people with an 'appetite for destruction' like the cultists to enter Akane's perfect world. Behru is pissed off, steals the Eden Driver, and transforms into Kamen Rider Lucifer. His transformation involves a giant skeleton bursting out of the ground and biting his head off! What the shit!

Behru is a flat character so I really don't care about him, but Es's story is done in a way that doesn't really provide for an action scene. And as much as Es's story is narratively done, I can kind of understand that the movie-makers wanted to give one last huge action scene with Aruto and Izu. So Es runs off to rejoin his wife in the digital world, while Aruto and Izu do a goddamn double henshin into Kamen Riders Zero-One and Zero-Two. About goddamn time -- I was absolutely disappointed that Izu was never part of Aruto's forms, and you'd think that Zero-Two would feature Izu as the A.I. or something... but hey, she gets to be her own Kamen Rider! That's cool regardless. I do like that despite having the same attacks and suit as Aruto, Izu as Zero-Two does some of her own unique flourishes that are unmistakably the same gestures that Izu usually does. 

Aruto and Izu fight against Lucifer and his army of Crowding Hoppers, while elsewhere, the other Hoppers have regenerated in new avatar bodies. Horobi, Gai and Yua all arrive and each of them deliver a badass, pre-asskicking one-liner, shit-talking the Hoppers for having absolutely no depth and no real motivation like Es. The three of them fight without transforming for a while, which is pretty fucking badass. Fuwa and Jin (who we last saw being wounded by the fighter jets) also show up. And then we get a five-man transformation, and an absolutely grand beatdown. Lightning Hornet and Rampage Gatling get some screentime, too -- it's just such a shame that it's near-impossible to tell which of the Crowding Hoppers are actually the generals (not that they have any personality to speak of) without looking at the shoulders... but hey, we get to see these guys be badasses, and that's pretty damn fun. 

All the soldiers keep regenerating after they fall since they can just recreate new avatars with nanomachines, but Esu manages to upload himself to the digital world and I think that's what causes the tide to turn (the movie doesn't make this super apparent). Gai, Fuwa and Yua do a combo attack to take down Mua and Lugo, while Horobi and Jin do a double rider kick to take down Buga. Aruto and Izu continue fighting Lucifer while rose petals fall all around the battlefield, which is so extra but so cool. As Lucifer prepares to do the same 'blow up the Earth' thing, we get Aruto and Izu yelling out Aruto's catchphrase (with 'us' instead of 'me'), and then REALxEYEZ starts playing as the two main characters deliver the ever-loving speed blitz beatdown on Lucifer. It's... it's a pretty standard movie finisher scene, but I think I'm allowed to fanboy a bit.

Lucifer gets blown up, of course, and we get a scene of a remorseful Es meeting Akane in the digital world, with them in wedding regalia and stuff. They blow up the server, deactivating all the nanomachines all over the world, while all the real person users of the Hoppers are arrested. We get a fun vignette of the characters -- Team VP is practicing laughing at Aruto's jokes; Metsubojinrai and Fuwa talk about being vigilantes; Yua pokes fun at Fuwa's unemployment... while Aruto and Izu end the movie with Aruto telling a bad joke.

Ultimately, the movie does suffer from the in medias res format. I don't really think the mystery is worth keeping Es's motivations and goals for so long, and it's something that I felt would've worked better with the prologue showing us a bit more of Es's rise to power in that case. Plus, the Hellrise key and Aruto taking it into his body feels like it comes out of nowhere. And there's of course the regular problem of a bit too many characters and a lot of the supporting ones really don't do anything -- especially the goons, although that's always a problem in these tie-in movies. Still, considering the time that the movie was filmed and how coherent it still ultimately is, I actually do think that this is a pretty great final outing for Zero-One. 

(Except it's not the final outing. I'm not sure when I'll review Zero-One Others, but that's an... interesting duo of movies)

Random Notes:

• I don't really note it, but throughout the movie there's a countdown of a 'time left' before Es's paradise plan begins. It's not a particularly huge surprise that our heroes save the day in the nick of time, but it's a neat little visual. 
• I really do miss the sounds the Zero-One belts make. I just really don't care about Saber's belts, and Revice's feels like a bit of a retread of previous belts (it is a homage season, so...). 
• Apparently, Es's Crowding Hopper goons are officially called 'Kamen Rider Abaddon'. I really should've looked it up before doing this review, and call them 'Crowding Hoppers' all throughout. Oops! Okay!
  
• It's neat that while they don't do anything, Yua's recurring AIMS sidekicks show up. 
• Also a small thing, but while they don't really get too much of an attention, I did like small world-building scenes like Humagear doctors helping the civilians in the background. It's these smaller scenes that makes Zero-One feels so unique and well-done. 
• The Zaia specs that Izu and Shesta deliver to the two AIMS Riders provides them with an invisible forcefield that protects them from the chemical weapons. A cheeky way to make sure the audience can see the faces of the actors! 
• I didn't even remember that Fuwa and Yua isn't supposed to be able to transform, but Gai apparently 'restored their ability to transform', which he tells us offhandedly. 
• Mashirochan literally disappeared from the show after being turned into a Trilobite Magia, never appearing again even in the "all the episodic Humagears return" episodes. I've always assumed that she was one of the few Humagears that was just straight-up destroyed, but turns out they got her up and running again. 
• It's impossible to tell without listening to the transformation jingle, but Aruto's Zero-One form in the final battle is the Realizing Hopper one, not the Rising Hopper. 
• I love how in the pan of the five Kamen Riders, everyone else has two-word readings of their transformation key. "Sting Scorpion!" "Burning Falcon!" "Shooting Wolf!" "Rushing Cheetah!", while Thouser's is the super-long "when the five horns cross, the golden soldier Thouser is born."
  
• I'm super late with Revice, I know. I've actually been enjoying the show, but thanks to that the more episodes I put off, the more I feel like I should try to do proper reviews for them. I know there's a lot of specials for Saber too but... but I'll be honest and say I don't care about it all that much.