Kamen Rider Zero-One E05 Review: Taka Tora Batta

Kamen Rider Zero-One, Episode 5: His Passionate Path of Manga

Another decent episode, and one that's still mostly self-contained with the plot of the week. This time around, Aruto ends up meeting a superstar mangaka who he is a huge fan of, only to discover that he barely writes manga anymore, leaves most of his storytelling to the editors and basically works his Humagear assistants to the point of malfunction while they work on his manga. And... and it's certainly an interesting concept, particularly considering many similar accusations delivered to the mangaka responsible for a lot of established-franchise mangas nowadays. Not going to name any names, but, well... y'know.

And a lot of Aruto's goal in this episode is trying to change the world-view of the mangaka, not just to make him see that humagears are actually, well, 'people', but also to help Ishimizu regain his 'passion'. We get an adorable conversation between Aruto and Izu, with the robotic Izu trying her gosh-darn best to try and figure out what this 'passion' thing is. Perhaps the random recording from Aruto's grandfather is a cheap and easy way to put in a dramatic speech about passion and how humagear isn't meant to replace humanity and all that, but it works relatively well. Oh, and we also get a bit more of "the company is legally obligated to replace the humagear within 24 hours" argument between Aruto and his employees, which I felt they could actually do a fair bit more with. I also thought that G-Pen, the humagear-of-the-week, didn't really have a whole ton to do, not having as much personality or given too many scenes, unlike the sushi chef or the bus guide in the previous two episodes.

The writing for Ishimizu as an asshole who redeems himself in the end isn't the most consistent, but eventually through some earnest speeches by Izu and Aruto, he eventually realizes that apparently he can't give up a very specific old pen that he used to make his manga before. There are definitely shades of Wizard or Den-O protecting the character-of-the-day's "hope" or "wish" here, and apparently, the sight of seeing Aruto fight the Magia as Zero-One ended up invigorating Ishimizu who quickly made sketches and gets inspired by the crazy fighty-fight happening in the conveniently-located warehouse that's adjacent to his mansion.

The best part of this episode, of course, was the sudden manga layout given to the fight between Zero-One, Vulcan and the Vicarya Magia when Ishimizu ended up regaining his drive to draw again, which is a pretty fancy set of scenes for sure -- this episode incorporates every single form introduced for both Zero-One and Vulcan until this point, which I am a big fan of. Of course, the highlight ended up being the new toy of the week, Flaming Tiger, which Izu ends up creating in order to combat the super-tough drill-shell parts of the Vicarya Magia.

Oh, and this episode manages to have a mini subplot of AIMS testing out the "Attache Shotgun", a new weapon that Vulcan can only utilize in his Punching Kong form. I do really like the genuinely nonplussed look that Yua has when Vulcan gets knocked the hell back from the blowback of the shotgun in the first fight. It's always fun to see how they sometimes try their best to shoehorn in a toy advertisement for little gimmicks that don't really deserve a full episode like actual Kamen  Rider forms.

Perhaps more interestingly, though, is the scenes of Jin and Horobi in this episode. Jin continues to be crazy and unsettling as this psychotic man-child that just prances around and goes through crazy mannerisms as he corrupts Humagears and I absolutely love just how much he just barely gets out of the way while Zero-One and Vicarya was fighting. More importantly, though, he consistently notes how he wants a Progrise Key of his own, and very nearly grabs Biting Shark in the scuffle of the fight. Jin continually bugs Horobi, wanting to get a progrise key of his own. This leads to Horobi revealing that Jin is his son, so, uh, these two crazy people are likely robots, too, then?

Ultimately, an episode that I felt was far more entertaining due to the loud action scenes more than anything, and the manga-inspired final battle is certainly a neat way to shake things up. The actual plotline isn't bad, though, and it being the fifth episode, I don't really mind the show having a couple of 'filler'-y episodes. Overall, a pretty solid entry.

Random Notes:

• I haven't noticed it before, but Jin's handgun has a hilariously out-of-place cutesy cell phone keychain thing dangling off of it. 
• The name of the mangaka, Ishimizu, as well as the primary assistant Humagear, Morifude G-Pen, is a reference to Ishinomori Shotaro, the manga artist who conceptualized the Kamen Rider series.
• Ishimizu is played by actor Katsuya, who previously portrayed the pretty memorable Beast Dopant in Kamen Rider W, and the Master of Soba in Kamen Rider Kabuto. 
• Holy shit, though, Aruto's giant grasshopper and falcon buddy really fucked-up that mangaka's house, didn't they? I absolutely love the brick joke of construction being done in the holes in the mangaka's mansion afterwards. 
• So, uh, does vice-president Sanzo now just know that Aruto is Zero-One? The show doesn't make a deal out of it, but he's definitely present when Aruto transforms in the final act of the episode, but Sanzo also sort of disappears from the episode after the fighting begins. 
• I was about to complain about how it is one of those random-Toku-location-swaps when the fight between Zero One and Vicarya ended up moving to a random warehouse from the Ishimizu's mansion, but eh, he's a rich dude with a fancy mansion, maybe he's got a warehouse. Who knows what these billionaires have? 
• Know your magia: The Vicarya Magia is based on the Vicarya genus of prehistoric gastropods, native to Japan, which did have drill-like shells. 
• Activating a humagear apparently is met with the text-to-speech greeting of "take off toward a dream".
• The Gimmick Watch:
• Attache Shotgun: "Attache shotgun! Shotgun-rise!" And when Vulcan slaps in the Punching Kong Progrise Key into the weapon: "POWER! Progrise Key confirmed. Ready to utilize."
• Fire! Authorize. Progrise. GIGANT FLARE! Flaming Ti-ger! The explosive power of one hundred bombs. 
• Flaming Tiger's finisher is the "Flaming Impact", while Punching Kong with the Shotgun is "Punching Kaban Shot". 
• Aruto uses all of the sub-forms he has access to in this episode, and notably, he uses Flying Falcon, Flaming Tiger and Rising Hopper, which, of course, is the three animals that form the basic Taka-Tora-Batta combo of Kamen Rider OOO. He even strikes a very OOO-esque pose after defeating the Vicarya Magia.