Kamen Rider Zero-One E07 Review: Kobe

Kamen Rider Zero-One, Episode 7: I Am A Hot-Blooded Humagear Teacher

Not the biggest fan of this episode's victim-of-the-week plot, which, at this point, it's sort of a retread of a lot of the previous ones. The Humagear finds a lot of passion or purpose in their job, does one or two things that a properly-programmed Humagear AI shouldn't really be able to do, and eventually develops a 'soul', before being tragically fucked up by the Metsu-boys. It's just that this episode really hammers home just what the criteria of an 'awakened' Humagear is, with the Humagear of the week, school basketball coach Kobe, realizing just how much he wanted to teach his students and help them win a championship, and gaining sentience while witnessed by Aruto, Fuwa and most of the cast. The complication in this episode, I suppose, is the introduction of the 'reset to factory settings', which so far is seemingly only done by Hiden to the completely-destroyed Humagears that were transformed by Metsubojinrai, but the ethics come into question when Kobe, whose only crime is being a bit too passionate in helping the kids, ends up under the threat of being reset by an unsympathetic (if comedic) principal and Fuwa (who's just a poop in this episode).

It's interesting that the titular hot-blooded humagear coach isn't as hot-blooded as I would expect a Japanese 'hot-blooded' character to be. Maybe I've gotten my perceptions skewed after one too many shonen anime? The actor who plays Kobe is pretty neat, but ultimately I feel like the storyline was a bit perfunctory. I did like that for all of Kobe's training, the school kids actually lost their game, which is neat -- just because you give your all doesn't mean you'll succeed in your first try.

The first threat in this episode is Jin, who's back to sentience and cheeriness, and apparently now able to voluntarily access his Kamen Rider form without being forced into it. He's accompanied by "Assassin-chan", a Humagear specifically programmed to assassinate Kamen Rider Zero-One, so I guess the Metsubojinrai.net boys are being a lot more proactive? Watch them never utilize the assassination program in future episodes. "Assassin-chan" never really got that much screentime, but he did get a little one-note quirk of basically ending a lot of his generic villainous minion lines with a wacky little comedic bit.

Much more interesting than the episodic plot is whatever the fuck Valkyrie's doing. Engaging Jin and Assassin-chan in the first half of the episode, Valkyrie ends up using the fight as a trial run for the Freezing Bear key, which, when slapped onto an untransformed humagear, is able to instantly freeze them and lock up their systems. And while Jin is busy fighting with Zero-One and Vulcan, Valkyrie and her AIMS science squad absconds with Assassin-chan and the Dodo Key.


After the heroes (and the audience) are distracted by the basketball tournament and the ethics discussion on whether Kobe should be reset (Fuwa is insanely aggressive about this, what the hell Fuwa), Kobe ends up gaining sentience. Jin shows up and gives a monologue, telling Aruto and Fuwa about how the criteria of a Humagear awakening is them gaining sentience... which, to be fair, Fuwa's panic at sentient AI isn't completely wrong. Of course, Fuwa and Aruto's bickering was what was needed for Jin to turn Kobe into the Mammoth Magia.

We get a pretty awesome double-henshin of Zero-One and Vulcan, but the Mammoth Magia is apparently able to suck in Flaming Tiger's fire hadokens. Again, the most interesting part of this sequence is Yua, who activates Assassin-chan, has him transform into the Dodo Magia, and then continue acting on the "assassinate Zero One" programming. And as we get a 2-v-2 between the Kamen Riders and the Magias, Valkyrie shows up with a brand-new Progrise key, helps Zero-One access a new form that's perfect to counter Mammoth, then assists Vulcan in taking down Dodo. Normally I'd be miffed that it's the dude that gets the huge, elaborate finisher sequence instead of the credit being shared, but throughout this episode Yua seems to be working on her own angle, and even blowing up Dodo seems more to be hiding the evidence more than anything... and as proven by Jin being unable to find the Mammoth Key anywhere, Yua and her enigmatic employer seems to have some larger plan in place. Yua's old catchphrase of "every tool has its use" gains a new layer of creepiness as we get to see the flashback of her reprogramming Assassin-chan as he convulses on the bed of the AIMS van.

Ultimately, the actual procedural parts of this episode is starting to feel samey (although pretty competently done), but a lot of what made this episode extra-interesting is more about the revelations. Far from being the strongest that Zero-One has to offer, but not a weak episode by any means.

Random Notes:

• Izu has a lot of great scenes in the background in this episode. Between the utterly confused and baffled look when Fuwa basically ripped Zero-One's briefcase out of her hands, to her supportive background clapping when Aruto transforms into Freezing Bear, and her futilely blowing on Aruto when the Mammoth Magia returned his fire attack onto him... I honestly wonder how much of it is improv on the part of the actress and how much of it is in the script. 
• Also among the clapping supportive background characters is Assassin-chan, who had a whole applause ready after Jin's transformation.
• I know he's "getting used to it", but it really is stupid for Fuwa to run around using the shotgun in Shooting Wolf mode in the first fight against Jin, yeah? 
• Jin yells out his sound effects as he activates his wing-blade things. That's adorable. 
• The Gimmick Watch:
• "Blizzard! Authorize. Progrise! Attention, freeze! Freezing bear! Fierce breath as cold as arctic winds." Freezing Bear's finisher is Freezing Impact. 
• Can I just say how cool the 'frozen over' segments of Freezing Bear's chest and shoulder armour looks?
• Know Your Magia: Two very popular prehistoric animals this time around, the Mammoth, a larger ancestor of the modern-day elephant which lived from the Pliocene to Holocene epochs; and the Dodo bird, a flightless bird from the island Mauritus who was driven to extinction in 1662 thanks to humans.
• I am 99.9% sure that this is the first time that "Valkyrie" is spoken on-screen. 
• So... we get a couple of flashbacks to some of the Humagears who we explicitly know are considered by the Metsuboys to be candidates for being 'friends'. Gut-Buster Taro (the comedian) was in a similar process of realizing how happy he was at bringing smiles; Mamoru  the security guard was transformed after a heroic sequence of defending the Hiden employees; Seine had a flashback to her human counterpart's life when she's doing her life's dream. And I think G-Pen was... understanding of his employer? I dunno about G-Pen. 
• The only exception is Anna the tour guide and the sushi chef, both of whom weren't awakened to a unique Magia (they both turned into generic trilobites) but definitely went above and beyond in trying to fulfill their respective jobs and understanding human emotion.
• So also, presumably the other Magias like Scissormenz and Bus really loved their respective jobs of being a barber or a bus driver; we the audience just never saw that.