Kamen Rider Zero-One, Episode 10: I am an Actor, Owada Shinya
It's been a while since we've had an episode review of Zero-One, not helped by the real-life break due to sporting events between episodes. This one was pretty neat, though -- judging by the next episode preview, it's the first part of a two-parter, but this one doesn't really end on a tense cliffhanger. The job that the Humagears participate in this time is acting, which... arguably, is one of those jobs that is way harder for a robot to participate in. There's a reason why 'wooden' and 'robotic' are adjectives that reviewers use derisively to refer to bad acting. Anyway, the plotline of this episode is pretty simple. Hiden Intelligence, in an effort to essentially do a PR stunt, is collaborating with veteran actor Owada Shinya to produce a cop movie with a Humagear co-star. It's a pretty simple set-up, and it surprisingly gives vice president Fukuoze Jun something to do as he sort of tags along and helps with some of the gag scenes in the episode. Also, Fuwa is there, because Fuwa is slowly becoming softer and a bit more amicable towards Hiden... and, hilariously, Izu just immediately shows the recording of Yua recording Assassin-chan, revealing her as the public leak.
Speaking of which, Yua is still working with the mysterious Zaia head, and Fuwa's dialogue basically confirms that, at least as far as he knows, AIMS is not working together with Zaia and it's just Yua doing her own thing. Although it's kind of hard to gauge if AIMS truly is in the know, considering how we only ever see Yua and Fuwa and no one else.
Perhaps the most adorable scenes, though, is the interactions between Jin and Assassin-chan, who act like two brothers teasing each other as they fanboy over some of Owada Shinya's movies, with Assassin-chan giving us the perfect eye-roll expression when Jin teases him for losing all the time, and insists that it's not loss, it's growth, and then they both try and copy Owada Shinya's scary samurai face. It's adorable.
As we get into hijinks in the movie shoot, AIMS fights against Jin and the Dodo Magia, who plan to infect Enji. While Vulcan and Valkyrie fights against Jin, we get a fun bit of Izu doing the most hilarious game of poker-face charades to inform Aruto about Metsu-boys attacking. I'm not sure why Aruto didn't call for an evacuation then and there, though. It's a fucking robo-terrorist attack. But it allows Izu to do silly charades, so all is forgiven. There's also a fun bit where the actors are filming a shooting scene, and some explosions from the Kamen Rider fight outside causes part of the set to collapse -- and everyone thinks that it's the special effects team that overdid things. Owada Shinya in particular has a hilariously confused look as he briefly glances at the revolver he has on his hand. AIMS drives Jin off when he realizes that Assassin-chan is missing. Yua and Fuwa have a bit of a confrontation, with Yua basically admitting that her main goal is to bring Hiden Intelligence crumbling down.
Meanwhile, Assassin-chan, still not quite sure about the difference between actors and movie roles, is enamoured with Owada Shinya's talk about being a 'legendary assassin'. Owada, meanwhile, isn't too pleased with the humagear actor, noting that the robot just 'isn't selling the scenes', and isn't particularly happy about having to work with someone who doesn't understand emotions properly and whatnot. Assassin-chan, letting his hair down and dressed up with a massive bandana and a funky jacket, ends up encountering Owada in the parking lot, asking to be taught 'how to be stronger'. Owada is apparently impressed with Assassin-chan remembering his moves from the samurai movie, and they sort of go through the script of the movie together, leading to Assassin-chan doing a cool, improvised ad-lib. Ironically, Owada's meeting with an aspiring young actor who's secretly a robot causes him to get even more disillusioned with his robot co-star, particularly when Enji flubs an attempted ad-lib. This causes Owada to leave the set, talking about how he doesn't want to star in a movie without any humanity.
Again, Assassin-chan continues to actually grow as a person, seemingly being angered at Enji's failure as an actor that he decides to assassinate him instead of converting him to Metsubojinrai.net's cause. We get a genuinely cool scene as Assassin-chan goes through a pretty cool transformation sequence pose... and frankly, if we don't get a Kamen Rider Dodo by the end of this series, I'll be thoroughly disappointed. It's amazing how this silly robot dude has quickly became one of my favourite supporting characters in Rider.
Yua transforms into Valkyrie and faces off against Mr. Dodo, and Jin swoops in to help his little buddy. It's kind of a shame that it's like the third story arc in a row that poor Valkyrie got the short end of the stick, because she quickly got beaten up by Jin and Dodo (the latter apparently gets progressively stronger every time he's recreated) before Aruto goes Zero-One. Zero-One basically fights Jin throughout the episode, with a neat sequence where they trade weapons, while the Dodo Magia unleashes a massive 'extinction' attack that defeats poor Yua. Despite their earlier argument, Fuwa shows up to save Yua, noting that he's doing this because he wants to, and they basically sort of bond over fighting for what they believe in. Awww, Fuwa is showing character growth! It's like last week that he's a one-note angry roboracist. Yua ends up believing in Fuwa and tosses the Gatling Hedgehog key she gets from the Zaia dude to Fuwa, allowing him to finish off Dodo for the third time. Jin, half-frozen from his fight with Aruto, flies off with the Dodo Key.
While the Aruto side of things ends with the quasi-cliffhanger of Owada Shinya exiting the movie production (which I honestly don't care about). I do really like the dynamic between Fuwa and Yua, where Fuwa basically all but says that he'll do whatever it takes to be a loyal ally to Yua, despite her stated mission statement of maybe having to betray AIMS in the future... but Fuwa's reply is a pretty cool "I'll defeat you if it comes to that". The episode ends with the shot of the mysterious CEO of Zaia (who likes the number 1000) in full shot for the first time as Yua reports to him about... the movie shooting? Okay?
Overall, a pretty solid episode. Admittedly I'm mostly distracted by just how adorable Assassin-chan and Owada are, and I really, really do want Assassin-chan to properly become a Kamen Rider some time in the future. I do kinda feel like I don't care about the Hiden part of the storyline, honestly, because both the AIMS and Metsubojinrai storylines for this episode felt a lot more interesting. It's okay, though -- we've had a fair amount of Aruto focus recently, and having a lot of focus on Assassin-chan, Yua and Fuwa (and mysterious Zaia man next week) is not something I'll complain about.
Random Notes:
- There is a lot of times where the dialogue from the cop movie plays over astonishingly appropriate scenes, which is kinda heavy-handed but also a neat little editing choice.
- I really feel like there's a missing flashy effect any time someone does the 'Charge Up' function of their weapon. Fuwa doing that elaborate 'fold my shotgun to reload it' really felt like it probably should've been accompanied by a visual effect.
- It took a while for me to realize, but the actor Humagear Enji is played by Sakimoto Hiromi, better known as Yuya from Kamen Rider Gaim -- and since Gaim was the first-ever Kamen Rider material I watched, that means that every single minor character in that show is sort of distinct in my head.
- The Gimmick Watch:
- "ZETSUMETSU!" That massive sword-slash-beam thing from the Dodo Assassin really looks like a Rider finisher.
- "REVOLVER! Progrise Key confirmed. Gatling Kaban Shot!" "Charge rise: full charge! Gatling Kaban Buster!" Yep, I would say that Hedgehog is one of the weirdest powers you could give to a Kamen Rider, but Sento Kiryu's already done that with a fire-engine/hedgehog combination.
- Among the other Progrise keys we see in Zaia are the Crushing Buffalo (ability: blow), Storming Penguin (ability: hurricane), Splashing Whale (ability: wave), Scouting Panda (ability: search), Trapping Spider (ability: territory), Sparking Giraffe (ability: electric) and a purple lion one that I can't make out.
- Know your Magia: We don't actually see Jin infect anyone yet, but Horobi hands Jin the Arsino Progrise Key, based on the Arsinoitherium, an extinct elephant relative that looks like a two-horned rhinoceros.
- Vulcan's second transformation in this episode has a very cool sequence where the bullet he shoots basically tries to drill its way through the back of Assassin-chan's neck, and then Fuwa fucking throat-punches Assassin-chan to do the 'bullet punch' thing he does to transform.
- I really love the little jump Jin does after he transforms. I also really love the "EE E E E E EE" panicked hand-waving and screeching when Aruto unleashes a fierce breath as cold as arctic winds straight into his face.
- So is there a reason that Yua doesn't use Lightning Hornet in her second fight?
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