Kamen Rider Zero-One E11 Review: Assassination Classroom

Kamen Rider Zero-One, Episode 11: Don't Stop the Camera, Stop Him

Part two of the movie two-parter, and we have... a pretty interesting development. Namely, the fact that Assassin-chan, or whatever you refer to him in your head, is surprisingly being pretty well developed as an actual character, more than the two dudes that are supposedly the main characters with all the fancy-schmancy "Kamen Rider" title and stuff. Honestly, if this doesn't lead up to us getting a Kamen Rider Dodo or Kamen Rider Assassin down the line, I would be genuinely surprised. Sure, Jin's got his time in the limelight, but he shared all of his best episodes with the pre-character-development Assassin-chan, and we genuinely see good ol' Assassin-chan actually grow in this episode. Granted, it's in a direction that leads to him being an antagonist, but man, what a pretty fun character -- and it's not me pooh-pooing on the protagonists or anything since they're still pretty likable, but suffice to say that Mr. Dodo is easily my favourite character in this show right now. 

Episode 11 begins with Horobi re-activating Little Assassin, noting that he's learned from the actor in a way or two, and Horobi notes how Assassin-chan is growing far, far more than Jin did, leading to an absolutely adorable pouty reaction from Jin. Of course, in true villain style, Horobi tells Assassin-chan that his new assassination target is... Owada Shinya! If you're grown so much as an assassin, kill your mentor. 

Said mentor, by the way, ends up going through a pretty well-acted scene between himself and Aruto, talking about how acting is two different human personalities clashing against each other, and there is no warmth, no organic chemistry, to be obtained from a machine replicating acting skills -- something that everyone that starred in the Star Wars prequel movies might be able to sympathize with. Aruto ends up delivering a neat little twist on Owada's words, noting about how Humagears grow by interacting with people, drawing from their interactions with humans, and that's not too different from what Owada wants to get out of acting. Eventually, just as the asshole Jun is about to hoise the blame of the fiasco on Aruto's back, Owada ends up re-joining the movie shoot. Good job, Aruto! 

Horobi, of course, ends up putting a kibosh at Sumii Yuya's attempt at bettering himself, and as he goes through a robo-depression in his dressing room, Horobi shows up and makes his day worse by reprogramming him and turning him into a monster, the Arsino Magia, and he proceeds to rhino-rampage his way through the studio. We get our act 2 action sequence as Yua shows up in her hornet form to fight the Arsino Magia, while Aruto in shark form fights against Horobi. In perhaps the fastest and most abrupt Magia destruction ever, Kamen Rider Valkyrie just Thunder-Lightning-Blast-Fever's her way and blows the shit out of the Arsino Magia and flies away with the Zetsumerize Key, while Horobi and Zero-One continue to duke it out. I know there's only so many minutes in an episode, but I kinda really did feel like we probably could've built up Enji just a bit more, because I really didn't care when he blew up other than the fact that now Zaia Enterprise has their hands on the Arsino key, because Yua basically info-dumps that she's actually employed by Zaia, and is essentially just on loan to AIMS as a technical adviser. 

While the finalization of the shooting is taking place on the Ex-Aid rooftop set and everyone is all happy and stuff (Owada's even training a new version of Enji!) Yua brings Aruto to Zaia, and we learn all about Zaia. It's an even bigger company than Hiden, it has access to AI and space tech, it's global, and it can create what's basically some Star Trek holodeck transforming rooms. We get to meet Amatsu Gai, the soft-spoken CEO of Zaia who's giving me some heavy early-season Dan Kuroto vibes. Gai's more outright-evil from the beginning, though, curiously hinting that if Aruto doesn't sell Hiden Intelligence to him, there'll be a 'disaster' that's going to befall his company, and we later learn that Gai even warns him specifically about the movie shoot. Now if this means that he's in straight-up cahoots with Horobi, or if it's something else entirely, or if Gai's actually a more heroic character than he seems here, it's hard to tell at the moment. 

Speaking of said movie shoot, we get a genuinely unsettling and well-shot scene as we cut back and forth between the shooting of a climax shoot-out between Owada's character and the other characters in the movie, while Gai continuously talks about ominous stuff. And as Owada's character seems to get 'shot' in filming, everyone comments about how great the scene and acting is... only for the camera to pan away that while Owada's co-star was shooting a prop gun, Assassin-chan is standing nearby with a fucking real-ass gun and shot Owada through the goddamn chest. Holy shit. 

More than the simple horror of Owada being shot, this is Owada being shot by a blue-eyed Humagear, and while the ramifications aren't quite explored just yet, we already get hints from the terrified movie producer and the snippet of news we hear later at the end of the episode about how this is going to royally fuck up Hiden's reputation. 

And then we get a genuinely cool scene as Fuwa ascends the stairs while Assassin-chan (and his newly pink-skunk-mark dyed hair!) stop and glare at each other from different stairwells, just pull out their little transformation trinkets and transform. And that sequence of them going "Henshin!" and "Ansatsu!" at each other is just so goddamned cool. And the Dodo Magia has clearly gotten a little touch-up, with a brand-new set of shoulder-pads and chest armour with ammo bandoliers and shit wrapped all around it! We've seen the Dodo Magia get an upgrade before in terms of strength and getting those two goofy-ass feather-blades, but man oh man if we get a Kamen Rider Build style build-up of a not-quite-Kamen-Rider monster into them finally becoming Kamen Rider, like what happened to Blood Stalk and Night Rogue... I am all up for it. 

Aruto, meanwhile, arrives onto the scene of the shoot a bit too late and the look of heartbreak to see that everyone's yelling about how Humagears are killing machines is an amazing expression. Not helping matters is Horobi being a dick and walking up and gloating all about how Humagears will evolve into humanity-destroying machines and about revolution and shit. We get a straight-up brief Pokemon battle as both Horobi and Aruto sic their respective giant CGI bugs at each other, before transforming. 

And the bad guys... win! Horobi outclasses Zero One as usual and the fight choreography for both Horobi fights makes it clear that he's dominating the fight with an awesome bit of swagger in his step and his effortless dodging, while Assassin-chan summons bullets from his shoulders and then lobs said bullets towards Vulcan by hitting them with his swords, actually defeating Fuwa. Aruto immediately pulls out the biggest gun in his arsenal and summons Breaking Mammoth, and in a refreshing bit of sequence in Tokusatsu, immediately just goes for the finisher without even really trying to duke it out first. I guess Breaking Mammoth's CGI is just that expensive? It does really fit with Aruto's absolutely frustrated state of mind at the moment, though, and I can believe that he's just so livid at Horobi pissing all over his dreams of human/robot co-existence that all he wants to do is to summon a giant transforming robot that will "crush like a machine" with a giant progrise key. The Breaking Impact doesn't work, though, and Horobi just summons his scorpion buddy to take the hit for him. Horobi and Assassin-chan both do a little cool line before walking off and retreating.

The episode ends with the somber note that both Fuwa and Aruto's gotten their asses handed to them by Metsubojinrai.net; the Dodo Magia's evolving; Owada Shinya was nearly killed and is hospitalized; Hiden Intelligence and the Humagears' reputation are both in the dumpster; Hiden Intelligence's being investigated by the cops and Amatsu Gai seems to be behind at least part of what's going on. 

And... and it's still a pretty solid episode all around! Owada Shinya is a pretty likable guest cast, the storyline leading to both Zaia and the destruction of Hiden's reputation is well-handled, and I'm obviously a massive fan of the character development for Mr. Dodo. Overall, a pretty damn fine episode. 

Random Notes: 

• It's hilarious to note that after his little tantrum, Jin actually sits the entire episode out. Presumably he's just sitting, grumbling while crouched in the corner of their little ramshackle base. 
• Sanzo is a very minor character who I don't think ever really had lines other than being the sidekick to another minor character in Jun, but he gets a lot of great snarky lines in this episode. We did get to see him gain respect for Aruto during the mangaka episodes, and seeing him actually snark at Jun for being the 'executive producer' but quickly shifting blame to Aruto is pretty nice of him. He also gets a bit later on where he tries to hide behind Jun during the police investigation, then tries to hide behind Shester, who fixes him with the most glorious death-glare ever. 
• "I'm the only one that can save you" is apparently something that Owada Shinya's character in the movie says in a climax scene... and the show doesn't make it clear if they re-appropriated Aruto's catchphrase, or if Aruto just stole the line from one of Owada's movies or something. 
• So, uh, do Humagears even need dressing rooms? Not to be crass or anything, but I'm legitimately curious. 
• This isn't the first time Sakimoto Hiromi's played a character that ended up with the same fate that Enji ended up with, let's put it mildly. 
• That scene where Gai hands Aruto that name card and Aruto just bites it on his lip so he can show off his toy phone and shoot over a digital name-card is so hilarious, I love it. 
• I really do love that Assassin-chan has his own henshin code in "ansatsu". It's honestly something that they'll never really do with a real Kamen Rider, I don't think, but it makes him just feel so much more unique.
• Vulcan's Punching Kaban Shot quite literally has him materialize a goddamn replica of his Punching Kong suit's giant chunky gloves, which dissipate after Mr. Dodo slicies it apart. 
• This is the first time that we actually hear the text-to-speech for Breaking Mammoth out loud. 
• I kinda wish that Horobi's exit was a bit more spectacular than him just summoning his whip and hitting the ground to make a cloud of dust. Like, it's not terrible, but it could've been better.