Kamen Rider Zero One E22 Review: It's High Quality

Kamen Rider Zero-One, Episode 22: He Still Didn't Do It

We're still going on with the second part of the lawyer two-parter and... at least there's a new development compared to the formulaic couple of two-parters before this? It still doesn't really excuse the hectic pre-2020 episodes about the end of Metsubojinrai.net, and I'll continue bitching about it until we get some proper payoff, but this episode's pretty neat, action-wise and progression-wise. It's a far better introduction of a new form compared to the abrupt way that the two assault forms were handled, too, although I'll reserve judgment on how much sense it makes until we get to see just why Gai did what he did in this episode.

The episode picks up where we left off in 21, with Zero-One in his Shining Assault Form fighting against Thouser, and it's actually a relatively refreshingly fun fight, even if a good chunk of it does admittedly rely on the CGI... floating things. Funnels? I'm going to call them funnels, because I can't remember what the actual proper in-universe term is. And finally a pretty cool use of Thouser's whole power-jacking ability gets shown as Thouser hijacks Zero-One's Funnel powers and summons red funnels of his own, and we get a pretty cool bit where both Kamen Riders are just fighting each other while the Funnels fly around and zap each other in the background, and we get a couple of cool bits when the funnels spin around to form shields for both Riders. There's a cool bit of Zero-One's Shining Hopper fast-teleport afterimage thing, too, before we get a pretty cool bit of both Riders unleashing their finishers that clash onto each other, which is a pretty neat visual as the CGI dust dissipates and the two Riders de-henshin.

Gai tells Aruto that they'll finish their fight in the courtroom while the mangled Magia corpse of Bingo lie nearby, and this is a shot I particularly like -- for a show that's made "Gai murders a berserking Humagear" a bi-weekly regular thing for us to expect, they don't really hammer home the fact that Gai murders these robot people as much as I thought they would.

Then we get a couple of sub-plots running simultaneously. We get Yua and Gai setting up and creating a new Progrise Key in Daybreak Town using the Ark's powers, and this is all part of some scenario by Gai to completely ruin Aruto. There's a bit of hesitation in Yua, of course, who notes how unnecessarily cruel this is since they were going to win the competition, but Gai's just that extra of a douchebag.

The actual trial part of the episode run as you'd expect. Which isn't to say that it's bad, it's just the expected 'ah-ha, third act twist!' that's foreshadowed in episode 21. It's done sufficiently well, and the big moment of cooperation is also built up pretty well. The actual 'wedding scam' bit does get dragged on a bit too long, though, and we get a couple of relatively superfluous scenes of them sort of retelling parts of episode 21, or Gai being a douche to Aruto and Bingo, giving his usual "Humagears are evil, humanity is great" spiel.

Aruto ends up getting Fuwa's help on this, and he's a bit reluctant (despite his whole 'guilty and innocent' speech last episode) but ends up helping out anyway. Aww, he does care. The Horobi-in-a-straitjacket scene plays out basically how you expect it to, but we get full confirmation that Horobi has no idea that Gai's been manipulating them or even has access to the Zetsumeriser Drivers, and he goes full-on crazy, writhing on the ground and screaming at the thought of the filthy humans desecrating his precious Ark. I'm... I'm very much confused why AIMS or the police hasn't gone and arrested or investigated Gai over owning the Zetsumerise Driver, though, and you'd think that we would at least get a throwaway line about plausible deniability or something.

Aruto then recruits Fuwa to help out Bingo, and we get a brief, short montage of Fuwa and his fur jacket investigating the people around the courtroom -- mostly Yua and a bunch of security guards -- to figure out who exactly stole the prosecutor's Zaia Spec, which is the most likely candidate for being the true identity of the Dynamiting Lion Raider. And, of course, it turns out to be the policeman that was a bit shifty in episode 21, and with the power of video calls and Bingo's lie-detecting algorithms, they figure out that the policeman dude is lying and Fuwa arrests him... with a particularly fun sequence of Fuwa cracking his neck and rising up ominously while saying 'bingo'. Oh Fuwa, you gigantic goof, never change.

While this is going on, Bingo stalls for time in the trial, Yua delivers the Metal Cluster Hopper key to Gai, and Aruto discovers that Gai was involved in Daybreak and the Ark. Thanks to the rule of TV drama, Bingo and Fuwa interrupt the trial at the last possible second, bringing in the new evidence about how the policeman dude was completely corrupt and was framing the accussed, and also tried to shift blame by attacking people as a monster and stuff. The judge is a doo-doo and is about to dismiss the evidence, but Zaia's Prosecutor refuses to convict an innocent man and also insists that the case be re-opened, admitting that the Humagears are exceptional.

We need to end the episdoe in an action scene, so the evil policeman manages to steal the Lion Key from Fuwa as he's waving it around and ecape, leading to a fight outside between the Dynamiting Lion Raider and Assault Wolf Vulcan. It's a pretty cool fight, mostly because I really do like the look of the Lion Raider with its funky pink dreadlocks, its giant gun-arm and the weird half-trenchcoat thing he has hanging down his hips. It's just a weird-looking monster!

The fight is interesting, while Gai shows up and monologues about how dare this man uses the Zaia Specs for malicious purposes -- and this whole 'you're using technology to be evil' is more or less the same reason why Gai thinks it's justifiable to murder Humagears, by the way. Aruto and Izu show up, and Aruto calls Gai out on his complete and utter bullshit and hypocrisy, and also points out that the Ark became evil because of Gai teaching it about humanity's malice, and how that event led to the whole series of events that led to Mestubojinrai.net being born and all of the chaos that has happened. Gai's response is a smug "well, that was gonna happen either way; humanity's history is repeating itself", leading Aruto to get absolutely pissed off. He's absolutely livid and frustrated and the actor really sells it well as he just charges in and tells Gai to fuck off because, as he pointed out, people have died just so that Gai can fell all smug about the fallibility of artificial intelligence. And I must say, Gai's really building up to be a massive asshat of a villain, and I'm all for it.

We get a fight between the angry Aruto and the smug douche-face Gai, and Gai continues to trash-talk Aruto about how he's a representation of the malice of humanity or whatever. Aruto's chest core is glowing and we get a bit of a cut back and forth between Zero-One and the Ark's red glow, and we start to get kanji -- 'death' and 'suffering' and whatnot -- appear on Aruto's red locust eyes and that's a pretty cool visual.

Thouser summons some weird CGI animals to hold Zero-One before slashing him, forcing him to de-henshin. And... and I'm still not sure what this part is really supposed to be, because Gai slaps on the Metal Cluster Hopper Key onto Aruto's belt to, uh... 'learn it first-hand'? Learn what, exactly? Regardless, though, the show does a great job at making Metal Cluster Hopper look cool and horrifying. A gigantic swarm of metal locusts appear as the belt's long jingle plays, and Aruto finds himself in what I assume is the Ark's Matrix-space, where it's all dark and stuff, and the 0/1 binary number streams transform into kanji for death and pain, and all of these kanji swarm all over Aruto as he screams and screams and screams. Meanwhile, in the real world, the swarms of metal grasshoppers fuse into a giant metal grasshopper, before breaking up again and forming Metal Cluster Hopper's armour. "It's high quality!", the belt announces cheerily, while the visuals and the CGI effects of red glowing auras around Zero-One's eyes are pretty dang cool.

And Aruto unleashes a gigantic swarm of CGI metal grasshoppers at the fight between Vulcan and the Lion monster, ending that fight in a complete instant -- stripping away all of the monster pieces and most of the clothes of the Lion Raider, and even burning off part of Vulcan's arm gauntlets, before reforming around the screaming Aruto. Metal Cluster is more like a parasite, in a sense... and I guess its just a manifestation of Aruto's anger and hatred or something? Because it sure as hell ain't loyal to Thouser, because Metal Cluster continues to bash the shit out of Thouser. The visuals are obvious CGI, but it's... serviceable? I do like the concept of a swarm of transforming metal insects that form Metal Cluster Hopper's armour, and these insects detach and reform themselves into the giant metal crystal shields and spikes that appear to stab Thouser.

While smug, it's quickly clear that Thouser is outclassed by Metal Cluster. Yeah, it's been a month since your debut, Thouser, make way for the new toy! Thouser uses the Dynamiting Lion Key to activate a Thousand Break finisher, summoning two pink gatling guns, but that doesn't even phase Metal Cluster, who continues attacking with gigantic metal crystal chunks that beat the shit out of Thouser and forces him to de-henshin. Metal Cluster very nearly murders the hell out of Gai and his dumb turtleneck if Fuwa hasn't charged in and rescued everyone present by ripping off Aruto's belt. The expert at ripping things apart, that's Fuwa. With the belt off, the transformation is undone and the metal locusts disappear.

It's about time for the episode to end, so Gai gives one of his asinine bits of "ha-ha, everything is going as Zaia's scenario!" and we get a brief acknowledgement that the evil raider policeman is arrested, the innocent dude is cleared of all charges, and Hiden is now 1:2 in the competition. Despite the ominous juxtaposition of glowing red eyes with the Ark, Aruto ends the episode in a pretty good mood as he and Izu celebrate their victory in this round with a bad joke and a simultaneous Arutoooo ja naito.

And... and overall, we get a fair amount of great moments? I'm still not entirely sure what Gai's motivations are beyond the whole 'humanity's potential' spiel he keeps spouting at every given chance, and I'm not sure what the point of slapping the Metal Cluster Hopper key on Aruto is supposed to prove. Hopefully this gets explained soon. I also really wish that Gai ends up not falling onto the same paths as previous evil, douchebaggy Kamen Riders that end up being more or less redeemed by the time the show is over. In recent years, the franchise has had various different evil or antagonistic Riders that end up being on our hero's side by the time the second half of the series rolls around. We've got Necrom, Chase, Rogue, Genm... and there's a lot of relatively valid comparisons between Dan Kuroto and Amatsu Gai in the fandom. I love Kuroto, but I do really wish that they double down on Gai and actually make him a villain and not randomly redeem him with a sob backstory or whatever, because the show's actually doing a great, great job at setting him up as a complete ding-dong-douchebag of a villain.

Random Notes:

• I didn't mention it in the main body of the review, but we get a bunch more adorable Izu-ness. The little rapid-fire clap-clap-clap as she awaits Aruto's jokes, and the little poses she makes in the background as the camera focuses on Aruto, and finally the simultaneous Aruto-ja-nai-to pose at the end... I definitely wouldn't have liked Aruto's scenery-chewing insane comedy without the accompaniment of Izu.
• Not to be nitpicky, but did the lion policeman really just didn't resist as Fuwa drags him halfway across town from the police station to the courtroom? Did he not try to transform at all?
• The crowd's reaction to the policeman stealing the Progrise Key from Fuwa is a bit... overly-dramatic. The dude hasn't even transformed into a monster yet! Special mention goes to that gentleman on the front row.  
• The scene really doesn't lead to anything in this episode specifically, but while Fuwa and Bingo are investigating, Aruto and Izu enters the Matrix-space to ask Satellite Zea about the Ark. It's information that we've sort of gleaned from previous episodes, about how the Ark was supposed to oversee a Humagear-operated Daybreak City, and tells Aruto about Zaia's involvement in it. 
• We haven't seen Death-bo in a while, huh?
• The Gimmick Watch:
• "Burst! Raidrise. Dynamiting Lion! A beautiful force like fireworks." The sound editing for the Raid Riser transformations really make it hard to tell the text-to-speech part, really. 
• "Hiden Metal's Ability! Authorize. Progrise! Metal Rise! ... Secret material: Hiden Metal. METAL CLUSTER HOPPER. It's High Quality." There's the whole long cutscene between Metal Rise and Secret material. Also, that's a very melodic way of announcing Metal Cluster Hopper for what's portrayed as an in-universe berserking form. It's no yabei for sure. 
• The CGI for these shows are always kind of spotty, but I do appreciate the funnel fight at the beginning as well as how the janky metal locust swarms are portrayed. 
• I'm a bit confused with that one Jacking Break that Thouser does before slapping Metal Cluster on Aruto. What are those weird orange fanged heads?
• Yua is filming the Metal Cluster vs. Thouser fight. This isn't really addressed, other than having her show up and have a brief conversation with Fuwa about how Metal Cluster is not Zero-One, but I'm curious if she purposedly let Thouser get his ass beaten up. Likewise, whether the video she takes is going to be relevant in a future episode.