Kamen Rider Zero-One E24 Review: A Great Actor

Kamen Rider Zero-One, Episode 24: It's Our Turn

We continue on with this arc of Zero One and... and it's still very awkwardly paced even for a tokusatsu show, but this episode is definitely a neat one. I just really wish that the pacing for the show as a whole is done a bit better, y'know? Anyway, this episode picks up as Zero-One and Thouser fight each other, with Zero-One unleashing a Mammoth key attack that summons these two gigantic holographic mammoth feet that flail through the air towards Thouser. It's ridiculously dumb-looking and I love it. Gai does a jacking break to steal the mammoth powers, and then the two Kamen Riders unleash gigantic CGI robotic mammoth trunks at each other, but Thouser gets overwhelmed and beaten up as Aruto continues screaming in the rage-kanji dimension.

And Metal Cluster Zero-One just slowly stalks and advances towards Izu and Matsuda Enji, with its neck bent at an angle and the (goofy-looking) grasshopper axe raised in the air. Enji, not Izu, is the one that charges forwards and begs President Aruto to snap out of it... and seemingly gets infected by the Ark's red virus, turning his eye and earphones red, because we all know that red-eyed robots are evil. Gai yells and distracts the Metal Cluster Hopper, and we get Gai unleashing a mighty Thousand Break where he summons transparent holographic version of all of the animals from Zero-One, Vulcan and Valkyrie's primary forms (shark, falcon, hornet, wolf, mammoth, tiger, gorilla and cheetah) and I haven't really been keeping track of which ones that Thouser has stolen. With these combined powers, Thouser finally manages to cause Metal Cluster to blow up and undo the transformation, the first time we've actually seen the Metal Cluster form be damaged in any form. Okay, sure.

Gai then leaves, with Evil!Matsuda Enji walking up to him and claiming that he has received revelations from the Ark, and hanging out with Gai. And... I'm not sure what Gai's doing? Previously he's been screaming and yelling at the Ark-controlled Metal Cluster to not underestimate him, and now Enji's buddies with him just because he claims to be controlled by the Ark? Okay, if you say so.

We cut to the National Cyber Hospital, where Aruto is being cared for by Dr. Omigoto, and apparently Aruto has been unconscious for three days. Aruto tries to get up because there's no telling when the next Humagear will rampage, and Izu actually calls out this innocently insensitive remark from Aruto. We then have this rather oddly-paced bit where Match shows up, and sort of ties up the loose ends of episode 23... apparently Match was supposed to ham it up and pretend to go berserk, but the influence of the Ark overwhelms him, which is why the Magia-Match was a wee bit more hammy than other berserking Magia. Apparently Match has decided via his scans that Teruo is a good match for Chiharu, and set up their meeting in dramatic fashion, and the two of them are engaged now. It's... there's a lot of things about this subplot that I'm not fond of, but I'm too tired to really break down the intricacies of a hammy-handed throwaway plot-of-the-week. Match bursting out of a random hole he dug in the beach just to wave hi hankerchief and yell 'best match' is fun, though.

Aruto and Match sort of bond over being forced to go into a rage, and then Izu picks up the Metal Cluster Hopper key and tells Aruto to have faith... and in a pretty cool scene, Izu walks out of the hospital room and starts sending out a message to all Humagears (or, well, the Humagears we've met in the past 23 episodes, anyway), and recruits other Humagears to execute the plan.

Evil!Enji, meanwhile, offers help to Gai because humans will be consumed by their wickedness, blah blah blah, offering to hack Hiden Intelligence from within. Meanwhile, Spacebro Subaru and Boss Oyakata arrive at the Metsubojinrai.net base (because the police don't secure this former lair of terrorists, apparently) and Oyakata is somehow able to use a single drill to fucking demolish an entire wall. They enter the Metsu-base, hack the computer and find the data required for the Hiden Metal and the Metal Cluster Key. We still don't know what a "Hiden Metal" is, but okay.

What follows is a pretty fun scene as the theme song slowly builds up in the background as Izu contacts all of the other Humagears we've seen in the show, talking about how President Aruto has been helping them throughout the series and whatnot, and it is sappy and cheesy and pretty obvious but also pretty awesome. It brings to mind that movie in Fourze where every single character-of-the-week shows up to press a switch and it's neat! We get to see Dr. Omigoto, Match, Bingo, Mamoru, Nigiro the sushi chef, a flashback montage to Smile and Subaru, Oyakata, freaking Matsurida Zed (a.k.a. Dodo-chan #5) and some random delivery dude (which one was this?) as Izu gives a speech about how Aruto has always believed and helped Humagears. Everyone starts muttering "President Aruto" under their breath as the music builds up and then everyone starts pulling out these Progrise Keys that represent to the Humagears and start activating them, apparently loading up the data of Aruto's goodness or something up to them?

And, again, it's cheesy as all hell but it's the sort of well-executed, well-shown cheese that I do enjoy. All of the Humagears gather their combined goodwill into these keys and send them off to Izu, who then proceeds to attach them into a machine that uploads all the data into Aruto's Rising Hopper Key, which proceeds to cause Satellite Zea to create a brand-new toy weapon, the Progrise Hopper Blade.

While all of these wholesome heartwarming stuff is happening, Yua reports to Gai that someone broke into the Metsu-base and stole data, and Gai quickly figures out that it's Enji that tricked him. I absolutely love Enji's response to Gai, proclaiming with no fear that he's the Humagear actor Matsuda Enji and acting is his main purpose. Gai gets super angry and wants to murder the shit out of Enji, although apparently he still goes through the motions of slapping a Zetsumerise driver and turning Enji back into the Arsino Magia. I guess that's to make his murder of Enji okay in the law or something?

Anyway, Dr. Omigoto wakes Aruto up and quickly catches Aruto up to speed. Enji has infiltrated Zaia, he got discovered and is now going berserk, and tells Aruto that everything should be lazy. There's a bit of weirdness as apparently Thouser isn't able to destroy Enji in the time that it took for the doctor to wake Aruto up, or him to change and then run on foot to the battlefield, but okay. Aruto is so intent on protecting Enji that he charges and tackles Thouser even while wouded and un-transformed, and gets his ass knocked onto the ground... and the Izu shows up, standing on top of some concrete pillars or whatnot, tells Aruto to believe in Humagears and yeets the Zero One Driver and the Metalcluster Key to Aruto.

With an 'everybody jump!' Aruto transforms into Metal Cluster Hopper, seemingly going berserk again... then Izu shoves the new plot-relevant toy into Aruto's hands, and the Progrise Hopper Blade apparently... uh... sucks in all of the metal locusts and then vomits it back out or something, while Aruto's consciousness gets teleported from the Ark to Zea? Whatever the hell happens, apparently the force of goodwill has allowed Aruto to regain control of his body, and does his whole "there's only one person that can stop you" spiel while Izu does the pose in the background.


The fight between the nwly completed Metal Cluster Hopper and Thouser is... about what you expect it to be. It's a new toy, of course the new toy wins, using a combination of Metal Cluster's giant metal crystal chunks and regular Rising Hopper's circuit-board Tron lines slashes. Gai attempts to shove Enji in the way of Zero-One's attacks, but apparently the new blade has the capability of removing the Ark's corruption. Aruto himself lampshades that he has no fucking idea what's going on, a little comeback that makes Gai even angrier, but Aruto ends up combining his new blade with his old blade, and blow the shit out of Thouser and Gai's white suit with an Ultimate Strash. Gai, wounded and defeated, limps away promising vengeance with the whole competition thing. Right. That storyline's still going on.

The episode closes with Aruto being happy that they have a new weapon, the Humagears can do their jobs in peace and apparently Humagear contracts have increased. Izu and Aruto have a neat moment about their faith in each other and Humagears, happiness and they do a simultaneous Aruto-janaito joke... while the cliffhanger is Fuwa arriving to find that Horobi has escaped from AIMS custody. Oh no!

I still really think that the pacing and storytelling is kind of a mess. We sort of settle into a bit of a groove with the Thouser episodes, but at the same time I really wished that the build-up to these huge conclusion moments are done a wee bit better. The actual execution of this scene, especially Izu and Enji's bit, are pretty dang great moments, and the usage of the great music buildup as the Humagears return Aruto's favour is amazing -- I did enjoy the Metal Cluster arc overall, but also at the same time wished that it was more coherent, y'know? 

Random Notes:

• The Humagears who have progrise keys are Izu, Subaru, Oyakata, Omigoto, Sumida Smile, Mamoru, Bingo, Ikkan Nigiro, Okureru, Matsuda Enji, G-Pen and Matsurida Zed.
• Note that we get to see Enji's key briefly in the Progrise key montage before he reveals his deception to Gai, which is a neat little foreshadowing. 
• Also, we get a brief scene of Izu helping Enji up from where he fell onto the ground, but Izu remains uninfected despite the virus supposedly being spread via touch. 
• Our now-expected Horobi/Fuwa scene is Horobi ranting about how humagears will abide by the Ark, then Fuwa talking about how he has orders but he only follows the ones he likes, and Horobi asking the hard questions (how sure are you that your will is your own) and the scene concludes with yet another bit of Fuwa getting his face right up to Horobi's. It's honestly starting to bore me. 
• Match's readout of Teruo, uh... reads out his hormones like adrenaline and oxytocin? Okay, then. 
• The Gimmick Watch: 
• "Changing to lethal weapon. Progrise Hopper Blade!" the attacks are "Finish Rise: Progrising Strash!" and combined with the original Zero-One sword, it's "Docking Rise. Ultimate Rise! Ultimate Strash!"
• After the little update, we get an "Everybody Jump!" at the beginning of Metal Cluster's transformation.