Kamen Rider Zero-One E26-27 Review: Burning Like The Fire

Kamen Rider Zero-One, Episode 26: We're Firefighters; Episode 27: I Won't Give Up These Lives

It's been a while since I watched an episode of Zero One, and this time around we're going to review a two-parter. This one is yet another one that feels formulaic, yet another one that's basically in the same vein as the house-selling or flower arrangement competition. Gai proposes a competition for the whole Zaia Spec versus Humagear superiority competition, and this time it's about firefighting, and we have the human firefighter Homura against the Humagear Ichi-Ichi-Kyu-nosuke (or 119nosuke).

I do like the execution of the setup of this episode, though, because for one, we get to actually see that the Humagear isn't actually the one who 'gets' the spirit of the profession and the human's the one that has lost his way or whatever. 119nosuke and Homura are both very motivated in the little firefighting simulation... and I do appreciate that as psychotic as Amatsu Gai is, he at least didn't intend for an actual fire to go wild and uses a little simulation ground with holographic fire and stuff. Now I'm not sure how the human even manages to keep up with 119nosuke's insane super-strength in moving rubble around, but okay. The competition goes in what's essentially a stalemate

That is, until the expected Raider attack happens, and this time it's the panda raider with a big-ass rifle, who creates a massive explosion with his big-ass rifle and creates an actual fire, before using his rifle as basically a rocket to zip away from the scene. The little competition ends up into an actual rescue, and 119nosuke's Humagear faults end up showing a bit of a flaw -- he can quickly detect humans in the rubble, but as a robot, he basically ignores someone going into cardiac arrest as a person that's already dead and not worthy of rescuing, without at least trying. Homura absolutely lays onto 119nosuke for that later on, telling him that a firefighter should not give up until he's tried to save everyone and stuff. There's something to be said about triaging, but the fact that 119nosuke was straight-up ignoring the dude without trying to attempt to rescue him is definitely the sort of detached, unemotional decision that I could see a robot making.

While all of this going on, we have an AIMS/Metsubo sub-plot. Jin apparently took a whole week before cutting Horobi free from his straitjacket, and Horobi tells us something that's definitely not obvious at all -- Jin's no longer connected to the Ark, and Jin is all happy to be running around because he's going to liberate Humagears in his own way. Jin faces off against Fuwa (who was hunting him down) and demands to know where the fourth Metsubojinrai.net member is, the hooded 'Death' robot, and Jin tells Fuwa that "she might be closer than you realize", which is some... very interesting choice words for sure! We get another Assault Wolf versus Inferno Wing action, and I absolutely love the action scenes in this stretch of episodes. The CGI for Inferno Wing Jin is basically the same thing, but dang if they don't make flaming slashes look good.

Gai, meanwhile, tells Yua to not bother helping out any of the wounded (which includes undercover AIMS soldiers, something that the episode quickly establishes but also sort of glosses over) because Gai's a cunt. Then the brief little confrontation between Homura and the very passive Ichikyunosuke ends up being the excuse and reason Gai latches on to say that, hey, this Humagear's about to go berserk. The show does a great job at really, really emphasizing what a terrible, hateable shitbag Amatsu Gai is, and it's... interesting? Gai's not quite as over-the-top as someone like prominent-among-the-main-cast villains Dan Kuroto from Ex-Aid or Evol from Build, just 'real' enough in his motivations and behaviour that there's an extra layer of disgustingness to his behaviour that makes hi extra hateable.

Anyway, what goes on is honestly kind of bland, with only the added bonus of Gai doing this on live television. Gai slaps the Zetsumetsu driver onto 119nosuke, turns him into the Mammoth Magia, and we get a particularly notable toku-teleport into a random alley. Aruto uses Freezing Bear to freeze 119nosuke's feet, before we get Thouser swooping in to fuck shit up... but a neat little slo-mo block by Metal Cluster Hopper ends up preventing Thouser's finisher from killing 119nosuke, and he uses his new toy to revert him back to a robot. And Thouser just... leaves? I guess he just isn't feeling it today. The way this action scene is cut feels very abrupt, really.

I do like that Aruto acts almost parental, telling 119nosuke that Homura has a lot of points, and even admonishes the robot a bit for his mistakes, but notes that that's why they all have room to improve. Episode 26 then ends with the setup for episode 27 -- there are still people trapped on the third floor, specifically V.P. Fukuzoe's little group, and Gai being Gai, he suggests that this is the true competition.

Of course, while Gai pulls off another little speech about "oh, are you not confident that your Humagear can save lives" card, I'm genuinely not sure why Aruto doesn't just go into one of his Hopper forms, jump up, rescue Fukuzoe's group, and call it a day because... it's lives at stake, and he's a superhero. Or just tell Gai where to shove it and send the entire robot-and-human firefighting team up. It's a bit bizarre, but okay, we need a show. Homura and 119nosuke go off to the third floor, while Aruto heads off to hunt down the Panda Raider.

The action scene between Aruto and the Panda Raider has some very cool shots, particularly when Aruto is about to get sniped by the panda raider and we get one of the cooler transformations into Metal Cluster Hopper so far as Aruto dodges bullets, transforms and jumps straight across buildings to beat up the panda. Obviously, Metal Cluster Hopper is so much more powerful than just a random Raider, but some arbitrary plot reasons means that Aruto gets distracted by some smoke and the Panda manages to slip away, although, of course, Aruto manages to discover a Zaia Spec. Those things just don't stay on the users very well, huh?

Fuwa shows up on the scene and is absolutely pissed off that not everyone's doing something. He calls out Yua in particular, ignores Gai's protests that she doesn't work for AIMS anymore, and Fuwa just douses himself in a bucket of water before charging in. I'm... I'm not sure why Fuwa and Yua don't take the chance to transform into their armoured superhero forms, though. And I know, it's to make the firemen guest stars look good, but watching this episode I kept thinking how all of this could've been avoided if they just went all Kamen Rider to rescue the trapped victims.

Homura and 119nosuke, meanwhile, figure out that there is no way to cross the current burning corridor, and Homura is about to give up, but 119nosuke just walks forward unflinchingly, ignoring as his fake skin is being burnt away. 119nosuke gives a speech about how humans only have one life, but Humagears can be restored, and saving humans is his function and his job. I absolutely love how Homura is screaming bloody murder that firemen are supposed to protect themselves to, and we get this very, very powerful shot of 119nosuke, burnt down to his inner Humagear robot skeleton, holding up a bunch of rocks, allowing Homura, Yua and Fuwa to rescue Fukuzoe's group.

Aruto returns and clearly doesn't care about the competition, being a decent person who's more worried about how his employees are rescued and thanks Homura deeply and panics more about 119nosuke not being around more than anything. Yua watches as Aruto drags the burnt carcass of 119nosuke, still holding up a rock, out of the building, and Aruto gives a great speech about how "one of [his] employees gave it his all today" and he's bringing him home. And this is a pretty awesome moment, it's just, y'know, undercut by the fact that this could all be avoided if they went Kamen Rider a bit sooner.

The next scene is the little discussion between Aruto and Gai about the results of the competition, because Zaia won since Homura was the one who saved the VP's group, but the very guilty look Homura has ends up with him blurting out that he admits defeat to the robot, since he's the most instrumental in rescuing the people, and also has the soul of a true firefighter and stuff. Homura was always portrayed in this two-parter as a hot-headed but ultimately a good man, so there's no real tension there.

Fuwa then shows up with the Zaia Specs that Aruto recovered from the Panda Raider, and the group then goes off to confront the Raider... literally just some random Zaia employee from R&D who just wants to help Gai out, and Gai is utterly confused. Random Zaia Employee does let it slip that the Raid Risers was taken from the company, and Izu informs everyone, including the audience that, hey, Zaia's the one that is making these mysterious Raid Risers, and also they look like the Shot Risers because they're made by the same company! (A reason for toy repaints? Well I never!) Fuwa and Aruto are understandably angry that Gai has been basically manipulating everything just for his products, and Gai gives this whole spiel about how Raid Risers (which are like, civilian guns or some shit) are a 'technology of righteous origin', completely ignoring Aruto's arguments that, hey, these goddamn weapons are being used for evil.

And then the conversation goes into talking about evidence, and silly ol' Fuwa has to wave the Zaia Specs in front of Gai. Gai then goes off to 'protect his investments' and get rid of said evidence, and... no one made a copy of the data? And no one is recording this? We get Thouser fighting against Assault Vulcan and... I find it very strange that Aruto doesn't jump in to help. The action scene was neat, though, and Thouser uses Horobi's scorpion key to unleash a Thousand Break, defeating Fuwa with a gigantic CGI scorpion whip, before destroying the evidence.

Jin then shows up, ranting about how humanity is evil and they are fighting even without Metsubojinrai.net's interference, and we get another glorious Inferno Wing Jin transformation, and I will never get tired of seeing this sequence. We get a massive burning explosion everywhere and Inferno Jin and Thouser fights in this ring of fire. Which is thematic, visually, to the whole fireman theme of the two-parter, but not so much narratively. The fight is still pretty cool, though, and it basically ends in a draw with a Burning Reign Rush clashing against a Thousand Destruction kick. It's basically a way for Jin to reclaim the scorpion key, which Gai so conveniently drops during the rider kick clash.

Jin the walks off repeating his goals, Gai concedes the round to Aruto thanks to his employee's interference, and we set up the next episode's competition... whether Humagears can benefit society or not via a public vote on how Daybreak Town is going to be rebuilt. And the episode ends off with a very tired Aruto thinking of a speech and delivering the most tired Aruto-janaito delivery while Izu remains her usual chipper self.

It's... it's a two-parter that I feel has a lot of great scenes, and a lot of great themes. As I mention throughout the episode, there are a lot of great action scenes in this one, with Jin-vs-Vulcan; Vulcan-vs-Thouser, Jin-vs-Thouser and Zero-One's curb-stomp of the Panda Raider all being highlights. There are also a lot of amazing shots, too, like the whole shot and the sequence of scenes leading up to Ichikyunosuke's death holding up that chunk of rubble. The episodes are competently shot and scripted, but it's just that the pacing and plotting of events aren't quite as clean or sensible, with a lot of things that happen (or didn't happen) for no real reason. And ultimately I feel like that did cut into my suspension of disbelief quite a bit, because a single line or two about how maybe the Shotrisers can't work in all the flame, or have Aruto face off against Yua during the Vulcan/Thouser sequence, or something, and those would've gone a long way into making episode 27 flow better, I feel.

Random Notes:

• I gloss over them a bit in the review, but Fukuzoe's group does get a couple of good moments in episode 27. Fukuzoe actually shows concern and panic when Shester malfunctions and collapses, and while it's corny as hell, him yelling at Yamashita to not nod off because "you're still on the clock god damn it" is a pretty well-done moment. In a surprisingly tender moment, we also get Fukuzoe noting how he actually does want to see the whole humans-and-humagear future come into reality, which is neat!
• Even if this two-parter does feel kind of like it's just retreading the same old beats, it's a very entertaining two-parter to watch nonetheless. Some comedic highlights:
• The little 'yeh' or 'beh' or whatever that adorable noise Izu makes when she mimics Aruto's pose in the cold open of episode 26.
• The repeat of the 'vice president Fukuzoe is a great corpse actor' joke.
• Aruto and the entire human firefighter team getting super-excited at the thought of rescuing a bunch of pretty ladies from the first floor, and then completely going quiet when the second floor has a bunch of muscle-men instead. 
• 119nosuke's adorable running gait. 
• That poor, random reporter lady who clearly doesn't want to report on all this scary explosions and monsters fighting each other and just wants to report on her cake segment. 
• Know Your Raiders: This one is the Scouting Panda Raider, made from the Scouting Panda key. Somehow, pandas in the Zero One universe are able to use big-ass chunky sniper rifles or something. The monster suit is cool, but out of all the Raiders, this is the one that I feel bears the least resemblance to its base animal. The first time I saw it I thought it was a bug monster of some sort!
• The Gimmick Watch:
• "Inferno Wing! Burn rise! Flash rise! BURNING FALCON! The strongest wings bearing the fires of hell." That text-to-speech is so hilariously over-the-top, I love it.