Kamen Rider Zero-One E30 Review: Izu Protection Brigade

Kamen Rider Zero-One, Episode 30: After All, I am a President and a Kamen Rider

We're almost caught up, and episode 30 is our little new status quo setter for this new arc of Zero-One, and while the first two arcs focused on a different set of villains, I guess this upcoming one is going to focus on Metsubojinrai.net and Thouser fighting each other? Or something? I realize that I have been perhaps too hard on the Thouser arc, but I really do find that while the individual episodes and two-parters are pretty entertaining on their own, they moved really slowly particularly when you're watching an episode per week. I'm sure it actually works a lot better in binge, but I did find a lot of the competition episodes to be pretty repetitive. I still do enjoy Zero-One a fair bit.

Anyway, the episode starts off pretty quickly with a bit of a reinforcement of the new status quo. Gai's president of Hiden, he's also forcibly shut down all Humagears and ordered a recall, giving everyone a Zaia Spec in exchange for their scrapped Humagear. There are random Humagears being dumped all over the place (aren't these things expensive?) and scaring boba tea buying schoolgirls, while Aruto goes around collecting these spare robots. We get a couple more scene-setting scenes like Gai being interviewed on television and repeating his rhetoric and stuff, and we get Aruto and Jin hanging out near Daybreak town and bemoaning their situation.

We get a bit of a belated explanation regarding Jin's resurrection, and while there's still obviously something more to be told regarding the circumstances of Jin's rebirth, he basically does mention that his fight with Aruto made him realize the sort of robo-liberator he wants to be. He wants to not rule over his friends like humans, because that doesn't make him better than humans. Meanwhile, Aruto... actually sort of supports this, since he doesn't think humans and robots are all that different, always treating them all equally thanks to the fact that he was raised by a robo-dad and a Humagear death hurts as much as a real human death.

Gai, meanwhile, sends out his lackeys to erase all Humagear data, and AIMS has now been converted into basically a Humagear-hunting death squad, and Yua leads a bunch of soldiers that use the Invading Horsehoe key to turn into a bunch of these actually cool-looking soldiers called Battle Raiders. Jin, having a lot of his friends destroyed, attacks the AIMS goons with vengeance, while Yua gets a bit of cold feet when she rants about how "Humagears are tools", clearly still shaken from her realization that, hey, for all her bluster, she is Gai's tool. Fuwa shows up talking about how he wants Yua to have a proper, real dream, and Fuwa talks about his own dream -- destroying Zaia, because Zaia was the one behind the Humagears going berserk in the first place. Character development, in my single-minded vengeance-driven characters? God job, Fuwa!

We get a pretty cool rematch between Vulcan and Valkyrie, and Rampage Vulcan's attack that we don't get to see last episode, Element Rampage, has him unleash a pretty cool fire meteor swarm thing and and icy ground-spike attack, before blowing up the two crab mooks with the scorpion tail-stinger. AIMS goes off licking their wounds and chasing after Jin, while Aruto and Fuwa talk a bit about brain chips and stuff. We cut away to Gai, and turns out that Aruto and Jin are apparently not as dumb as they look, because both the Zero One Driver and Izu are gone from Aruto's secret lab. For whatever reason, Gai doesn't destroy those two first? He's such a vengeful dick that you'd think that that would be first in terms of priority, but okay. Turns out, though, that Satellite Zea (or Satellite There) has no data left.

Jin has stolen Izu and rendezvouses with Aruto at a random warehouse, where Aruto's master plan is to restore the humagears with the progrise key that stored their data in. Which, presumably thanks to TV-show-contrivance, means that Aruto simply just has all the Humagear data right now that he steals from Satellite There. As soon as Izu wakes up, though, Jin just drags Izu away and rants about how she needs to live free without orders from Satellite There or the Ark, that she is more than just her function of serving the Hiden President. Aruto runs up and I think it's a pretty neat moment that Aruto almost instantly agrees with Jin, telling Izu that she's her own girl now and she has to decide what she wants to do from now on. Izu, meanwhile, is baffled, because all she knows is being the president's secretary.

We get a pretty cool shot of Gai showing up with his secret agent goons, a helicopter in the background and his dorky umbrella, and then he proceeds to monologue and then shoot Aruto with a fucking real-ass gun. Of course, this is the point where the episode cuts to Yua revealing that Satellite There has no data, and Aruto stands up to show that he's got all the Progrise Keys under his jacket, and Mamoru's key (bless Mamoru) blocked the bullet.

We get the action scene, of course, with Thouser and the two horseshoe goons transforming, but a non-transformed Jin just holds back the horseshoe duo in a pretty badass scene. Aruto tries to transform, and... he isn't authorized! Oh no, the catchphrase we've been hearing for the past 30 episodes is actually relevant, since Aruto is no longer an employee in Hiden, so he's no longer actually authorized to use Hiden's driver! Being a superhero, though, Aruto charges in even without transforming to protect Izu, getting beaten up and nearly roasted with flames before, of course, we get a pretty cool scene of the flames revealing Aruto's Rising Hopper form and going "I am Zero-One!" from within the flames, and saying his "the only one that can stop you" catchphrase.

The subsequent action scenes are pretty great, particularly that bit where Aruto summons that metal shard slash that takes out the two horseshoe mooks in a single slice. Aruto fights a bit in his base form (which I do appreciate) before pulling out old faithful, Metal Cluster Hopper, and we get a pretty neat sequence where Aruto unleashes a bunch of tiny metal grasshoppers that turn into a metal cluster clone that blocks Thouser's attack, before forming a Faiz-style cone that Aruto uses to kick Thouser's ass straight into a mountain.

Satellite There apparently acknowledges Aruto, and throughout the scene where Aruto and Gai are arguing earlier, Izu has been making Humagear noises... and apparently she reached singularity (it's a bit of an anticlimactic off-handed way that Gai reveals this, actually) and has basically made Aruto the president of a newly-founded company, and also something something Aruto now has the rights for Humagears and the Zero-One Driver. A bit of a cop-out, but not as huge as it could be. Gai slinks off, and we get a brief bit of Horobi meeting up with Jin, talking about how unexpected it is that Jins befriending humans. Jin's clearly somewhat taken in with Aruto's mentality of human/robot equality, but brushes it off as using Aruto to get the humagear data. The episode ends with Aruto and Izu setting up a small company on a random building, and closes off with an Aruto joke. A bit of a rocky episode as we start off this arc, but it looks pretty promising, I feel.

Random Notes:

• I know that it's hard for the show to do otherwise, but the fact that apparently all the Humagears in Japan are basically exactly the Humagears that donated their Progrise Keys to Aruto during the Metal Cluster arc, and that it contains the data of ALL the Humagears within like the two dozen keys Aruto has is very ridiculous. What about, say, Ichikyunosuke, whose story happened after Metal Cluster? Or Shester? Or Match's older-lady coworker? 
• Also, a Zaia spec seems to be a pretty shitty replacement for what's essentially someone capable of doing extra work. No matter how much of a powerful PDA the Zaia spec is, it won't really help in like, firefighter or medical work, is it, compared to a couple of extra hands?
• There is a 10-minute special released recently called "Aruto vs. Gut-busting Tarou" which does kind of say that Aruto basically has all the Humagear data, so I suppose it's a case of "it's a children's show, don't worry too much about the logistics". I'm not going to review that special because it's short and mostly just a bunch of gags, but hey, it exists. 
• Said special does show that apparently, when inserted into the Shot-riser, the Humagear Progrise Keys are able to turn any blank Humagear into a version of the Humagear whose data is in the key, so that's likely something that's going to be a plot point later. 
• Gai is being interviewed on a show called "THEPRESIDENT", which, uh, apparently interviews CEO's and stuff. 
• I think this is the first time that I realize that the Inferno Wing CGI bird buddy actually has its wings all detach and they wrap around Jin. That's pretty cool. 
• The vice president duo make a brief little role talking to Gai, praising and boot-licking him. One of their lines of dialogue is "eternally 24!" which is hilarious. 
• The Gimmick Watch:
• "Hard! Raid rise!" Really, the fact that a horseshoe crab's ability is apparently just straight-up 'hard' is hilarious. The name of the key is invading horseshoe, but nope, 'invade' isn't its ability. 
• This is the first time we see Vulcan's Element Rampage, and it's the polar bear, scorpion and tiger. 
• Know Your Raiders: The Horseshoe Crab is... actually a modern-day aquatic crustacean, and is contrasted to the Magia's foot-soldier, the Trilobite magia, an ancient aquatic crustacean. That's neat!