Kamen Rider Zero-One E31 Review: Customer Service

Kamen Rider Zero-One, Episode 31: Take Off Towards Your Dream

I sort of fell behind on Zero-One, whoops. I guess it's me just not being bothered to watch shows weekly? Anyway, episode 31 is basically the proper of the Hiden Manufacturing Co. Ltd. arc and stuff, and it's kind of interesting that the show still basically feels fresh? I don't know. The show feels fresh because it feels like we're starting off with a clean slate, but on the other hand I also do feel like a good chunk of the show's revelations haven't had that huge of an impact or are just kinda-sorta there, so I dunno. Zero-One is a show with a charismatic cast and it's a very solid season regardless of how it ends, but I'm not sure about the macro storytelling as a whole.

Anyway, we're bringing back a couple more former guest stars from previous episodes, and I do like just how much Zero-One draws from older character-of-the-week episodes. This time around, the one that shows up is Ishizumi-sensei, the manga writer, who smuggles G-Pen in a box and asks Aruto to fix him. The whole crux of the episode basically hinges on the question of whether Humagears are going to want to continue doing their job even after the whole reboot thing and them being disconnected from Satellite Zea, and I do like just how much panic is in Aruto's face as he's genuinely not sure how other Humagears will react. Sure, Izu's basically his BFF or something, but what about the others? How does G-Pen feel towards Ishizumi without the whole 'ordered to serve humans' protocol? G-Pen and Ishizumi's relationship, while clearly improved at the end of their debut episode, is also one of the more exploitative ones at the beginning of their episode, so it adds another layer to it.

And G-Pen is just utterly confused, mostly because he can't connect to Zea, but also because Jin is basically stalking the outside of the new Hiden Company and abducts G-Pen immediately afterwards, trying to basically get him to be 'free'... without really thinking too much about what it entails. Not all Humagears have achieved singularity, and not all of them are as free-thinking or independent as Jin and Izu are, after all. G-Pen sort of wanders around, scaring the populace (who are still scared of Humagears) before he freezes up in front of a manga exhibition. All the while, Ishizumi tells Aruto that, no, he doesn't want G-Pen to basically be his permanent assistant, but he sees the talent in G-Pen and wants to help him be a proper standalone mangaka, so yay. The conclusion of the G-Pen story in this episode is obvious, but the acting is, as usual, pretty well done and pretty dang heartwarming. The whole message revolves around dreams, G-Pen's dream, Aruto's dream, Jin's dream, and all that stuff. It's cheesy, but, again, very well-done and very on-brand for Kamen Rider.

Gai, of course, still continues to be a grade-A douchebag, and decides to go and actually crush Aruto's company and go around destroying Humagears if they're going to be a problem for him, and sics Yua to murder G-Pen... but Yua, of course, isn't an idiot and realizes what G-Pen is doing -- looking for manga advertisements and stuff, and the display with Aruto really ends up making Yua reconsider. Of course, there's also Aruto ranting about how G-Pen is more than just a tool, but a person with hopes and dreams, and poor Yua just keeps flashing back to all the times that Gai explicitly calls her nothing but a tool.

This leads to a very nasty scene for Gai where he gets all angry and knocks his pretentious chest set on his desk, ranting about how Yua should be a proper mindless tool and kill whoever Gai tells her to kill, how she isn't allowed to make her judgement at all. I haven't agreed at all with the decision to demote Yua into basically Gai's minion for a majority of the Thouser arcs, but this is definitely leading to a huge Yua defying Gai moment, and I'm definitely anticipating it. Yua's still mostly a goon in this episode, though, fighting Fuwa in the Zaia parking lot in a very brief fight. She steals the Assault Wolf Key at the end of the fight, I think? It's interesting. Is she finally going to get a proper Valkyrie upgrade?

The final fight of the episode takes place in front of Hiden Co Ltd, with Gai and his two horseshoe crab goons fighting against Metal Cluster Hopper in an attempt to literally strongarm the Humagear data from Aruto, but then Jin swoops in to help out Aruto, because Jin's slowly becoming a good boy. Jin realizes that all of Aruto's rants about dreams is basically what helps humagears to reach singularity, which is super-duper cheesy but honestly pretty sensible for human-like robots to become true people, y'know? Jin one-shots the crab bros, and then do a dual finisher to blow up Gai and it's pretty satisfying.

The episode's also got framing scenes with a neat bit of Aruto thinking of a motto for Hiden Co. Ltd, starting the episode with a brush and trying to think of something to write, before ending up with "Take Off Towards Your Dream", which is the text-to-speech things that newly activated Humagears say, but also fits with the very 'follow your dream' theme of the episode as a whole. Overall, a solid one.

Random Notes:

• There are some extra stuff that have been released in addition to the Aruto-vs-Tarou stuff. We've got part one of Project Thouser, and something called Izu's Classroom. We'll get to those eventually. Using the humagear progrise keys to basically restore the data of humagears we've seen before is foreshadowed in the Aruto-vs-Tarou special.
• The episode ends with Izu fixing a humagear, and then using progrise keys to restore other humagears. I like that Aruto and Izu goes for good ol' Shesta first, but then Shesta talks about how she's not quite appropriate for the setting and summons Festival Entertainer Matsurida Zed, and dances around all happy-like with a Hapi coat. that's fun. Izu and Zed dancing around Aruto is fun. 
• I do like Jin yelling about how "partner is just a word for tool with a couple of extra steps" towards Aruto, but then even though he gets his way G-Pen is still a confused robot after the abduction. Poor Jin. 
• Horobi shows up a bit to bother Jin halfway through the episode when he panics over G-Pen leaving him, which I forgot to mention in the body of the review. He basically talks about how the only way to ensure this is to make sure humans are not the dominant species. An extremist, that Horobi. 
• Gai rides around in a Mercedes-Benz. 
• Fuwa using Yua's Hornet ability against Yua is cool, summoning a giant hornet that splits into little hornets. I also really like the very smooth action sequence of Fuwa tossing Yua around using a combination of mammoth and gorilla powers.