Kamen Rider Zero-One E33 Review: Blade Runner

Kamen Rider Zero-One, Episode 33: Are Dreams Important to You?

I am somewhat behind on Zero-One, huh? Well, turns out that we're going into filler and recap episode territory thanks to a hiatus, so I guess I don't actually have a lot of episodes to catch up on. I guess I'm just not that ready to follow a series "as it airs" anymore, huh?

Episode 33 is... it's another pretty interesting episode. I do like the main Humagear plot for this one for the subversion that while the Humagear in question, Tennis Coach Love-chan, "the man beloved by the gods of tennis", is very much happy to go back into teaching his young charge, Keita, tennis again, Keita turns out to only want to do tennis as a hobby and doesn't quite have the same amount of world-cup-winning aspirations as Love-chan does. Which I can definitely relate to; sometimes hobbies just need to be hobbies, y'know? You don't have to force yourself to be super-duper into something. The Keita/Love-chan plot is perfunctory, there's a bit of a conflict about how Keita initially spins this whole story about his (non-existent) girlfriend being creeped out by a robot shaped like a grown man in his room, and while it's not quite ignored or shoved to the background, it's certainly not the main focus of this episode.

As usual, Gai continues to carry the villain ball, telling Yua to eliminate Fuwa and Naki since they've been a thorn in Zaia's side. Gai also hints at some background about Fuwa that Yua doesn't know about. There's the typical fight between Zero-One and Vulcan against Valkyrie and the Crab Bros, and throughout the fight Yua is clearly spooked or something, trying to rip out Fuwa's belt and yelling about how he should've never been a Kamen Rider in the first place. At this point in the series, though, none of the fights are technically all that tense since both Metal Cluster Hopper and Rampage Vulcan are shown to be so insanely powerful that not even the most powerful suit on the bad guys' side, Thouser, is able to match up to them.

There's an interesting bit in this episode, too, where Gai appears to send in two brand-new Crab Bros to replace the old Crab Bros, and the amount of bullet casings and the Zaia specs on the floor seem to imply that the new Crab Bros have actually killed the old Crab Bros? It's not something kosher to show on children's television in 2020, but that's a pretty cold-blooded implication. They even try to kill Yua and shoot her Raid-Riser out of her grasp, and she has to be rescued by Fuwa, who talks about how 'emotions can beat technology'. After this, Yua sort of stalks our heroes as they go through the motions of the Humagear plotline, and basically snaps when Fuwa and Aruto talks to Keita about dreams and how dreams aren't stupid... and Yua is just super-duper angry at the whole 'dreams, dreams, dreams' theme that has been thrown around all series long. Not a Faiz fan, I see.

And it's at this point that the episode gets really good. Again, as a whole series, I don't think Zero-One has been the best-paced series in terms of storytelling, but individual episodes and moments are pretty damn great. There's another huge revelation about Fuwa, as if the whole 'you've got a robot living in a chip in your head' isn't enough... Fuwa's whole tragic backstory about the Humagears attacking the hospital? That's all implanted memories, Blade Runner style! Gai has been really so intent on making Fuwa his personal goon to do this whole Kamen-Rider-escalation thing that he has implanted this whole series of traumatic memories just to fuck with Fuwa.

And poor, poor Fuwa? He just utterly breaks down and becomes completely incapable of doing anything. The poor dude has been so sure about his lot in life, about what he wants to do, but the revelation that the very genesis of his motivations as a Kamen Rider is nothing but a joke, a lie? You can't blame him for breaking down. Gai rants about how he wants to make great use of his tools...

And it's at this point that Yua Yaiba snaps. There is a lot that could be said about Yua as a character, how she's honestly a bit of a waste and reduced to a flunky in the middle portion of the series, and as the very first secondary/tertiary female Kamen Rider that hangs out for the whole season, it paints a particularly unfortunate picture...

But god damn if it isn't a badass moment when Yua finally snaps and breaks free from Gai's control. Like, for the past couple of episodes we've been seeing Yua react and flinch at the whole 'tool' thing, but she always had a soft spot for Fuwa and seeing Fuwa get so brutalized like this? Yua gets pissed, and she starts talking about how she might not have dreams, but she has principles as an engineer. Gai gets livid at the idea of Yua interrupting and addressing him while he's in a villain rant, but Yua then transforms once more into her proper Rushing Cheetah form and talks about how she won't let Gai use technology to trample on people's dreams. "Try to outrun this demon to get left in the dust" has never sounded so badass.

And then everyone transforms, and I am just such a sucker for this sort of buildup. Thouser transforms! The New Crab Bros transform! Metal Cluster Hopper transforms! Aruto ends up taking backstage for this, dealing with the Crab Bros (and taking his sweet time doing so). And we get a pretty glorious fight of Valkyrie fighting against Gai, zipping and running circles around Gai and then breaking through from the headaches of her implanted chip by remembering Fuwa's cheesy "emotions can overcome technology" line. This, in turn, inspires Fuwa to break free of his funk, and we get a cool combo of Vulcan and Valkyrie running circles around Gai with some very graet camera angles. Fuwa headbutts Gai and rants about his new new dream, which is to make the best use of the Rider system that Yua has developed. We get a fun bit of CGI animals as both Vulcan and Thouser summon their respective CGI zoo animals to beat each other up (what are these CGI animals, really?) and we get a pretty cool bit of Yua turning into Lightning Hornet, unleashing a hornet swarm and then using her finisher to kick and drill through Gai's weird purple crystal attacks and blows Gai the fuck up.

Gai has been beaten up on a weekly basis, and Yua has been a frustrating character thanks to Gai for a while now... so we get an extra scene for catharsis. We even get such a glorious scene being set, too, with a sunset and an epic background. Yua walks up to Gai, who tries to use a Zaia Spec to take control of Yua... but Yua resists and we get a hilarious scene of the normal katakana-spam that precedes a finisher attack being used... and Yua punches the SHIT out of Gai's face in slow-motion with the finisher kanji showing up around them. It's a glorious scene, and it's Yua's "letter of resignation" as she walks away. Pretty awesome scene.

Afterwards, though, is an interesting epilogue to show us what Yua is doing, and I do appreciate that Yua's going to be doing something that's more interesting than just hanging out with the Hiden boys. Horobi and Jin show up in front of Yua, and recruit her in a plan to help break Naki free from Fuwa...

Overall? Overall, there is a lot to be said about their portrayal of Yua, and just how it could be interpreted or could've been done better. Kamen Rider have always had a problem with female characters and particularly female Riders... but for all that could be said about Yua Yaiba, this is still a pretty dang great episode for her and a very, very cathartic scene to be delivering to Amatsu Gai.

Random Notes:

• Someone pointed out to me that all of Vulcan's suits have been asymmetrical, hinting to us at the Fuwa/Naki dynamic. It's most prominent in the base Vulcan suit, which is a counterpart to the very much symmetrical base Valkyrie suit. (Assault Vulcan has those reused Build ears that make the headpiece asymmetrical) They have been planning this for a while, huh?
• Thinking about it... it is a bit odd that the Humagears running rampant felt so much more dramatic and somehow involved a school in Daybreak Town when all other mentions we see (that's not from Fuwa's backstory) all just show the Hiden facilities and Hiden scientists being raided.
• "A tennis mystery... a MYSTENNIS!" God damn it, Aruto.
• This week on Izu being adorable in the background: Love-chan drops the tennis racket he's holding in shock when Keita tells everyone that he's the one that dumped Love-chan, and then Izu just expertly picks it up, twirls in and gives it back to Love-chan. 
• It's a bit of a shame that we get absolutely no presence from Naki, you'd think that they would have something to say about Fuwa's huge moment of shock. 
• One of the new crab bros is played by long-time suit actor Eitoku, known for playing many prominent secondary and tertiary riders. He's been active since Ryuki, but became particularly prolific from Den-O onwards.
• I've never noticed that Lightning Hornet's rider kick has her create a giant hornet stinger on the tip of her foot. That's pretty neat. 
• I absolutely love that for the buildup that the New Crab Bros being a bit more badass than the Old Crab Bros, when they come face to face to Aruto even the locust swarm from Aruto's transformation blasts them and knocks them around. Goons are gonna be goons, I suppose.