Kamen Rider Zero-One: Project Thouser #1

Kamen Rider Zero-One Special: Project Thouser Episode 1

Two seasons ago, Kamen Rider Build had a Blu-Ray series called ROGUE, basically acting as a little spin-off and a fill-in-the-blanks of one of the secondary riders' origin story and what they are up to behind the scenes during a period of time where the titular Rogue is on a hiatus in the show. Likewise, Ex-Aid and Ghost both had a miniseries included with their respective Blu-Ray sets that had a massive prequel for some of their secondary riders -- Kamen Rider Snipe for Ex-Aid, and a pre-Necrom Alain for Ghost. All these extra special episodes are basically sort of a given nowadays, so there wasn't really a huge surprise when they announced "Project Thouser", supposedly detailing the rise and background of Amatsu Gai and Metsubojinrai.net before the creation of Kamen Rider Thouser.

And, I watched part one of it a while back and... it's basically a clip-show recap episode with a bunch of additional scenes thrown in here and there with Gai pontificating in the background. It's not like it's devoid of story, of course. Showing the events of the show's first eight episodes or so and what Gai is doing in the background with his goons Naki and Yua is a pretty interesting thing to do, and, if nothing else, Naki ends up being the spotlight of the episode as they actually goes through a significant amount of character development, going from being a generic fanatical tool that obeys Gai into someone who actually questions things and tries to end up subverting and working towards their own version of human/humagear coexistence.

A huge majority of the first half is basically Gai just observing what's going on as Zaia Enterprise just compiles data on Zetsumerise and Progrise Keys, and we get to see Gai actually making good on his work, using Naki, who is technically fully loyal to Gai, to hand over Zetsumerise keys to Horobi and cause him to start the whole Magear uprising in the first episode, and Gai is basically the reason behind the arms race between Metsubojinrai.net and Zero-One, introducing new Zetsumerise Keys into the fold to provoke Satellite There to craft more power-ups for Zero-One, to Gai's decision to supply AIMS with actual Progrise Keys, and, thereby, allowing Gai to record more data for the creation of Thouser. At one point, Naki even gives Horobi a spare Force-Riser, which Horobi would give to Jin.

Of course, eventually after hearing Horobi's rhetoric about how humagears should not be slaves one time too much, and hearing Gai's insistence that tools are just nothing but tools, poor Naki ends up clutching their headphones and just baffled about the huge existential question: "who am I?" And tying in with the episodes that would've been airing back in April, Naki also tries to discuss Yaiba Yua with Gai, noting that she's so loyal that she might as well as be an A.I., and Gai's whole "tools that are no longer useful will be discarded" mentality.

And finally, the most interesting bits are, of course, the final part of the Metsubojinrai.net arc, where Gai and Yua are overseeing the creation of the Giga robots... and Naki finally questions Gai why it's necessary to create another machine to enforce the obedience of the Humagears, who are already programmed to obey humans. Gai's answer, of course, is a bitchslap to Naki's face because Gai's kind of a cunt. This display ends up causing Naki to finally try and pick a side, giving Horobi the Amazing Hercules progrise key, and informing Horobi about the existence of Giga -- which, I feel, is the biggest blow that Metsubojinrai.net dealt AIMS and, therefore, Zaia.

Gai, of course, has been eavesdropping, but poor, poor Naki is still conflicted, not really subscribing into Horobi's extinction agenda... but, unfortunately, it is motherfucking Gai, who rants about how Naki is a misbehaving tool... and ends up shooting Naki straight in the chest with a real-ass revolver. What the fuck, Gai. This scene happens simultaneously with Horobi unleashing the finisher that put Fuwa in the hospital, and considering the whole Fuwa/Naki thing that happens chronologically later in the show, it's actually a neat little parallel. Not so much, y'know, Gai cold-bloodedly shooting Naki in the chest, but we all know Gai's a cunt.

Overall, though, the Naki stuff is fine, but I do really think that the episode could've had a bit more substance in it, a bit more Naki/Horobi and Naki/Gai scenes instead of spending so much on recycled clips. Still, while not ideal, it's kind of a fun little special. 

Random Notes:

• I have mentioned it before, but there was an "Aruto vs Tarou" short that was released a while back. It's pretty fun, but basically just a bit of a recap of some of the forms of the suits in the show as well as some chances for puns and comedy, before showing that the Humagear Progrise Keys to restore the actual Humagear from a blank one. 
• Another special episode released recently is "Perfect Assistant Izu's Lecture Room", with the first episode having Izu giving Aruto a quiz on famous quotes or something, with the actors for Aruto and Izu sort of barely holding it in as their characters. It's ultimately kind of just there, though. 
• This episode makes a lot of usage of Yua's behaviour early on of her recording Aruto and Zero-One's behaviour, which we now know is because she's working for Zaia, but it's never actually hammered home that she's actually collecting 'combat data' for Gai. 
• Apparently the Amazing Hercules key that Horobi randomly uses at one point is actually on loan from Naki, who stole it from Gai. Okay, that answers that completely random key's appearance. 
• Jin's Force-Riser is apparently salvaged alongside Naki's body, so they actually have a Kamen Rider form? I'm excited to see it!