Kamen Rider Zero-One E35.5 Review: Clipshow Plus

Kamen Rider Zero-One, Episode 35.5: How Was Metsubojinrai Created?

Okay, we're back! After around a month or so of dubbed-over clipshows, we're finally back with mostly-new content. I say mostly-new, because this episode is still around 40% clipshows and flashbacks, but the majority of the episode is newly-shot footage. Obviously, because of the whole Coronavirus pandemic thing. But since this episode actually is pretty plot-heavy and does have a fair amount of neat character analysis, I'll talk about it a bit.

The premise of this episode is somewhat similar with the past couple of clip-shows, where there is a bit of a justification made for a character to revisit past events. And this time around, it's the proper introduction of long-haired Izu... or 'Azu', as she introduces herself. Styling herself as the ark's personal emissary and secretary, Azu is a bit more... playful than Izu, clearly happy to nag and poke fun at the more stern and serious Metsubojinrai.net characters. Azu wants to find out about the Singularity Points of the four Metsubojinrai characters.

And talking about the Singularity Points and true motivations of these characters makes for a lot more fun of an episode than just 'oh hey look at all the characters in the past 30 episodes, have some action scenes tossed in' vibe of the past couple of clipshows. First up is, of course, Horobi, because Horobi is a character that the show's actually shown the character development of. Horobi is still pretty tsundere and refuses to admit that he's anything but an Ark-loving one-note fanatic, but Azu points out that not everything Horobi does is "it is as the Ark wills" or whatever, and we get that flashback of Horobi protecting Jin without any orders from the Ark during that one fight with Metal Cluster Zero-One. There's no real surprise here, but Azu teasing Horobi about how he's got a 'papa's face' is kind of cute, and, well, that's Horobi's singularity point. Being a father. And with a Malice Learning Ability sound, Azu uses a new Progrise Key to suck a bunch of weird digital data from Horobi's head. Also, I do like it that all of these scenes are basically taking place in a part of the Metsubojinrai base, particularly this weird little interview living room with a giant glowing white globe on the center of the room.

Next up is Ikazuchi, a character that has easily been the least interesting and least developed among the Metsubojinrai.net base. I still claim that having him have a closer tie to Assassin-chan would've worked a lot better, because Ikazuchi has around a single episode's worth of screentime to him since everything else in the previous episode involves his 'shell' personality. Like Horobi, Ikazuchi claims that it's all about the Ark for him, but Azu mocks his insistence on "Ark-sama LOVE" and does the same thing as what she did with Horobi, pointing out that Ikazuchi is all about being a big brother. Another member interviewed, and another member down.

The third member is Naki, and, interestingly, we also got a bunch of extra scenes taken from Project Thouser. That's neat. Naki doesn't have any memory of their pre-Zaia origins, and Azu gives us a bunch of exposition. Hiden had created Naki to become a systems engineer, and as Naki got some character development in the recent arc of the main show, Azu tells Naki (and us) that Naki's basically had a variant of her old duties as a system engineer. There's an interesting bit where Azu really focuses on 'what are you originally created for?' when talking to the first three Metsubojinrai.net characters. It's an interesting take on Naki, whose newfound dream of 'I will help Horobi's dream even though I don't have one of my own' is read by Azu as Naki fighting for Humagears, noting that Naki's singularity point is Humagears. Okay, sure. That tracks, I suppose.

And then we cut to a bit of Jin discussing his origins with... Aruto? Aruto (actually Azu with a hologram) is pushy about wanting to know what model of humagear Jin originally was, and how it definitely is related to his singularity. Jin, though, notes that it's his hatred for humans that Horobi pushed him in the first arc of the show that ended up having him reach singularity, which tracks with what we know, because, well, we actually did see Jin approaching singularity in the show. Jin's claim that his singularity point is Horobi because Horobi's teachings and eventual death was what ended up with him having a huge hatred for humanity in general, but there's the implication that this isn't the whole story. After all, while that might be true for Jin in the first major story arc, in the second Thouser-centric story arc it's certainly not the case.

Azu (and we can presume the Ark) doesn't actually know how Jin got revived after his death at the hands of Zero-One in the first arc of the show, though, and was pretty pushy in wanting to know that information... but Jin's keeping it close to his chest for now. It's notable, of course, as the flashbacks remind us, that Jin's not actually connected to the Ark like Horobi and the others are. There's an interesting flashback to where Horobi and Jin were entering an alliance to liberate Naki, and I think it's implied that it's Azu and/or the Ark (are they even different at this point?) taking over Horobi and giving him the instructions. Okay, sure? Azu then does the 'Malice Learning Ability' thing on Jin, but notably, unlike the previous three, we didn't actually see the red digital glitter lights leave Jin's head. It's going to be interesting to see what bearing this is going to have in the future of the show.

Azu leaves, though, and claims that she's obtained every single singularity data, and it seems like Jin's sabotaging her efforts? She doesn't notice, though, and goes back into the digital realm of the Ark and talks with the Ark as it reverts into the creepy red-and-black hellscape with screaming and moving words... and we get to see the newest Kamen Rider, a mysterious black thing with seemingly mismatched parts and one glowing red eye. This is the Ark itself, it seems. Okay, I guess we have our final villain.

And we're still not quite sure who Jin is working with at this point, but Jin calls someone after Azu has left, telling whoever is on the phone that 'everything is according to plan' and that the Ark is finally reviving. Who is Jin working with? Aruto? Gai? Either one of these must have been the one that is responsible for bringing Jin back to life, unless there's some other faction that I forgot about. Either way, it's certainly an interesting setup for the final arc of the show. I'm quite hyped.

Random Notes:

• The past four weeks had us the "President Special", "Shooting Special" and "Super Job War" clip-shows, dubbed over by the actors of Aruto, Izu, Fuwa and Yua. It's a neat way to give us some technically new content while the Coronavirus pandemic prevented shooting, but other than the President Special, the others are basically Yua and Aruto making tongue-in-cheek jabs at Fuwa. The President Special basically is a bit of a foreshadowing to this little episode and the introduction of Azu, where Azu masquerades as Izu and tries to get Aruto to tell her all about the Zero-One data that she's going to be gathering on the Ark's behalf. 
• I'm not going to review any of the clipshows, but I am working on a review of the Reiwa: The First Generation movie. 
• "Azu" is a lot more natural to type than "As". I know that's the official spelling, but practically everyone out there uses her katakana spelling, so I'm going to use it. 
• The digital Aruto that Azu uses to talk to Jin is an obvious bit of "the main character has to show up in every episode, no matter what" policy that these shows often have. 
• Malice Learning Ability.
• We didn't actually see Horobi, Naki or Ikazuchi do anything after their respective Malice Learning Ability scenes, and I'm not sure if Azu taking their Singularity Points is going to  actually turn them back into soulless robots after this. 
• This episode's sister show, Mashin Sentai Kiramager, had a bit more of an elaborate episode, but it's obvious that they're also working with the pandemic in mind because the cast only cycles around three sets (and the plotline involves a Groundhog Day time-loop, which probably made shooting easier) and the action scenes are notably a bit more truncated -- they even made a gag on how quickly and stock-footage-centric the giant robot action scene is. Not to complain, though, they're working the best with what they can. Safety is more important!