Kamen Rider Zero-One E36 Review: 3D Printer Powers

Kamen Rider Zero-One, Episode 36: I Am The Ark and A Kamen Rider

I am just completely incapable of releasing these reviews in a timely fashion right around the time that they actually got released in real-time, huh? Whoops. It's a bit of a shame that these episodes actually have some decent content in them so I don't really feel like shoving them into a single review. Oh well. 

We follow up from episode 35.5 as we segue back into a 'normal' episode, and this one is... pretty interesting? Episode 36 is ultimately a huge debut of Kamen Rider Ark-Zero, our True Big Bad, our Final Big Bad of the season, and it's clear that this episode is marketed as basically the first episode of the final arc of the show. Okay, then. If not for the fact that the Ark has been around in a nebulous fashion since episode one, this could very easily be another Gold Drive situation where the final villain sort of got introduced in the final ten episodes or so.

The first part of the episode mostly focuses on Metsubojinrai.net where all four members are gathered together and they revive the Ark, which manifests in a weird black CGI goop taht turns into a weird spiky ball with a red glow. And while the Metsubojinrai.net were initially all 'as the Ark wills it', when Horobi admits that he doesn't really know how to best bring humanity's extinction, the Ark ends up blasting the Metsubojinrai peeps around, damaging Naki and taking over Horobi's body. It's some pretty neat CGI with the Ark-goop whirling around Horobi's body and all. 

Turns out that as we learn in various points in this episode, Jin have been working with Yua to fight against the Ark. We've seen hints of this in 35.5 where it's clear that Jin is disconnected from the Ark and didn't give his real Singularity to Azu, and this ultimately leads to the obligatory "Main Bad Guy beats up the secondary characters to show how powerful it is" scene. We get Ark using Horobi's body to transform into Kamen Rider Ark-Zero, who proceeds to wipe the floor with Valkyrie and Jin in both of their powered-up forms. Presumably the whole pandemic-related changes in shooting policies did make them shooting the action scenes be a bit less over-the-top, but this fight in the huge underground ruins is pretty good. There is a particularly awesome scene that flows really well when Ark-Zero kicks Valkyrie up into the ceiling and watches as she drops back down to the ground. 

Ark-Zero's design is pretty cool, mind you. It's just a broken-apart Frankenstein, but I really like that its left eye is just the creepy red orb from the Ark satellite, its 'mouthpiece' is like the black parts are partially melted off and looks kind of like a skull, and I'm a huge fan of the exposed tubes running around its shoulders. Ark-Zero himself, beyond shrugging off Jin and Valkyrie's respective fire and hornet powers, is able to instantly 3D-print the attache-briefcase weapons from his belt and use it against the others. Which is... kind of silly and probably an indication that they simply didn't have time to commission or make a new weapon for Ark-Zero, but at least the visuals look neat. 

In a bit of a contrast, Team Aruto is... sort of just hanging around? Aruto and Izu find Fuwa lining up for a fortune telling, which feels... pretty weird. It is pretty on-brand for Kamen Rider Zero-One, but I did feel like it's odd to jump from the over-the-top comedy of Mama from East Shinagawa just hamming it up by twirling her fingers and generally making a lot of exaggerated gesticulations. The actress is clearly having fun and the episode makers have too much fun making weird bell sounds and editing the blinking zoom-ins to Mama's face, but ultimately it's kind of throwaway. Fuwa's huge problem is that with the revelation that all of his origin story is fake, he's now thinking about his real family, who must have been worried about him.

Aruto ends up bringing Hakase-Bot back, talking about making a Humagear that perhaps doesn't need a human form, and this leads to the creation of Ai-chan, a little A.I. buddy that you can put in your pocket and basically looks like one of those A.I. home helper. It's honestly a bit wacky, but Fuwa ultimately talks to Ai-chan who acts a bit like a psychiatrist and tells him to keep asking himself what he truly wants. What follows isn't a particularly exciting scene, but, as Fuwa later tells us, it's just so dreadfully normal... and it's good that it's normal. Fuwa gets to spy on his family from afar, seeing his mother, father and little brother, and realizes that his habit of chuckling at terrible jokes comes from the fact that his dad is also a terrible master of the art of dad jokes. 

Jin leaves the wounded Valkyrie in the hospital, and calls Aruto, Izu and Fuwa there, and we get a scene where Yua is wracked over guilt and reveals to the others that the Ark's resurrection is her fault because she was in on Jin's conspiracy to give the Ark a form so that they can destroy it. One of the reasons given is that this will also fuck up Zaia, but Zaia's relationship with the Ark has always kind of been nebulous. And anyway, with Jin and Yua being absolutely beaten the heck up by Ark-Zero, that plan is kind of fucked. Aruto, having himself been forced by Horobi to hand over Ikazuchi's Progrise Key, is also angry. Fuwa's the only one keeping his head cool, telling Yua to recover while giving Ai-chan to accompany her. Psychiatric help -- everyone in these superhero shows needs it, and Hiden Aruto has created it. Neat!

Aruto and Fuwa get a brief conversation about what Fuwa got from conversing with Ai-chan, but it's quickly interrupted when they arrive on a bridge (it looks really familiar and no doubt has been used in other Tokusatsu shows) and we get the two biggest guns the good guys have on this show against Ark-Zero. Aruto transforms into Metal Cluster Hopper, and Fuwa goes all Rampage Gatling, and it's actually surprising how quickly these two just unleash their most powerful finishers. But Ark-Zero very easily shrugs off the metal locust swarm, the fire/ice/scorpion-tail element finisher and then Aruto's final strash attack. Because, well, it's that episode of the series where the bad guy is just utterly invincible. 

There's a bit of an odd twist where the Ark reveals that he's been using Jin's body as a host throughout this fight, and... I guess Jin's gone off to fight the Ark by himself but gets mind-controlled? Or something? I'm not sure, but Metsubojinrai.net is all under the Ark's control now. Fuwa gets tortured by the Ark a bit when it goops around Fuwa's body and we get a creepy close-up of his eyes, and then the Ark latches back to Horobi's body and the episode's huge cliffhanger is Ark-Zero blowing Aruto away. 

And... it's an episode that's basically been around since the beginning of these more serialized tokusatsu shows. The main bad guy shows up and absolutely curb-stomps everyone. But done well, it's almost always entertaining. There were some odd bits in the episode's pacing, but the contrast between Fuwa's insanely human-and-boring quest to seek more about his family and the scary 'oh shit, it's final boss time Ark/Metsubojinrai plot is pretty neat.

There's also this plot with Gai and Hiden Intelligence going on in the background, and it interestingly features Vice-President Fukuzoe Jun. Gai tells Jun to read out the advertisement about the Raid Riser, which is hilarious because the ad features an older mom with a stern look using the Raid Riser to defend her kid from a rampaging Humagear, but then you realize that this is basically a company telling everyone to buy guns to protect themselves from another race. Jun is clearly uncomfortable with the whole thing, and Gai being an absolute dick to him very nearly made him lash out if not for Yamashita stopping him. We get a brief scene of Aruto conversing with an angry Jun, who brushes off Aruto's complaints that Hiden shouldn't be making weapons with "what choice do I have?" We know from the fireman episode and the Reiwa: The First Generation movie that Jun actually is kind of nice deep down, and I would totally be down to have a background plot of vice-president Jun getting some character development in this final arc. 

Random Notes:

• The Gimmick Watch: "Ark Driver! Ark Rise! (gratuitous screaming noises) All Zero!" The Ark-Driver is... not very chatty, but I've always had a soft spot for drivers that feature ridiculous stock screaming noises. The Ark Driver's screams aren't quite as hilarious as Gentoku/Rogue's comedic over-the-top woman scream from Build, but it's still funny. 
• Speaking of Gentoku, it seems that Jin has inherited Gentoku's plot-convenient smoke-gun escape with his Inferno Wing fire-tornado form. I've always found it hilarious whenever Kamen Rider does this.
• Interestingly, I think Ark-Zero transforms with a variation of the Metal Cluster Hopper's giant locust swarm, but also with the mass of evil kanji from the Ark mental dimension. 
• At first I was so ready to groan that of course it's the girl Kamen Rider that's grievously wounded, but then realize that Ark-Zero is focusing most of his attacking efforts on Valkyrie because she's a human and the Ark hates humans. Okay!
• The Ark is also able to cause Fuwa and Yua pain when they first met him, which I suppose is thanks to the whole chip-in-the-brain thing. I'm not sure if this will be relevant in the future. 
• The Shotriser's FEVER playing when Aruto realizes that Fuwa is looking at a fortune teller is so random and hilarious. 
• Poor Naki gets bashed against a wall and has to sit out the episode, although we later see Ikazuchi watching over Naki as they're being repaired.
• Gai's talk about recontextualizing the truth for financial gain really hammers home what sort of villain he is -- the sort that you see on the news all the time. Which makes the writing for him so much more effective and the character so much more detestable. 
• There's a neat little line from Fuwa saying that in AIMS, contact with family is forbidden in order to increase their effectiveness. Which is an absolutely shitty thing to do, but it's also a practice seen in some military institutions, so it's not like this is unrealistic. 
• Ai-chan is voiced by Ichimichi Mao, best known to Super Sentai fans as Gokai Yellow from Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger and the voice of the robotic Washi Pink in Uchu Sentai Kyuranger. 
• The Ark, meanwhile, is voiced by notable anime veteran Hayami Show, whose extensive voice acting credits include Bleach's Sosuke Aizen, Fairy Tail's Ichiya, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure's Vanilla Ice and Dragon Ball Z's Zarbon.
• It's hardly noticeable until you realize what's going on, but the only scene here with extras are the first scene with Aruto, Izu and Fuwa when they see Fuwa lining up for the fortune telling. Every other scene only has the members of the cast interacting with each other.