Kamen Rider Zero One E44 Review: Everybody Riot

Kamen Rider Zero-One, Episode 44: There's Only One Person Who Can Stop You

As we enter the penultimate episode of Kamen Rider Zero-One... it's pretty clear that the show's just bull-rushing on, yeah? I'm pretty sure they do have a plan for how the broad strokes of the show is going to end, but it's also clear that after the post-Gai-redemption arc, the episodes are really... condensed. Call it jumping the shark (jumping the biting shark?) if you want to, call it bad pacing caused by the shorter episode quota, or simply them not having the resources to shoot the episodes they wanted to due to the pandemic... I dunno. Ever since the Gai-redemption arc and beating up the Ark in its disembodied voice state, everything has just been all over the place. Exciting, sure, there's still the fun thrill of seeing these characters do action scenes and beat each other up. But there's also the nagging sense that the story is just all over the place, and none of the themes that the show has been emphasizing or exploring in the first 35-40 episodes really felt like it stuck. And it's a shame, if the contents of the past two or three episodes have been given more breathing room... it's basically all my complaints about the end of the original Horobi/Jin arc, but compounded. 

Because of Horobi's speech about how president Aruto is now the Ark, somehow it causes city-wide (nation-wide?) Humagear riots because all the Humagears are confused on whether Aruto has betrayed them, or if Metsubojinrai.net is right all along. Aruto's not providing any answers, so they just kind of riot with banners with words. And this just feels pretty weird, y'know? A good chunk of the Metal Cluster Hopper arc and the Aruto-restoring-Humagears-by-himself arc revolves around just how beloved Aruto is. I find that it's a bit of a bizarre jump for the Humagears who adore Aruto to suddenly be out on the streets crying for blood or whatever. And, sure, there is Williamson from Zaia egging things on, but it feels very convoluted that there's a huge strike of random Humagears crying out for Aruto to come out of his office.

Also, they seem to be a lot more sentient, but while it's not stated I'm going to chalk that up to Aruto restoring Humagears and giving them all a choice during his Hiden Ltd. storyline. And with what's going on in many parts of the world, I guess it's not too much of a stretch that a bit too much freedom would lead to riots all the time. 

Aruto, meanwhile, is just having headaches and mental images of Azu's shoulder slinking over his shoulder and hugging him from behind. That's actually a pretty cool shot. The episode then basically cuts back and forth between four places of conflict -- the vice president's group in Hiden Intelligence dealing with a riot; Williamson and AIMS dealing with a different riot in the streets; Aruto meeting Fuwa and Naki; and Horobi meeting Ikazuchi Raiden. And you know what? These scenes are great. The acting is great, the writing and cinematography are all right, and the emotions do hit me right where it's supposed to. It's just that the buildup to this payoff just isn't there. The themes and concepts they want to talk about is there, of course. Raiden and Yua both emphasize that humans essentially gave Humagears their hearts in trying to convince the people they're arguing against. Fukuzoe, Naki and Fuwa all talk about Aruto's dreams. There's a thematic connection, but, again, due to the suddenness of this whole all-the-humagears-riot storyline, it just doesn't quite feel that well-paced. 

I think Fukuzoe's scenes might be my favourite, although that might be because I've found myself with a certain fondness for Fukuzoe, Yamashita and Shesta. Ai-chan even makes a little cameo, telling Fukuzoe to go catch his own dream, and Fukuzoe is resolved at being 'number one at being a second-in-command'. There's a pretty cool, dramatic moment when Fukuzoe bows down and begs the rioting Humagears to believe in Aruto, followed by Shesta and Yamashita. That's pretty cool. Horobi and Raiden... it's the shortest of the scenes, but Raiden's cool-big-bro attitude gets rejected by Horobi, who asks Raiden "what if it's your precious brother that got killed by humans" to which he has no answer. 

Also pretty cool is giving Yua something to do, and those two Crab Bros that sort of hung around Yua but gets dropped when AIMS itself sort of shuffled into the background are clearly conflicted about following Williamson's "kill 'em all" attitude. But Yua shows up, tells AIMS that Gai pulled some strings to make AIMS an independent organization again. A random Humagear catgirl whacks Yua until her head is bleeding, but she doesn't fight and AIMS all throws their guns down because they are moved by Yua's words about how the justice they're fighting doesn't involve shooting these Humagears to death for no reason. A bit of a clunky speech, but okay. 

Fuwa and Naki confronting Aruto is the big obligatory action scene, and we get a random new form out of it somehow? Aruto is in a fugue-like state of 'I've done something irredeemable, there's no going back', while Fuwa tells Aruto that if he fights Horobi, all the Humagears will see humanity as an enemy. Again, I kind of get where they're going from. If the Humagears see the one most benevolent human ally they have kill a Humagear, then they'll get furious, but the show really doesn't depict this particularly well at all. Naki, meanwhile, is just straight-up furious. They're raising their voice! Naki screams at Aruto, asking him if he's given up on his dreams and how he's betraying all the Humagears who trusted him. 

Then Naki, forgetting that they also have a Rider form (or combining with Fuwa again, that's like, something they could do), just chucks their key to Fuwa and lets Fuwa transform into a brand new form. And, sure, Orthus Vulcan's pretty neat as a random recoloured form, but it also literally comes out of nowhere. Why does Naki's key work and Fuwa's key doesn't? We get a frankly simple melee fight between Orthus Vulcan and Aruto in his Zero-Two form (so he isn't fully in Ark-mode, huh) but ultimately Aruto just rips Orthus Vulcan's Wolverine claws off and his shotriser blows up mid-punch. It's honestly kind of underwhelming. 

Fuwa asks Aruto what's going to happen to his dream after he kills Horobi, but Aruto just completely ignores him... although we do get a scene of Aruto clearly being conflicted enough to ask Zea what to do. We get to see Papa Ichigata, though not what their clearly final-episode-redemption conversation ends up being. Speaking of what's clearly going to be a final-episode development, Gai gathers Yua and Fuwa to help him restore Jin, because Williamson has trusted him with Jin's little hearing aid thing.

Azu, meanwhile, is hanging out with Horobi on a rooftop, telling him to kill Aruto, destroy humanity and make his dreams come true and gives Horobi an extinction driver. The episode ends with Horobi and Aruto facing off each other in a televised fight, and this causes the Humagears calmed down by Fukuzoe and Yua to riot again, and the two of them transforms with Horobi having a brand new Ark-Scorpion form. And scene, next episode time. Pretty obvious that we're building up towards a last-minute redemption, but, again, with the pretty lackluster buildup in the final arc, it's hard to really get super excited about it.

Again, it's messy. Orthus Vulcan really came out of nowhere and feels like a desperate attempt to sneak in a random cheap repaint form before the series is over, and it's not like the fight is particularly exciting or particularly significant. I would've liked it more if it was Fuwa fighting as a regular human, or Fuwa and Naki actually working together to try and demonstrate to Aruto the human/humagear combo... but I dunno. this episode's just kind of messy, like the rest of this final arc. We'll see if the final episode can actually salvage this into a satisfying ending. 

Random Notes:

• Somewhere around this time we've got two episodes of the Kamen Rider Zero-One Short Anime: Everyone's Daily Life. It's cute wackiness, although nothing particularly noteworthy to talk about. It's nice to see everyone friendly instead of having terrorist wars and riots, though! 
• I'm disappointed but also, at this point, not surprised that Naki doesn't transform and instead tosses their key to Fuwa because Fuwa's a dude. Like, they couldn't even put in a simple 'Ark can hack into Force Riser' explanation? I dunno. 
• Naki is kind of ignored by the plot at large, but they do get a pretty dramatic shot near the end of the episode where they spin around and a helicarrier moves ominously above their head. That's such an unnecessarily dramatic shot, I like it. 
• I absolutely love the fact that Gai's 'Thouser Division' office is like in a random electrical room, yet he's set up an office desk and is still drinking darjeeling tea. You can take the boss out of the office but you can't take the boss out of the man. 
• After it becoming such a stupid running gag in his redemption arc, it's kind of bizarre that Gai's robot dog buddy just utterly disappears. 
• There's a nice bit of shot where Aruto is beating Fuwa up as Zero-Two, but we still have brief flashes to the Ark-One suit doing violence. 
• The Gimmick Watch:
• "Japanese wolf! Shot rise. ORTHUS VULCAN! Awakening the instincts of two beasts long lost." It's finisher is 'Orthus Blast Fever', although we don't get any fancy katakana stuff. 
• "Ark Scorpion! Progrise! Ark! Taste destruction. Know ruin. Feel despair. Experience Extinction. ARK SCORPION! The conclusoin after evil climbs the top of the highest mountain of rock."
• Know your monster: Orthus is a two-headed giant wolf from Greek mythology. Not to be confused with the Cerberus.