Kamen Rider Zero-One: Others Vulcan & Valkyrie

 Kamen Rider Zero-One: Others: Vulcan & Valkyrie

Now the set-up of Kamen Rider Zero-One Others Metsubojinrai is an interesting one. All four members of the Metsubojinrai.net organization gets fused together into a berserking warrior that doesn't seem to be in control of themselves; while Yua is ordered to exterminate them by any means necessary. Which leads to this final confrontation between all the secondary characters in Zero-One, and, as far as I can tell, the final chapter for Kamen Rider Zero-One as a whole. 

Except... this movie is paced rather oddly. For all the faults about the oddities of reusing plot points and not building up the necessity of the 'ultimate uncontrollable berserk form' that is Kamen Rider Metsubojinrai, Others: Metsubojinrai at least utilizes most of its characters well. Horobi, Jin and the antagonist Arkland get a lot of decent screentime for them to monologue their viewpoints, while Yua, Fuwa and the two less-prominent Metsubojinrai characters at least show up enough to remind the audience of what they're doing. 

And this movie, for a movie titled "Vulcan and Valkyrie"... really doesn't feature Vulcan and Valkyrie a whole ton, does it? Or Valkyrie at all, because she just gets bedridden in a hospital for almost the entirety of the second act? It's kind of a huge, huge shame. A huge problem that I also have is that the movie dances around the fact that Metsubojinrai.net's members are kind of... not in their right mind and are forced into a gestalt entity by the Mass Brain system. And it's not like Zero-One as a show hasn't dealt with an out-of-control character not in their right mind with Aruto and Horobi in their respective tenures as Kamen Rider Ark-Zero. But everyone just handwaves Metsubojinrai as trying to commit suicide by becoming the 'evil to be eliminated' by the heroes that are Kamen Rider Vulcan and Valkyrie, and... and the fact that we don't really give Horobi, Jin, Naki and Ikazuchi screentime to explain themselves feel weird -- especially considering the values and the themes that Kamen Rider Zero-One as a show has been emphasizing. It's definitely a tragic and very interesting ending to the characters, but it's also one that feels unsatisfying, I feel. 

The movie itself... I have a bit less to talk about because it's kind of straightforward. Kamen Rider Metsubojinrai rampages around, and Yua ends up being caught in a conflict of having standing orders to kill Kamen Rider Metsubojinrai, or to try and talk them down. 

There's also the Sold subplot, which... yeah, it was interesting to see where it's going to go in the Mestubojinrai movie, and the actors they picked for the main Sold guy, the main Sold girl, and the burly Sold with a jacket are competent enough, but everyone in the Solds are pretty much one-dimensional about how they're either pro-murder-the-humans or pro-coexistence-with-the-humans. Again, there's an underlying message about how Mestubojinrai.net's cause can easily be interpreted into two different 'justices'. Or how 'just because the decision is the majority doesn't mean it's right'. but the movie doesn't really do enough to build up the Sold characters for me to care; and the conclusion ends up being kind of taken away from their hands since it's Fuwa and the Metsubojinrai entity doing most of the fighting. 

There's a lot of these talks -- Fuwa admonishing how justice can be used as an excuse to commit violence. Or Yua telling the girl Sold that doubts shouldn't be quashed, but rather discussed. We do get a bit of a motivation rant. Yua wants to protect all life. Fuwa plays by his own rules, protecting everything he likes and destroying everything he doesn't like. Both eventually lead to 'justice comes from the heart'. It's... again, this is all acted very well, but a lot of it feels like it's just repeating what we've already seen in the show. Maybe it's just because I'm not too invested in the Sold storyline?

Yua's Sold friend dies protecting her from Metsubojinrai, since she finds out that 'justice is protecting life', and her little gadget ends up giving Valkyrie her movie-exclusive Serval Tiger form. Yua spends the rest of the movie in a hospital, but not after a conversation with Fuwa where he interprets/realizes the fact that Metsubojinrai is specifically targeting Kamen Riders to make them 'extinct' is because of the prior conversation that Horobi had with him -- that it's a way for the humans to get rid of Metsubojinrai if they become out of control. 

Which leads to the second half of the movie. The Solds rampage and beat up the AIMS goons, because they think Metsubojinrai.net wants them to kill all humans. Fuwa runs up and gives a speech about how Metsubojinrai.net's real values is more along the lines of protection or coexistence, about what Metsubojinrai's true ideals of justice is. Again, all very well acted, but... I don't know. I kind of feel like the Sold characters are so shallow and Kamen Rider Metsubojinrai's basically a personality-less force of nature, and the movie's just relying on Fuwa to carry it on its back. He does so, leading up to his climactic fight with Kamen Rider Metsubojinrai next to Jin's garden, where Fuwa essentially mercy-kills the out-of-control Metsubojinrai entity. 

(Fuwa's death is also kind of ambiguous, we don't see him after he collapses with eyes bleeding after the epic final battle; the way he talks to Yua is about sacrificing a stray dog's life, and we see him later at the hospital framed in the same ghostly way that Horobi, Jin, Naki and Ikazuchi are walking)

Again, the conclusion of Fuwa-vs-Metsubojinrai is pretty well done, and I applaud the storywriters for doing something pretty daring. It's just that the pacing in the middle portion of the movie. There's also the argument made about how bleak this whole two-parter movie is in contrast to the rest of the more upbeat Zero-One series. Not to mention the fact that, well, it's kind of a terrible way to write off the four Metsubojinrai members without giving them a good sending-off before they're all transformed into a mindless being. The two movies are well-shot and well-written and most definitely well-acted. But ultimately I still feel that it doesn't quite gel with the vibe of the rest of the series particularly well. It's so different that it's worth checking out, but there's a lot of discussion to be had about how they handled the characters and the themes for sure. 

Kamen Rider Zero-One: Others Metsubojinrai

Kamen Rider Zero-One: Others: Metsubojinrai 

I said I'll get to these eventually, right? One year late is still eventually in a way, right? I was going to do a more comprehensive breakdown like what I did with the RealxTime movie, but... but I really didn't actually have all that much to say about these. "Others" is a bit of an epilogue in the style of Ex-Aid's "Another Ending" trilogy, giving us a new threat and wrapping up the stories of the secondary characters. New toys/forms are involved, of course. 

Except... I don't know. Between the ending of Zero-One and the RealxTime movie, I felt like the stories for most of the characters involved here are done. Yes, it's left rather open-ended, but it's not like "Dan Kuroto escapes karma because the good guys forgot that he's a mass murderer and he never gets his comeuppance". It's not quite as bizarrely unnecessary as Build or Zi-O's post-series extras since Zero-One: Others doesn't have to work within the confines of an alternate universe, but... I don't know. I don't dislike Zero-One Others, but at the same vein I don't love everything about it either. 

The whole thing runs for around 50 minutes each, making this a pretty significant storyline. The first entry, Metsubojinrai, involves the introduction of our villain-of-the-arc (hee hee), Mr. Arkland, the head of Zaia USA, who's creating something called 'Project Sold', and is in cahoots with Azu. Meanwhile, Aruto is off in space dealing with some satellite business, meaning that he's not going to do much other than show up for a cameo here and there -- it's the same kind of main-character-shuffling that they did with Emu in Ex-Aid: Another Ending, and since I feel like Aruto and Izu's story was beautifully wrapped up in RealxTime, this was definitely a great decision. 

The big story point that we never really got to wrap up, of course, is the reason behind Jin's rebirth. It was kind of handwaved as 'another Zaia faction did it', and turns out that Jin's second body is 'Sold Zero', the first of a new generation of robot-people called Solds... I guess the major difference is that the Solds are specifically built for warfare? Arkland shows up in a black version of the Thouser suit called Kamen Rider Zaia ("I AM THE PRESIDENT", screams the belt) and he beats the crap out of Horobi and Jin. 

All this while, the two kind of have... not exactly an argument, but they share their different viewpoints, with Jin thinking about how nice it'd be if there's no conflict anymore and everyone can live in peace and the Ark won't show up looking for a new host... while Horobi's a bit more cynical. I feel like this might be the biggest thing that made the 'Others' series feel so different from the main series -- the tone it takes is generally a bit more cynical and less headstrong-optimistic. And that's not necessarily a bad thing! It's just odd compared to the series this is supposed to be a sequel to, is all. 

Jin gets captured by the Solds and gets integrated into the whole Mass Brain system, where they try to forcibly integrate Jin into a hive-mind. I'd... I'd honestly take this a bit more seriously if it wasn't just a bunch of stone-faced Solds yelling at Jin a whole bunch. I don't know... even something like Aruto being overwhelmed by the Ark back in the Zero-One TV series and him sinking into a sea of hatred feels a lot more dramatic than the Solds just staring at Jin and yelling at him a bunch. 

All four of the Metsubojinrai Kamen Riders show up and fight against the Solds because, well, they want to free other forms of A.I. from this kind of tool-enslavement. We get a fight scene and... through it, the four Metsubojinrai A.I. basically decide that they share the same will and transform into Kamen Rider Metsubojinrai. Except Kamen Rider Metsubojinrai is, well, it's very single-minded. It speaks in perfect English, which is fun, but is basically completely uncontrollable and doesn't quite have the same degree of sentience that Jin, Horobi, Naki and Ikazuchi have. 

The four individual Metsubojinrai characters wake up after Kamen Rider Metsubojinrai disintegrates and they kind of panic because they lost their senses of self. Arkland monologues about how he's going to need to fabricate an 'evil', and Metsubojinrai is going to fill the role of the evil-to-be-vanquished so he can sell his Solds. Which... again, would feel a lot more impactful if this exact same plot hasn't already been repeated multiple times in the Zero-One story itself. He does give a pretty cool monologue, about how Kamen Rider Metsubojinrai is even more unstoppable because it's powered by a sense of 'justice' instead of 'hatred' like the previous Kamen Rider Arks, but ultimately... I don't know. I guess I'm just a bit burnt out by the repetitive plot?

Also, for all the setup that Azu gets in the first half of this movie, she gets very unceremoniously shot and killed off by Arkland's goons. It's kind of disappointing, honestly.  

Metsubojinrai's members kind of fracture over their mission to protect other A.I. and liberate the Solds... but they also can't fight humanity. Of course, they choose the exact wrong time to broadcast their "we will not tolerate enslavement of our A.I. brethren", because it's in the middle of a public address given by Yua -- which also gets interrupted by Arkland. All of these is kind of just setup for the 'Vulcan/Valkyrie' movie, but at the same time Arkland talks a bunch about the dark legacy of Hiden and that particular story is never really followed up on. 

Interestingly, what drove Metsubojinrai over the edge is basically Fuwa, who shows up to talk to Horobi. Horobi asks Fuwa a rhetorical question -- what happens if someone goes after people you care about? And Fuwa's answer is "I'll obliterate them with all I got". And that, I think, is what makes Horobi change his resolution to help Jin out and form Kamen Rider Metsubojinrai as an entity that will give its all to free the Solds. 

As Fuwa and the Solds witness the fight, Metsubojinrai.net transforms into Kamen Rider Metsubojinrai, becoming a mindless, soulless killing machine just to get rid of Arkland and free the Solds. Except they go too far, they straight-up kill Arkland, blow up the Zaia building, and keep talking in absolutes like "Zaia will be extinct", "Metsubojinrai will be extinct", and... and they basically become an uncontrollable beast, leading to the downer ending as Yua is dispatched by Japan's minister of defense to eliminate Metsubojinrai.net once and for all. 

I don't know. Maybe it's because I really didn't care for Arkland as a character (which might be just me -- the hammy acting is certainly entertaining, but I feel like maybe they could've focused more on him, or dragged him a bit into the next movie to give him time to breathe?), or maybe because the sudden switch from an optimistic ending with Metsubojinrai as a shadow vigilante dealing with rogue A.I. into them being forced to make a tragic choice is a bit too far... but it's a good story. I'm just not entirely sure why I'm not fully invested. Maybe it's the fact that the movie isn't entirely clear why they need the fusion-mind of Kamen Rider Metsubojinrai, since Arkland doesn't feel that interesting? Maybe it's because they haven't even tried to ask Aruto, or Yua, or Gai, or Fuwa for help? Maybe it's because I genuinely am not invested in the Sold storyline? I don't know. It's still a very solid story especially all throughout the two-parter (we'll cover Vulcan & Valkyrie next week-ish) but I do feel like they could've done this twist in a bit more gradual manner. 

Kamen Rider Zero-One: REALxTIME

Kamen Rider Zero-One: REAL x TIME

It took me so long to get to this. 

So just like the previous couple of series before it, Zero-One's final episode foreshadowed a villain that'll appear in a feature movie, and that movie acts as an action-packed epilogue for the series as a whole. I kept intending to review this movie, but kept putting it off and then got distracted (and, honestly, quite burnt out) with Saber. Better late than never, right? Frankly, considering how messy Saber has been, it's even more impressive how much Zero-One still managed to stick the landing despite it all. 

This movie itself is pretty fun, dealing with a lot of the loose ends left by the series. We do have the foreshadowing of Kamen Rider Eden in the final episode, but this movie also explores what the secondary characters end up doing in a post-Ark world, as well as giving Izu (Izu II?) some more of a concrete resolution. 

The movie opens in medias res, with Aruto as Kamen Rider Zero-Two fighting against Es/Kamen Rider Eden, the Rogue-looking dude whose movie-supervillain gimmick is misquoting the Bible. "God built the Earth in six days, I will destroy it in sixty minutes!" "From the moment we draw breath, the Lord bestows trials upon us!" It's always fun to have villains like these. Eden monologues about how his main plan is to 'set us all free' as the 'shepherd of mankind' and rants about how he's going to guide humanity into 'Paraiso Guardia'.

Meanwhile, his army of one-note-personality goons -- a long-haired caped man, a cute girl holding a doll on a chain, a thuggish looking guy, and a glasses guy with a cloak -- all transform into their generic-looking 'Crowding Hopper' forms, while Es gives a monologue about his paradise. They rampage and toss gas grenades, and we cut to other parts of the world where similar things are happening; and the rest of our secondary characters watch ominously. Pretty cool shots all around. We get the movie title, and then immediately afterwards, Kamen Rider Eden does a CGI attack that summons a giant pool of blood, creates blood spikes to block Aruto's super-speed, then crushes him in an "Eden Impact". God, I miss the noises of the Zero-One belts!

Es knocks Aruto halfway across the city after ripping off his... belt? The part of his belt that allows him to turn into Zero-Two, anyway. He uses that with the Thouser weapon and apparently it'll destroy the world in 60 minutes. Aruto gets saved from falling to his death by the CGI cyber-grasshopper -- only in the movies do these sort of more CGI-intensive gimmicks actually get to do anything beyond being present in transformations. Aruto finds himself in a Neon Genesis Evangelion-style empty train, and arrives at a station to see a bunch of people passed out other than a woman. It's not entirely clear what's going on here beyond a 'main hero gets defeated' thing, but I always enjoy these sorts of plotline. We had this in Ex-Aid's post-finale as well, where Emu ends up being taken out while his supporting cast deal with the enemies. 

So first-up we have AIMS, who engages the Crowding Hoppers. There are some pretty cool shots as AIMS opens fire on the enemy hoppers, while Yua turns into Rushing Cheetah to fight the lollipop girl Mua. Some pretty neat effects with Rushing Cheetah zipping all around the place. Another Crowding Hopper, Behru, shows up and snipes the AIMS goons from afar before unleashing gas bombs on the nearby civilians. The civilians, unconscious, get teleported to the endless train station that Aruto and the mysterious lady find themselves in, which makes it kind of clear that the train station isn't a normal place. 

Other action scenes take place in the city, too. Fuwa transforms into Vulcan and goes into Rampage Vulcan in order to fight -googles names- Lugo and Buga; and we get an unreasonably cool shot of Horobi jumping off of a skyscraper, transforming mid-air and slamming down and making a shockwave as he transforms. As their combined finishes take out the army of generic minions, weird digital stuff spins around their fallen forms. Izu shows up at this point to deliver a message from Aruto to Fuwa. 

Valkyrie, meanwhile, is using her bike! A Kamen Rider is actually riding a bike! That's such a rarity nowadays, holy shit. It's a relatively extended scene as far as these things go, too, and she just completely wrecks house with an army of the Hoppers. Between using her bike to bodily knock enemies around, or driving around a warehouse and stuff, it's actually pretty damn cool to see them use a bike. The two leaders of the Hoppers, Mua and Behru, shoot each other while talking about how they're wasting time. Shesta shows up and delivers presumably the same message to Yua. 

We get the 'flashback', so to speak, as Aruto shows the message that Es gives to Hiden Corporation before all of this happened. Es essentially challenges Aruto to a fight to see if he can stop the arrival of paradise. But as the audience (and now our secondary cast) knows, Aruto got defeated in the cold open. And now he's telling bad jokes to the mysterious lady in the empty facsimile of Japan, while trying to figure out who Es is and why he's trying to destroy the world. The primary theme of the movie also gets shown to us here -- in the flashback, Aruto tells Izu to stay behind and act as a messenger to his allies because he doesn't want to lose her again. Some great acting from Takahashi Fumiya here, you really can see the sadness even though he's smiling while talking to Izu. Horobi asks Izu some questions that gets her to think -- "is this what you want?" and Izu walks off, seemingly having gotten some emotional breakthrough.

While AIMS was fighting the Crowding Hoppers, Amatsu Gai attacks one of the Zaia heads, who claims to have been 'chosen for paradise', in order to find out what's going on with the mysterious cult that surrounds Es. Jin and Naki also separately aid Fuwa and Yua into investigating the Hoppers' true nature, hacking into their weapons and progrise keys to figure out the true nature of these enemies. 

Es summons a goddamn F-35 fighter jet to shoot Horobi and Fuwa, and we get the most glorious action scene in this entire movie. Dodgy CGI? Perhaps, a little bit, but I absolutely love the shot where Fuwa does his regular poses as he transforms into everyone's favourite form, Punching Kong... right as the fighter jet runs into him. As he holds on to the flying jet and tries to figure out how it's flying without a pilot, Burning Falcon Jin flies in and cheerfully gives exposition about how the red cloud we've been seeing throughout the movie are actually nanomachines. Jin panics as 'gorilla' falls off from the jet, before we get the jet flying around chasing Jin through the city. Jin leads the jet to Fuwa, who Rampage-Gatling's the jet and blows it up. We get a fun scene where Jin dropkicks Fuwa to prevent the wreckage of the jet from falling to him. 

Gai, Fukuzoe and Yamashita have been interrogating the cultist board member, and gives some exposition to Yua about the nature of the nanomachines. Turns out that they're a former partner of Zaia who specializes in medical technology, and the head developer is Isshiki Rihito, a.k.a. Es. Also, he's supposed to be dead! Aruto also finds this out from the mysterious lady, who says that Rihito suddenly 'changed' and 'lost his humanity'. The lady leads Aruto to a church, talking about how Es wants to destroy the world with Zea's powers. Horobi also simultaneously gets some information from Azu, who's just casually lurking around. Turns out that during the climax of the TV show, the Ark also happened to hack the nanomachines' AI. And Rihito transferred his consciousness to the nanomachines, allowing him to 'transcend humanity' and essentially survive after his death. It explains his self-regenerating powers during the fight with Aruto, and gives a whole backstory for him. It's... it's admittedly kind of abrupt, and while I do like the storytelling method of multiple characters finding out the backstory all at the same time, it's also... kind of awkward? 

Aruto, having realized what's going on and having heard the backstory from the mysterious lady, reveals that he can actually get out of the digital other-world with Zea's powers, but Zea wanted Aruto to meet the mysterious lady. He wakes up in the wreckage of the car he's fallen onto. And... and remember how I keep saying that only the movies get the budget for the bikes? Yeah. Ikazuchi shows up with a truck to deliver Aruto's motorbike, and he drives off into the auditorium that Es is monologuing to his white-hooded cultists. 

Es transforms into Kamen Rider Eden, with a pretty interesting effect of a mysterious, blue figure made up of veins flying all around him while Es himself gets reduced to red veins as well. The two embrace before the Kamen Rider pieces fly in and complete the transformation. "Imagine: Ideal Illusion! Eden: The Kamen Rider! The creator who charges forward believing in paradise." Aruto turns into Metal Cluster Hopper (a personal favourite!) and the two fight with their blades. Eden seems to have the upper hand with his ability to instantly regenerate from having his limbs blow off, but then it seems like his nanomachines are malfunctioning. There's a typical supervillain-being-deluded thing going on with Es convinced that his superweapon will bring paradise instead of destroying the world. Aruto manages to block the world-destroying kaboom, but Eden's attack still blows up the building they're fighting in and reduces it to ruins, while also knocking Aruto out of his transformation.

We don't see anything graphic, but Gai and the VP's make it clear that all of Es's cult has been killed in the explosion. They bring in some cameos from the show -- the lawyer Bingo, muscle-man Taro and the nurse Mashiro-chan -- to essentially comedy-torture the cultist they've caught. It's... it is sure a scene. I don't quite care for this comedy segment, but they discover a modified Zaia Spec that Es build in order to access the 'Thinknet', an underground website that he uses as a recruiting tool for his cult. We get the pretty interesting revelation that all the Crowding Hoppers -- including their anime-villain-squad human forms -- are all nanomachine-created avatars, and the true members of the paradise cult are just regular people that control these false forms with the Zaia Specs. Pretty interesting twist, actually.

Yua, Naki and Shesta apprehend one of the members of the Hoppers, and Shesta rather hilariously does a wrestling move on him. The VP's have a pretty great short scene where they act completely unbothered by the cultist talking about the destruction of the world, and gives a speech about how President Aruto has a goddamn dream. 

Izu arrives in the wreckage, trying to deliver a belt and key, but she's just confused at what she has to do. She decides to access Zea, at which point she meets with the... consciousness of the original Izu? It's a bit rushed, and I did wish that the movie does let us spend a bit more time with Izu II, but at least she does get a moment equivalent to a 'singularity point' in the home series. Sure, Izu I and Zea ends up providing a shortcut by merging memories, but at least Izu II does end up thinking about wanting to help Aruto on her own first. 

The rest of the good guy Kamen Riders converge on the paradise server, only to be faced by the four Crowding Hopper generals. Horobi solos Lugo and Buga, blowing them up with his cool scorpion-tentacle. Aruto confronts Es in the chapel, and in order to save the world, takes the Hellrise Key and puts it in his own belt. ("Hell's energy has destroyed the world. Hell Rising Hopper! Heaven or Hell? It doesn't matter.") It's not the first time Aruto has been forced into an evil berserking form, but this one looks particularly painful, especially with the black goop sloshing off of Aruto's face mid-transformation.

It's a bit that kind of comes out of nowhere. It's pretty badass, don't get me wrong, especially when Hellrising Hopper starts fighting with Eden with the dark smokes in the background. Pretty horrifying scene of Hellrising Hopper just rampaging and breaking Aruto's bones, too. Aruto's just screaming 'destroy, destroy!' before unleashing a Hell Rising Impact on an untransformed Es... but that blow is blocked by Kamen Rider Zero-Two. Who de-transforms to reveal herself to be Izu! And while it is a cliched moment, if there's anything in this franchise that has earned this sort of friendship moment, it is Izu regaining her memories and emotions. 

Izu tells Aruto how she still wants to laugh from her heart, how she can't lose Aruto yet, and Aruto (and the audience) cheer at this pretty goddamn d'awww moment. Aruto realizes his mistake at the beginning of the movie -- where he sends Izu off instead of trying to figure out what she wants like what he's done to all other Humagears. This segues into a speech from Aruto to Es, asking him if his actions will bring happiness to his loved one. With some intel from Horobi (who finds a human brain in the server building), Aruto gives exposition how Es is trying to build a perfect digital world for the consciousness of his dead fiancée Akane (she was killed during Daybreak) -- the woman Aruto meets in the digital world. And the perfect world includes, um, sending all of humanity into the digital world. Es is full of self-loathing, but Aruto gives this whole speech about how even artificial intelligence have heart, and Es's preservation of Akane's consciousness preserved her as essentially an A.I., and how Akane is waiting for Es. 

It's your typical anime movie plot, if we're being honest, but I did feel like it's consistent enough with all the talks of 'paradise' and 'illusion' throughout the movie. It's not particularly in-depth, but the movie does do a relatively decent job at explaining Es's motivations and making us empathize with him.

The leader of the Crowding Hoppers, Behru (a.k.a. long-hair cape guy), figures out what's going on at around the same time. Realizing that Es wanted to kill all of the cultists and that the whole 'paradise' thing is a sham (what did Es promise them?) Behru and a group of cultists show up and gun down Es in the chapel. Es refuses to let people with an 'appetite for destruction' like the cultists to enter Akane's perfect world. Behru is pissed off, steals the Eden Driver, and transforms into Kamen Rider Lucifer. His transformation involves a giant skeleton bursting out of the ground and biting his head off! What the shit!

Behru is a flat character so I really don't care about him, but Es's story is done in a way that doesn't really provide for an action scene. And as much as Es's story is narratively done, I can kind of understand that the movie-makers wanted to give one last huge action scene with Aruto and Izu. So Es runs off to rejoin his wife in the digital world, while Aruto and Izu do a goddamn double henshin into Kamen Riders Zero-One and Zero-Two. About goddamn time -- I was absolutely disappointed that Izu was never part of Aruto's forms, and you'd think that Zero-Two would feature Izu as the A.I. or something... but hey, she gets to be her own Kamen Rider! That's cool regardless. I do like that despite having the same attacks and suit as Aruto, Izu as Zero-Two does some of her own unique flourishes that are unmistakably the same gestures that Izu usually does. 

Aruto and Izu fight against Lucifer and his army of Crowding Hoppers, while elsewhere, the other Hoppers have regenerated in new avatar bodies. Horobi, Gai and Yua all arrive and each of them deliver a badass, pre-asskicking one-liner, shit-talking the Hoppers for having absolutely no depth and no real motivation like Es. The three of them fight without transforming for a while, which is pretty fucking badass. Fuwa and Jin (who we last saw being wounded by the fighter jets) also show up. And then we get a five-man transformation, and an absolutely grand beatdown. Lightning Hornet and Rampage Gatling get some screentime, too -- it's just such a shame that it's near-impossible to tell which of the Crowding Hoppers are actually the generals (not that they have any personality to speak of) without looking at the shoulders... but hey, we get to see these guys be badasses, and that's pretty damn fun. 

All the soldiers keep regenerating after they fall since they can just recreate new avatars with nanomachines, but Esu manages to upload himself to the digital world and I think that's what causes the tide to turn (the movie doesn't make this super apparent). Gai, Fuwa and Yua do a combo attack to take down Mua and Lugo, while Horobi and Jin do a double rider kick to take down Buga. Aruto and Izu continue fighting Lucifer while rose petals fall all around the battlefield, which is so extra but so cool. As Lucifer prepares to do the same 'blow up the Earth' thing, we get Aruto and Izu yelling out Aruto's catchphrase (with 'us' instead of 'me'), and then REALxEYEZ starts playing as the two main characters deliver the ever-loving speed blitz beatdown on Lucifer. It's... it's a pretty standard movie finisher scene, but I think I'm allowed to fanboy a bit.

Lucifer gets blown up, of course, and we get a scene of a remorseful Es meeting Akane in the digital world, with them in wedding regalia and stuff. They blow up the server, deactivating all the nanomachines all over the world, while all the real person users of the Hoppers are arrested. We get a fun vignette of the characters -- Team VP is practicing laughing at Aruto's jokes; Metsubojinrai and Fuwa talk about being vigilantes; Yua pokes fun at Fuwa's unemployment... while Aruto and Izu end the movie with Aruto telling a bad joke.

Ultimately, the movie does suffer from the in medias res format. I don't really think the mystery is worth keeping Es's motivations and goals for so long, and it's something that I felt would've worked better with the prologue showing us a bit more of Es's rise to power in that case. Plus, the Hellrise key and Aruto taking it into his body feels like it comes out of nowhere. And there's of course the regular problem of a bit too many characters and a lot of the supporting ones really don't do anything -- especially the goons, although that's always a problem in these tie-in movies. Still, considering the time that the movie was filmed and how coherent it still ultimately is, I actually do think that this is a pretty great final outing for Zero-One. 

(Except it's not the final outing. I'm not sure when I'll review Zero-One Others, but that's an... interesting duo of movies)

Random Notes:

• I don't really note it, but throughout the movie there's a countdown of a 'time left' before Es's paradise plan begins. It's not a particularly huge surprise that our heroes save the day in the nick of time, but it's a neat little visual. 
• I really do miss the sounds the Zero-One belts make. I just really don't care about Saber's belts, and Revice's feels like a bit of a retread of previous belts (it is a homage season, so...). 
• Apparently, Es's Crowding Hopper goons are officially called 'Kamen Rider Abaddon'. I really should've looked it up before doing this review, and call them 'Crowding Hoppers' all throughout. Oops! Okay!
  
• It's neat that while they don't do anything, Yua's recurring AIMS sidekicks show up. 
• Also a small thing, but while they don't really get too much of an attention, I did like small world-building scenes like Humagear doctors helping the civilians in the background. It's these smaller scenes that makes Zero-One feels so unique and well-done. 
• The Zaia specs that Izu and Shesta deliver to the two AIMS Riders provides them with an invisible forcefield that protects them from the chemical weapons. A cheeky way to make sure the audience can see the faces of the actors! 
• I didn't even remember that Fuwa and Yua isn't supposed to be able to transform, but Gai apparently 'restored their ability to transform', which he tells us offhandedly. 
• Mashirochan literally disappeared from the show after being turned into a Trilobite Magia, never appearing again even in the "all the episodic Humagears return" episodes. I've always assumed that she was one of the few Humagears that was just straight-up destroyed, but turns out they got her up and running again. 
• It's impossible to tell without listening to the transformation jingle, but Aruto's Zero-One form in the final battle is the Realizing Hopper one, not the Rising Hopper. 
• I love how in the pan of the five Kamen Riders, everyone else has two-word readings of their transformation key. "Sting Scorpion!" "Burning Falcon!" "Shooting Wolf!" "Rushing Cheetah!", while Thouser's is the super-long "when the five horns cross, the golden soldier Thouser is born."
  
• I'm super late with Revice, I know. I've actually been enjoying the show, but thanks to that the more episodes I put off, the more I feel like I should try to do proper reviews for them. I know there's a lot of specials for Saber too but... but I'll be honest and say I don't care about it all that much.

Kamen Rider Zero-One E45 Review: You Wanna Real Eyes, You're the Only One

Kamen Rider Zero-One, Episode 45: Everyone's Future

Final episode here we go. And for the most part... I feel like they managed to wrap up most of the plot threads that they're clearly focusing on in these final batch of episodes. I really wished that they had one or two extra episodes to wrap things up more properly, and I've ranted about the poor pacing and rapid-fire storytelling throughout my review of the past couple of episodes... but, y'know, pandemic.

So, well, for the most part, it's just the Aruto and Horobi story. Yua, Fuwa and Gai are reduced to a cheerleading squad witnessing things from the background. Jin and Azu get a bit to talk about here and there, but are also more or less just kind of there. Naki, Raiden and the VP squad are basically completely absent until the epilogue segment. And it really blows. A lot of the characters are honestly kind of under-utilized in the show. Yua did jack-all after her quitting Gai and joining the good guys. Gai's redemption also feels absolutely hollow considering he barely did anything afterwards. Naki doesn't do much after their huge Inui Takumi moment either. Raiden does even less. And... well, again, I know the priority of the show is to wrap up the huge Aruto/Horobi conflict. And that's sure neat, but... I'm going to still acknowledge just how rushed and rapid-fire this ends up being.

The actual fight, though? The actual fight is pretty awesome, and features some of the best wire-fu we've seen in the show for a long while. The Fate Zero style swords-stabbed onto the battlefield and Ark-Scorpion and Ark-One just ripping them from the ground and clashing onto them while tossing weapons away, dual wielding the goofy-looking suitcase swords and summoning them from off-screen and stuff... it's pretty cool. Some of it are tricks we've seen from Ark-Zero before (particularly Horobi's 'summon multiple kaban bows' trick) but it's still pretty cool! We've got the shotgun, the thousand-jacker, the Metal Cluster Hopper metal shield, the spinning purple funnels Gai used... The ominous music, and eventually the slightly modified opening credits with everyone's faces flashing past the title screen is pretty neat.

Anyway, Azu gives a whole speech about malice taking over the world while we get more Fate Stay Night fighting on top of the building. And at this point, Aruto still looks like he's overcome by malice, agreeing with Horobi's assessment about how humans suck. Yua, Fuwa and Gai, none of them being able to transform, hang out in Gai's dinky-ass basement office and does a running commentary, watching the live recording of Aruto and Horobi's fight while Yua restores Jin. Part of me is kind of bummed out that these guys are reduced to doing basically nothing in the fight, but on the other hand Aruto disabling their transformation ability is kind of a sensible in-universe reason for them to, I guess, de-crowd the final episode.

Eventually the fight goes from the top of the building to a parking lot, at which point Aruto tosses away his weapon and allows Horobi to beat him up. Azu is happy, Fuwa is confused... and Jin, resurrected as a computer program, shows up in the swirling Ark-dimension and mocks Azu. He tells her how she doesn't have a heart so she couldn't predict it, and how this whole fight is Hiden Aruto's conclusion as opposed to the Ark's. Jin tells us that Aruto's heart is filled with malice, and Horobi is, to use Aruto's catchphrase, 'the only one that can stop him'.

It's actually kind of an interesting little twist, and just like many other things in the Zero-One final arc, is kind of a shame that it's not something the show really dwells on for too long. The idea that Aruto himself knows that he's wrong but he's simply unable to restrain and keep his emotions in check, and has to still act out on the overwhelming emotions within him? That's a very, very interesting exploration of vulnerability in heroes and stuff. Again, bit of a shame that it's glossed over so quickly.

Anyway, after a pretty cool punch where Horobi's scorpion tentacle wraps around his fists, Aruto's Ark-One driver gets shattered and he de-henshins, and he says "this is fine". The audience gets to see Aruto banish his mental image of Azu hugging him and reverting back to all grass and sunshine, and Jin and Fuwa talk about how Aruto is risking his life to teach Horobi about heart because Aruto loves Humagears and he has faith in Horobi more than anyone else. Okay? It honestly feels like something that swerves a lot from the "Aruto realizes he's wrong but he also can't control his emotions" bit from a scene before, but sure. Also maybe Aruto could've confronted Horobi without starting robot riots? Just saying.

We get a flashback to Aruto's meeting with the digital ghost of Hiden Soreo that we briefly glimpse last episode. It's a nice way to bring Soreo back. I've watched the movie so I know the impact this had since Soreo's actually an actual character and mentor for Aruto in that movie (but... Aruto doesn't have any memory of that movie, right? Damn movies and their weird place in continuity) and Soreo gives this whole speech about how Aruto now has a fury inside him, how he's grown stronger after becoming a Kamen Rider... but then tells Aruto that true strength isn't power, it comes from the heart. Then Soreo 3D-prints a new Zero-One driver for Aruto.

This leads to the present day, where Aruto yells at Horobi how anyone would feel hurt from the loss of their family... and Horobi goes absolutely ballistic, and it's great to see the actor finally breaking down and finally allowing to convey emotions. After Horobi has been so emotionally stunted over the series, it's nice to see him finally acknowledging his anger and rage, yelling at Aruto how 'JIN IS MY SON!' Aruto clenches Izu's ribbon, and in that moment, Horobi realizes that Aruto's also lost family. Not just Izu, but also the fact that Aruto's dad Soreo was indirectly taken away from Horobi. And Horobi just falls to his knees in despair, realizing that Jin is gone indirectly because of his own doing.

And... again, the progression is kind of messy, but I am a huge fan of Horobi's big-picture character arc, and he finally admits and realizes that not only is he angry and grieving over his son's death, but he's also completely scared of the 'intangible thing that kept interfering with his actions', and how his hatred of the humans is because they've awakened the feeling within him and forced him to confront truths he wants to ignore. The robot now has emotions!

Aruto has a cool line about how "we're Kamen Riders, aren't we?" which I don't think fits the scene well. But somehow, the Rising Hopper key becomes blue. (Got to sell that limited-edition variant key!) We now get a final clash as the angry Horobi charges and turns back into Ark-Scorpion, while Aruto catches the punch with his bare hands and we get easily the coolest transformation as Aruto's Realizing Hopper (it's basically Rising Hopper with a different jingle) form materializes digitally around his body. That is an awesome transformation sequence. It's an interesting 'final form', I guess? The Realizing Hopper is honestly identical to Rising Hopper, and I personally love it that Aruto's final form is basically his original one. And I guess the showmakers just want Aruto's final, strongest form to not be the bad guy suit or something? Sure.

Realizing Hopper just zips around and fights against Horobi, and this time it's Horobi that kind of wants to be defeated, yelling about how he hates Aruto from the bottom of his heart but he also simultaneously knows that it's not humanity's fault (it kinda is, it's that mofo Gai's, but shhh that'll ruin the Aruto-Horobi dynamic of this episode). Meanwhile, Jin is confident that the two of them can overcome their malice, we get a brief cameo by Izu's specter smiling at Aruto... and we get a pretty cool action scene of Horobi unleashing some Doctor Octopus tentacle swarm while Aruto zipping through it with his flash-speed and yelling about 'the only one that can stop you is me!" We get a Realizing/Extinction Impact clash, and we get a cool bit where Aruto twists around and punches Horobi from the bottom and sends him flying into the sky before doing an elaborate flash-blitz and slamming down with a gigantic rider kick.

Aruto, of course, doesn't kill Horobi, blowing him up and defeating him, but also acknowledging that he doesn't need to destroy Horobi anymore as he clutches Izu's ribbon. And... I guess it's neat that it's completely Aruto's doing, and it's not a "hey guys stop fighting Jin is alive, your angst can disappear now". I really do appreciate them not pussying out in that way. Jin is still back, but Aruto and Horobi do actually work through their simultaneous hatred on their own.

And then we smash to the epilogue. The Aruto/Horobi fight takes 17 minutes of the episode, and we have around 5-6 minutes for the epilogue... and one thing that the finale absolutely glosses over is the fact that there are Magia/Humagear riots going all over the city. Which last episode built up towards, but other than the brief shots of the Humagears rioting and a short scene of Fukuzoe telling them that he believes in Aruto, it's genuinely just forgotten until the epilogue.

For all the series have been talking about Humagear co-existing with humanity, we get the buildup that it might shatter permanently in this final battle... but it's just utterly glossed over by the news proclaiming how Hiden is launching more satellites to support Humagears, how Humagears are prospering under Aruto's presidency... and we don't even get to see a token montage of the Humagears working or anything. I felt that was weird.

Some of the other characters are kinda just there. Ikazuchi is helping out with the satellites (and there's an obvious bit of them not being able to get Subaru's actor for the scene). Yua is training a bunch of new AIMS recruits and Naki shows up as the new technical advisor in a suit. Thouser has his driver back, and he has an entire Thouser division... meaning the dog Thousers, which is kind of a funny gag.

Fuwa, meanwhile, for some reason is not with AIMS, but is going around as his own vigilante superhero, ripping car doors out and rescuing people from accidents, calling himself the 'defender of peace, Kamen Rider', which is pretty cool. Horobi ditches the headband and is reunited with Jin, and they have turned themselves into vigilantes protecting the world from any sort of malice or the Ark returning. And Jin is now happy to tease Horobi about being his 'oto-san', which is adorable.

Oh, and we have a new rider suit! Which I suppose would lead to some plot threads here being wrapped up in the solo Zero-One movie. We've got Izu turning into a black-hooded outfit, giving something called the Eden Driver to some random dude with a tablet, and the dude transforms into CROCODILE IN ROGUE OOOORAH a very Kamen Rider Rogue looking design called Kamen Rider Eden. Wait for the movie to see Not-Rogue!

Of course, the show has to end in Aruto and Izu. And, to the absolutely surprise of me, Izu is not restored. I would've thought that they would've used Zero-Two's whole 'human and A.I.' thing to bring Izu back, but even her personal Progrise Key keeps going 'Cannot Read'. So surrounded by the VP squad, Aruto just creates a brand-new Izu, and while she looks and sounds the same and is restored back to factory settings, Aruto resolves to teach Izu II all their dreams, hearts and jokes, and Aruto is positive that this will bring Izu back. And, of course, the show ends with this new Izu absolutely bungling the timing of the Aruto-ja-nai-to pose, initially being too fast and later being too slow. And... finito, tune in next with for Saber.

And... it's an all right finale. It's far from being the best, and considering the pandemic and them losing around four or five episodes, it really can't be helped, can it? Ultimately I still think that they did lose a lot of things rushing the ending and keeping the focus on the whole malice theme. I am kind of impressed that the Ark doesn't even make any sort of return after its initial destruction; and I'm genuinely surprised Izu isn't 'properly' restored (though I'm sure she'll be back to her usual antics come the movie). I won't deny that this isn't a messy ending and final arc, but at the very least it's done because of events that are out of control.

I dunno. A lot of the secondary characters absolutely suffered. Fuwa, Izu, Horobi and (surprisingly) the vice president squad got a lot of great scenes, but Yua, Naki, Raiden and especially Gai feel like their stories are utterly incomplete -- Gai's redemption arc is still absolutely bizarre and probably the huge 'jump the shark' moment of the show; while it's kind of obvious that whatever plans they had with Naki and Raiden got kicked to the side as the two of them were reduced to background characters. Aruto's comedian angle gets honestly kind of dropped in the final arc, and I'm kind of sad Aruto never figures out that Fuwa likes his jokes all along. A lot of the 'Humagear rights' stuff also basically got more or less dropped by the show.

Still, all things considered, it's an... all right finale? I am very much willing to give Zero-One a bit of a leeway thanks to real-life events. The cast did their best and if nothing else, the action scenes and the very likable actors and characters did make my journey through Zero-One a huge blast. And besides, it's not like Zero-One is anywhere close to the first tokusatsu show that had a very strong first and middle parts only to fizzle out near the end, right? I honestly really find this show to ultimately be likable even if they didn't manage to deliver the full story that they had wanted to tell. Not a bad ending, all things considered.

Random Notes:

• Is it Realizing Hopper or REALxEYEZing Hopper? 
• Things I'm personally not a big fan of: the random huge barrage of random new forms in these final episodes. Zero-Two! Ark-One! Ark-Scorpion! Orthus Vulcan! Realizing Hopper!
• No, seriously, though, Kamen Rider Eden really looks like someone painted over Kamen Rider Rogue's white and blue cracks in purples and pinks.
• At one point during Aruto's final takedown of Horobi he knees Horobi in the dick and I chuckled at that.
• The Gimmick Watch:
• Ark-Scorpion's first finisher is "Hatred Impact!" and his final rider kick finisher is "Extinction Impact!".
• "JUMP! (Jump! Jump!) Authorize. Prog-rise. Initialize. REALIZING HOPPER! A rider kick to the sky turns to take off toward a dream."
• Realizing Hopper's finisher is "Realizing Impact!"
• Eden's transformation is "Eden Driver! Imagine the ideal illusion. Eden the! Kamen Rider!"
• See you guys next week for Saber. I won't be doing episodic reviews for Saber, I don't think (I kind of need a break) but I will cover the first episode and after that maybe we'll do once-a-month reviews?

Kamen Rider Movie Review: Reiwa the First Generation

Kamen Rider: Reiwa the First Generation [2019]

I kept putting reviewing this movie off for the longest time, and hey, what do you know, the show's over and I haven't even done it. So let's sit down and talk about Kamen Rider Zero-One: Reiwa the First Generation as I rewatch it.

[Obligatory spoiler warning for Kamen Rider Zi-O, where I will be talking all about the ending of that show. Not that the review would make sense to anyone who have not watched Zi-O... these crossover shows are pretty terrible at being an 'intro' to the previous season's show]

First of all, this show is a crossover with Kamen Rider Zi-O, itself a pretty hard show to build up a crossover with. I like Zi-O, but it's a pretty flawed show whose priority is certainly revolving more around the cameos from previous seasons more than to actually tell a properly coherent story. And I was genuinely 100% surprised that Zi-O actually ended with something resembling a proper conclusion. But hey, a crossover movie is sort of obligatory at this point, and ever since Decade, it's been an expectation that at least one of the movies be an actual tie-in with the plotline in the show. In Zero-One's case, this movie explores the backstory behind Aruto's father a lot.

And the movie opens with Aruto's dad asking him what his dream is -- Young Aruto's dream, of course, is to make Soreo laugh for real, something that's impossible since he's a robot. Then we have Daybreak, the terrible-CGI explosion, and Soreo's death... all things we know from the show.

Aruto then wakes up and goes off to work. You know it's a movie because the Rise-Hopper bike shows up since the movies always make it a point to show off that they have the budget to show off the elusive motorcycles. And... and I'm not sure at what point that every other Kamen Rider tie-in movie has to have at least one that's an alternate-universe world, but Aruto quickly is baffled as he finds himself that there are a lot of Humagears in the streets, there are Humagear children... and he isn't the president of Hiden. We get Mamoru and Shesta and all the other Humagears in Hiden Intelligence angry and wanting to arrest the human criminal. Enter the villain that's more tied to Zero-One's lore, the humagear president Will. He transforms into Another Zero-One, fights Aruto in his Rising Hopper form (the grasshopper bursts out of the ground) but, as usual where Zi-O's Another Rider enemies are concerned, Another Zero-One absolutely outclasses Aruto.

As much as they might perhaps not be used perfectly in the show, I am a huge, huge fan of the Zi-O Another-Riders as a monster concept. Another Zero-One isn't the best-looking Another Rider out there, but he's a pretty cool monstrous-bug-man version of the base Zero-One form.

Simultaneously, we get the Zi-O cast in their supposed 'brand-new' timeline where they are all just civilian kids going to school with no idea that they just fought in a multiversal war over the timeline of twenty different Kamen Rider continuities. Continuity in Kamen Rider shows have always been of the 'handwave' variety, they're all in separate continuities except when crossover magic happens and suddenly Fuuto City and Zawame City are a motorbike ride away... but between Build and Zi-O, they now at least make it a bit of a nod that, hey, the crossovers don't make real sense so they might as well as nod and go 'alternate Earth heroes meet each other'.

Anyway, the Zi-O cast are high school students, and Sougo is still delusional in wanting to be a king. Geiz is a sports freak, and Tsukuyomi asks them the very abnormal question of 'hey, what happens if the human race goes extinct?' They sneak into class and turns out that they got stranded in the same 'Humagears have taken over the world' bad future, and we get an actually pretty fun scene of Sougo, Geiz and Tsukuyomi fighting in a school building in school uniforms against a lot of berserk Humagear students and teachers. The Kamen Rider franchise in general have, in nearly all of its recent shows, never really showed the characters fight out-of-costume and I do admit seeing these actors do some fun stunts (even if it's nothing too over-the-top, Geiz notwithstanding) is certainly pretty neat. Thanks to the power of plot necessity, Woz shows up with his magic scarf whisking everyone away. Again, because of plot necessity, Woz gives everyone their Ridewatches back and they regain their memories and their fancy costumes.

Anyway, that's when the title shows up. Conflict, alternate history, Terminator, Flashpoint, Age of Apocalypse, you know the drill. While the Zi-O cast are mostly okay beyond the ominous line of 'a new generation, the first rider will be born' in Woz's book (which doesn't really make sense in-universe); Aruto gets summarily beaten by Will and had his driver stolen.

Aruto's attempt to escape gets stopped by angry Humagears who turn into the Kuehne and Berotha Magias... but then Aruto gets saved by resistance fighters Fuwa and Yua on a jeep with motherfucking machine-guns. This scene is actually also pretty cool, with Yua driving a jeep and Fuwa shooting at the Magia who chase them on motorbikes. There is a hilarious bit of Aruto doing his over-the-top panicking as bullet casings fly around him, and a pretty cool slow-motion fight of Fuwa shooting one of the Magia off of the jeep as it drives through a fireball. Yua also gets a cool scene with a jeep-spin leading to a Magia headshot.

Aruto gets brought up to the resistance, because all robot-ruled dystopian futures must have a resistance. Izu is there as the only Humagear, and is apparently their source of intel. She also gets bullied by a particularly assholish kid. For no real reason (Woz and company deal with timey-wimey business on a daily basis), somehow Zea and Izu are aware of rifts in history, among them Aruto. Also among the resistance members and an actually nice running gag is the fact that Fukuzoe and Yamashita are part of the resistance and are super-duper supportive of President Korenosuke's dream.

Then we go straight to more action. Horobi and Jin, dressed up in swanky non-hobo outfits (Jin has a hat!) show up at the head of a giant Magia army. Yua is sniping them in a scene straight out of the Resident Evil movies. We get a pretty cool transformation scene of 'Bullet!' and 'Dash!' and... I'm not going to lie, it's pretty damn badass. Yua's transformation pose with the bullet zipping around her is particularly awesome, and we get a pretty cool fight moving up and down the resistance warehouse as the two Shotriser guys transform. Horobi, meanwhile, cuts a bullet in two with his katana and they, too, transform. We get a fun scene of Vulcan fighting Horobi and Valkyrie fighting Jin, and the fights are cool even if they are pretty short before Will shows up, turns into Another Zero-One, and unleashes a bug-wing-shaped energy blast that takes out the random humans.

It's all despair-mode as Aruto can't do anything and just watch as the humans get beaten back, but a random mysterious figure in a cloak tosses a Force Riser to Aruto. (It's obviously Soreo but let's pretend they make an effort to disguise his voice and costume). With the Force Riser, Aruto can forcibly open the Rising Hopper Key and transform into a Zero-One themed version of the Metsubojinrai.net suit, Zerozero-One... which is actually kind of a stupid sounding name and it's a bit of a pain to type. Despite being a movie exclusive form, this is explicitly a weaker, lesser form and 001 gets beaten up by Another Zero-One, blocking a slash with his shoulder to catch Izu. You know this is a movie, because Aruto's actually bleeding -- even if we only see the dark blood on the ground. It's the darkest hour, with Aruto bleeding, Izu about to be killed, Jin about to feather-storm the AIMS duo dead... and then we get the absolutely hilarious TIME MAZINNNN sound as the Zi-O cast show up. Geiz's Time Mazine drives off Jin and Horobi (this is another reality, they clearly have never fought giant robots in this one) while Tsukuyomi abuses her time-stop powers... but only for exposition. Can't end the movie too fast, after all. Sougo, Tsukuyomi and Woz make some exposition and basically earn Aruto's trust, and... y'know what? This one actually is fast enough that it didn't bog the movie down, while simultaneously long enough to be believable that Aruto would take all this alternate-dimension time-travel stuff in stride. Also, obviously a Time Jacker is involved.

After a bit of a check with Izu (who somehow knows when history changed), the Zi-O cast takes Aruto -- and none of the rest of the Zero-One cast -- to 2007. Hiden Korenosuke is showing off the Humagears to the world, and promising that a network would allow the Humagears to be connected, obviously talking about the lead-up to the Ark being launched into orbit.

And in 2007, we get to see Will as the lowly assistant to Korenosuke, essentially being the counterpart of Izu for Korenosuke. Will is actually confused, asking about wages for Humagears and about the happiness and welfare of his fellow robots,  but the vice presidents sort of laugh it off while Korenosuke just talks about how dependable Will is.

As our heroes arrive from 2019, we get the hilarious scene of Geiz jumping around and making weird karate-chop poses at everyone like a goddamn moron. Geiz is fun. They eventually make their way to a Hiden facility where the robot revolution has begun. Sougo tries to be a responsible time-lord by saying that interfering with history that's supposed to take place is dangerous... but Kamen Rider Zi-O as a show have always ignored real history in favour of helping people anyway, so we get a pretty cool corridor fight with Zerozero-One, Zi-O, Geiz and Woz against a bunch of berserk Humagears. It's actually pretty dang cool and I'm just reminded of how hilariously hammy the FINISH TIME voices for the Zi-O belts are.


We then get a glorious blue streak, and it's the arrival of Kamen Rider Ichi-gata (meaning "type one") and he's obviously a riff on Kamen Rider #1 done in the style of Zero-One. The colours, the little red neck-piece aura that looks like Ichigo's muffler... it's pretty damn cool. Ichigata beats up Aruto, who recognizes the voice as his robo-dad. And... we get a bit of honestly somewhat confusing exposition and catch-up. Aruto immediately reveals to Soreo that he's from the future, Soreo tells them that he wants to make humans happy, that he's also finding the cause of the berserk Humagears (otherwise known as 'god damn it Gai') but Soreo's also working with Will. Will, on the other hand, wants to put Soreo as the new Hiden Intelligence successor because he holds the Hiden name. Soreo is making a bunch of weapons and weapons designs, because they need power to make humagears happy, and Aruto is absolutely angry to find out that his dad is actually making weapons and stuff. We get a pretty cool scene for Sougo, telling Aruto that he has to accept the past, even if it's a hard truth.

Aruto also realizes that the driving force behind Soreo's desire for Humagear happiness is his own childish talk about how he wanted humagears to smile earnestly. Sougo, again, gives yet another speech about how they can't change the past, but they can change their own future.

While all of this is going on, the Ark's A.I. have developed hostile attitudes towards humans (god damn it Gai)... and the satellite launches itself, having grown sentient! And it can't be stopped! Everybody panic! Even Will and Soreo are confused by the fact that the Ark has decided for human extinction. Soreo, not wanting humans to die, gets angry and buggers off to stop the satellite launch because he's a goddamn Kamen Rider.

And so far, all of this is basically what happened in the real history of Kamen Rider Zero-One, save for Soreo being visited by a bunch of time-travelling millennials. Here is where the Time Jacker, a woman in white called Finis, shows up. Finis tells Will that in the original timeline, Soreo blows up the Ark with a bomb, sinking the Ark and causing the Daybreak incident... and Finis ends up giving Will the Another Zero-One ridewatch in order to change history. Pretty cool.

This leads to a three-way fight as Soreo plans to blow up the Ark in order to make a world where his son can be happy. Will wants to stop Soreo. And we get the absolutely badass transformation for Ichigata, complete with a Takeshi Hongo pose and a giant swirling smoky cyclone rising into the sky. That is badass. The music is also pretty great here, and the generally awesome zippy-zip of Kamen Rider Ichigata's movements is pretty awesome. Ichigata fighting Another Zero-One is just utterly badass, and the aforementioned red muffler effect is very fun. Aruto, of course, joins in the fight, but not before him genuinely looking impressed as he sees his robo-dad fight this monster.

The Zi-O cast, meanwhile, finally meets Finis and her super-long cape. Finis wants to stop the creation of Ohma Zi-O (and somehow interfering with Zero-One's story... will do that?) and tells them that she has access to Kamen Rider Ichigo's powers and transforms into Another Ichigo. And... uh... it's a Kamen Rider whose waist is fused into a giant bike and also there are giant claws and hilarious CGI involved. I'm not even mad, Another Ichigo looks so utterly dumb. I love it. As Finis rampages around claiming to be the 'peak of origin', Sougo combines with his posse and transforms into Zi-O Trinity to fight. But a giant-bike-sideswipe knocks poor Zi-O Trinity around.

Meanwhile, in the fight without a giant CGI monster, Ichigata's upload to stop the Ark from launching into space is interrupted by Will, and the Ark subsequently hacks Ichigata and mind-controls him to fight Aruto. And Ichigata... basically goes through a bit of a tough-love-dad moment here where he actually agrees in fighting Aruto, telling Aruto that he needs to surpass Soreo to make his dreams come true. Okay, but you're also beating up your kid. I get the idea here, but I don't think the execution is done that well. Another Ichigo arrives and puts the kibosh to this fight, quite literally running Aruto over with his big chunky CGI wheels.

Will also somehow goes all the way to Korenosuke's office, beating up the vice president duo. Korenosuke defends the two from Will, giving a speech about how the employees are the company... then Will snaps Korenosuke's neck. This scene is actually kind of great, with Fukuzoe clearly distraught and very nearly charging in to his death if Yamashita wasn't holding him back.

The Zi-O crew save Aruto and punch Another Ichigo with their Time Mazines, and drag Aruto back to 2019 because it's too late to change the time alteration (except they've done it many times before in their own series but okay). The good guys all escape on Zi-O's Time Mazine, while Finis looms over the broken Geiz Time Mazine left behind. Foreshadowing!

And we return back to 2019, the dystopian future with resistance members and stuff, and apparently in the time that Aruto has been hanging around with the Zi-O cast, the resistance got absolutely fucked, and Izu had given herself over to Will's army to save the kid that was an asshole to her earlier in the movie. The time travel stuff has been pretty great, but this is where the movie randomly introduces a Humagear stockholder storyline in 2019 and I felt like this bit was shoehorned in without any real buildup or any real sense other than giving Aruto's 'president' deal some mileage. Will basically tells the stockholders about traitors, terrorists and wants to execute Izu publicly, Aruto shows up, and then has a bit of a debate with Will. The word 'dream' in this debate restores Izu's memories, Izu ends up talking about her own dreams while an instrumental cover of RealxEyez plays... and Shesta suddenly decides to support them and end up wanting to put Aruto as the president, leading to random Humagears in the stockholders discussing this and wanting to be buddies with humans.

And you know what? This works for the Zero-One themes. Unfortunately, the movie has really been selling the idea that the bad-future 2019 is basically a dystopia ruled by Will and the Humagears that will go on a beep-beep rampage at the sight of humans, so this whole boardroom scene felt like it doesn't quite belong in the movie.

And then we get another plot twist. Soreo is alive in 2019 (of course, he gave Aruto the Force Riser) and he's the major shareholder, and the emergency motion to replace Will with Aruto wouldn't pass unless he votes.... and it's all under the same idea of how Aruto 'needs to surpass Soreo' to be happy. A nice sentiment, for sure, but it's completely undercut by all the time-destruction around them. Will and the Ark takes over random humagears, turning them into magia, and we get Aruto, Izu and Shesta running around as they get chased by Another Zero-One, Horobi, Jin and a bunch of Magia. And then the Resistance shows up! They all came to save Izu, who they see as one of their own. That's actually a pretty nice moment.

And then we get the Zi-O squad showing up to help out. Tsukuyomi is fighting, karate-chopping random Magia and abusing her time-stop powers to make Magia shoot each other. But clearly the most entertaining fighter here is Woz, whose entrance to this scene is strangling a random mook with his fucking scarf and dragging his struggling body behind him. At one point, Woz also bitch-slaps a Magia with a book. Woz ends up fighting Jin, and he uses his fucking book to block Jin's bullets, dance around Jin, traps Jin's handgun with the book and forces a misfire. That's such a hilarious scene and such a hilarious usage of Jin's scarf and book. It's nice to know that the production team finds Woz's whole ensemble as memetic as the fandom does.

Meanwhile, Aruto and Soreo face each other and we get Rising Hopper vs. Rocking Hopper. The others also transform, and we get Woz fighting Jin, Geiz fighting Horobi, and Tsukuyomi taking potshots at the two Metsubojinrai peeps. Meanwhile, Fuwa and Yua get yet another very cool spinning camera transformation as they fight off against Another Zero-One. We get a cool shot here of the Shotriser duo charging through the swarm of locusts that Will summons. Sougo, meanwhile, meets Finis on the top of a random building. Finis rants about how the Kamen Riders draw their power from the powers of evil (something that Amandum from Wizard also points out) and we get Zi-O transforming into his Zi-O II form to fight Another Ichigo.

As much as the 'surpass me' motivation is kind of flimsy, I did find the Zero-One vs. Ichigata fight in a town square (is it where Zi-O's finale takes place?) to be pretty cool. We get a very cool Rocking Spark/Rising Dystopia clash as the two of them zip through a corridor with columns that I feel is actually one of the best showcases of super-speed. The camera angles and Ichigata's muffler help a lot, too. We get a genuinely great usage of "I'm the only one who can stop you" catchphrase, and amazing shot of Ichigata unleashing his glowing aura before he unleashes the ROCKING THE END, the best weirdly-syntaxed-English attack name I've heard.

Again, I still think that the motivation for Soreo to want to force Aruto to surpass him by pretending to be hacked so Aruto would be forced to kill him is a bit iffy, but the scene with the two of them having a manly man clash and Aruto holding Soreo's dying body is great. It's just great. I can kind of forgive some questionable character motivations since the scene is pretty great. Soreo's parting words to Aruto, how he needs to realize that he shouldn't define himself as anyone's successor but just as his own man... that's pretty great. Also, Shesta informs us that since Soreo died, the majority vote passes and Aruto's the president... not that it matters because it never really comes up ever again in the movie.

The rest of the fights are kind of wrapped up. Tsukuyomi does a little Dragon Ball thing, gathers up Geiz and Woz's respective finishes, combines them and attacks the Metsuboys before the three of them do a triple kick and blow up Jin and Horobi (who don't die, they just slink away). Meanwhile, Valkyrie and Vulcan get a very, very cool background music as they zip around Another Zero-One (who's honestly kind of rendered irrelevant in the third act) and they state their catchphrases at around this period in the show. The simultaneous take-down is pretty great, with Vulcan's ghost-wolves holding Will in place as Valkyrie zips around and leaves a bunch of energy orbs that slowly expand and blow up. The music is really cool, too.

Unfortunately, while Aruto taking out Soreo is easily the emotional highlight of the movie, we still have a huge CGI monster to kill. And... Finis is kind of just reduced to a rampaging monster. She combines with Geiz's Time Mazine and grows a bunch of bug legs, becoming Another New Ichigo (bug legs are cool and are a lot less goofy than a bike centaur).

Oh, and also, the vice presidents and the resistance gets Satellite Zea in the orbit in kind of a random background plot event, causing Aruto's Zero-One driver to be authorized again? Anyway, Aruto joins the big fight against the giant angry bug, using his father's Rocking Hopper to activate his weapon. That's nice. There is some random handwave about how if they can blow up Geiz's Time Mazine, history will turn to normal... which is basically writer shorthand for 'we need to end the movie with the bad guy blowing up'. And then Sougo finally pulls out Grand Zi-O, absolutely confusing Aruto that someone had a far, far more elaborate transformation than his giant grasshopper buddy. (All Aruto has to show is Biting Shark, poor lad)

And this is a Zi-O movie, and while none of the other riders really do anything much here beyond showing up and helping to deliver a kick or two, we get a neat last hurrah of the Heisei twenty showing up to slash and stab and kick, while Aruto runs around Another Ichigo's huge body and uses his various early-show animal forms to stab and freeze and burn Finis. After a bunch of one-liners are exchanged, Aruto and Sougo see that the blade from Aruto's first Rocking Hopper strike is still stuck in Finis's body, and with a rising impact time break, they do a combined kick, push the blade through and blow up the giant CGI monster.

And because of timey-wimey stuff, everything is restored to how it was for the Zero-One world, and the Rocking Hopper key disappears from Aruto's hand. History will return to normal... except for Aruto and Izu who are connected to the satellite? But why? Why is the satellite time-ripple-proof? Whatever the case, we get a bit of Sougo wanting to wipe out Aruto's memory... even though he's never really done so for any other riders in his show, and it's just really an excuse for the movie to end with the shot of Aruto and Sougo about to punch each other.

Since status quo is god, though, obviously Sougo (who has a final form and everything) wins the fight and wipes Aruto's memory before... uh... they revert back to their 'we're back to civilians attending school' bit? And Izu is implied to actually remember the events of the movie? Okay, then.

Overall? It's actually one of the more enjoyable Kamen Rider movies, although as always with anything that's a crossover trying to incorporate two series' worth of history... it is a bit messy and comes off as more than a bit of a fanfic. Honestly, juggling the cast, juggling the clear story that they wanted to focus on (Aruto and Soreo) and two villains that the writers don't really care for (Will and Finis) really made the movie suffer, and the third act particularly ends up suffering from this. It's still fun, though, and if nothing else the movie has some of the hands-down best action scenes in Kamen Rider that I've seen lately.

Random Notes:

• Continuity point: This movie takes place between episode 9 and 10 of Kamen Rider Zero-One, due to the lack of Shining Hopper among Aruto's forms.
• Aruto's long speech to protect Izu does have him say that protecting the dreams of humans and humagears "is [his] Zero One!" which is a bit of a forced way to incorporate Zero One into dialogue, but okay. 
• Is, was, as, and now will. All secretary Humagears must have names that are English tenses. 
• Nobody really mentions it, but I'm still utterly baffled at the idea that Hiden Soreo is somehow given the 'right' to succession while Humagear wages and welfare are still being debated. 
• A lot of the random background resistance members would later show up as actual side-characters in the episodes produced after this movie aired. Some of them portrayed random generic background characters like a judge in the lawyer episode, but some notable ones include Teruo (the jealous boyfriend who became the Penguin Raider), as well as Ono and Ito (known better to me as the AIMS Crab Bros). The Crab Bros suit also show up as part of the Magia armies here, a lot earlier than they did in the show. 
• Speaking of reusing things in the show, Zero-Zero-One's black CGI grasshopper buddy transforms with a bunch of black locusts swarming around him, similar to Metal Cluster Hopper. 
• Fuwa's catchphrase is still more or less the same ("I will crush you!") but Yua telling Will that he's nothing but a tool will get basically turned upside-down in the show. 
• The Gimmick Watch: (Which would've sounded a lot better for Zi-O, really)
• Zerozero-One: "Rising Hopper! A Jump to the sky turns into a rider kick. Break Down."
• Zerozero-One's finisher is  "Rising Dystopia!" and "Rising Utopia!"
• Ichigata: "Cyclone rise! Rocking Hopper! Type One."
• Ichigata's finishers are "Rocking Spark!" and "ROCKING THE END!"
• Zero-One using the Ichigata key: "Rocking Kaban Strike!"
• Geiz's weird neck-brace thing will always be funny to me. Geiz being a little scared at the sight of the CGI scorpion and falcon is also hilarious. 
• Tsukuyomi misses out on the second act's action scenes because she was running around collecting information, but it's nice that she gets her fair share of action scenes in the first and third acts. It's certainly more than what she got in her show. 
• Regarding the Metsubojinrai boys transforming, Woz says something along the lines of 'your birth is no occasion for me to rejoice.' No iwae for the Mestuboys, alas. 
• Finis's super-long cape is ridiculous and I love the costume department for it. 
• I do find it kind of hilarious how Sougo's acting like he's the mature one here telling Aruto that he has to accept the past and everything considering how many times in his own series and movies that Sougo's mucked with the past. 
• The credits show a bunch of interesting scenes play out -- Horobi and Jin watching humans; Fukuzoe doing a HENNNSHA pose (Yamashita and Shesta are not impressed); Fuwa and Yua eating at the cafeteria and Fuwa talking about how he had a dream that he became a Humagear (foreshadowing again!); high school Sougo talking about 'words on someone's face'; and Aruto talking about name cards. 
• Thouser gets a cameo as a post-credits scene, and I thought the movie did a great job at showing Gai's corruption of Ark that's certainly happening off-screen while also making it a complication in the Korenosuke/Soreo/Will storyline. 
• It's a crossover movie, so don't think too hard about it, but Finis somehow has the Zero-One Ridewatch and Ichigo Ridewatch without interfering with their origin stories. 
• Among other things, you can make a drinking game out of a Kamen Rider movie for things like 'oh, they show blood!' and 'oh, they show the elusive main rider bike actually being ridden a lot!'