KR Zero-One 05 released

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Poll ended at Sun Oct 13, 2019 8:26 pm

☆☆☆☆☆
15
47%
☆☆☆☆
12
38%
☆☆☆
2
6%
☆☆
2
6%
1
3%
 
Total votes: 32
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KR Zero-One 05 released

Post by takenoko »

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Last week's rating: 4.52 / 5 (31 votes)

Alt Title: A Mangaka makes a live show into a manga-ka

That old man at the beginning is pretty excited to make his lady Humagear.

Huh, when did the bad guys learn Zero-One's identity? So much for giving up that secret identity.

Bad guy pulls out a gun, but lets Zero-One transform. What a nice guy.

Cool that they used the scenery for the shark transformation

Izu, why did you ring the bell if you're just going to walk in. Who taught you how to enter people's houses?

Man, Zero-One's transformation is rough in an inside arena.

"You are my son" awkward pauuuuuse and it's over. I don't know how to react to that

Pretty interesting that they set up the next episode with this one.

Overall, kind of a bit of a drudge of an episode to get through, mostly because you can kind of already see how it's going to go. Storywise, nothing exceptionally interesting happens, besides Jin wanting to get his own Progrise key (and the son thing I guess?)

Today's moral, it's okay to have slaves that you mistreat as long as you decide to do some of the work yourself afterwards.

Best part was the action scene turning into manga panels for sure. Just a lot of parts felt repetitive or redundant without being interesting on its own. First 4/5 of the series for me. Still good, just didn't excite me the way the previous month has been.

On a meta level, was there talk about getting kids excited to get into the work force? Feels like a lot of showcasing of different jobs in this series.

Edit:
Who's Kakehi Masaya? Never heard of this writer before. Since Takahasi Yuya wrote all of Ex-Aid I assumed he'd want to do the same with Zero-One. At least the quality drop isn't his fault.
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Re: KR Zero-One 05 released

Post by Xirix »

God I love Jin, he's just so fun to watch, I love how he just casually calls out to Zero-One.

Also er... sound guy, that is not how a creaky chair sounds... that's a door opening. XD
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Re: KR Zero-One 05 released

Post by Doublesteel »

This is it!! the end times are coming! I knew this series would start flaking out by episode 5!

If a bot builds another bot is that bot its "son"?

Fun fact, this weeks magia is based on extinct type of snail and you can see the gross disgusting eyestalks around the neck
takenoko wrote: Sat Sep 28, 2019 8:26 pm Man, Zero-One's transformation is rough in an inside arena.
Everything coming from above and blowing up, makes me want to see it being used as an attack.

Also does Hiden Intelligence pay for damages caused by their rider? do they have to deal with lawsuits?
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Re: KR Zero-One 05 released

Post by Dengar »

I mean, are they even slaves when they're not even human though? Not to mention to me the moral of the story was to not treat these things like mere tools.

Something I don't particularly understand anyway since the show makes it very clear that they're not really human.

That said, taking good care of your tools is more pragmatic. And I wouldn't leave creativity up to AI either way.


As for the episode itself, I'm surprised how committed they are to all the property damage caused merely by transforming. I thought they'd stop being flashy by episode 4.
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Re: KR Zero-One 05 released

Post by resop2 »

So Izu is a cross between Ankh and Philip? I have a feeling that one thread of this series will be Izu's journey towards human consciousness.

This episode reminded me of the Sailor Moon episode when Nephrite targeted an animation studio and tried to change the ending of an upcoming Sailor V movie.

While Hibiki and Kabuto were Kamen Rider as Shoujo Manga, I think Zero-one is very shounen manga like.

edit 1: Now that Izu has seen Jin wouldn't occur to her to put his image on blast via the satellite so that in the future if a humageer sees Jin coming they would run for their lives?
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Re: KR Zero-One 05 released

Post by Kuchiri »

I mean Jin has been watching Zero-One fight the Madgears he's been creating. They even said at the end of Episode 1 that they didn't expect Hiden's Grandson to stop their plans.
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Re: KR Zero-One 05 released

Post by Catastrophe »

Probably the weakest episode so far. AIMS is just there to be in the episode and introduce a new toy, but don't really do much.
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Re: KR Zero-One 05 released

Post by Kogashi »

takenoko wrote: Sat Sep 28, 2019 8:26 pm Huh, when did the bad guys learn Zero-One's identity? So much for giving up that secret identity.
I mean, they do personally meet in episode 2, with the evil security guard.
takenoko wrote: Sat Sep 28, 2019 8:26 pm "You are my son" awkward pauuuuuse and it's over. I don't know how to react to that
... uuuh? should we... react? no? that's not true? That's, impossible? Are we, suppose to assume that these dudes are Humagears and this is shocking that they are father and son? Is it cause they look to be the same age? ... ... *cough*

okay those parts out of the way... HOOOO BOY do I not like this episode. Oh, the acting is fine, the action is as top tier as it's been so far... That story though. Wow I am tired of this style of story. Effectively the story of "Artist gets successful, and then loses all motivation and becomes a terrible person". I really hate, HATE HATE this this type of story. But my issues with that toxic idea aside, it's also lazy. Like I get that, commercially speaking they have to make it about the specific artist, but imagine how easily this same set up works, if instead of a mangaka learning the errors of his abuse, it's a manga distributor or publisher. That it's a kind of, 'Shounen Hop' magazine ordering Humagear artist after artist, working them to break down, and commenting on how they don't feel pain and can work harder than humans, and comments about it losing some 'passion' to it from that. Yes it would still have the awkward enslaved workers metaphor going on that, honestly all stories about AI robots tend to have, but it fits better into 'the error of viewing others simply as tools' theme. but instead, they went with an overused, stagnant, toxic trope, of how if an artist is struggling they have passion, but if they are successful, they lose the passion.

WOW I hate this episode.
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Re: KR Zero-One 05 released

Post by BreadToku »

Is it just me or did this episode go out of it's way to have all the major characters refer to each other by name at least once so that the audience knows for sure what to call everyone? Anyway, this was a fun episode, a little more insight into the world, this time focusing on how humagears are purchased and looking at more ways in which people interact with them. The story was decent and the action, especially that whole manga panel fight was really nice. Not much else to say this week other than commenting on the toys.

I really feel like the Attache Shotgun should be another weapon for Zero One. For one, he started out the briefcase weapon thing in this show so I figured they should remain exclusively his thing. Secondly, Vulcan already uses a gun as his default weapon? I know lots of riders have had multiple swords, but this in particular feels a bit redundant.

Flaming Tiger is really cool. The grasshopper faces being along the hands is rather strange, but I really like the aesthetic from top to bottom. That effect of it standing with flames all around it was especially striking.
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Re: KR Zero-One 05 released

Post by Lunagel »

takenoko wrote: Sat Sep 28, 2019 8:26 pm
On a meta level, was there talk about getting kids excited to get into the work force? Feels like a lot of showcasing of different jobs in this series.
You might not be wrong there. There's a SUPER popular kids amusement park called KidZania that essentially lets kids try out all sorts of different jobs, including (but certainly not limited to) bus tour guide, car design, car repair, firefighter, judge, lawyer, dentist, pizza cook, banker, call center worker, delivery person, etc, etc. Keep in mind that this place charges 5000+ yen per kid for a HALF DAY (yes, they kick you out) and yet there are still days that are fully booked, so I wouldn't honestly be surprised if this amusement park was the impetus for the theme here.
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Re: KR Zero-One 05 released

Post by ViRGE »

This episode dropped a lot of interesting plot/world lore right at the beginning, in an almost passive way at times. Though I'm generally a fan of show-not-tell, I also appreciate some things being subtle so that the episode doesn't have to grind to a halt to hand it to the viewer on a silver platter. In particular, our suspicions about what the Ark is for are correct: it's the anti-Zea, to mass-control all of the HumaGear and turn them evil at once. I have to assume the Ark gets stopped at some point beforehand, since that seems like a TPK kind of development. But we shall see. I'm a bit less enthused, however, that the rationale for the bad guys doing MOTWs is to "gather data"; that's kind of been done to death at this point (especially with Build).

Equally interesting, this episode confirms that the "Singularity" is a HumaGear gaining sentience. To segue into Dengar's comments about the HumaGear not being human, it's the game-changer that is ultimately going to setup that debate. Are the HumaGear still sub-human once they gain sentience? Are they sub-human if they're pre-sentience, but are on the path to acquiring it in mere weeks and months? The foregone conclusion would seem to be that they deserve to be treated like humans in both cases, as this is where the show goes thematically and it's essentially what Aruto believes. But there's a lot of interesting things they can do to explore the concept while getting there.

On which note, if Izu's big character arc isn't her gaining sentience (and not being obliterated by the killjoy club in the process), I'm going to riot. Thus far everything is (slowly) being setup for just such an arc, and it would finally give her character some real depth (you need a baseline before such a journey, but Izu's baseline is very flat, as we're seeing).

Past that, while the "lazy artist" plot is unremarkable from the standpoint of the artist, I thought it was interesting from a sci-fi standpoint. "What will humans do when they have machines to do all their work" is a time-honored plot for robot stories, and I've been expecting Zero-One to trot that one out at some point. The answer, of course, is that humans will almost certainly become lazy and unmotivated, and we see this episode essentially present that as the natural state of things before Aruto & co intervene. It's a very lightweight treatment of the subject, especially as the artist gets his motivation back for unrelated reasons, but I like to think this is one of the angles the episode writer was working from, rather than just being another "successful artist gets lazy" story.

Grandpa Hiden's recorded appearance is also a neat development. I worry about this becoming a crutch for the writers to slowly dribble things out (e.g. form upgrades), but for now it's a fun way to give us a bit more insight on the man that set all of this into motion, and whom we haven't seen outside of the commercial at the start of the series.

Meanwhile in terms of production, I continue to like the little touches they've been putting in. Aruto's sense of awe towards the start of the episode when he was meeting the artist was fun to watch, and they did a great job of backing that up with the BGM. Similarly, it's amusing that the HumaGears get a sound bite like the drivers when they're being activated - and of course it's a very uplifting and optimistic phrase.

On which note, those post-transofmration sound bites are getting more and more absurdly hilarious. "Explosive power of 100 bombs" :lol:

Finally, "Hiden's Choice" really sounds like it should be a brand of beef. Then again, they are in a way selling beefcakes... :shock:
takenoko wrote: Sat Sep 28, 2019 8:26 pm That old man at the beginning is pretty excited to make his lady Humagear.
As another common robot story, I'm wondering if they'll actually do that one. To do it right would probably get too serious for the show, but it would be interesting to see Toei take a stab at it.
"You are my son" awkward pauuuuuse and it's over. I don't know how to react to that
I'm not sure there's supposed to be a reaction. It's not really a bombshell, per-se; rather it's a zinger that the show is immediately going to follow up in the next episode. It might be better to think of it as a cliffhanger, in that regard, and that we're supposed to be left bewildered but interested.
Who's Kakehi Masaya? Never heard of this writer before. Since Takahasi Yuya wrote all of Ex-Aid I assumed he'd want to do the same with Zero-One. At least the quality drop isn't his fault.
That surprised me as well. After Ex-Aid, I was expecting Takahasi Yuya to write everything. That he's not is a bit worrying, as the series with a strong presence by the main writer tend to turn out the best. Perhaps proving that point, this episode wasn't as strong as the first four, but it also didn't divebomb in quality either. So perhaps this can work out after all.
BreadToku wrote: Thu Oct 03, 2019 11:24 pm Is it just me or did this episode go out of it's way to have all the major characters refer to each other by name at least once so that the audience knows for sure what to call everyone?
I didn't notice it. But this early on in the series, it doesn't hurt to remind everyone who is who. I know I'm still learning.
Lunagel wrote: Fri Oct 04, 2019 12:15 am
takenoko wrote: Sat Sep 28, 2019 8:26 pm
On a meta level, was there talk about getting kids excited to get into the work force? Feels like a lot of showcasing of different jobs in this series.
You might not be wrong there. There's a SUPER popular kids amusement park called KidZania that essentially lets kids try out all sorts of different jobs, including (but certainly not limited to) bus tour guide, car design, car repair, firefighter, judge, lawyer, dentist, pizza cook, banker, call center worker, delivery person, etc, etc. Keep in mind that this place charges 5000+ yen per kid for a HALF DAY (yes, they kick you out) and yet there are still days that are fully booked, so I wouldn't honestly be surprised if this amusement park was the impetus for the theme here.
If that's really the case, then Zero-One is doing a brilliant job of it. A forced moral/theme like that would normally drag a show down, but Zero-One is doing very well despite it.
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Re: KR Zero-One 05 released

Post by kevinlafriday »

Most of my concerns with this episode have been addressed by other posts. But in my opinion, most of these thoughts (like the tired lazy artist trope) can surface only because we are so familiar with Kamen Rider (and Sentai) episode tropes. If I am a target audience who never actually watched these series before, I can 100% say that this episode is good enough with great message.

And if I am a Rider producer/writer who makes a rider series of 50-ish episodes about how AI is going to help jobs, this kind of episode is inevitable for better or worse.

Side note: I don't know why, but the way Aruto is portrait in these 5 episodes makes me believe he is more of a robot salesman intern rather than a CEO. I mean, I get that the vice president has to be "evil" and disagreeable, but at least show that he still respects the position OR show that Aruto has the dignity of a CEO at least. You know, get at least 1% of the attitude of Masamune Dan (KR Chronos) when he's the CEO.
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Re: KR Zero-One 05 released

Post by Catastrophe »

They keep saying that these characters are big contracts, so it kind of makes sense that Aruto is attending them personally.
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Re: KR Zero-One 05 released

Post by Dengar »

The thing about that that I find hard to believe is that these 'big contracts' involve just a single humagear or just a handful of them. And they aren't particularly outstanding either, doing things that any human can do at a level that a human can reasonably do them.

I mean it's a kids show so I'll forgive it, but so far I'm not sold on the necessity of a corporate CEO being on the front lines.
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Re: KR Zero-One 05 released

Post by Lunagel »

Dengar wrote: Fri Oct 04, 2019 7:29 am I mean it's a kids show so I'll forgive it, but so far I'm not sold on the necessity of a corporate CEO being on the front lines.
I'll bet the VP is encouraging him to do it. He did say in episode 2 that Aruto going around is good publicity, and if he messes up, then he can make him resign. They've probably got all sorts of mundane tasks for Aruto to do instead of actually making any decisions. Which probably isn't a bad idea, considering he has absolutely 0 business experience.
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