TV-Nihon

To be fair, Takahashi didn't write this one. It's written by the new writer Kakehi Masaya, who wrote 5-7 (the manga one, the voice actor one, and the PE teacher one)

eeeeh, the mangaka episode

And now we've officially entered military counting.

Man, a wham right out of the cold open. And then the two talk about it later on, only for Yua to confess it straight to Fuwa.

Man, Aruto sucks at being an extra. That said, Owada shouldn’t be near droids.

Fuwa pulls the big damn heroes moment! And makes the declaration that he’ll overcome any/all of Yua’s deceptions.

Looking good there, Mr. ZAIA.

Nice episode. Good that Shinya Owada's in Kamen Rider.

This wasn't the series' strongest episode, but it was still quite enjoyable. As everyone else has noted, after coming off of a very intense two-parter, it's a nice break that gets to focus more on the characters and to ratchet down the intensity a bit.

The idea they're setting up with the bot actor is an interesting one, but I'm not sure it's nuanced in quite the right way? The problem with the bot, as this episode plainly lays out, is that he can't (yet) improvise. Which I can completely buy, since it requires a very specific kind of creativity that would be hard for AI as we know it to replicate. However improv is a critical aspect of modern acting; while an an actor doesn't need to be able to go to the extremes as say a comedian, any good actor does at least need to be able to do it at a basic level. It would be like a handyman that couldn't use a wrench: it's not a core skill you use every second, but it's an important part of the skill set expected for every handyman. So it's hard to suspend my disbelief here and go with the story, because this feels like something that should have been recognized long before they ever started on their project.

At any rate, even if the core issue is kind of messy, I do like what they've built on top of it. Oowada being completely fooled by the assassin bot both sets up the latter's arc (more on that in a second), and it exposes Oowada's own prejudices. He can in fact work with a Humagear, he just doesn't know it yet.

As for assassin bot, he's become an interesting recurring character. I do think some of the other posts here are right in that it risks taking valuable development time away from the regulars. None the less, being able to see how an evil bot is trying to improve himself (like any other Humagear) is proving very interesting. It'll ultimately end up a tragedy, I'm sure, but I have a soft spot for series where both sides grow over time.

Meanwhile, the CGI/SFX continues to surprise me at points in this show. When Yua is switching forms in the first fight, it's basically perfectly done. They have the CGI and compositing down to the point where until they actually swap suits (and lose the continuity of the pose), it looks just like the physical suit. Everything is perfectly aligned and none of the assembled pieces look fake. Doing that is hard, as evidenced by years of these kinds of transformations being messy, so I'm impressed what they're pulling off on a TV show budget. (The air fight with all the CGI looks less good, but oh well)

I do however find it a bit lame that Fuwa's fight was immediately solved with a new power-up. In previous episodes they've worked these things in a bit more organically; here he just immediately shot everything and won the day. So if anyone has forgotten that we're still in the first quarter and Toei has toys to sell, here's your reminder.

takenoko wrote: ↑Sun Nov 10, 2019 1:12 am So I dunno if they messed up, but the silly title from the preview isn't in this one. It looks like it got overwritten by the text for the ZAIA location.

I have to imagine they did. I wouldn't be surprised if that gets fixed for the Blu-Ray release.

I wish Yaiba were more of an equal Rider with Fuwa. It's just kind of painfully obvious who the second and tertiary riders are and it's kind of a pity since it sets up some unnatural feeling scenarios.

Agreed. The show isn't even pretending to give her and Fuwa equal billing in terms of importance right now. Both get plenty of screen time (and she's clearly very important to the story), but she hasn't been getting the big damn hero moments like Fuwa has. Then again, I suppose for at least right now, she's not really a hero...

Kamen_Rider_Shiki wrote: ↑Sat Nov 16, 2019 4:02 am And now we've officially entered military counting.

Military counting? I'm not sure I follow.

Wow; I'd listed wanting to see more of the public's reactions to Hiden's decisions in the series discussion poll and two days later (or fiveish days beforehand) it's brought up directly. This show may not always do everything perfectly the first try, but it sure knows how to fix itself.

Having a small bit of acting background, I quite enjoyed little details like the actor Humagear stretching his mouth before a shoot and the human actor emphasizing acting's focus on interaction, but a lot of the episode felt somewhat up-and-down--it felt like some of the humor landed and some of it didn't, and similarly some of the human interactions worked better than other ones (mainly, Fuwa saving Yaiba and their discussion about fighting for what they believe in felt like it needed more setup, whereas Yaiba's warning to Fuwa gave the ominous-foreshadowing effect that I presume it wanted to give). Nicely done overall; the HumaGear-job motif is starting to get a little repetitive for me, but MJ didn't corrupt any HumaGears this episode, so it does seem to already be on track towards fixing (or at least shaking up) its formulaic-leaning issues so far.

ViRGE wrote: ↑Sun Nov 17, 2019 3:58 am

Kamen_Rider_Shiki wrote: ↑Sat Nov 16, 2019 4:02 am And now we've officially entered military counting.

Military counting? I'm not sure I follow.

Military counting; it's when soldiers count by separating the numbers and saying them. For example, 38 is Three-Eight and 4 is Zero-Four.

Are you talking about my front page comment on how it's episode one-zero?

I don't understand why people keep saying this is a filler episode... dodochan is obviously gonna play a big role later on as every time he gets defeated he grows stronger, and that yua-fuwa moment ... -snip-... so many development there in one episode

Pretty much, Takenoko. Pretty much.

Starting to feel a bit suspicious of Izu XD

The Dodo guy reminds me of that character in Drive where he's gonna be there for a very long time feuding with Zero-One, would be funny if he somehow evolves further and decides to defect from MetsubouJinrai.net.

So ZAIA boss is apparently another developer like Hiden, no wonder they have been sketchy from the beginning. Despite this being a filler I don't mind this episode and I'm looking forward to the next. I think it is available now and I'm gonna be downloading it after this.

It's a good set up episode towards the second part of the two-parter, but I wish this was more of a character piece that later reveals itself as the first of a two parter. Actor bot friend would have been perceived better had it an actual personality and able to act as well as a human. Otherwise it feels just thrown in that he'll be turned eventually while the episode focuses on other things. Izu was awesome trying to get Aruto's attention. As others have mentioned, there's no way she hasn't already achieved singularity and/or will achieve it.