written By Ethan
edited by Kwame Obiri-Addai
So, firstly, I'd like to apologize for my absence in January. Things have been hectic on my end and 've
been working on other ideas for things for this blog, but until they are ready, let's take a look at
something that came out in January. That's issue #2 of the 4-part comic book series for Kamen Rider
Zero-One. But before I jump into the summary like normal, I have a couple of clarifications to make
based on things Brandon Easton has tweeted between issues #1 and #2,
This comic series takes place nebulously between episodes 3 and 10 of Kamen Rider Zero One’s 45-episode and 4-movie total run (which we are going to talk about later, don’t worry).
He swears he has actually watched all of Zero-One, which if true, honestly makes me question his media literacy, seeing how he’s writing them out of character.
Alright, with that out of the way, let’s start with the summary. Now, we have a lot of ground to cover
so I'm going to try to keep this part quick. So, Ragnarok stands over Aruto, ready to deliver the final
blow, when Fuwa and Yua, Kamen Riders Vulcan and Valkyrie respectfully, criticize Aruto for the
collateral damage. They then team up with Aruto (who, i guess, is fine to transform after having his
driver hacked?) and all do a finisher move on Ragnarok, who's seemingly disappeared, leaving a crater.
Fuwa then condemns Aruto’s lack of “discipline and technique and that he needs to train his mind “
(a thing we will get to, don’t worry). Yua agrees, and Aruto goes back to some place that looks nothing
like the office he has in all other Zero-One media, where he mopes about their criticisms. He then has a
flashback of a time when his humagear dad helped an old lady that was knocked over by a guy rushing
to work. His father explained to him how important it is to have empathy as the rushing man only did so
because he might have missed his meeting about a promotion, which would have meant he couldn't
support his family. Aruto then asks Izu to train him to become a better strategist. Eventually settling on
taking Aruto to the Hiden Intelligence legally distinct Danger Room holographic hard light training room
(a thing we will get to as well, don’t worry) where Izu sets Aruto an obstacle course that he has to do in
a current order. None of the obstacles seemed to be numbered so this seems like an impossible thing
to work out but whatever, eventually Ragnarok (as nanomachines) hacks into the legally distinct
Danger Room holographic hard light training room, creating a hard light body and attacking him.
This fight is however just a distraction for Ragnarok to hack into the humagear creation factory level
of their building, letting him take control of a handful of humagears and turning him into bat enemies.
Aruto and Izu run to the roof where the real Ragnarok appears and uses his nanomachines to convert
a humagear into a big cannon and shooting Aruto and Izu point-blank. The final shot of the issue is
Fuwa and Yua looking on as Hiden intelligence explodes, criticizing Aruto again and saying he’s over
his head.
So, what did I think about this? I really didn't like it. Let’s start with Fuwa, shall we? This man is only
able to transform because he got so angry that he forced open his progress key. When he gets his
first major power up, his direct quote is “I don't need laughter, all I need is rage”. At the weirdly vague
early point in the story where this published fan-fiction is set, Fuwa would not lecture anyone of the
importance of training their mind. This buckwild, outta-characterization is clearly there for the forced
character arc that they need to give Aruto. Speaking of which, his arc of “needing to be a more strategic
fighter” really comes out of nowhere, whenever he puts on his Driver to transform, it links his mind up
with a super satellite, giving him super intelligence. In the first episode, he basically gets a tutorial on
how to fight while transformed. None of this has even been anything the character has ever struggled
with and reeks of them trying to force an arc on him so the story has any point at all.
Alright, let’s get to the biggest continuity problem in this issue by far, and yes, I'm including them
exploding the main character’s office in that assessment - the Hiden intelligence legally distinct
Danger Room holographic hard light training room. Izu explains that this room is to train humagears
to do the jobs that they were created for by simulating things for them. This is in the first few episodes
of the show and yet is already shown to not be how they do that - they download the data of the jobs
to the humagears specific progrise key, and they link to the internet for the rest. The conflict of episode
3 is that the Sushi Chef won't take the Sushi Chef humagear because it’s following the data to rigidly
and creating technically impressive sushi but sushi that lacks the heart that they would have developed
with on the job experience. Eventually, only with the humagear Sushi Chef demonstrates that in its time
interacting with the Sushi Chef, it has started to develop and put said heart into his sushi. Only then
does the Chef take the humagear. This can’t happen if the humagears have their own X-men
holographic training room.
The art throughout this issue is good and feels suitably dynamic. There are no massive issues to break
down like last time. At most, a couple instances of “you clearly used a promo picture from the show as
a reference”, but I do think the art and the character designs contribute to this story feeling like a mildly
edited rejected Spider-man Vs Doc Ock story set during the time Peter was a tech Ceo - a sentiment
I'm sure will get stronger and stronger and I’ll end up expanding on in the review for issues #3 and #4.
Before I close out and give my final thoughts, the two clarifications at the start feel like a hand-wavy
explanation to cover for something everyone worked out by issue #1 that Brandon Easton has, at most,
only read the wiki on these characters (and even then, not alot of it). A of couple paragraphs ago, I
called this “published fanfiction”, and I have to take that back because Easton clearly isn't a fan - he's
just a guy hired to write this idea someone else had, and did very little research into writing this, leading
to mischaracterisation like “Aruto is just spider-man with a bug-themed iron man suit, and needs to
learn the importance of strategy” and “Fuwa is basically just a cop”.
Now, would I recommend it? God no. I'm taking back the “yes, but only to show there's an audience
in the west” I gave issue #1., The last time Rider fans in the west had anything specifically made to
appeal to them, we got Saban’s Masked Rider - a horrible mangaling of Kamen Rider Black RX.
We, ESPECIALLY THE NONAMERICAN western fans need to demand better and let Toei know
that we are here, and will gladly give them money if they give us something worth giving them money
for. Expanding a niche interest outside of its original country isn't charity work. With the Kuuga
manga incident we have already seen Rider fans coming together to demand a better translation for the
manga adaptation of Kamen Rider Kuuga and the companies listened and said they will be doing
reprints of the poorly translated first few volumes with better translations, and improving things for
future volumes. We can and should demand better of the people that want us to pay them. So save
your money for something that’s worth it.
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