This is MJ. I'm an author, I'm an artist, I'm
an analyzer. You can find all my work at MJMonios
.com. Welcome to Writer Tears, where I'm going
to give you my honest opinion of everything Kamen
Rider, basically. So I want to talk about Kamen
Rider Zets Episode 1 first. The premiere, I watched
it, and I'm very excited, first of all, that
Toei is doing this, that Bandai is doing this,
that they're all working together to globalize
Kamen Rider like Ultraman has been doing. Ultraman
did a great job, except for some reason with
this latest one. What's it called again? I haven't
watched in a couple weeks because I've been super
busy. I move. There's been all sorts of chaos.
The Meteor one. Omega. Omega. There's no dub.
Where's the dub? The dub's coming, but it's not
here yet, and I don't understand why. I'd definitely
be watching it week to week. Well, I'd be a lot
more likely to watch it week to week if there
was a dub, and I'd be a lot more thrilled about
it. Zets if it had a dub as well, but maybe they're
going to do the subtitle, uh, you know, simulcast
release type of deal first. And then if that
tracks well, maybe next year I'll get my Kiva
dub, um, or my Kiva sequel dub. I'd take a Kiva
sequel like that, man. Anyway. Um, so yeah, big
pop of water. I want it set in the future. Nevermind.
I'm talking about that right now. Um, but yeah,
so, uh, Zets episode one, I gotta be honest.
I didn't like it that much. Um, all the visuals
are great. Uh, it deals with dreams and maybe
even Dreams Within Dreams, which I find interesting.
Like, again, all the visuals are slick. That
opening where he's acting or he's actually dreaming
before his sister wakes him up by yelling at
him and hitting him with a ladle was all great.
It was all serious. The tone was, like, dark.
And, like, I mean dark for tokusatsu, dark for
kid shows. I don't want, like, I've never watched
Game of Thrones. I've never read a book. It sounds
nasty and gross to me, and, like, I have no interest
in that. I like, you know, children's fiction.
I do. I don't know why, but I do. I kind of grew
up with Power Rangers. I saw the Guyver VHS's
in Suncoast video when I was, I don't know how
old, but I watched the movie on Sci -Fi Channel
2, the live action one, number two with David
Hayter, Guyver Dark Hero, and I liked it. It
was cool. It was exciting to me. At the time,
I also got way into horror movies and blood and
guts and gore, but I didn't really need that.
The story is enough. Shonen stories are exciting
enough. Yu -Gi -Oh! There's no actual fighting.
It's all card battles. That stuff is thrilling.
So I love when you can get really high -stakes
drama and intense action. without people actually
having to die. Like, that's just nice, because
people dying is sad. It sucks in real life. And,
you know, in Kamen Rider, we get to see people
in rubber suits fight each other and whatnot,
and that's, like, it's just enough. It's just
dark enough. It's just cool enough. It's, like,
introspective enough that Kamen Rider draws me,
and it's, like, kind of the perfect thing for
me. I like Dragon Knight okay. I probably liked
a lot of Seasons of Power Rangers more than I
liked Dragon Knight, but I wanted to like Dragon
Knight a lot because I like Kamen Rider, I love
the visual, I love the aesthetic, I love the
idea of the power source coming from evil, which
we're not really getting yet in this show. Zetsu's
done something really bold with its opening where
it's not really giving you a lot of information.
It almost feels like we're being dropped into
the middle of the story, but he's not established
as the writer yet. He is becoming the writer
in this one. But some of the storytelling is...
kind of seeding the fact that something bigger
is going on. Yuya Takahashi is the head writer
for this. I want to say that I know for sure
that Yuya Takahashi wrote Ex -Aid, which I almost
didn't watch, but I did, and it's one of the
best Kamen Rider shows ever, and Zero -One, which
I really enjoyed a lot. I think he also wrote
the weird Pokemon train grasshopper alchemist
thing. Gashard, maybe? I don't know if he wrote
that one or not, but for sure, those two, X -Aid,
Game Doctor 1, and Zero One with the AI. And
anyway, I liked both of those shows a lot. X
-Aid is actually fantastic. It's amazing. In
fact, even though it doesn't seem like it would
be. And it has an interesting blend of storytelling
in it, as the Zero One. Zero One was affected
by COVID, though, so I'm trying to kind of filter
my thoughts about this show through that. There
was, like, a long tail. I don't know if you call
it a long tail. There was, like, background prologue
stuff that you didn't know happened in X -Aid
until a third through, halfway through. Even
towards the end, you find out even more stuff
about things going back into the past for it.
For Zero One, it's kind of similar, where, like,
things were happening in the background, things
happened in the past. It got seeded back years
ago, and now it's happening here, which I guess
is consistent, like, with the way Kuga did it,
because all this stuff with the Linto Rinto Grongi
stuff happened a long, long time ago. land far
away, in the land of the rising sun. I'm detecting,
I mean, I'm not a detective, I'm not Batman.
They pointed it out that there's been this string
of accidents that has happened where Baku has
tried to do things to help people, and he's ended
up severely injured. He was struck by lightning,
but he survived. His sister said the gods have
abandoned you, but I mean, it doesn't seem like
the gods have abandoned him, because he should
have been dead if they'd abandoned him. But he
got struck by lightning. I don't remember what
the other two things were, but I took screenshots.
There's three distinct things that happened to
him that were crazy things that should have killed
him. And somehow he survived. And apparently
each of them was attached to him. Oh, he got
hit by a meteor. And one other thing. So these,
that made me wonder, what is the long tail, if
we're going to call it that, seeding this story
from a long time ago, from the time he was in,
I don't know, the time he was like 11 years old.
I don't know. Was that middle school? Anyway,
like, what is this that's going on with him?
What does it have to do with the rest of the
story? Is he a Kamen Rider because something
happened to him when he was 11 years old? Sounds
familiar. Sorry, I'm not throwing shade at Exit.
I'm just appreciating the fact that I know Takashi's
work a little bit. So is that what's going on?
Something happened to him when he was a kid?
He encountered a nightmare and somehow he had
the potential to become a hero in that? Maybe
he even... I'm not going to say he's an otaku
with arrested development, but he's way into,
like, he doesn't have a job yet. He's older than
his sister. She's, like, taking care of the household,
and he's supposed to be paying for bills and
have a job and things like that, and he just
doesn't really have a job because he wants a
job where he can help someone or be a secret
agent. By the way, I'm thinking Rin and Kiriyama,
you know, tipped his hat so that this guy, I
don't know the actor's name, could snap his fingers
and try to be a cool guy. It's a joke because
this guy likes Double. That was his main commentator
when he was a kid. And that was played by Ren
Kiriyama, I think, who was a big fan of... Minami
Kotaro, who played Kamen Rider Black. So there's
like a little chain from Black to Double to now
Zets. And even, it's funny, interesting, like
a little bit of trivia, because those were all
like fresh start type of Kamen Riders, and Zets
is definitely made to be a fresh start Kamen
Rider, an entry point for people into the franchise,
into the series, which is great. You know, I'm
fine with that, but it's just, it's a really
interesting idea that you would have, well, maybe
they did it on purpose. I don't know anything
about Minami Kotaro, but Tetsuro Kurata, I don't
know if he was like, a big fan of the original
Kamen Rider or Sky Rider or anything like that.
And that's part of the reason they picked him
or not. It could have just been because, I mean,
he's, you know, he's cool. Anyway, so I don't
know. If there's definitely something going back
there, and I wouldn't say it's Arrested Development
that he's into Agent Zero, but there's the Agent
Zero movies, I think is what it is, that he's
really into. And he likes them a lot, so he dreams
about being like this guy. Kind of like an Otaku
might dream about being like a Kamen Rider or
a Takeshi Hongo or whoever. Or a Minami Kotaro,
even. You might even dress up like him and, you
know, wear his jacket and meet him at a fan convention
and convince him to pose with you. And anyway,
I just find it really interesting that... We
have the potential for this story to have been
seeded from far in the past, and I don't know
for a fact that that's what's going on, but it
feels like it is what's going on, and regardless
of whether it is or not, it's... I mean, not
regardless of whether it is or not, it's an interesting
thing I see could be going on in the show, and
I'm not sure exactly why that's the case or why
that's happening, and it's not something against
the show at all. It's just kind of a curious...
you know detail I noticed that this might be
part of the scenario and That's great. I don't
I mean I'm happy with that to be the case but
the rest of what's going on with the show I'm
is not so great and I'm not as happy with because
we see this awesome opening with With Baku having
this section zero type dream or sorry agent zero
type dream and He gets to be this awesome agent,
which by the way, I like the little A little
cute nod to the fact that he's using less than
lethal rounds because a gummy bullet or rubber
bullet shoots off this, bounces off this guy's
forehead, which was a pretty funny little moment.
But anyway, he, you know, it starts off with
this dream, and that dream seems to be irrelevant,
maybe, but... Then again there seems like they're
trying to make there be a theme about dreams
or dreaming in the show and he talks about how
nobody gets to decide what his dream is for him
and I don't really know what that means and The
fact that he's not working towards his dream
In the beginning of the show or when we used
to get to see him in his real life it makes it
feel weak and it makes it feel not so great and
I get it that he's got to have a character arc
built in there for him. So he's got to be starting
in a lower place before he ascends to this higher
place where we can really appreciate his growth,
appreciate his journey and appreciate how far
he's come. But I just, I don't know. I don't
feel like it. I don't think this theme or this
scenario for him to grow is going to grow on
me. I don't think it'll impress me. I don't know.
And we don't, we don't always need characters
to grow. They can be static characters and they
can change the world around them. Like, I love
Forza. I'm thinking Gintaro. Does he actually
change, or does he change the world around him?
He definitely changes the world around him, and
he might change a little bit himself, but he's
all about learning to change the people around
him, if he's learning anything, really, because
he eventually becomes a teacher. His story starts
in high school, and then he eventually becomes
a teacher, and he's trying to teach kids to be
their best selves, which is exactly what he was
doing with other students at his school. He was
a student there with teachers, with the main...
bad guy of the show. It's all very consistent
with him, and there's not a lot of growth or
change for him. You don't need that, depending
on the type of character. And I don't know if
I wasn't hoping for Takeshi Hongo again. I mean,
I'm honestly, again, I'm being honest, I'm always
hoping for Takeshi Hongo to come back. And yeah,
they just, that's not what they're doing here.
They're starting him off kind of as a loser.
He tries to rescue a girl from getting kidnapped,
which is great. He gets hit by a car. very Yu
Yu Hakusho, which I find interesting. I don't
remember if X -Aid or Zero One had any Yu Yu
Hakusho vibes or parallels in them, but Yu Yu
Hakusho, interestingly enough, actually has,
which was not made by Shotaro Ishinomori, has
a link back to Mutant Sabu by Shotaro Ishinomori,
where a guy dressed very much, well, Yusuke dresses
very much like the main character of Mutant Sabu,
whose name is Sabu, who gets into an accident.
He gets hit by a car, and that kind of... Or
almost gets hit by a car? No, I think he does
get hit by a car. Anyway, it's very interesting
how reminiscent it is of that. And then we have
stuff with Baku going on here, kind of echoing
what happened in Yu Hakusho, but ultimately in
Mutant Sabu. I don't know. I haven't talked a
lot about the monster designs or the action or
anything like that because I really care about
the story and I really care about being drawn
into the narrative and the structure of the story
and how good it is. And X -Aid's one of the greatest
stories ever told, somehow, even though it's
about video game doctor guys. And Zero -One's
pretty good. Zero -One has some very cool things
going on inside of it. But definitely rank X8
above it. But this right now, I don't know. It's
like a weak start. I feel like X8 had a much
stronger start. It was much more action -oriented.
I think honestly wasting like a third of the
episode or half the episode on Baku's dream that
seems to be irrelevant is part of the problem.
And then like when he's... in the hospital dying,
he's having the dream, he's having the nightmare,
whatever, and the nightmare guy is trying to
kill him, which, by the way, I love that he dreams
about being a guy who shoots people, and the
nightmare monster that attacks him is a gun.
Like, there's something... I'll be honest, I
like guns, okay? In fact, there's one that I
want that looks a little bit like what he has,
except it's better to brown him. What is it?
Bookmark? Oh, it's beautiful. Anyway, but I like...
There's something very satisfying about the fact
that the first monster he faces is this... gun
monster with a chamber, like a gun chamber, a
cylinder in his face of like an old revolver.
There's something very satisfying about that,
and I like it a lot. I don't really know what
the meaning is behind it, and I feel, again,
like we're starting, we're not starting really
in Meteor S, we're starting like, I don't know,
some portion down the line, and I don't know
how far down the line we're starting, and I don't
know why we're starting there, and it's just
one of the things that frustrates me about it.
So, yeah, I feel very dubious about it. overall
like it has a great exterior look to it if you
just glance at it it's like fantastic uh character
or you know costume design and things like that
the set design is pretty good too i like the
uh you know paranormal detective guy like he
seems i get really good vibes from him and the
lady too coming in maybe she's more skeptical
maybe she's not i can't tell but like i can see
their dynamic being fun um because he does say
you know that he believes in the nightmares and
she doesn't he's trying to convince her sort
of um So that dynamic could be fun, and I think
they're going to be enjoyable to watch. But I
don't know yet how they're going to tie into
Baku's story. And he thinks he was dreaming,
but actually, oh, no, silly humor. He wakes up
with the belt on his chest and the phone thing
in his lap and whatever. And those kind of tonal
things are weird to me. And there's very Japanese
-style humor, I think, going on in the show.
I don't think it's the greatest fit for a Western
show. I think Forza would have been good for
a Western show because they're mimicking American
high school, and it works. It works well enough.
Aside from the zany humor, which was played for
laughs, which I didn't enjoy, there's the...
Honestly, a weakness for me is, despite the fact
that the suit is a cool design, and the belt
is a really cool design, and the balls are a
cool design, the balls that go into the suit
are kind of goofy. we get to see a, uh, Kamen
Rider Zets, like, 8 -bit cute character, like,
jumping up and down, pumping his fists up and
down when he transforms, and that's, like, that's
not doing it. Like, um, I don't know why they
thought that would work. And, like, I really
thought there was going to be, like, a spy, noir,
secret agent type of vibe going into the show,
and that he was, like, a dream agent, but that's
all... in his dream apparently, or maybe it's
not anymore. Maybe his dreams are becoming a
reality. I'm not really sure how that works.
I honestly kind of hope that they drop that vibe
and that aspect of the show because the rest
of it's like geekier and it's too much of a contrast.
It's like a very odd conflict. To me, it makes
for a very unsatisfying tonal whiplash. I want
to wrap it up real quick because I've got Noisemaker
over here. And anyway, like the action direction
was great. It looked beautiful. It was fantastic.
I really love, like, the John Wick, like, high
-stakes action, you know, gun -fu stuff that
was going on in the beginning. That was super
cool. There was even a little Jackie Chan thing
where he, like, knocked the, like, pulled apart
part of the gun and then kicked it and it went
and hit somebody in the face. Like, that's fantastic
stuff. And the shooting and the camera whips
over here and then there's, like, someone's name
who worked on the production. That's all fantastic.
It's beautiful. It's great. I wish that was the
vibe and the tone that they're going for. I don't
think that's what they're... I think they're
going to stray dramatically from that. I don't
know how silly it's going to get. I don't think
it's going to be like Gov. It's just because
they typically go, you know, this way than that
way. They kind of pivot back and forth, lean
different ways to catch different audiences or
whatever. But yeah, it's just... I don't know.
It's not really for me yet. But I feel like it
purposely has a slow burn start. And I feel like
we're going to learn more about it later that
will help to contextualize it and make me more
understanding of it and more understanding of
the weirdness. But... I honestly think it's a
really weak first episode and because it was
trying to be two first episodes at the same time
I think is the real problem. The other problem
with it is I don't think it's made for like a
general western audience or a general global
audience I guess you could say which is weird.
Just I can't think of a good parallel except
for um I'm thinking like shonen anime. Shonen
anime appeals very nicely across culture. I don't
think this has a strong enough of a shounen anime
type vibe to, or like, feel to what's going on
in the actual story to say that this is a success.
Or rather, I don't think it's going to land with
audiences the way a lot of, you know, some of
the top shounen things do. It's not a My Hero
Academia. It's not a... I've never watched Jujutsu
Kaisen, so I couldn't tell. It's not a Yu -Gi
-Oh! so far, even though... It's not a Samurai
Champloo or a Cowboy Bebop. Cowboy Bebop, I've
heard legends say that it's kind of meant to
appeal to a Western audience. Samurai Champloo,
I've kind of heard the same thing, even though
it's in a very distinctly Japanese setting. I'm
going to say Zetsu is very much closer to Samurai
Champloo because it's in a very distinctly Japanese
setting. But I don't think it's going to have
the same kind of cross -culture, cross -world
appeal. And I think it's probably the lack of
beatboxing, honestly. But yeah, those are my
honest thoughts on this, my honest review of
Carbonary Zeps episode one. I'd love to hear
what your thoughts are on it and what you think
about it. If you loved it, why? If you didn't
like it, is it for some of the same reasons as
me or are there other reasons? And that's pretty
much it. Anyway, I'd like you to check out all
my work, which I have all hosted at mjmanus .com.
I'm an author, I'm an artist, I'm an analyzer.
I have a book out called Mocking Mayhem. It's
about magical bugs battling monsters. It's a
lot of fun. There are Tokusatsu or Power Ranger
references in it for sure, if you like that sort
of thing. And, yeah, I'm working on another book
that's not that. It's something else, and I hope
to tell you about it soon. Until next time, folks,
take care. Be well. Give me your honest answer.
What did you really think about this episode?
Magical bugs battle monsters in this exciting
fantasy adventure. Rimlings prey upon children.
Robugs protect them. When a gremlin finds a hidden
growbug fort, the whole flock makes a surprise
attack. How will the growbugs survive? Find out
in Mockwing Mayhem. Learn more at growbugs .com,
where you can find out more about our mailing
list, receive behind -the -scenes information,
and get all the latest news on the growbugs.