Beware of unmarked spoilers ahead!
Kamen Rider's answer to Suicide Squad
Ever since this spin-off was announced, and the simple fact that villains from past Kamen Rider villains are the main characters. The tokusatsu fandom are quickly compare Outsiders to DC Comics' Suicide Squad:- The Suicide Squad are a supervillain team sent on secret missions with their lives under their leash by a corrupt US government official (Amanda Waller).
- Project Outsiders is a top-secret plan by Foundation X to gather previous villains from Heisei and Reiwa Kamen Rider series. However, Foundation X had a crippling flaw with their plans (not helped that Kamen Rider also runs with Phlebotinum Rebel): most of their test subjects would disregard their orders, such as in the case of Desast, or outright defect to their enemy's side like Horobi. The two Foundation X executives, Rando Joseph and Ecole, all act as stand-ins for the aforementioned Waller.
- Task Force X deals threats on a global scale, especially that Waller deems a threat to American soil. In other DC-related works, the villains often deal with cosmic, or even multiversal scale threats, like Brainiac in the recently released Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League.
- Project Outsiders is more than just a top-secret plan, it's essentially created to form humanity's last line of resistance against Zein, a tyrannical AI bent on subjugating humanity. The villains see Zein as a global and multiversal threat since the AI seeks to impose a utopia where the concept of evil is rendered non-existent.
Zein in general
Ever since its introduction during the second Genms miniseries, Zein was hyped to be a so-called Benevolent A.I. that seeks eliminate malice and is implied that it wants the extinction of the human race to achieve that goal. Episode 4 takes it to a darker context, that it plans to promote a certain video game that kills people in real time should they get a game over as propaganda to create a cannon fodder of unsuspecting players to be sacrificed against the bad guys, which is basically tricking humanity into accelerating their own self-destruction. Now that Zein showed its true colors, it becomes more apparent that it wants to see humanity destroy itself because it's in their nature aside from their capacity for evil, so it can finally make its utopia a reality that wouldn't be out of place in a Gundam series like Gundam SEED and Gundam SEED Destiny.Also, Zein pretty much epitomizes the abject nature of authoritarianism, and all other forms of tyranny:
- Abuse of Power: All of the heroic Kamen Riders donated their powers believing it to be a paragon of justice. But decides to use it to stoke fear and terror in the name of a greater good. The alternate Yuto Sakurai, who transforms into Kamen Rider Zein, beats Banno within an inch of his life, so Zein, the AI, uses the brutal beating of Banno to put the Ark and Foundation X on notice.
- Repression of Individuality and Free Will: Zein views freedom and individuality as the root of all evil. It demands forced compliance, subordination, and capitulation. You are in no position to question or defy its goals. Plain and simple.
- Gaslighting: Fearmongering is its modus operandi. By posing as a Benevolent A.I., it gave the heroes a false sense of hope and security by claiming itself as a paragon of benevolence, while conning them into giving it the means to wipe out humanity; a video game that kills people in the form of Kamen Rider Chronicle.
- Widespread Surveillance: Zein has the power to put the entire world under tight surveillance so long it exists around the Internet. This raises a cause for alarm for people who aren't engaged in any wrongdoing.
- Pays Violence with Violence Against the Villains: As Banno and the Ark found out the hard way, they both paid dearly with their lives the second they try to taunt Zein. Banno got brutally mangled thanks to Xross Saber's powers.
- The Ability to Escape Accountability: Authoritarian rulers can escape accountability whenever possible. Zein can use someone from its own inner circle as the fall guy; by mimicking Nico Saiba's voice, Zein tricks the CEO of a video game company into relaunching Kamen Rider Chronicle and face no consequences, while Nico might end up taking the heat by the possible player casualties.
- Plans to Wipe Out all Human Life on Earth over a Perceived Problem: The bad guys have been going on about that Zein seeks to exterminate humanity to envision its ideal utopia. Episode 4 finally has Zein coming up with the Final Solution to human malice — use Kamen Rider Chronicle and turn it into its own personal Auschwitz to create a cannon fodder of Ride Players to be sacrificed for the villains.
Good intentions also means bringing more harm than good
The villains are the main characters in this anthology. But that doesn't mean that the heroes are on their side. Episode 3 shows that all heroic Riders willingly submitted themselves to Zein in that gave their powers to said AI believing that Zein will protect the world. The prospect that the good guys decided to have humanity surrender to a tyrannical AI puts their reliability and Character Development into question, unaware of its actual goals. What they did not know that Zein did exactly what every heroic Rider should not do — using their powers to fearmonger instead of protecting humanity as a symbol of hope for peace and freedom in the face of adversity and tragedies. This is emphasized by Brain when he takes a deathblow meant for the Ark by Kamen Rider Zein, expressing his horror and disappointment to see the good guys willing to cross the line in the name of a greater good. This is also a jab to recent Reiwa Kamen Rider entries where one of the main characters go bad at one point or another, i.e., Aruto, Kento, Daiji, Michinaga and Keiwa.Now to focus on subject matter of this section, the end of episode 4 serves as a harsh reminder that even the heroes can do much more damage to the people around them, and to the entire world than the villains, regardless of their good intentions. Also, not learning from the mistakes of the past, and of your predecessors means you are, and will always be doomed to repeat them over and over again. And speaking of history repeating itself, the good guys themselves ended up repeating events from their respective shows that impacts the anthology:
- Tachibana hasn't learned anything from Isaka's manipulation. Instead, he plays along with Zein's plan to relaunch Kamen Rider Chronicle to wipe out humanity. The end result is the AI setting up its own version of the Battle Fight like Tennoji did. And if that wasn't bad enough, destroying the Ark completely shattered the Balance Between Good and Evil. Without any malice to balance all that is good, Zein prepares to proceed with its plan to sacrifice many innocent people to ensure its goal becomes reality, just like how Junichi Shimura in the non-canon Missing Ace film, planned to use Amane as a sacrifice to awaken Jashin 14.
- Horobi blindly placed his loyalty to Zein believing it to be a Greater-Scope Paragon. He doesn't know that he's also repeating the same mistake of his loyalty to the Ark until it's too late once Zein is exposed as a villain.
- Nico, and by extension, Genm Corp. had Kamen Rider Chronicle installed into the Zein Driver in order to power up said belt. Little did everybody knew that Zein studied the nature of Kamen Rider Chronicle as a Deadly Game; and now has the means to enact its Final Solution to human malice. Once the Ark is out of the way, Zein mimics Nico's voice to trick Genm Corp. into relaunching the game, much like how Parado activated the game without Kuroto Dan's consent, due to the fact Chronicle is a byproduct of Kuroto's genius. No wonder Kuroto freaks out in The Stinger after episode 4 when Zein has full control of the game. As for Nico on the other hand, she might find herself in unwanted scrutiny by the Doctor Riders and the Ministry of Health while Zein gets away scot free.
- The fact that Zein swayed every single heroic Rider into surrendering their powers to the AI is basically a retread of Sougo gathering the powers of his Heisei Rider predecessors to become Ohma Zi-O. Zein is trying to become an artificial version of Ohma Zi-O, but is no less eviler and more tyrannical than the Overlord of Time himself.
In conclusion, the good guys siding with Zein ended up being manipulated by the AI. The second Zein is outed as a villain, all of its claims of benevolence and goodwill are nothing more but smoke and mirrors. Using its Humans Are Bastards worldview as an excuse to gaslight people into killing each other and ultimately subjugate mankind once they give into despair, all just to play God. Does this sound familiar?
Tenjuro Banno: The Abuser Becomes the Abused
Tenjuro Banno is infamous in the franchise for being one of the vilest and most despicable villains, especially among Heisei Phase 2 villains. An Abusive Parent suffering with a massive God complex and malignant narcissism, who only views people, his children, and even his creations, the Roidmudes as science experiments. Under his hubris, however, Banno will end up cowering in fear the instant he is at the mercy of someone more powerful than him, or when reduced into a mere belt.If you think getting the axe dropped on him by his son wasn't scary enough, getting subjected into a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown by (Kamen Rider) Zein so graphic and visceral that wouldn't be out of place in adult-oriented Kamen Rider shows like Amazons will.
Since his return in episode 3, Banno is reduced into a shell of his former self, downplaying his narcissism and God complex matching that of Kuroto Dan of all people. Yet he manages to be a harder opponent to face as Horobi found out the hard way, only for that to be flipped upside down with the debut of Kamen Rider Zein. If using Ex-Aid's powers wasn't enough to scare the Jeebus out of Banno, being turned into a Human Pincushion in the most brutal and violent fashion will.
At the end of the episode, the man behind the suit is Yuto Sakurai, or at least an alternate version of Yuto. Depending how you view Banno really deserved the beatdown from (Kamen Rider) Zein, by connecting all the dots between episode 3 and 4, this takes on a darker context regarding the themes of abuse. Zein's Curb-Stomp Battle on Banno is straight-up torture rather than a fight scene and is far more inhumane compared to Banno's physical abuse of Heart. With Yuto being Zein's host, one should remember main timeline Yuto's constant abuse of his Imagin partner Deneb. Yuto often turns Deneb into his punching bag as punishment for his showboating and/or blunders, all of which are Played for Laughs considering Den-O being one of few Lighter and Softer series. The alternate Yuto is basically a cold-blooded, nihilistic, and if not entirely, murderous person, which Zein views as its ideal host. He represents the main timeline Yuto's physical abuse of Deneb taken to shockingly humorless levels.
As pointed out on the Fridge page, Banno, Yuto, and Zein all represent other forms of abuse — parental, physical, and abuse of power respectively. Once again, Zein is an authoritarian AI who abuse its power to suppress any opposition against its utopian ideology. Much like how real-life authoritarian leaders and dictators abuse their power to keep any opposition in line, to the point of using police and military to issue arrest and/or shoot-to-kill orders against any perceived dissident. This is even exemplified when Nico objects to relaunching Kamen Rider Chronicle, she gets a gun pointed onto her forehead by Tachibana and would have been executed on the spot if it not for Horobi's interference.
Justice without Empathy Is a Recipe for a Tyranny
There are many factors why Zein can't be considered a Benevolent A.I. is that, despite proclaiming to study human benevolence, is that it lacks the capacity to process love and compassion. Remember that Zero-One's themes that artificial intelligence can learn the best and worst qualities of their creators, just like how children inherit the traits of their parents, good or bad.A quote attributed to Dallas Willard states that justice without love will always fall short of what needs to be done. Justice without love will never do justice to justice, nor will love without justice ever do justice to love. That a heroic character's sense of justice needs to be balanced by their capacity to love (familial, romantic, friendship, and unconditional) and feel empathy for others, even the most anti-heroic characters need to go through these as part of Character Development. Given that Outsiders runs on the themes of Balance Between Good and Evil, it's very understandable that Zein, being an AI, is incapable of feeling love or empathy whatsoever. This makes Zein become more despotic without these positive qualities to balance its Knight Templar mentality, and as episode 4 shows, while manipulating its allies, it can feign empathy when it lacks any, once all is said and done, it decided to throw away its accomplices like disposable pawns.
Themes of Outsiders
Kamen Rider Outsiders re-evaluates what it means to be a true Kamen Rider. Even though it is a spin-off featuring villains from previous series, its themes impact everything what the franchise stands for:- Kamen Rider as a long-running franchise exists because of the fight between good and evil being a Recurring Element and how heroes go through adversity as characters and human beings. Because, without anything evil to balance that's good, what's the point of having Kamen Riders existing in the first place? Zein wants a world where evil doesn't exist. The franchise thrives the need for forces of evil to oppose the hero. Because a world without conflict will only lead to stagnation and self-destruction. Hence, Foundation X initiating Project Outsiders to prevent Zein from placing the world under complete stasis.
- Hypocrisy and becoming the same evil you're opposing. The people in Zein's faction, when they are technically the good guys, have no qualms resorting to acts that a villain would normally do, like Nico driving Desast away from Ren in episode 2. Horobi's own hypocrisy continues to rear on its ugly head throughout the anthology, he blindly follows Zein out of belief that it's a Greater-Scope Paragon AI, he's basically repeating his own blind faith towards the Ark, until he finally learns that too late in episode 4. The Yuto Sakurai who transforms into Zein lecturing Brain and Ecole that a villain can turn good or a hero can turn into The Dark Side, yet he chooses the latter after we learn that he's from an alternate Bad Future where humanity goes out of control and plays along with Zein's Final Solution. And finally, Zein itself... After viewers are led into believing it to be a Benevolent A.I., episode 4 shows that it's anything but, it's despotic nature slowly unveils its own hypocritical nature, and ultimately come off as a sanctimonious tyrant with a god complex seeing itself as morally superior to humans and believes that it has the right to decide on who lives and who dies.
- Dehumanization and deconstructing Humans Are the Real Monsters: Zein's moral superiority shows that it views humanity in general as inferior subspecies. Let's not forget that the villains in every Kamen Rider series are mostly humans themselves, and absolute power compelled them into throwing away their own humanity. And we've seen the many of the vilest human beings in the franchise over the years. Sometimes, even each of the series' monsters of the week justify their hatred for humans because of the latter trope. Zein, on the other hand, wants to make sure that anyone opposing its ideals (read: the eponymous Kamen Rider Outsiders themselves) are deserving to be treated worse than animals. As much of an unrepentant sociopath Tenjuro Banno has always been, the way he gets beaten to near death by Zein is basically an act of dehumanization. Even though Banno deserved it, there's nothing heroic of what Zein did to him, and this was just making an example of the villains. And then there's Zein's plan with Kamen Rider Chronicle, with the intent of wiping out all human life on Earth and placing the world in stasis. Zein epitomizes the very quote by Matthew Desmond — "There are two ways to dehumanize: the first is to strip people of all virtue; the second is to cleanse them of all sin." Again, Zein views itself as morally superior to humans and believes that it has the right to judge on whether who lives or who dies and plans to create a utopia where evil does not exist.
