Characters / Kamen Rider Zero-One: A.I.M.S.

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This is a partial character sheet for Kamen Rider Zero-One. Visit here for the main character index. Subjective trope and audience reactions should go on the YMMV page.

Artificial Intelligence Military Service

"Under the Special Artificial Intelligence Act, we at A.I.M.S. have the authority to prosecute AI-based violations."

— Yua Yaiba

A military squad supplied by ZAIA Enterprise and founded for the purpose of dealing with violators of AI-related laws, which includes eliminating rogue HumaGears. Though they are meant to defend humanity, many of their members are prejudicial towards AI due to incidents from their pasts. In the show's third arc, A.I.M.S. is completely taken over by ZAIA, becoming a paramilitary organization dedicated to exterminating all HumaGears, but is made independent in the fourth arc by Fuwa's demand as a sign of good faith for Gai's repentance.

In General

• Corporate-Sponsored Superhero: #8 establishes that A.I.M.S. gets its technology from ZAIA Enterprise, who are mass-producing the ShotRiser and Attache Shotgun.
• Face–Heel Turn: While neither of the named A.I.M.S. members turn heel in the long term, it's only because both of them leaving the organization around when it becomes Gai's personal attack force, causing the group as a whole to turn heel.
• Hypocrite: Neither of the named members put in any effort to hide their disgust for HumaGears, yet they employ the use of Gigers, autonomous machines in combat that makes them nothing more than giant HumaGear in all but appearance. Bonus points that the Gigers are also easily hacked by MetsubouJinrai.NET a la HumaGears Victim of the Week.
• Men of Sherwood: The rank and file members are competent enough to not be killed by Magia and can eventually take some of them down with their normal firearms.
• Neural Implanting: Its primary members, Isamu and Yua, underwent neural surgery that implanted an A.I.-assisted microchip in their brains that allows them to use the ShotRiser.
• Took a Level in Badass: The ordinary officers at A.I.M.S. get this treatment when they start utilizing RaidRisers with the Invading Horseshoe Crab Progrisekeys. Since they're starting from the bottom, though, even a level in badass is only enough to upgrade them to Elite Mook status. On one occasion, Jin is able to keep them busy without even transforming.

Isamu Fuwa/Kamen Rider Vulcan

Isamu Fuwa/Kamen Rider Vulcan

Portrayed by: Ryutaro Okada (live), Kosuke Asai (suit)
Young Isamu Portrayed by: Soshi Hagiwara

When I turn enemies to scrap, it's by my own rules! That's who Kamen Rider Vulcan is!

The commanding officer of A.I.M.S., possessing incredible fighting abilities. He also displays great animosity towards HumaGears. Following the aftermath of the Workplace Competition, he leaves A.I.M.S. after they are hired on by Gai to act as his own personal attack force.

Tropes that apply to him in general

Squad Captain of A.I.M.S.

^{Click here to see Young Isamu.
Click here to see Fuwa during Naki's possession.
Click here to see Fuwa in Reiwa Generation.}

• Actually Pretty Funny: Isamu is the only person who finds Aruto's lame jokes funny. Not that he wants him or anyone else to know it.
• Ambiguous Situation:
  • It's very much unclear how his Progrisekeys work in the ShotRiser after his first use - Does the ShotRiser automatically authorise them because he physically broke the lock on them, or did Yua at one point already set it to authorise all his Keys so there wasn't an actual need for him to break their locks?
  • In the ending of Zero-One Others, he becomes so severely injured that he's become blind and passes out in Yua's arms, and only shows up in the end credits after that walking towards a light before he Disappears into Light. It isn't explicitly confirmed he died, leaving his status ambiguous.
• Amnesiac Resonance: After getting transferred out of his body, Naki reveals that Isamu's sense of humor is one of the few, possibly only part about him that isn't due to his Fake Memories.
• And the Adventure Continues: At the series denouement, he's lost Vulcan for good, but started applying his experience - and some freaky Charles Atlas Superpower - to help people whenever he can, like a vigilante superhero.
• Animal Motifs: Isamu is the most obvious of the cast about having his primary Progrisekey apply to his personality, being a lone wolf Cowboy Cop who may be more of a dog on a leash than he realizes. It gets a big lampshade when he gets his hands on the Assault Wolf key, and an even better lampshade when he becomes Kamen Rider Lone Wolf through the Dire Wolf key.
  Jin: Give that back!
  Fuwa: Nope. It's got a wolf on it, it's mine.
• Anti-Hero: Isamu is apparently known to break the rules frequently in his pursuit to destroy any HumaGear he can find. And like a few Secondary Riders in past series, he is not on good terms with the Main Rider on account of differing views. Aruto's connections to Hiden Intelligence make him the target of Isamu's scorn. But, as the series continues, he is on better terms with Aruto after finding out Gai and ZAIA were behind everything and his actions become more heroic as he creates his own resolves.
• Awesome, but Impractical: He refuses to have his Progrisekey use regulated, so he just forces his open to use right away. In theory, this would let him transform faster, but the amount of time it takes him to pull the key open negates that benefit.
• Badass in a Nice Suit: Usually wears a suit and is a Kamen Rider.
• Berserk Button:
  • Early on in the series, a mere appearance by Metsubojinrai.net was enough to make him fly off the handle. This has since calmed down significantly after the truth about Daybreak was revealed.
  • It's subtle compared to other examples, but being treated as a tool is not exactly a good way to get him on your side. Just ask Gai.
  • Played for Laughs whenever he gets called a "gorilla" or some other variant. It's enough for Aruto to try and hold Fuwa back from breaking a person, namely Is.
• Black-and-White Insanity: As far as he was originally concerned, the only good HumaGear is a dead one. Calms down starting with #9 after his life-saving surgery at the hands of a HumaGear doctor, which allows him to see that HumaGears can be both evil and good.
• Blinded by Rage: Isamu's reaction upon seeing Horobi and recognizing him as the perpetrator of the Daybreak incident is to unload on him with everything he he has, howling with fury at the machine who ruined his life. It does nothing to Horobi, who proceeds to stomp Isamu into the dirt with the ease of swatting a fly.
• Blood from the Mouth: Like Shining Hopper, Isamu's Assault Wolf puts a massive strain on his body, but the strain from Assault Wolf is even more extreme: while both could hardly stand after first using the forms, Assault Wolf's first usage has Isamu start coughing up blood.
• Brought Down to Normal: Kamen Rider Ark-One hits him with an EMP wave that knocks out the chip in his head harmessly, and stops him from turning into Vulcan ever again. He regains his ability to transform sometime between the events of the final arc and Kamen Rider Zero-One: REAL×TIME.
• Brutal Honesty: He doesn't have any brain-to-mouth filter; he'll say exactly what he wants and means, propriety be damned.
• Catchphrase: "I'll turn (insert target of aggression here) into scrap!" Fuwa often announces to his opponents that he'll turn them in scrap and even casually says so when he's not in combat.
• Charles Atlas Superpower: He has an absurd amount of strength for his build, breaking Progrisekeys with some effort and effortlessly ripping off car doors. Unlike his AI chip, there's no indication that he got any enhancements for his strength.
• Character Development:
  • When the series first started, Isamu hated HumaGears with a passion due to his Dark and Troubled Past. Even when he discovers the truth behind the Daybreak Town incident, he still doesn't hold a high opinion of them, thinking of them as more trouble than they are worth. In the ZAIA Arc, however, he's come to better understand them. At one point, when Aruto questions his faith in HumaGears after being told they can go berserk of their own free will, Isamu tells him that HumaGears are both guilty and innocent. This eventually gets to the point that he actively breaks the brainwashing that Gai forced on him in order to save Is's life, a far cry from what he would've done at the start of the show. This also coincides with his gradual softening towards both Aruto and Yua, to the point that he will actively defend them, give them pep talks, or call them out on their crap. As of #32, Fuwa is on good terms with Aruto and currently works as a security guard for Aruto's Hiden Manufacturing company after leaving A.I.M.S., and in Zero-One Others, Horobi willingly trusts Fuwa with his life, an offer he readily accepts.
• Consummate Professional: The show alludes to this, especially when Aruto pokes fun at his serious demeanor when on the job. Unlike most examples, he's Hot-Blooded to a point and often prefers brute forcing things. Still, he's dedicated to the job and is mostly professional (unless Aruto's cracking another one of his jokes).
• Contrasting Sequel Protagonist: He serves as one to several secondary Riders of the Heisei era.
  • Like Geiz Myokoin/Kamen Rider Geiz, Isamu is more experienced than the series' main rider, starts off harsh towards him but slowly thaws, is introduced alongside the main female character, and relies mainly on ranged weaponry in his main form. Unlike Geiz, however, he becomes a rider after the protagonist^note with his experience coming from his service in A.I.M.S, is harsh towards Aruto because of something Aruto had no involvement in (whereas Geiz was harsh towards Sougo because of what Sougo would become), and whereas Geiz and Tsukuyomi are on the same side throughout most of Zi-O, Yua is eventually revealed to work for Gai Amatsu/Kamen Rider Thouser. This even extends to the color of their rider suits - Geiz's is mostly red with some black, whereas Vulcan's is blue and white.
  • As of #35, Isamu is similar to Ryuga Banjo/Kamen Rider Cross-Z in that their origins were a complete mystery until they're explained from birth, though Ryuga starting his story from his birth was treated as a gag the first two times it happened. The major difference is that Isamu's real life story, sans Fake Memories, was completely unremarkable, while Ryuga had the complete opposite of an ordinary life—putting aside even the events of the series' start, he was infected with Evolt's genes whilst his mother was pregnant with him, and so is a Half-Human Hybrid between human and Evolt's species of alien.
  • Both Isamu and Hiiro Kagami/Kamen Rider Brave are the series' secondary Riders. They are both associated with the color blue, and start at odds with their main Riders before becoming reliable allies to them. Their personalities, fighting styles, and weapons of choice, however, are quite different; Hiiro is a stoic, no-nonsense type of person who uses a sword to fight up close, while Fuwa/Vulcan is short-tempered, brash, and primarily uses his ShotRiser for long-range attacks. Their backstories ultimately contrast with each other as well—Hiiro lost his girlfriend to the Bugster virus during Zero Day, but still has his father, whilst Isamu was orphaned when HumaGears attacked Daybreak Town and overran it. This is ultimately further emphasized once Isamu learns that he was given Fake Memories of the attack on Daybreak Town to motivate him into becoming a Kamen Rider—his parents and family are in fact completely fine, but have no awareness of where he is, and he chooses not to approach them once he learns where they are, deciding that it's better to let them live in peace instead of invading their happy lives.
  • Isamu's initial hostility towards HumaGears and his desire to destroy them all, regardless of whether they are guilty or innocent, parallels fellow secondary Rider Go Shijima/Kamen Rider Mach's hatred for the Roidmudes. However, unlike Go — who even at the very end never truly accepted the Roidmudes^note Chase being the only Roidmude Go acknowledged as a friend, and that was after the former's sacrifice — Isamu gradually softens in his stance towards HumaGears after his life is saved by one.
• Cool Big Bro: Thanks to his Character Development, Fuwa starts to act more akin to a reasonable elder figure to Aruto, constantly worrying about his well-being and giving much-needed advice to him in desperate circumstances.
• Cowboy Cop: Initially verging on Rabid Cop due to his virulent hatred of HumaGears. His complete disregard for the chain of command in favor of doing what he thinks is necessary puts him at odds with Yua, such as taking the Shot Riser without authorization. This bites him the very next episode, as it is revealed that he can't open the Shooting Wolf Progrisekey without her say so and his forcing it to open injures him. The same episode suggests that Yua actually intends this behavior from him.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Isamu was a victim in the same prototype HumaGear attack that robbed Aruto of his HumaGear father. For some reason the incident was covered up, which Isamu believes to be the work of Hiden Intelligence. The incident was what led to him joining A.I.M.S., and why he has a hard time working with Aruto. Gai states in #33 that he used the brain chip to implant the memories of this incident into Isamu's head in order to manipulate him into becoming a Kamen Rider. When Naki reveals Fuwa's real life story in #35, they gloss over most of the details: Fuwa's actual life was so completely mundane that it was actually boring to go over all the details. Just about the only thing unusual about him is his fondness for cheesy puns.
• Defrosting Ice King: Fuwa initially was cold and hostile to both Aruto and Yua, often frequently bickering with them about their views towards HumaGears. After softening up his personality and coming to understand them better, he starts to act as a Cool Big Bro towards them (though the latter could be considered Ship Tease) and becomes much more cooperative. He also becomes protective and cooperative towards HumaGears, in stark contrast to the beginning where would he would often state that he would destroy any HumaGear that gets in his way.
• Determinator:
  • How Isamu becomes Kamen Rider Vulcan. Specifically, he overrides Yua's lockout of his Progrisekey by forcing it open with his bare hands. However he is seen with a broken arm later, implying that forcing a piece of mechanical equipment to open injured him.
  • So Isamu has a microchip in his brain that allows Gai to control him and for Naki to hack him anytime they want to. The chip is used against him during his fight with Thouser and Yua, but his response is to fight back against the hacking. His will is so strong that he succeeds in resisting, much to their shock.
• Dork Knight: While he acts genuinely professional and levelheaded most of the time, he also has a very lame sense of humor, and it shows when Aruto cracks one of his jokes. He actively tries to suppress his laughter around Aruto in order to retain his professional persona, but he ultimately gives up late in the plot and even admits to loving his jokes after Aruto became Ark-One.
• Enemy Mine: Of a sort with Naki come #32. Both refuse to be tools, both are incredibly angry with Gai, and Isamu is perfectly happy to have Naki working with him than trying to force him to work for Gai.
• Experienced Protagonist: Unlike Aruto, who became a Kamen Rider only recently, he and Yua have clearly been dealing with rogue HumaGear for a while. Kind of a given, since he belongs to a military unit. However, Aruto beat him to the punch of becoming a Kamen Rider.
• Fake Memories: Gai had false memories of him being attacked by rogue HumaGears during the Daybreak Incident implanted into his brain via the brain chip, for the purpose of instilling his Fantastic Racism against HumaGears.
• Fantastic Racism: Initially, Isamu has a burning hatred of any and all A.I., regardless of if they are benevolent or otherwise, a result of Fake Memories of him being caught up in the Daybreak Town incident where he was surrounded by numerous hacked HumaGears who were more than eager to kill him. Combined with his distrust of Hiden Intelligence, he is not on good terms with Aruto, the company's new CEO who believes that A.I.s can be used with good will. After seeing Anna resisting her corruption as well as being saved by Dr. Omigoto, his view on HumaGear begins to soften a bit, but not for the positive as he goes from seeing them as murder machines waiting to go on a killing spree to them being more trouble than they're worth. He even continues to refer to the Magia as HumaGears despite the established differences between the two. It takes some more time for him to eventually acknowledge his own shortsightedness in this regard. Currently Isamu has let go of his hatred, alongside and as well as realizing that ZAIA was responsible for everything that happened, so he has come to accept HumaGears and is more determined to stop Gai and ZAIA.
• Foil: To Aruto. Both were caught in the same disaster in their youth, but took completely different conclusions from the experience: while Aruto came to believe the HumaGear were part of humanity's dream and benevolent partners in society, Fuwa developed a fierce hatred for them to the point of wishing to see every single one destroyed, believing them to be nothing more than killing machines. While Aruto is a goofball who became a Kamen Rider to protect peoples' smiles, Fuwa is deadly serious and clearly wants to use his power to destroy the HumaGears instead. Even how they became Riders are foils. Aruto was trusted enough by his grandfather and Is to become Zero-One while Isamu had to force his Progrisekey open to transform for the first time. Also, while Aruto's disaster experience was genuine, Fuwa's was actually Fake Memories implanted into his brain chip by Gai.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: Initially, Fuwa would get angry at anything that felt insulting towards him. But, as the series continues, he significantly mellows out, saving his anger for when he fights Gai.
• Handicapped Badass:
  • He spends the entirety of his premiere battle as Kamen Rider Vulcan with a broken arm after hurting it from force-opening his Progrisekey.
  • It gets way worse in #8 when he suffers grievous injuries at the hands of Horobi, but gets more or less back on his feet two weeks later, acting as armed security while needing a crutch.
  • Any time Isamu uses the Assault Wolf Progrisekey, its severe side effects basically make him this even as he's using it, as he usually collapses and then forces himself to walk it off as soon as his transformation ends.
• Headbutting Heroes: At the start of the series Isamu would often argue with Aruto and Yua about their views, but as the show goes on thanks to his Character Development he grows out of it.
• Heroic BSoD: Goes into this when he gets told by Gai that his memories of Daybreak were all a lie because of his AI chip.
• The Hero Dies: All but outrigh stated to die of his injuries at the end of Zero-One Others.
• Heroic Willpower: This is perhaps Fuwa's greatest strength of how he managed to regain control of his body several times from Naki's possession and fight off Ark's violent attempts of possession over him.
• Hidden Depths: He may be a overly serious man determined to kill all HumaGears, but he is also the first person shown to actually find Aruto's jokes hilarious, showing he has a sense of humor — albeit a bad one.
• Idiot Ball: There are several times where Isamu acts a lot dumber than he should.
  • In #27, he obtains Daiki's ZAIA Spec that has evidence of ZAIA's connection to the RaidRisers on it. What does he do right after? Dangle it in front of Gai's face, giving him a chance to grab it and stomp on it to cover up the evidence.
  • In #44, he doesn't try to empathize with Aruto and talk him down, nor does he put much effort into telling Aruto about the escalating situation with the Humagear protests. Instead he shames Aruto and accuses him of going against his beliefs, and when that doesn't work he resorts to trying to attack him, resulting in Aruto spectacularly kicking his ass, not even with Ark-One.
  • In Zero-One Others: Vulcan and Valkyrie, he and Yua don't make any attempt to coordinate against the rampaging Kamen Rider Metsuboujinrai. If they had formed a strategy or made any attempt to work together, the situation could have been a lot less costly.
• "I Know You Are in There Somewhere" Fight: Fuwa's scuffles with Yua were his attempts to free her mind from Gai's AI chip control. He finally succeeds when Yua decides to fight off Gai's control and personally resign from ZAIA.
• Ineffectual Loner: Isamu's refusal to play by the rules may get him results sometimes, but it is just as likely to cause him to go off on a wild goose chase and completely miss his target. This mellows out throughout the series as he starts to work with Hiden Intelligence more, eventually quitting AIMS to work with the newly formed Hiden Manufacturing.
• Ironic Name:
  • His last name, Fuwa, means "unbreakable" in Japanese kanji, however he is shown to constantly break the rules (and the locks on his Progrisekeys) for his personal vengeance.
  • Similarly, his last name also phonetically sounds like the Japanese adjective for "soft and fluffy", which he is not.
• It's Personal: Towards Horobi, after learning that he was the mastermind behind the Daybreak incident.
  • ZAIA and especially Gai are this after learning his memories from Daybreak incident were a fabrication by Gai using his chip implant in order to fuel his hatred toward HumaGears and it become more personal with them.
• Jerkass Has a Point: With the revelation that Horobi and Jin are rogue HumaGears, he is right to a certain degree to say that the creation of HumaGears are the cause of everything, as well as that HumaGears that Grew Beyond Their Programming are extremely dangerous.
• Jerkass Realization: After Gai told him that his memories from Daybreak Incident never happened, Fuwa realizes that his hatred toward HumaGears was Gai's doing; and it's implied he felt very remorseful for the way he treated HumaGears and caused him to fuel his hatred towards ZAIA, especially Gai, even more.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: While he still has temper issues, he softens up majorly over the course of the series. He gets along with Aruto much better, and has even come to accept HumaGears, willingly protecting them now that he knows that ZAIA—more specifically, Gai Amatsu—basically caused the destruction of Daybreak Town.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: Revealed to be a result of the Fake Memories implanted into his brain. He has no memories of his actual past and was thus initially unaware of the surgical procedures he underwent to become a Kamen Rider as well.
• Last-Name Basis: Everybody refers to him as "Fuwa". The only ones that don't are Metsubojinrai.net and Gai, who refer to him by his full name, and the Narrator who refers to him as "Isamu".
• Made of Iron: Fuwa takes what should be a fatal wound from Horobi, is back on his feet two weeks after surgery, and then using the Assault Wolf Progrisekey—a Key meant for use by HumaGears and thus lacking things like safeties and life support—not long after. That all he got from it was a bout of Blood from the Mouth is a display of how durable Isamu Fuwa really is.
• Manchurian Agent: Because of the AI chip implanted in his brain that allowed him to use the ShotRiser, this allowed MetsubouJinrai.NET to hack into it and break out Horobi without his knowledge.
• Meaningful Name: Fuwa ("Unbreakable") falls under this trope as well, as he's a Made of Iron Determinator who overcomes everything that's thrown at him.
• Muscles Are Meaningless: He's of an average-to-slight build, but he can rip off car doors and break Progrisekeys with some effort.
• Not So Above It All: He may act like a straight-laced professional, but his lame sense of humor prevents him from keeping up the mask completely. Case in point, any of Aruto's jokes.
• Not So Stoic: Despite his straight-laced attitude and penchant for destroying any HumaGear he can get his hands on, not to mention his dislike for the poor guy, he is so far the only person who finds Aruto's jokes funny.
• Odd Couple: With Yua. He's a Cowboy Cop hothead who often brute-forces things even after his Character Development, she's a rational stoic who prefers thinking things through. Despite this, they show an impressive knack at beating down enemies when they work together and as the show goes on they become more friendly with each other. This is even emphasized with their main color scheme, as orange and blue are considered to be complimentary colors.
• Phlebotinum Rebel: On top of having walked out of AIMS with his Shotriser and Progrisekeys, he fully becomes one when Naki finally gets sick of their treatment at Gai's hands.
• Platonic Life-Partners: Ship Tease aside, Isamu gradually forms a tight-knit kinship with Yua after many scuffles with each other. It's to the point where he's able to handle a casual conversation with her that doesn't devolve into an argument - a far cry from what he was like in the beginning.
• The Power of Hate: When he uses the Assault Wolf Progrisekey for the first time, Isamu states that his life has been full of hatred since the Daybreak Incident. And as far as he is concerned, hate is all he needs to destroy MetsubouJinrai.NET.
  "I don't need laughs! All I need is rage! It's rage that's kept me alive since the incident at Daybreak, so I can tear MetsubouJinrai.NET apart! That's everything to me!"
  • His Character Development eventually turns this on its head, as he begins to look past mere hatred to motivate himself.
• Rank Scales with Asskicking: As the former squad captain of A.I.M.S., this is pretty much a given.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Even after leaving A.I.M.S., Fuwa shows traits of this regardless. When Lyon Arkland runs a smear campaign aginst the reformed MetsubouJinrai.net, the first thing he does is head to Daybreak Town to ask Horobi for the truth, and later tags along with the group to make sure things go as planned.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: The Red to Yua's Blue—hot-tempered, stubborn, and passionate. Their personal Progrisekeys, however, indicate otherwise (Vulcan's blue Shooting Wolf and Valyrie's orange Rushing Cheetah).
• Remember That You Trust Me: Even after having a few scuffles with Yua working for ZAIA, he still trusts her as an ally and encourages her to work together with him in saving lives. When Gai claims that Yua will have no more affiliation with AIMS, Fuwa becomes noticeably angry at Gai for making Yua work for ZAIA.
• Resign in Protest: After A.I.M.S. becomes Gai Amatsu's personal attack force, Isamu chooses to leave the organization so he can pursue his new goal: destroy ZAIA Enterprise, or more specifically, Gai Amatsu for his role in the Daybreak Town Accident.
• Ridiculously Average Guy: Naki describes his actual past to be rather boring and ordinary... all except for his unchanged terrible sense of humour.
  • Reconstructed. Isamu visiting his old home and seeing that he still has a perfectly ordinary family happilly living in peace clears away all of his remaining doubts and reignites his motiviation to keep fighting.
  • This even extends to his education. While most of the other human Japanese characters are well educated in science and technology Fuwa had only basic Japanese schooling and is even shown in Others to be unable to understand English compared to the bilingual Yua, Gai and (based on some of his puns presumably) Aruto.
• Right for the Wrong Reasons: He believes that the events of the prototype HumaGear attack were proof that HumaGears are actually killing machines being used for that purpose by Hiden Intelligence because the events of that day were covered up and called an "accident". Even after learning that MetsubouJinrai.NET was the culprit behind the Daybreak incident and the Magia attacks, he still blames Hiden Intelligence for producing HumaGears in the first place.
  • With his Character Development kicking in, he eventually turns his sights on ZAIA. He even works with Aruto and Is, people who he was once against because they were a part of Hiden Intelligence.
• Running Gag:
  • Isamu refuses to be authorized properly, instead always forcing open his Progrisekeys with brute strength. This becomes a bit of a plot point when he gets Assault Wolf: as it was made by the Ark and stolen from MetsubouJinrai.NET, it obviously won't let him use it normally, but since he brute forces all of his Keys anyway... As it turns out in the case of Assault Wolf, the chip in his head belonging to MetsubouJinrai.NET's Naki is what actually allowed him to use the key correctly.
  • He also has to constantly contain himself from laughing at Aruto's jokes of all things.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: What his original loose cannon Rabid Cop attitude eventually eases up into; he's not flying off the handle just for anything anymore, but to ensure justice is served.
• Shared Family Quirks: His terrible sense of humor is shared all throughout his family.
• Smarter Than You Look: For his Dumb Muscle tendencies, Isamu is surprisingly observant and careful when he keeps his cool.
  • During an AIMS briefing, he's the first one to realize that Horobi and Jin's names line up with the kanji in "Metsubou Jinrai" and speculates that the group might have two more members, which leads him to suspect Uchuyaro Raiden. He was right on both counts, though Raiden wasn't consciously a part of the group.
  • He had thought it was odd the ZAIASPEC picked up from the Dynamiting Lion Raider's attack ended up in the hands of cyber crimes officer Masuji Narusawa despite handing it over to his own trusted officer for investigations. Turns out Masuji was the Raider himself.
  • Unlike Gai, who struggles to pick the right Progrisekey's power for any given situation and usually falls back on Shining Assault Hopper, Fuwa immediately grasps how to use all the various powers of the Rampage Gatling Progrisekey and what situations each one is good for.
• So Long, and Thanks for All the Gear: Isamu takes his ShotRiser with him when he abandons A.I.M.S. to fight against ZAIA.
• Stab the Scorpion:
  • In #1, he breaks open the case containing the ShotRiser, with Yua berating him and telling him she hasn't authorized him to use it yet. His response is to aim the Shot Riser at her and pull the trigger, only to actually hit the rogue HumaGear behind her.
  • Happens again later when he shoots in the direction of Zero-One with Punching Blast... only for it to be him aiming at the Magia that was behind him.
• The Stoic: Subverted. While he looks to be a serious, aloof person (which he - at least for the most part - is), Fuwa is actually quite hot-tempered and loses his cool quite often.
• Took a Level in Cheerfulness: Downplayed. He's still very much a straight-laced professional dedicated to his job, but he's more willing to crack a smile and have his Not So Stoic moments compared to the beginning of the series. He's also far more willing to show his softer side around people, namely around Aruto and Yua.
• Took a Level in Idealism: Due to Gai implanting Fake Memories of him being attacked by rouge HumaGear, Fuwa developed deep hatred towards HumaGear and is detremined to kill any HumaGear that gets in his way. After a HumaGear doctor saved his life and learning the truth about his past, Fuwa became protective towards them and supports Aruto's dream to co-exist with them.
• Took a Level in Kindness: At the start of the series, Isamu was dedicated to destroying any HumaGear he could get his hands on and treats them rather callously, not seeing them as living beings like Aruto or tools like Gai or Yua, but as a menace waiting to happen. As the story progresses, and after his life is saved due to the efforts of a surgeon HumaGear, Isamu gradually loses this view. By the time of the Workplace Competition and HIDEN Manufacturing Arcs, he's developed a much brighter view of HumaGears and helps Aruto protect them in any way he can. The reveal of his Fake Memories surrounding his traumatic experience with out-of-control HumaGears certainly helped soften his stance.
• Tritagonist: He's the third most important character in the plot after Aruto and Is (who, despite not being a Rider, has a character arc that runs concurrent to Aruto's).
• Tsundere: He edges closer to this the more he interacts with Aruto and after a HumaGear saves his life. His tsuntsun side has significantly toned down after his Character Development, but it's present.
• Uncertain Doom: Collapses in front of a de-powered Yua, critically wounded after the Lone Wolf suit and Kamen Rider MetsubouJinrai are subject to a Mutual Kill. It's deliberately left unclear if he survives, though if he is dead, this would make him the first secondary Rider to permanently die since Kaito Kumon.
• The Unchosen One: It's very likely that Fuwa would have had an ordinary life had it not been for Gai choosing to implant him with a chip containing Fake Memories and a HumaGear AI.
• Vengeance Feels Empty: After defeating Horobi and Jin, Fuwa starts to question whether his whole quest for revenge was worth it, especially after seeing the defeated Horobi as nothing more than a hunk of metal. After his first transformation into Rampage Vulcan, he acknowledges this indirectly, stating that he didn't ever think about it and that he needs to find something beyond it.
• What the Hell, Hero?:
  • He rips Aruto a new one for using MetalCluster Hopper to defeat the Storming Penguin Raider, since he knows that Aruto cannot control his actions while in that form.
  • He is more than willing to call Yua out on her actions when she is in denial, mostly through fist fights.
• When He Smiles: In the very few times he actually does smile, it's rather adorable to look at.
• Would Hit a Girl: Delivers a merciless beatdown to Yua in #29 - but only because he believes she lost her way. He does it again in #30.

Tropes exclusive to him as Kamen Rider Vulcan

ShotRise!
Shooting Wolf!

The elevation increases as the bullet is fired.

ShotRise!
Ready, go! Assault Wolf!

No chance of surviving.

Full ShotRise!
Gathering Round! Rampage Gatling!

Mammoth! Cheetah! Hornet! Tiger! Polar bear! Scorpion! Shark! Kong! Falcon! Wolf!

Shotrise!
Orthoros Vulcan!

Awakening the instincts of two beasts long lost.

Progrise!
Registration: Vulcan Co., Ltd.! Lone Wolf! It's my rule!

• 11th-Hour Superpower: After Ark-One knocks out the chip in his head, he can borrow Naki's Japanese Wolf key to become a completely new Vulcan, but It Only Works Once.
• Ability Mixing: Rampage Gatling is able to use the powers of three different Progrisekeys at once, grouped into Power, Speed, and Element.
• All Your Powers Combined: Rampage Gatling contains the powers and abilities of every other "base-level" Progrisekey^note meaning specialized upgrade Keys like Assault Wolf and Amazing Caucasus aren't counted used by other Riders, with the sole exception of Rising Hopper. By twisting the chamber, Fuwa can cycle between three "Speed / Power / Element Rampage" modes, each associated with 3 of the 10 Progrisekeys and each possessing its own set of finishers for that trio. The "All Rampage" finisher uses all 10 of them.
  • Speed Rampage: Lightning Hornet, Rushing Cheetah, and Flying Falcon
  • Power Rampage: Punching Kong, Breaking Mammoth, and Biting Shark
  • Element Rampage: Flaming Tiger, Freezing Bear, and Sting Scorpion
• Animal Motif: Like Zero-One, the Progrisekeys Vulcan uses are named for the ability it grants and the animal motif of the resulting form. So far these include:
  • Noble Wolf: Shooting Wolf and Assault Wolf, both based on the wolf. Rampage Gatling also has the wolf as the primary theme of its multiple animals.
• Arm Cannon: The AW Gauntlets on Vulcan's Assault Wolf arms aren't just for show, they do function and are quite powerful.
• Awesome, but Impractical: Orthoros Vulcan is significantly more powerful than the original Assault Wolf form. In addition to all of Assault Wolf's original abilities, it can swap its arm guns for Naki's Assault Claws, possesses Super-Speed, and can even divide Vulcan into multiple copies of himself. However, due to the massive data overload from the Japanese Wolf Zetsumerise Key, the ShotRiser began to sufferred a Phlebotinum Overload and break down from said overload.
• Bad Powers, Good People:
  • The Assault Wolf Progrisekey was created for the use of MetsubouJinrai.NET to exterminate humanity, while Rampage Gatling was created by Gai to fight Zero-One. Both are used by Vulcan against their creators.
  • #44 takes it up a notch when it's revealed that the Ark-based Japanese Wolf Zetsumerisekey is both an enhanced copy of Assault Wolf when inserted into the Shotriser and functions as a skeleton key for authorizations, allowing Fuwa to regain his powers after Aruto disabled them out of spite in the previous episode.
• Breaking Old Trends: In all previous Rider shows that had one, the All Your Powers Combined form has gone to the main Rider, usually as their final form but sometimes as a penultimate form. With the Rampage Gatling Progrisekey, that honor instead goes to Vulcan for the first time in the franchise's history.
• Dark Is Not Evil: Assault Wolf is significantly darker in color and the power-up item responsible for it was created by MetsubouJinrai.NET, but Vulcan's still dedicated to defending civilians while channeling his hate towards Horobi and Jin. Subverted when Fuwa accesses the superior copy of the suit through the Japanese Wolf Zetsumerisekey, which gives it a much brighter finish, silver plating, and blue accents instead of red.
• Deadly Upgrade:
  • Assault Wolf is the strongest Progrisekey of all at the time of its debut, as it was made using data from even more Progrisekeys and Zetsumerise Keys than Shining Hopper was. However, it was designed for a HumaGear to use, meaning it doesn't come with minor things a human wearer might need like safety devices or life support. It also appears to have a direct connection to the Ark, suggesting its power is nothing short of a deal with the devil. The result of all this is that just a few minutes of usage when he's already injured leaves Isamu coughing up blood from the strain, and even using it in a healthy state causes a shortage of breath within seconds. It also allows Naki to control him, as well as being the last piece needed to truly awaken the Ark.
  • Orthros Vulcan is a rare case where an upgrade isn't this for the Rider, but for their belt, as using it eventually causes the ShotRiser to explode.
  • Lone Wolf. Holy shit. Not only does this cause blindness from bleeding from his eyes and cardiac arrest, it also causes his Uncertain Doom, which gives the series a Downer Ending. We now know why Zetsumetsurisekeys aren't inserted in the Zero-One Driver.
• Duality Motif: Aesthetically, the cybernetic left side of Vulcan's Rampage Gatling form represents Naki's consciousness within Fuwa, and the normal right side represents himself, much like Double.
• Fashionable Asymmetry: The armor on Rampage Vulcan's right side is composed of light blue armor representing all 10 Rider Models used for his Progrisekey, giving the form an odd contrast with his smooth, dark blue and gold armor on his left.
• Force and Finesse: Vulcan's focus on brute strength and general disregard for any abilities that aren't about directly increasing his attacking power make him the Force to every other Rider's Finesse. This is emphasized further with Assault Wolf, an upgrade focused purely on adding more armor and more guns, but then sharply reversed with Rampage Gatling, which has a vast array of abilities it can use in concert, and Orthros Vulcan, which is a speed-based form with techniques very similar to Zero-One's.
• Finishing Move: Depending whether from his Driver or an auxiliary weapon.
  • Shot Riser Gun Mode:
    • Shooting Blast: In Shooting Wolf form, Vulcan shoots 4 blue energy constructs resembling wolf heads that chase the enemy and pin it against a vertical surface before firing a more powerful blast of blue energy that can melt through anything in its path.
    • Punching Blast: In Punching Kong form, Vulcan charges his gauntlets with scarlet energy before firing them off to punch the enemy into the air.
    • Magnetic Storm Blast: In Assault Wolf form, Vulcan fires a blue construct of a wolf's head as his target, destroying them.
    • Rampage Speed Blast: After setting the Progrisekey to "Speed Rampage" and pulling the trigger, Vulcan summons and absorbs the SP Symbols of Flying Falcon, Lightning Hornet, and Rushing Cheetah. Then he fires several stingers at his target, then he speeds toward his opponent while combining with the Cheetah Rider Model, delivering several powerful kicks quickly at the enemy. Finally, he launches off his opponent and fuses with the Falcon Rider Model, granting him a sole pink wing, allowing him to confuse the enemy before delivering a final kick from right above them.
    • Rampage Power Blast: After setting the Progrisekey to "Power Rampage" and pulling the trigger, Rampage Vulcan summons and absorbs the SP Symbols of Breaking Mammoth, Punching Kong, and Biting Shark. He then grounds himself to the floor and tanks the enemy's attack, and then proceeds to deliver a lariat charged with Kong's power at his target, spinning and throwing his target away. He then stomps up to the enemy and performs an axe kick, summoning a Mammoth leg construct to smash and lift them into the air. He then jumps after them and, with the aura of the Shark Rider Model momentarily surrounding them, performs a scissor kick on the helpless target, swinging them around and "biting" them before throwing them on the floor.
    • Rampage All Blast: After setting the Progrisekey to "All Rampage" and pulling the trigger, all the SP Symbols appear before Rampage Vulcan in a row and, after grounding himself with the Falcon Rider Model's wing, he fires a bullet though the Symbols at the target, it turning into the Wolf Rider Model before turning back into a multicolored bullet before impact. Alternatively, instead of firing a bullet, he can launch all 10 Rider Models to attack his opponent.
    • Rampage Element Blast: After setting the Progrisekey to "Element Rampage" and pressing the trigger, Rampage Vulcan summons and absorbs the SP Symbols of Flaming Tiger, Freezing Bear, and Sting Scorpion. He channels fire in one hand and throws it skyward to rain down upon his enemies, then channels the ice in the other hand and freezes the opponent's legs to the ground. Once they're immobilized, he lashes them with a copy of Horobi's Acid Analyze stinger whip generated by the Scorpion Rider Model on his Ability Gaunlet. Alternatively, he fires a ball of concentrated fire and ice at his target before striking with said stinger whip.
  • Shot Riser Belt Mode:
    • Punching Blast Fever: In Punching Kong form, Vulcan punches the ground to create an unstable terrain before charging his gauntlets with scarlet energy and running up to the enemy for a punch.
    • Magnetic Storm Blast Fever: In Assault Wolf form, Vulcan leaps into the air and performs a somersault while his foot encases in dark blue energy resembling a mechanical wolf head before delivering a downward kick with the wolf head biting the opponent.
    • Orthoros Blast Fever: As Orthus Vulcan, he generates the Claw Assault before speeding around the target, confusing the target with afterimages before striking from above.
  • Zero-One Driver
    • Lone Wolf Impact: In Lone Wolf form, Vulcan performs a flying side kick charged with energy at the target, generating a construct of a wolf's head as the attack connects.
  • Attache Shotgun:
    • Shooting Kaban Shot: By inserting the Shooting Wolf Progrisekey in his Attache Shotgun in Shotgun Mode, Vulcan shoots a blue energy construct resembling a wolf's head.
    • Punching Kaban Shot: By inserting the Punching Kong Progrisekey in his Attache Shotgun in Shotgun Mode, Vulcan shoots a scarlet energy construct resembling the Knuckle Demolition gauntlets.
    • Gatling Kaban Shot: By inserting the Gatling Hedgehog Progrisekey in his Attache Shotgun in Shotgun Mode, Vulcan rapidly shoots green needles.
    • Gatling Kaban Buster: With the Gatling Hedgehog Progrisekey inserted, switching to Attache Mode then back to Shotgun Mode, Vulcan shoots a large cluster of green needles.
    • Trapping Kaban Shot: With the Trapping Spider Progrisekey inserted in his Attache Shotgun in Shotgun Mode, Vulcan fires a web at his target, preventing escape.
  • Attache Calibur:
    • Shooting Kaban Slash: By inserting the Shooting Wolf Progrisekey in the Attache Calibur in Blade Mode, Vulcan launches three wolf constructs (two pin the enemy's limbs while the third pushes the foe back) then Vulcan does a jumping vertical spinning slash.
  • Authorise Buster Gun Mode
    • Buster Dust (Punching Kong): By inserting the Punching Kong Progrisekey in the Authorise Buster in Gun Mode, Vulcan performs a more powerful version of his Punching Kaban Shot finisher.
• Glass Cannon: Compared to the well-balanced Zero-One, Vulcan is all about offense, both in the suit's abilities and in his Attack! Attack! Attack! mindset while wearing it.
• Guys Smash, Girls Shoot: Inverted, as Vulcan is the distance-oriented fighter of the two A.I.M.S. Riders. He does get the Punching Kong form change, but uses its brute strength to manage the Attache Shotgun's enormous recoil.
• Irony: Orthros Vulcan is referred to as the "Unbreakable Immortal" when inserting the Japanese Wolf Zetsumerisekey into the Zero-One Driver. No points for guessing what happens the first time it's used outside of the Forceriser.
• Lightning Bruiser: Assault Wolf emphasizes the 'Bruiser' part, having additional armors and more firepower to fight his enemies while retaining noticeable speed. Rampage Vulcan follows suit, thanks to the wide array of abilities its gained from the other Progrisekeys.
• Master of All: Rampage Vulcan is this. The form excels in strength, speed, and overall power, with only its jumping height being surpassed by MetalCluster Hopper. With its versatility due to having the power of 10 Progrisekeys, it's one of the most powerful forms in the series to date, surpassing the likes of Thouser and Burning Falcon.
• Meaningful Name: Orthros Vulcan refers to the mythical two-headed wolf, symbolizing himself and Naki. Its name also means Daybreak, calling back to the event that started it all.
• Mighty Glacier: Punching Kong trades Vulcan's speed for an enormous amount of physical power and greatly thickened armor.
• More Dakka: Assault Wolf is armed to the teeth with blasters and Vulcan is more than willing to use all of them.
• Mythical Motifs: Orthoros Vulcan's Animal Motif is the Orthus, the legendary two-headed dog of Greek Myth.
• Shotguns Are Just Better: The Attache Shotgun is capable of shooting powerful blasts of energy, and like the Attache Calibur it can load Progrisekeys as ammunition to alter what it fires. However, the recoil is too strong for Shooting Wolf to handle without substantial practice, requiring Isamu to be in the much sturdier Punching Kong form to use it properly until he learns to handle the recoil in his other forms.
• Stealth Pun: Written in Katakana, his name can also be pronounced "Barkan."
• Super Prototype: Played with in regards to Rampage Vulcan. The technology behind it is anything but a prototype, as it's the culmination of nearly all Progrisekey technology. Before Isamu shook off Gai's control while possessing the only copy of the Key, though, ZAIA planned to make dozens of Rampage Vulcans.
• The Unchosen One: A completely self-inflicted example. Isamu forces his Progrisekeys open with brute strength before putting them in the ShotRiser. It's unclear whether this is because of his refusal to work with Yua meaning he's not authorized, or because he's just too stubborn to put the Key into the gun first like he's supposed to.
• Walking Armory: Assault Wolf has a plethora of guns visible on various parts of Vulcan's body.

Yua Yaiba/Kamen Rider Valkyrie/Fighting Jackal Raider

Yua Yaiba/Kamen Rider Valkyrie/Fighting Jackal Raider

Portrayed by: Hiroe Igeta (live), Satoshi Fujita (suit)

I don't have a dream, but I do have beliefs!

An agent of ZAIA Enterprise working for A.I.M.S. as their technical adviser. She was involved in the development of the Shot Riser that is utilized by herself and Isamu, serving as Mission Control for the organization.

As of #33, she quits ZAIA and A.I.M.S., completely fed up with being treated as Gai's tool.

Tropes that apply to her in general

Technical Advisor of A.I.M.S. and Agent of ZAIA Enterprise
^{Click here to see Yaiba in Reiwa Generation.}

• Affirmative Action Girl: A female Kamen Rider introduced early in the series rather than late in or in a movie, so naturally she fits the bill.
• Alliterative Name: Yua Yaiba.
• Aloof Dark-Haired Girl: A fairly tall (at least by Japanese standards) ^note  Coming in at around 170 cm or around 5'7", which is quite a bit taller than most women in Japan. dark haired, attractive woman who rarely shows a whole lot of emotion unless provoked. She's slowly starting to grow out of her aloof demeanor though after she resigned from ZAIA.
• Ambiguously Evil: Yua's actions throughout the first quarter are outright aggressive in their use of this trope. The same episode can see her give away a Progrisekey to Aruto or show genuine emotion in taking responsibility for the Giger crisis, then not five minutes later set a Magia loose on Aruto after changing its LED color just so that she can leak the footage of an allegedly normal HumaGear going berserk. Her real goal is to develop new weapons for ZAIA Enterprise, and to sabotage their rival Hiden Intelligence.
  • She starts to subvert this as the series goes on with her growing discomfort with Gai's methods. It culminates to a point where she decides to finally go against Gai after seeing his practices taken too far. She formally resigns from ZAIA and slugs Gai on the way out.
• Ambiguous Situation: There are certain instances where Yua suddenly acts subservient and docile when voicing any of her opinions to Gai, which is odd considering her no-nonsense attitude. #28 confirms the existence of a chip inside her head which is required to use the ShotRiser, which has already been used to control Fuwa, and further episodes continue to imply that she is being forced into her actions by Amatsu.
• Animal Motifs: Yua's cold and merciless personality underneath a professional veneer evokes the image of a cat. Her first ProgriseKey is a cheetah-themed. Later on, she uses Fighting Jackal ProgriseKey, solidifying her role as Amatsu's attack dog.
• Anti-Villain: Despite being aligned with ZAIA and Gai Amatsu, she still had good intentions underneath that stoic facade, to which at one point; she actively tried to help people out in #27 when the fire got out of control. After her Heel–Face Turn, she becomes a straight hero once again, though it wasn't without its consequences.
• The Atoner: After defecting from ZAIA, Yua felt remorseful of her actions while under Gai's control. She even goes out of her way to apologize to Fuwa in #37 for all the things that she inflicted on him - both directly and indirectly.
  • Unfortunately, her desire to atone led to her accidentally setting loose the Ark.
• Badass Biker: REAL×TIME has a whole sequence of Yua wreaking havoc upon a horde of Abaddons on a motorcycle.
• Badass Driver: In Reiwa The First Generation and REAL×TIME movie Yua is shown to be a very skilled driver and is capabe of driving army jeep and motorcycle.
• Badass in a Nice Suit: An Action Girl Kamen Rider who wears a pretty nice suit. She phases out of the "suit" part after she resigns from ZAIA.
• Berserk Button:
  • It's not super blatant due to her stoic nature, but Fuwa getting hurt in some shape or form seems to make her much more emotional than usual. This is especially apparent in #33, where Gai revealed that Fuwa's memories are fabricated to manipulate him into becoming a Kamen Rider.
  • It takes a while for it to develop, but #33 makes it clear that being treated as a tool is one surefire way to make her pissed.
• Blatant Lies: When Is asks her if she recorded the footage of a "non-hacked" Ansatsu-chan changing into his Dodo Magia form that wound up on the news, she denies her involvement despite the fact that Is's search clearly shows that she was there recording it.
• Brought Down to Normal: By the end of Vulcan and Valkyire V-cinema movie, all of Yua's Progrisekeys are destroyed and she can no longer have access to Valkyrie. She regains them somepoint between Zero-One Others and Kamen Rider Jeanne & Kamen Rider Aguliera with Girls Remix.
• Character Development: She gradually goes from an Ambiguously Evil, aloof officer to a much more emotionally open person who's fully on the side of the heroes. She even goes out of her way to apologize to Fuwa for what she inflicted on him - no matter how minor the action was - something that is a far cry from her detached persona in the beginning.
• Chessmaster Sidekick: Yua is in much more control of Isamu's Cowboy Cop antics than he thinks. In fact, she is counting on his reckless behavior, for the sake of goals not yet revealed. She is also smart enough to retrieve the Mammoth and Arsino Zetsumerise Keys before Jin can.
• Conflicting Loyalty: Despite how much of a Bad Boss Gai is and how miserable she is under his leadership, Yua follows him regardless no matter what orders he gives her, be it hacking a Humagear to make it seem as though it's "easy" to make them go berserk to hurt Hiden Intelligence's image or slap on a Zetsumeriser on one to make it go berserk. The only times she does hesitate tends to be when innocent people are in danger or when she feels that a response isn't proportionate: during #31, she has the chance to shut down G-Pen, but hesitates when Aruto tells her that G-Pen has a dream and is no one's tool, allowing them to both leave safely. Not that Yua has any real choice in the matter since thanks to the microchip in her head, Gai can force her to follow his orders whether she wants to or not.
  • She eventually gets the willpower to resign from ZAIA after Gai takes his manipulation too far, thus aligning with the heroes.
• Consummate Professional: The show alludes to this, as she rarely loses her professionalism (even when she's clearly miserable) and gets the job done in a more efficient manner compared to Fuwa's Hot-Blooded methods. She slowly begins to grow out of this after she quits ZAIA.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: On the receiving edge of one, alongside Gai, from Isamu, when she attempts to fight him after he gets the Rampage Vulcan Progrisekey.
  • She subjects Gai to one in #33 with the help of Fuwa.
• Defrosting Ice Queen: She's a bit more open with her emotions after resigning from ZAIA, actively teasing Fuwa into learning about his memories with a playful smile and visbly expressing her shock at how completely ordinary his real life history is.
• Demoted to Extra: Billed as the series' third Rider at first, by the second arc she's been demoted to Gai's flunky while the focus veers moreso onto Aruto and Fuwa, and by the following arcs she's become mostly irrelevant to the events that are happening. Even in Vulcan and Valkyrie, she only gets one fight as Valkyrie Justice Serval that she loses, leaving her De Powered by the halfway mark. And the damage she did to Kamen Rider Metsuboujinrai's Driver is repaired almost immediately after, meaning in the grand scheme of things she didn't accomplish anything.
• The Dog Bites Back: In #33, Yua, unable to remain deaf to her conscience any more, finally decides she has had enough of Gai's manipulations. She defeats him in a coordinated effort with Isamu and — untransformed — defies his microchip control, socks him in the face, and quits ZAIA for good.
• Double Agent: It is established almost immediately that Yua is on lend from ZAIA, the hardware developer for A.I.M.S.
• The Dragon: Yua's main allegiance is to Gai Amatsu, and when she gets assigned back to ZAIA after MetsubouJinrai.net gets defeated, Amatsu promotes her to be his enforcer throughout the Workplace Competition, serving a similar role to Is and Shesta. Played With; even though a lot of what he asks of her is clearly distateful to her, she still does what he asks — though it's hinted that she may be mind-controlled into doing so.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • When Aruto correctly calls her on being the one who told the police about the secret lab where the Progrisekeys are manufactured as well as her affiliation with ZAIA, she's distracted by her conflicting feelings enough for him to beat a quick escape, confirming her growing discomfort with ZAIA's practices.
  • Isamu's continuing obsession with exterminating MetsubouJinrai.NET also begins to get to her, mostly because of how flagrantly he treats his own life in the process. She was hit especially hard by the revelation that Amatsu was behind the Ark and MetsubouJinrai.net, the group that put countless people at risk and that she and Fuwa repeatedly risked their lives trying to stop.
  • As the series continues, it becomes clear that her stoicism is a mask to hide just how miserable she becomes the longer she works for ZAIA, especially as Amatsu moves more ruthlessly and decisively to gain control of Hiden Intelligence. She begins to crack a little more once she realizes just how much A.I.M.S. has been manipulated by Amatsu, and how little Amatsu actually values her own input when it doesn't suit his needs.
  • For all of her obedience to ZAIA, she's not cold enough to open fire if her target isn't acting hostile. This saves G-Pen's life, as her hesitance to shoot him when he's doing no harm lets Aruto talk her down from hurting G-Pen, and she lets both of them go without a fight.
  • When Gai revealed that he manipulated Fuwa through Fake Memories, he finally crossed a line that even Yua coudn't ignore; and it pushes her to finally resign her post (and deck him on the way out).
• Experienced Protagonist: Like Isamu, she has clearly been fighting rogue HumaGears for a while, though she was the last of the core three to become a Kamen Rider.
• Expository Hairstyle Change: After she left ZAIA for good, Yua starts wearing a ponytail. See Good Costume Switch below for more details.
• Failure Hero: What she is, ultimately. She joined AIMS hoping to do good but ended up being Gai's pawn instead. Her attempt to destroy the Ark backfired and made things much worse by giving it a physical body to rampage in. And when she fought Kamen Rider Metsuboujinrai in her movie, she didn't do anything other than temporarily damage its Driver before being beaten and permanently De Powered. By the end she's mistepped and failed more than she's done good.
• Fantastic Racism: Of a subtler sort than Isamu. While Yua does not have animosity towards HumaGears, she sees them as nothing more than tools to be disposed and replaced without hesitation if they're deemed useless.
• Faux Action Girl: Zig-zags in and out of this. While she is a decent fighter, she doesn't win any fights against opponents that are stronger than Mooks without help, and in most of her post-series appearances she isn't shown to fair that well in combat.
  • In Vulcan and Valkyrie when she gains her new form Justice Serval, she only lasts about a minute with it spends most of her fight with Kamen Rider Metsuboujinrai getting beaten down. The one blow she does land on Metsuboujinrai before being defeated fails to inflict any permanent damage, and the damage it does leave gets repaired almost immediately after.
  • Even in Girls Remix, a special specifically focusing on female Riders, her one appearance is only about a minute long and has her getting knocked away by the villain she's fighting.
• Good Costume Switch: Once Yua resigns from ZAIA, she exchanges her business suit for more casual clothing to reflect that she is no longer under Gai's authority. As a bonus, she starts to tie up her hair into a ponytail to further signify the change.
• Handicapped Badass: For much of #8 and a bit of #9, due to the cast her arm is in. Though she is capable of pulling her weight, she is definitely not at the top of her game when fighting Jin or Horobi due to the injury.
• Headbutting Heroes: At the start of the series both Yua and Fuwa would often argue and disagree with each other, but they soon grow out of this after her Heel–Face Turn.
• Heel–Face Turn: Downplayed. She has noble intentions and a genuinely good heart underneath her no-nonsense demeanor, but it was clear from the start that she was aligned with ZAIA (no matter how much of a bastard Gai is). With Gai taking his manipulations too far, Yua officially decides to resign from ZAIA and join up with the good guys once more.
• Hero with an F in Good: Tragically, much of the time she's ineffective at heroism at best and an Unwitting Pawn for evil interests at worst.
• Hypocrite: She views HumaGears as nothing more than tools humans use and yet she, no matter how much she tells herself, is no more than a tool to Gai. She seems to slowly getting over this after resigning from ZAIA.
• Idiot Ball: In what might be the single greatest grasp of it in the series, Yua restores Naki and goes along with reviving the Ark as Ark-Zero. This is under the logic that the Ark having a mobile body would make it easier to destroy than it just being an immobile satellite. To be fair to her, it was Jin who came up with the plan but she went along with it knowing what it entailed. Naturally, things go wrong pretty quickly, and that's what leads to the Ark-Zero arc.
• Ignored Expert: It is immediately established that Isamu doesn't listen to Yua whatsoever when in the field, with him opening fire on the rogue HumaGears with intent to exterminate rather than collect data, then taking the prototype Shot Riser without her authorization.
• It's All My Fault: In #36, she blames herself for inadvertently assisting in the revival of the Ark by taking out Naki out of Fuwa's chip. What's worse is that she thought she was doing it for a good cause, as Jin roped her into his ultimately failed plan to destroy the Ark.
• Letting Her Hair Down: Inverted. Yua putting her hair in a ponytail signifies her more relaxed personality after resigning from ZAIA.
• Last-Name Basis: All the characters in the series call or refer to her by her surname Yaiba except Gai who refer to her by Full-Name Basis.
• Meaningful Name: Her last name, Yaiba, is Japanese for "blade", referencing her tough-as-nails personality. Blades are also tools of war, which what she is to Gai later on.
• More than Mind Control: It's made clear that, apart from knowing that Gai would punish her through the chip in her head if she resists his orders, Gai's control over her was based on her lacking a backbone, pulling out weak justifications when asked why she continues to work for Gai and deluding herself when confronted with his obviously villainous behavior. Once she finally grows one and decides to quit ZAIA and tanks the pain Gai is remotely inflicting, Gai essentially loses any power he had over her.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Restored Naki to help Jin give the Ark a body, thinking that was the best way to destroy it. Instead, she and Jin get curb-stomped by it Ark, and all she did was help set the Ark loose to cause havoc. Effectively, everything that happens in the Ark-Zero arc is technically her fault to some degree.
• Not So Above It All:
  • Has this moment in #35 when she pokes at Fuwa for his past.
  • Her anime version reveals that she enjoys going to amusement park during her weekends and is seen enjoying a roller-coaster ride with Fuwa.
• Not So Stoic:
  • Generally speaking, whenever Isamu is injured or hurt, she becomes noticeably worried. His first fight against Horobi, his subsequent hospital stay (and the threat to his life when the medical HumaGears were all shut down), and his first uses of the Assault Wolf Progrisekey all put her in a noticeable state of visible concern and distress; she even forced him out of a transformation once when it became clear his body couldn't take the strain.
  • During a matchmaker's meeting for Gai, she gives a description of Gai's achievements and compliments his behavior as her employer with an expression so wooden it's obvious that she'd rather be anywhere else. When Gai's obnoxious personality traits are called out to his face by the HumaGear matchmaker, though, she starts cracking up and has to look away in order to make sure no one sees her laughing.
  • She is visibly disturbed at the realization that Gai sees both her and Isamu as expendable, and keeps asserting that she's with ZAIA of her own free will. Whenever Amatsu uses a ZAIASpec to control Isamu via his implanted brain chip, causing him immense pain, she is openly distressed and making motions to help him, but can't bring herself to act. This emotional conflict becomes so pronounced that she actually screams at Isamu when he insists on defying Gai's orders to destroy Is in #29, telling him that the president's orders are absolute. Her voice also noticeably cracks as she denies his accusations of being a tool.
  • She becomes visibly disturbed and angry the more Gai taunts Fuwa about his Fake Memories. It gets to the point where she finally decides to stick up for herself and resign from ZAIA for good. She decks Gai as a bonus.
  • Discovering that Fuwa's real life story is completely unremarkable is enough to make her stare at him in shock, and hearing the wooden delivery of the joke that makes him finally fail to avoid Corpsing clearly confuses her.
  • She has a heartbreaking breakdown in the hospital in #36, as she blames herself for inadvertently reviving the Ark by taking Naki out of Fuwa's chip, under the assumption that Jin's plan to destroy the Ark after MetsuboJinrai.net's revival was going to work.
• Odd Couple: With Fuwa. She's a levelheaded engineer while he's a Hot-Blooded military captain, but they make their duo work to insane levels when fighting together and after her Heel–Face Turn they become more friendly and open with each other. This is further emphasized with their main color schemes, as orange and blue are considered to be complimentary colors on the color wheel.
• Percussive Pickpocket: During her fight with Fuwa in #31, she uses this to snatch the Assault Wolf Progrisekey away from him.
• Pet the Dog: In the same episode showing a more sinister side to her, she also protects a group of civilians from Jin's gunfire.
  • When Isamu is nearly killed by Horobi's finishing attack, she begs him not to give up with sincere distress in her voice. She later goes directly to Aruto to beg him to turn back on the deactivated HumaGears in the hospitals, stating that people are going to get hurt or worse if they stay offline.
  • It is shown in the very next episode that despite being a conspirator collaborating with ZAIA, seeing Isamu nearly die to Horobi is making her uncomfortable with the idea of betraying him and A.I.M.S.
  • Whenever Isamu uses the Assault Wolf Progrisekey and suffers the backlash from it, Yua will always be there to check on him if she's available to do so. In #15 specifically, she cancels his transformation for him when it's clear his body is still stressed from his most recent use of the key, explicitly stating that she can't let him endanger his life.
  • Despite not working for A.I.M.S. anymore, she's still rightfully concerned about the members that were injured during a Raider's attack on the fire drill competition, and is actively working on splinting someone's ankle before Amatsu stops her.
  • Whether her opinion on HumaGears has changed or not, it should be mentioned that she was willing to help carry an injured Shesta out of the burning building, and decide to spare G-Pen's life after being convinced by Aruto, showing that she's not completely heartless in her view of HumaGears.
• Platonic Life-Partners: Ship Tease aside, she eventually forms a close friendship with Isamu after many scuffles with each other. She even apologizes for her previous actions to patch up their friendship, which seemed to work out for the long run.
• Rank Up: Goes through two of them:
  • After Fuwa quits A.I.M.S. and joins Hiden Manufacturing, Yua becomes Commander in his absence, although she quits shortly afterwards.
  • She gets a far more satisfying one in #44 when Gai makes A.I.M.S. part of the government once more and enlists her to be Commander once again.
• Rank Scales with Asskicking: She's a Kamen Rider and the current Commander of A.I.M.S.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: The professional, levelheaded Blue to Fuwa's stubborn, hot-headed Red. This is despite the colors of their personal Progrisekeys and Rider forms (Vulcan's blue Shooting Wolf and Valyrie's orange Rushing Cheetah).
• Resign in Protest: Yua finally decides to resign from ZAIA after Gai takes his manipulations too far, taking her gear with her. As a bonus, she decks Gai in the face.
• Secret Secret-Keeper: Even before Aruto makes his identity as Zero-One essentially public, Yua already knows his secret due to ZAIA's corporate espionage, but doesn't bother revealing this fact to the rest of A.I.M.S.
• Shadow Archetype: She is one to Is, both of them are The Stoic secretary to the CEO of a prestigious technology company. Is was programmed to be loyal to Aruto and the humans and after reaching her singularity she willingly decides to support him, while Yua who has free will was mind-controlled by Gai to act as his minon and only broke free of his control after being encouraged by Fuwa.
• Sinister Surveillance: Hijacks the ocular cameras of a HumaGear in #3 to spy on Aruto, learning that his private office is the source of new Progrisekeys. However, she seems to be under the impression that they're "lost" Progrisekeys that are stashed there as opposed to being reprinted.
• The Stoic: Rarely loses her cool and tends to be rational, compared to Fuwa's more passionate methods. This is Played for Drama during the second arc and the beginning of the third arc as it clearly shows that her stoicism is a mask for her utter misery under Gai's authority. She slowly progresses out of this after quitting ZAIA.
• Smurfette Principle: She is the only female rider of her series.
• Smug Smiler: She gives a subtle one after playfully teasing Fuwa about his past.
• Token Good Teammate: While she was working at ZAIA, Yua was the only member who genuinely cared about the lives of other bystanders and felt extremely uncomfortable with Gai's ruthless methods.
• Took a Level in Cheerfulness: Downplayed, while she still retains her no-nonsense nature after her Heel–Face Turn, she is much more open with her emotions than before and becomes more friendly with Fuwa and his circle of allies.
• Took a Level in Idealism: Yua never hated HumaGear but she initially considered them as nothing but a tool for humanity. After Aruto talked some sense into her she began to realize that HumaGear also has dreams and support Aruto's ideals to co-exist with them, which is seen in #44 where she took a stand for a HumaGear and convinced her subodinates that they aren't tools for humans and also hired Naki as a Technical Advisor for AIMS.
• Trigger Phrase: After #29, the word "tool" becomes this for her, causing her to either pause for a moment several times, or in one instance, flashback to Gai torturing Isamu when its brought up in relation to HumaGears.
• Tsundere: Has this moment in #37 when she apologizes for all of the things that she's done to Isamu - both directly and indirectly - only to promptly insist that Ai was the one that told her to say that. Ai promptly calls her out for it.
• What Measure Is a Non-Human?: While Isamu believes HumaGears are inherently dangerous and evil, Yua just thinks of them as interchangeable tools whose usage is dependent on the humans around them. Note that she still doesn't see them as people, and blithely tells Aruto that the only way to "save" an infected android is to have made a copy of their memories beforehand. She only sees the death of a HumaGear as a loss of technical experience, rather than acknowledge that they have souls. She does, however, show some awareness that HumaGears approaching Singularity are far more complex, and has a few doubts of her own about how they'll develop.
• When She Smiles: She's a stoic, By-the-Book Cop who has an absolutely adorable smile when she gets to show it off. Leaving ZAIA certainly helped in showing it off more.

Tropes exclusive to her as Kamen Rider Valkyrie

ShotRise!
Rushing Cheetah!

Try to outrun this demon to get left in the dust.

ShotRise!
Serval Tiger!

Blades spun by justice that protects lives.

• Animal Motif: Like Zero-One, the Progrisekeys Valkyrie uses is named for the ability it grants and the animal motif of the resulting form. So far these include:
  • Panthera Awesome: Rushing Cheetah (based on the cheetah), and Justice Serval (based on the smilodon)
  • Wicked Wasps: Lightning Hornet (based on the hornet)
• Force and Finesse: Valkyrie's superior speed and reflexes, along with general willingness to think before acting, makes her the Finesse to Vulcan's Force.
• Finishing Move: Depending whether from her Driver or an auxiliary weapon.
  • Shot Riser Gun Mode:
    • Rushing Blast: In Rushing Cheetah form, Valkyrie runs around the enemy once while blasting several bursts of orange energy that creates an orb of energy that implodes, destroying surrounding enemies.
    • Lightning Blast: In Lightning Hornet form, Valkyrie fires a blue stinger construct at her target.
  • Shot Riser Belt Mode:
    • Lightning Blast Fever: In Lightning Hornet form, Valkyrie sends the enemy into the air before flying after it, and delivering a kick with her foot covered in dark blue energy in the shape of a hornet's stinger. If the initial kick is blocked, she can follow it up by firing a dark blue stinger at her opponent. Alternatively, she performs a variant of her Rushing Blast finisher while flying around the target.
    • Justice Blast Fever: In Justice Serval form, she charges energy into her leg and kicks the target. The true strength is unknown, since the finisher was used to simultaneously strike at KR Mestuboujinrai's Driver while Metsuboujinrai stuck her with their finisher.
  • Attache Shotgun
    • Freezing Kaban Shot: By inserting the Freezing Bear Progrisekey in her Attache Shotgun in Shotgun Mode, Valkyrie shoots a cold blast that freezes on impact.
• Fragile Speedster: Relative to Valkyrie's peers, Rushing Cheetah has the highest ground speed and superior close combat capabilities, but poor defense.
• Glass Cannon: Valkyrie is even more offensively weighted than Vulcan, possessing the highest overall performance in close combat of any of the three main Riders and the fastest reflexes, but lacking Zero-One's superior endurance or Vulcan's ability to rain down firepower from long range.
• Guys Smash, Girls Shoot: Inverted. Valkyrie usually keeps her firearm/transformation device on her belt so that she can have both hands free to fight.
• Magic Knight: Despite being described as twice as powerful as Rushing Cheetah, Lightning Hornet is closer to this in practice. According to official stats, its parameters are lower than Rushing Cheetah in most areas, but makes up for it with Flight and electrified bee drones.
• Pest Controller: Her Lightning Hornet form allows her access to the Hex Vespa, electrified bee drones that she can launch from her chest.
• Weak, but Skilled: Similar to Horobi, she doesn't actually seem to need any upgraded forms to remain an effective fighter. Once she decides to finally break away from ZAIA, it only takes some coordination with Fuwa and precise use of Lightning Hornet for her to kick Gai's ass.
• Wolverine Claws: Gains these in Justice Serval Form.

Tropes exclusive to her as the Fighting Jackal Raider

RaidRise!
Fighting Jackal!

Deciding the fate of a battle like a Valkyrie.

• By the Power of Grayskull!: Unlike the other Raiders, she says "Boot up/Install" before transforming into the Fighting Jackal Raider.
• Evil Costume Switch: Downplayed Trope. While the Raider does use the same undersuit as Valkyrie, she doesn't get the RaidRiser and Progrisekey until the last round of the Workplace Competition by Gai, and both Aruto and Isamu are well aware about her loyalties to Gai and ZAIA Enterprise long before that point. It does however, still thematically represent her becoming an opponent to both officially. Conversely, when she cuts ties with ZAIA she abandons her Raider form and returns to being Valkyrie as a Good Costume Switch.
• Egyptian Mythology: Her Raider form is visually based on Anubis, the Egyptian God of the Afterlife.
• Finishing Move: Fighting Bolide: She quickly speeds to her target and strikes them with the Territory Scythe charged with dark energy, sending them up in the air, before following up with an overhead strike while they're helpless, destroying them.
• Foil: Her Raider form is one to her Rider form. While both forms give access to Super-Speed and both use belts made by ZAIA Enterprise to transform, her Raider form is based on a jackal, a dog, uses the RaidRiser to transform, a belt associated with the villainous Raiders, and uses a scythe as her main weapon, while her Kamen Rider form is based on a cheetah, a cat, uses the ShotRiser to transform, a belt used by A.I.M.S. and shared with the heroic Isamu, and uses its Gun Mode as her main weapon.
• Meaningful Rename: In a thematic, almost punny sense; both the form name and the suit evoke a dog, which is phonetically similar to dōgu (道具), the Japanese word for "tool". Yua's been a "loyal dog/tool" to ZAIA the whole time. Isamu's Armor-Piercing Question in #29 doubles as a lampshade to this.
• Sinister Scythe: Wields the Territory Scythe, a large two handed scythe, as her weapon. Notably, the first time she assumes the form, it isn't there, and she summons it with dark energy.

Naki

In the finale, after Yua was promoted to commander of A.I.M.S., Naki was appointed the new technical advisor replacing her.

For their character tropes, see the MetsubouJinrai.NET section.

Battle Raiders

The Raider form of the A.I.M.S. troopers, whose RaidRaiser and Progrisekey were obtained after Gai hires them to destroy any Humagear still up and running after ZAIA Enterprise acquires Hiden Intelligence. The users are found in pairs and vary in each episode. To see their character tropes, see the ZAIA Enterprise page.

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