All spoilers for Kamen Rider Zero-One Others: MetsubouJinrai are unmarked. You Have Been Warned!
The story reaches its conclusion...
— Tagline
Zero-One Others: Kamen Rider Vulcan & Valkyrie is a V-Cinema set after the events of Kamen Rider Zero-One, and the second and final part of the Zero-One Others series.
Following the disastrous turn of events resulting from Kamen Rider MetsubouJinrai's creation, Isamu Fuwa and Yua Yaiba's Kamen Rider powers are reactivated to deal with the insane Mechanical Abomination before its twisted perception of justice destroys everything.
However, their intervention causes it to set its sights on AIMS; as it declares that Vulcan and Valkyrie will be extinct, the duo are set to face their toughest opponent yet, one powered by the screaming, tortured souls of their former allies.
Tropes:
- All for Nothing: By the end of the movie, not much has changed from when the series first started, and what has changed has changed for the worse. The public at large is still disdainful towards Humagears (for not entirely unjustified reasons), Lyon Arkland technically wins despite having died, the reformed MetsubouJinrai.net utterly failed in their quest to prevent another Ark from rising and the ~Genms~ The Presidents special set immediately after reveals the original Ark is still active.
- Yua's own arc in the film also ends in failure. She saves Sold 20 and gets the Justice Serval Progrise Key, only to be immediately curb-stomped by Kamen Rider Metsuboujinrai and lose her ability to transform. She does manage to land a single hit that does enough damage for Metsuboujinrai to fall back, but not long after Metsuboujinrai is shown completely repairing the damage Yua did.
- The Bad Guy Wins: Kamen Rider Metsubojinrai is defeated by Vulcan Lone Wolf, but it's a Pyrrhic Victory that costs Fuwa's life (possibly), Yua's ability to fight, the lives of Metsubojinrai and ZAIA Japan. Though the hostile amalgamation is defeated, it caused the destruction it wanted post-mortem.
- The final scene however indicates that it may be subverted. The film ends with the defense secretary Shigeru Daimonji gloating to a group of reporters on how A.I. shouldn't have been given free will to resounding cheers.... until Yua and the Solds enter the room and talk about how History Repeats Itself.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: ZAIA Enterprise and Aruto both get their wish to defeat MetsubouJinrai.net from early in the series in this film. Too bad it comes after redeeming and befriending their members, and also leads to the collapse of AIMS's main source of arms, namely their Kamen Riders.
- Bittersweet Ending: MetsubouJinrai.net is Killed Off for Real as a consequence of destroying Kamen Rider MetsubouJinrai, all of Yua's Progrisekeys are destroyed (thus permanently denying her access to Valkyrie), and Fuwa is critically wounded dealing the finishing blow, possibly dying at the film's end as well. The only thing preventing this from being a Downer Ending is that Yua, Aruto, Gai, and Is (with her original memories intact) are still alive and with both ZAIA Japan and MetsubouJinrai.net destroyed, Humagears might just have a shot at living in peace.
- Blood from Every Orifice: Fuwa bleeds from his eyes after exchanging Finishing Moves with Kamen Rider Metsuboujinrai
- The Cameo: Gai Amatsu briefly appears early on in the film, rescued by A.I.M.S. He affirms his dream of becoming a president again before completely fading from the movie.
- Curb-Stomp Cushion: Yua, even with Justice Serval, can't stand up to Kamen Rider MetsubouJinrai...but does manage to damage its belt badly enough it has to fall back.
- Deader than Dead: After having their bodies destroyed and suffering a Death of Personality by being absorbed into Kamen Rider Metsuboujinrai, Metsuboujinrai.net meets its permanent end when the Rider is destroyed, taking the data of their four members with it.
- De-power: Yua permanently loses access to Valkyrie due to her equipment being destroy during her last stand against Kamen Rider Metsubojinrai.
- Faux Action Girl: Yua Yaiba ends up being this. She only gets one fight as Justice Serval and spends most of it getting beat up. She lands one blow on Kamen Rider Metsuboujinrai that does temporary damages to its Driver before getting defeated and losing her ability to transform, and the damage she did do is repaired by Kamen Rider Metsuboujinrai after it returns to Daybreak Town, leaving Yua having not accomplished anything.
- Fighting from the Inside: The only reason Yua isn't executed by Kamen Rider Metsubojinrai on the spot after their fight is due to Valkyrie's finisher damaging the Rider's belt and allowing what's left of the original members to interfere with the Rider's protocols.
- Foreshadowing: Gai stumbles out of the remains of Zaia Japan, recovers his Thousand Driver and swears he'll be a President again, even if it's a totally different company and walks out of the story. This would later be picked up in ~Genms~ The Presidents.
- Go into the Light: As the credits roll, the members of MetsubouJinrai.net and Fuwa walk down the hallway and disappear as a symbolic way of showing they've passed.
- Greater-Scope Paragon: Aruto only gets one scene in the film, but he gives Fuwa the Zero-One Driver he uses to assume his new form and fight Kamen Rider Metsuboujinrai.
- Happy Ending Override: Without spoiling too many details, this film and the one that precede it take its sweet time dismantling MetsubouJinrai.net's redemption and all the victories Yua and Fuwa built up over the course of the series, all while Aruto can do nothing but watch from space.
- History Repeats Itself: The film's Central Theme. KR Metsubojinrai's Roaring Rampageof Revenge is interpreted by the remaining Solds as a call-to-arms, causing them to rebel against Humanity and target A.I.M.S; re-igniting the tensions the series started out on. Fuwa and Yaiba do eventually manage to get through to them, though.
- Hope Spot: The film ends on one. Yua manages to deliver a message on how History Repeats Itself in an effort to counter the hostile sentiment towards Humagears following the events of the movie. However, this only comes after the deaths of nearly of all her friends and what's heavily-implied to be another round of anti-A.I. legislation on the horizon.
- Immediate Sequel: Vulcan & Valkyrie is set immediately after the events of Kamen Rider MetsubouJinrai and picking up where the last V-Cinema left off, with Isamu and Yua tasked with dealing with the berserk Rider.
- Informed Flaw: In-universe example. Fuwa is convinced the berserk Rider's antagonism is the members of Metsubojinrai committing a collective suicide in response to what they've become.
- Lost Aesop: KR Metsubojinrai's desire to destroy everyone involved in recent events isn't treated as the side-effect of Lyon's weaponization of Mass Brain like it actually is, but instead as a Suicide by Cop. While the film pays quite a bit of lip-service to the dangers of the Cycle of Revenge, said cycle ends up being vindicated by the ending - which treats the wiping of the slate (mostly) clean as the first step towards actual peace. The anti-vengeance themes of Zero-One's final arc are overwritten by an (unwilling) vengeance campaign that's all but successful.
- Martyr Without a Cause: Zig-zagged. KR Metsubojinrai's blind attacking of Vulcan and Valkyrie is the side-effect of its berserk post-Mass Brain state, yet is interpreted by Fuwa and Yaiba as the members of the organization throwing their lives away after seeing the danger to humanity they became.
- Mission Control: Yua (and by proxy A.I.M.S.) is constantly hounded by the secretary of defense to exterminate the berserk Metsubojinrai.
- My Greatest Failure: It's revealed in a Flashback that one of Yua's university teachers was the inventor of A.I.M.S.' self-targetting weapons systems. Said systems got a child killed in an far-off warzone, causing him to retire out of shame.
- Never Trust a Trailer: Yua's appearances in the film's teasers were framed as though the movie would espouse on her background. A Flashback snaps to her old university... whereupon she listens to her university teacher talk about his own background instead; specifically his role in A.I.M.S.' weapon-development.
- No-Nonsense Nemesis: Kamen Rider Metsubojinrai shoots Yua's Progrise Key out of her hand instead of letting her transform with it the second time around. Luckily Sold 20 had her own key to spare.
- Only the Leads Get a Downer Ending: By the end of the film, Isamu and every member of Metsubojinrai end up taking each other down in a Mutual Mercy Kill; everyone presumed dead thanks to an entirely-avoidable tragedy nobody can get justice for; making this the second time Aruto has had to see his loved ones die. The incident worsens the relations between Human and Humagear to record levels; a now-powerless Yaiba forced to argue with a hostile Defense Minister intent on bringing new anti-AI legislation to the table (implying that the fighting will just continue). Both The Ark and Gai Amatsu sit the entire Kamen Rider Metsubojinrai incident out and get away scot-free with all the suffering they heaped on the heroes during the show as a result; The Ark took refuge in the internet and gathered more data while Gai reformed into an Anti-Hero and ended up starting his own company (albeit with complications). Everyone other than the heroes is for the better...at least until History Repeats and another evil AI rears its ugly head.
- Posthumous Villain Victory: Lyon Arkland (the Big Bad of the previous film) dies without being able to mass-produce the Solds he wanted to enter the global arms-race with. He DID however accomplish his goal of turning the members of Metsubojinrai into the engineered threat he wanted said Solds to fight, claiming the lives of most of the season's heroes by proxy of the insane Mechanical Abomination he turned the Humagears into doing it for him. For bonus points, the entire incident sours the relations between man and machine the heroes have been fighting to establish all season, with the government itself planning to crack down once again on A.I..
- Reset Button Ending: The ending to the film effectively resets the entire setting of Kamen Rider Zero-One. Hiden Intelligence and A.I.M.S. (the season's first two introduced factions) are the only ones that survive to the end of both films; albeit at the cost of the Shotrisers, Isamu and the original members of Metsubojinrai. The Kamen Rider Metsubojinrai incident has plummeted relations between man and machine to nearly pre-series levels with the government itself now poised for renewed crackdown on Artificial Intelligence. The film deliberately leaves out whether Yaiba's speech on how History Repeats Itself gets through to the masses or not, though it makes clear that she and the Solds have inherited Metsubojinrai's will - framing the same initial conflict between Humans and Humagears up once more with new players.note
- Senseless Sacrifice: Downplayed. While Isamu's Last Stand against Kamen Rider Metsubojinrai prevents more tragedy, it only reaches that point because neither he nor Yua come up with alternatives to solving the problem beforehand. It also doesn't improve relations between man and machine like anyone assumed, either - instead serving as the Inciting Incident for the Defense Minister to go on an anti-A.I. campaign.
- Shoot the Shaggy Dog: Vulcan & Valkyrie ultimately ends with the heroes losing everything. Everyone other than Yaiba and the Solds dies and the relations between Humans and Humagears have absolutely plummeted, which the government plans to use to justify a crackdown on Artificial Intelligence. Even with Yaiba's speech on how History Repeats Itself, the Vicious Cycle seems poised to start all over again despite everyone's efforts.
- Special Aesop Victim: Almost everybody. An evil CEO exploits the futility of the cycle of revenge by fusing the members of Metsubojinrai to a berserk Rider body wearing their data like a skin whose sole purpose is to go on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge. The Shotrisers are trashed and Fuwa (possibly) gives his life to take the berserk Rider with him, destroying the rabid remnants of the original Humagear activists in the process. Most of the setting's major figures are sacrificed (figuratively or literally) to hammer home the message that revenge is bad. And the film treats this culling like the first step toward peace.
- Status Quo Is God: Downplayed. With Hiden Intelligence being the only outlet for Humagears not trashed by Kamen Rider Metsubojinrai and the Defense Minister lobbying for crackdown against Artificial Intelligence, the tensions between man and machine are bound to continue. However, Yua's pre-credits Kirk Summation implies she and the Solds will continue to champion rights (and Aruto presumably remains as a Big Good), meaning not all hope is lost.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: One cannot end prejudice with prejudice. Kamen Rider Metsubojinrai's plan to unite Humanity and Humagears against it to promote a lasting peace completely backfires. The Rider's rampage only gets a bunch of people killed and damages what fragile peace already exists between man and machine by giving the government brand-new incentive to crackdown on artificial Intelligence again by film's end. Yua's pre-credits speech is the only indicator of any impending change whatsoever; for better or worse deliberately left vague.
- Uncertain Doom: The last we see of Fuwa is him in Yua's arms bleeding from his eyes before passing out. We don't see what happened to him after but the shot of him walking into the light during the credits implies he may have ultimately passed on.
- Unperson: Both meta and in-universe. Despite being the one that created Kamen Rider Metsubojinrai, Lyon Arkland is never directly mentioned by anyone nor is his influence on the events of Others remotely hinted at.note Kamen Rider Zaia's destruction at the berserk Rider's hands and a mugshot on a background news-broadcast are the only hints he was around at all, portraying a less representative series of events than what actually happened. This (as well as seeing the creature spare Yaiba) influences Fuwa's interpretation of events.
- Villainous Legacy: While Lyon Arkland is not present in this movie on account of dying at the end of the last one, his actions in the previous film set the plot of this one, both through his creation of Kamen Rider Metsuboujinrai and through his Solds, who are responsible for giving Isamu and Yua their powerups in this movie.
