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After a sudden binge of Ultraman R/B and the last few episodes of KR:Zero- One, I have ruled Aizen Makoto as a better corporate villain than Matsu Gai.
1st; the similarities: both are heads of their respective companies, both become opposing counters to the heroes by playing dark mirror versions, and both wear all white ensembles
The difference is one; build-up. Aizen is established early in the series as one responsible for a lot of the cities innovations. Gai is introduced near the end of the first arc of Zero One after Metsoujinrai is defeated. When shown, he is merely cast in shadow
And speaking in vague terms. Now, gradually, we learn Gai was heavily involved in Daybreak, the formation od A.I.M.S. , and his desire to take over HIDEN. Aizen, we learn, is an alien who took over a contractor and turned him into Tony Stark.
Both have intriguing origins; but the difference is in how they present themselves. Aizen plays himself as a lovable eccentric that makes the public love him, then behind closed doors, has a wicked, almost campy streak in summoning monsters to fight the Ultraman;
This is helpful later in the series where we learn Aizen’s main goal; to be an idealized version of Ultraman himself. He is, what we call, the entitled fanboy, the Syndrome if you will. As when he meets the Minato twins; he immediately says they are bad Ultraman.
He criticizes their looks, how they act in battle, and how they lack “traditional “ flair. He wants to replace the Minato twins as the one true Ultraman. Matsu Gai’s motivation stems from being butthurt over being passed over for running HIDEN, so he sabotages;
The Ark satellite, introducing malice to the programming and causing all the Humagears in Daybreak to go beserk. He then positions himself as a so-called savior of humanity by creating the means to fight them while hiding the fact that he was responsible for everything.
How both storylines are executed differ in how they handle the cast. With Aizen; he is careful in his actions so as not to be caught. Only the Minato twins know his real self, but cannot directly confront him w/o proof and Aizen is very careful in that regard.
In Gai’s case: he starts out subtle, with proxies provoking the Humagears to go berserk to being overt in his sinister actions, even flagrantly forcibly changing Humagears into monsters to push his point. And worse, he gets away with it.
The problem with his approach when compared to Aizen; is that while Aizen’s villainy is apparent to the audience, it’s not at the expense of the characters as the Minato twins still are just as capable, whereas with Gai; all the characters suddenly get selective idiocy in their;
Actions. Aizen’s actions are tough to prove, but the Minato’s are not made the worse for it. Meanwhile; Gai can literally slap a belt on a humagear in public, and the news reporters report on the machine rampaging, but not record the guy outright slapping a device that caused it.
Case in point; Aizen offers both Katsumi and Isamu an opportunity to live their dream lives, if they give up being Ultraman. The brothers, of course, are hostile to Aizen, much to the surprise of their family, who, as we established, are unaware of Aizen’s true nature.
Meanwhile; Gai gets away with employees cheating for the company, using devices that cause machines to go haywire, and no one, not Aruto, to have his company develop countermeasures to hacking, not Fuwa, from getting the one piece of evidence destroyed by careless actions
And not Yua Yaiba, who is a ZAIA employee but established as a capable and technical character, reduced to silent lackey and...an accomplice to quite a bit of Gai’s chicanery. The flaw in all of this is that Gai does this, at the expense of the characters being made dumber;
And not act consistently to what we seen them be portrayed as; all in service of the plot. Now, this method can work; as amazingly demonstrated with Ex-Aids Dan Kuroto, who, is an example of what a petty business man with a god complex can pull.
This comes to a head when I watch both Aizen praise his Ultraman ego; Dark Orb Noir, as the savior of the town after defeating a monster, that he summoned, after Ultramen R/B were defeated by it. The Minato twins rush to proclaim him a fraud, but w/o proof, the crowd doesn’t;
Buy what the brothers say and public opinion on R/B turns. This works b/c of the characters actions are consistent and it doesn’t insult both the viewer and the characters while still moving the plot.
Meanwhile; the in Zero One; they have a humagear reveal political corruption and the politician counters with doctored footage, but no one decides to halt the debate to investigate any of the claims. meanwhile the humagear loses his cool, and Gai just kicks a device to him
Proclaiming his device as a means to save humanity (with Yua demonstrating it) and challenging the Gear to fight. This did not work for me as it did a ton of leaps at the expense of Aruto, who while goofy, is also a sincere/ clever character , made to look foolish;
Makes the newscasters and audience become blind to both Gai’s actions and selectively not try to reschedule the debate to investigate both claims and just immediately buy what Gai’s selling. When compared to the legal contest, this fell flat.
The legal contest actually had the lawyers do a retrial when evidence showed that a cop used ZAIA’s tech to hack a phone and forge a crime to get his arrest numbers up. They actually went over all the information, compared to the rush of this ending.
But; I went on way too long in going over my geekery in toku; otherwise I would tell you about the sins of Ex-Aid’s Dan Kuroto, I just know the next episode of Zero One is gonna be tough to watch for me, and seeing Gai’s smug face.
As it may be my disdain for arrogant/smug characters and the flagrant injustice I see in such actions. Plus the actor has mentioned he combined the traits of Faiz’s Kusako and DBZ’s Frieza for Gai, which work well. Thank you to anyone who has read this thread, and good night.
