Dear Toei: I still want the super special OP battle that one should get with a final form, especially when Ex-Aid is now invincible. Gimme! (Though for plot reasons, I get why Chronos is still around, even if it hopefully won't be for much longer)
I enjoyed that episode. Even though there was plenty of fighting, it was more character focused than past episodes, which itself a nice break after the run-up to Hyper Muteki.
Right now the show is giving the bulk of the focus to Hiiro and Taiga and letting Emu step back, which is something it has needed to do for a while now. I wouldn't consider either character underdeveloped (for supporting Riders, at any rate), but they've been due to have their plot threads moved forward for a while now. And given their significant shared history, this is a good way to do it. Both of them bear the scars of the past, and neither has been or can be whole again until they make peace with it. And that, in turn, is something they can't do without each other, since the past they need to make peace with is strongly bound with both of them.
For Hiiro, this means he needs to get over feeling guilty for the loss of Saki. As her
incredibly convenient father noted, he's still struggling with that even 5 years later. Meanwhile Emu's not wrong that his desire to correct his mistakes with Saki drives Hiiro forward, but I don't believe guilt and drive are mutually bound. He can get over the guilt and have a more healthy mental state, while still being driven. That said, we'll see if Toei lets Saki stay dead, or if they do resurrect her. Par for Kamen Rider is to save all the humans/innocents, however if Toei wants to twist the knife, they can have Saki permanently lost and everyone else saved, since Masamune has her data but no one else's.
As for Taiga, it's ironic that he's even more stuck in the past than Hiiro, though for different reasons. He still needs to avenge his loss to Graphite - to make up for letting Saki die. However in doing so, he hasn't really embraced a reason to live in the present. That obviously is going to be Nico, and that's not a bad thing. His plot has been going this direction for a while now, and it's the natural conclusion to his initial start as a lone wolf trying to save the world on his own.
And no, he's clearly not going to die. As everyone else has noted, no one is going to believe that after they just resurrected Kiriya. However he's clearly not okay, and this episode serves to setup a two-parter (if not a whole arc) to deal with that. Even without dying, there are going to be ramifications.
Meanwhile, I liked Masamune's plan to deal with Ex-Aid. He can't take on Ex-Aid directly, and even Taddle Legacy can't do that. Never mind the obvious issues with having Dr. Hiiro kill someone. But taking out Parado to cure Emu is a rather clever solution to the problem, and also gives Hiiro a stake in all of this. Though I guess I'm left to wonder why Masamune doesn't do it himself as Chronos...
Speaking of relations, any usage of Dan was noticeably minimized. He needs to settle the score with his father, if only for his pride as Gamemaster. Though dishing up retribution for all of Masamune's scheming is not uncalled for. The one problem here is that he's not powerful enough to do that.
Getting back to the fights for a second, I thought the makeup of the fight against Chronos was interesting. Now that Lazer is back, of course he's going with Emu. However doing a trio of Ex-Aid, Lazer, and Poppy is not what I'd expect. Given that these characters are taking a back seat for this arc, it has a neat little B-team vibe to it. And it's a notable departure from Ex-Aid fighting alone or with the other Doctors.
Random observations
- The little clip explaining the show is gone this week. I guess that was just for the Hyper Muteki two-parter?
- The OP has been very slightly revised this week. I'm actually a bit surprised there wasn't more done. Hypey Muteki has been added over MMX and Bad Kiriya has been swapped out for Good Kiriya, but that's it. They didn't even add Kiriya back to the "walking doctors" in the background.
- Hyper Muteki is still as ugly as sin
Catastrophe wrote:Taddle Legacy looks kind of bland. Just a white repaint of Fantasy.
I can appreciate the contrast with Taddle Fantasy. Whereas the former was an "evil" power, Legacy is a "good" power, so the palette swap makes sense. Still, there's no denying it was a cheap redeco rather than another new suit and design, with the evil/good aspect used to justify it in the plot after the fact.
njb wrote:2. I found it interesting that Masamune now refers to Emu as "Ex-Aid", since he refuses to recognize Hyper Muteki.
Hmm, good call. Did he ever refer to Emu as Maximum Mighty X before? I feel like I've seen Ex-Aid a fair bit now, whereas I can't specifically recall MMX.
Catastrophe wrote:The way the Legacy gashat looks with the wires sticking out and shit, I expected it to have some negative drawback like Ryugens Yomi fruit or something.
It may yet still have it. But I think it's more to represent that this is a hacked-up Gashat. Masamune is a manipulator, not a creator. He doesn't have the ability to create new Gashats like Dan does. So the best he can do is take Dan's work and tweak it slightly. Hence the hacked-up look of the Gashat.
takenoko wrote:Just give Hiiro's dad more time to act as filler, because that's what people want :p
See, I thought this was a rather good use of him, for once. We've known that he was close to Saki as well, and meanwhile his son is AWOL, having gone to the dark side. So he has some things of his own to deal with as a consequence of the current situation. (Now he needs to give his son an ass-whooping for walking out on the job...)
DevGryphon wrote:njb wrote:Where does the Maximum Mighty shell go when Emu becomes Muteki?
I see two things that could possibly happen to it...
1 - It turns into the shooting stars that make up Muteki's armor
2 - It walks away and sulks in a corner until the battle is over...
I vote #2.
