Kamen Rider Gotchard Reviews

Gotchard Episode 11 Review

"Looking back now, however, none of us had realized it yet, that the start of the terrible incident had already occured." - Well that's not ominous at all.

According to episode listings, this is the start of the second arc, the start of the hunt for the Level-X or Level-10 Chemies.

At the same time, this feels like the start of the end of the first arc. Granted, I know a lot of Rider fans hate when the first couple of episodes are just alright or more chill and just want to get into the action immediately, only to regret it when the second half leaves people more divided than the first, but this isn't about fanbases who can't respect one another's opinion.

Regardless, I could make the argument UFO-X was built up somewhat well. We learned that the conditions for a Gotchard transformation require a Chemy addition of 10, it explained why they were only capturing cards 1 through nine, Kajiki was introduced as a conspiracy theorist who believed in UFOs and we just came off about a two parter where they were close to finding it.

Chemy law prevents UFO-X from being subjugated adds to their lore; the villains are using forbidden alchemy to try and acquire them while the heroes initally can only settle for them since Chemy's are treated by both parties as mindless creatures with no depth to them. And the villains have an advantage since they had means to capture them temporarily.

It's an interesting conflict to see if Hotaro's ability....and by ability I mean just treating them like actual living beings with basic human decency and befriending them....can make an impact.

But we finally got their secret plan they've been building up to: the driver is complete, and next episode we're going to finally see it in motion.

As for the main plot leading up to the villains, our Alchemist Academy's...Union of Alchemists: Licht Kugimiya and Shiori Harima: they have/had potential so far. The idea of a spy being in their midst is something that can be handled either well or poorly depending on the execution. Revealing who it is in the exact same episode though, I didn't see that coming.

The good news is I'm glad it wasn't anyone in the main cast. Hotaro makes no sense, Rinne's too pure for that, it would go against Sabimaru's character, Renge's greed has been played for comedy, Spanner too much into Lawful Jerk territory and Minato ultimately is a a Papa Wolf that will only enforcer situations like the memory erasure if absolutely necessary.

On the other hand, it's disappointing that these two weren't either introduced earlier in the background as like recurring side teachers that we didn't know were conducting an investigation at the time. It was pretty obvious they were going for Licht being the hard one who disapproves of Hotaro's methods but wants to see more of him in action before deciding that, and Shiori being the fun good cop. I just preferred they showed up earlier so we'd get more time to at least feel both of them are well meaning but could be lowkey evil the whole time.

Hell, seeing Spanner of all people siding with Hotaro....mostly on principles than anything else against Licht was effective: he won't admit it, but our protagonist's methods have been effective. He hates the guy but doesn't want to lose an asset: he's had to use Hotaro to save Rinne and Gotchard supported him in stopping Boruto.

But it was nice for Hotaro and Sabimaru to get the focus team up. And their friendship has been built up since episode 5 when he called the latter a big shot and that got him into his good graces on complete accident: honesty and earnesty these two are.

The reveal that the spy is Shiori has a lot of potential depending on her motives and how Dread is used in the next episode, but I like the buildup to this episode and setting the stage for a new Rider debut.