Kamen Rider Gotchard Reviews

Gotchard Episode 25 Review

Ignore this. Wattpad's been acting a little weird with the publish button or accidentally make a chapter so when the episode drops next week, I'll be sure to drop it. 

So this'll be a thought on the preview for now, and when the episode drops, it'll be a change to the review.

So Hotaro's transformation is going to leave him unconscious. Question is: how long? Will he be able to fight in it before he passed out?

Good to see Fuga will be coming back (if he's not the one who helped out in the end).

Wonder if Minato's backstory is going to tie into how he became a teacher or his teaching methods and mentality now.

We'll wait and see.

A week and day later: the actual review

Warp Malgam's sass is freaking hilarious, love their arrogance only for their attacks to be ineffective against Iron Gotchard. The finisher involving shooting its gauntlets as rockets complete with steam was a nice touch.

Plus, to see Iron Gotchard be so durable that its only weakness is the effect it has on Hotaro's physical stamina thanks to it being forbidden actually makes it feel fitting for a final form.

"Is your lesson plan to rob the youths of their dreams," has to be one of the most poetic phrases you ever tell a teacher.

A while ago, a complaint against Rinne's character was that she wanted to beat up her dad but also was sad about his betrayal and potential death. It seemed like a tone deaf complaint given Rinne didn't know the circumstances behind his betrayal, and the fact above all else, she still loved her father and said that because she missed him, which episode four confirmed. For the suit actor/actress to convey those emotions only for Rinne's actress to elaborate...shush Renge...with just her eyes and the hypocrisy in her words before naturally having several questions really pouts arguments to death.

Fuga's probably going to explain his reasoning for later, but the idea for Hotaro to transmute his own self through the Chemy's power given his bond with Steamliner, explaining TenLiner's transformation: and it's ancient alchemy at least makes this form feel like a combination of Hotaro's efforts and worldbuilding rather than just a cheap excuse for a power up, which is what an ideal new form should do.

Daiki Suzuya...well that explains a lot: being Minato's peer and younger brother, who had dreams of being an alchemist and sharing its potential to normal people in order to make world peace. Now this has been an ongoing debate within some people on if Hotaro's goal is realistic. Now not to be completely cynical, but it took Keiwa time to finalize his ideals for world peace: just in general, then to revive the victims of the DGP, and find his own world in government to make that a possibility.

Including stuff like magic definitely has potential to do that, but given we live in a world where the mundane can turn new and beneficial creations into tools of mass destruction, it's still rare to feel that the negative would also be true. At the same time, Hotaro's goals are "be a big shot alchemist", and prove humans and Chemies can get along. He's proving he can do at least the Chemy part right, and while some argue that the Chemies themselves are impossible to co-exist at all of humanity, to deny most of them have had a positive impact on most of the characters of the week or assisted the heroes in battle is a bit of a disservice to the plot up to the point.

All this happening on the same day Spanner's parents were attacking, Fuga fighting the sisters (and Lachesis finding him handsome), Geryon taking advantage of the younger students and Minato trusting Fuga over him to punish the former by forcing his own classmates to massacre each other is just cruel.

Now some could see this as an emotional let-down, but it puts a lot of Minato's statements and actions in a previous light, especially if you're either a student or a teacher. From a student's perspective, (let's assume red cloaks means you're in 11th and 12th grade, and blue is 10th or 11th: in Japanese schools, high school is grades ten to twelve), you find out one of your loyal teachers is a sociopathic traitor who murdered your close friend out of spite, and then had to watch as your friends were brainwashed or forced to fight each other to the death and you came out the only survivor.

Now say that like Minato, and you plan on becoming a teacher, watching all of this unfold, then years later, you've the professor to four-five kids each with their own dreams and ambitions scaling from the idealistic like his best friend to the more realistic, but two of them have massive trauma similar to yours, the person responsible for said trauma plays on that, and now you have to decide between siding with the murderer of your friend to try and push your students away so they don't become casualties, or working with those same kids who you're trying to support, but lacking the firepower to go up against a threat.

He played the middle and pushed his students to get stronger while making sure he didn't make Geryon upset. Hotaro almost died using forbidden alchemy twice to beat him, that's never what Minato or Fuga would expect of him. That's an insane amount of pressure to put on a student turned teacher especially when Geryon returned: Rinne couldn't use her Rider powers, Valvarad was being outperformed, and the X-Forms for Hotaro were already a touchy subject given how one gained sentience and led several others as Geyron had most of the academy hire up's memories altered. While there likely is a way to reverse the memories, it's possible that it'd also require forbidden alchemy too.

Also, really disturbing Geryon's iconic gold rubik's cube was transmuted from the handcuffs Minato attempted to restrain him with. Every time he plays with it around Minato adds a new layer to trauma trigger that the sensei is trying to repress with each encounter. Remember when we watched him kill Spanner's parents in front of his eyes? Yeah, Minato's experienced people losing their loved ones, and he had to deal with two kids who have semi-dead/actually dead parents.

Even in the fight, you see how when Clotho goes to interrupt them, he chooses to use Dread's Type One finisher to get her out of the way to focus on his fight with the students. The line where he rephrases what Fuga said about not wanting to rob people of their futures anymore: just imagine the scenario where a teacher in real life is manipulated into harming their students.

All of the students talking about on their own how much they want sensei come back: doesn't really make them come off of a hive mind because he mentored them even before the show started and their own ways show off their different personalities in their own way. Rinne, Spanner, and Sabimaru's stood out the most.

As for the fights, Dread Type Two's fencing style is a highlight, Iron Gotchard's tank>counter attacking style is actually appealing given the finesse vs force comparison: while Majade's attacks were underwhelming, Valvarad Crush kicking the sword wrench will always be fun to see. Iron Gotchard's finisher was also a bit lacking in impact, but it's cool Hotaro was able to use WarpTera involved in a finisher.

And in an interesting twist: Minato doesn't pick up the Dread Driver: the flashback to his friend's death shows that even in an episode, it'll take some time for him to address that trauma.

Will Lachesis actually eliminate Minato? It's really hard to say: she's shown enough "hey, maybe this is going too far," vibes and the actress presents in a way that it's more of an obligation.

Just for the record, Geyron: completely ungrateful Minato's plan got them all of the Chemies: yes he most likely came up with the plan so that they wouldn't have the means to attempt and cross Geyron's path, but that's still better than what most of the Sisters acquired.

Overall, had a ton of fun with this episode and put a lot of interesting talking points this week. Fun fact, the Jungle Malgam was Goriki from episode 5. Seems his criminal activity was active for a while, which the episode stated, we just got more details and worldbuilding on that, which is always nice to see.

As for the next episode: another dad Rider in Reiwa, neat. Atropos finally gets to use Dread, which should be interesting to see her fight as Type Two against Rinne, curious about the threat so strong Fuga of all people is going to have to transform, and looking forward to what happens next.