Kamen Rider Gotchard Reviews

Gotchard Episode 29 Review

The narration adding a spooky sound to the introduction for the opening was a cute touch.

Starting the episode with the village chief unconscious, and not dead with his legs up was a eye catching way to start the episode. The paranoia stemming from everyone was interesting to see escalated.

"The culprit is among us," okay as a occasional fan of whoduunnits, it's really funny watching Rinne going from her loving ghosts side back to her sane and analytical side when Kajiki gets way too involved into his conspiracy theories.

Wait, how is this the second Toei kids-pre teen-teen franchise to show crucifixion? Granted, didn't catch up with the Digimon Adventure 2020 remake episode that took place in, and this technically is more of a scarecrow situation since they're in the countryside....and Rinne's confirmation the land shark isn't dead....helps (although if you're harassing the countryside of poor people you're morally dead either way), but still.

As someone not good with checking pulses, it's both funny and sad to see Rinne's reason go completely ignored as Kajiki's paranoia love leads him to turn on Starshine Hoshino and present him as a fraud who manipulated all of his yokai/demon hunting into false flag operations to trick the public, even though if he was lying, the Chemies wouldn't have offered him their power.

Then again there is a sadly realistic side to people without financial or educational access being manipulated into blaming the wrong forces for their situation and conditions, thus leading to them cannibalizing and tribalizing each other for what they believe will help them survive. And then Kajiki getting rightfully kicked out because the guy he's accusing was also the same person he was working with and placed into the closest thing these people have to a prison means we don't have to worry about those implications at all XD.

But real talk, thank goodness this is a Lighter and Softer season because if this was something ala Heisei Phase 1, while Houtarou and Renge would be gone, the monster responsible probably would've murdered like most of the townspeople before they go back. And yeah, every Kamen Rider season has dark elements: Fourze had a incel that controlled a ton of women to enter a school bus and steered the bus to push them off a cliff for rejecting him, but there's a good reason no one died there either.

You can introduce dark and mature elements without going overboard. Not a jab against Amazons 2, that was all sorts of dark but never went extreme outside of the gore.

If Kajiki actually got killed like that, it would be hilarious, but also just be extremely "uhh, this is not what I signed up for," but at least there's some dark humour seeing the genuine dread and concern for everyone in the village taken so seriously even though no one is dead.

Rinne and Atropos' conversation: the only issue with these two is that it's been clear Atropos has been trying to lure her into the dark side or to break her so bad, but the way she frames it as being pampered: her own Gotchard, and Rinne actually wondering if it's possible to give her a normal life could be interesting depending on how it's framed. Both of them have seen the loneliness and implied state, Atropos was technically made and groomed by Geyron into serving his will. If they play on that similar to a major antagonist losing their only forms of support, it would be interesting when you consider the Dark Sisters have their own personality but their agency was mostly decided on the actions of someone else, but it would take a lot of prep for them to have a face turn.

We hadn't see base AbbareSkebows in a while, but it is nice to see a base form go up against what they think is a small threat surprising them.

Not to be a film bro, but watching them just walk up stairs for like half a minute felt like padding, even though it's definitely funny to see them refuse to take Steamliner as a movement option because it'd be insulting to the women. Then again, teenagers and walking never get along.

The Kitsune Malgam wrapping Renge, Nana, and Rinne in a sphere of darkness is cool, but Rinne still not having energy: it could be handwaved given their last fight was so difficult Majade and Valvarad couldn't henshin after that, but if it was that low, at least using a Chemy could've helped.

The dogfight between Platinum using Skebows, Parks, Raidenji, and Saboneedle was pretty sweet, never thought a jacket would help someone piledrive someone else into the ground. And the Kitsune Malgam's ethereal nature being strong and bizarre enough that Platinum has to figure out how to beat it rather they just losing makes an interesting conundrum.

The episode's doing a better job focusing on Renge at least. It's funny seeing her be the extrovert to her and Sabimaru's dynamic now knowing that she actually was pretty naive and fragile as a child. Her dream, Gotcha to keep the village and grandma that raised her is a highlight. And it's cool to see that love push her to resonate with the other Chemies to copy Starshine Hoshino's Star attack and break through the prism even though she doesn't have her Chemy Riser.

And ir allows her to give Platinum Mercurin, Jupitta, KinkiraVina...oh Venus, GrandSaturn, and FireMars, even as the Kitsune Malgam allows itself to get hit by the Star shaped Rider Kick for the reveal. The Chemy possessed an actual kitsune doll, and it's truth intention was to reveal the prophecy this idiot didn't recognize would be relevant: "when offerings are made to the stars, the door to hell will open and a scorching breath will blow into this world," what's hot and scorching: a hot spring!

And it wouldn't be something nine tailed related if it wasn't a bad person and had good inventions but was mostly misunderstood and was portrayed as an antagonist until the full context was revealed.

And hey, they got seven Chemies out of it, according to Minato.

It does kinda suck Hoshino got screwed over towards his dream, but it makes sense him and Kajiki becoming occult detectives would be interesting, but it's doubtful Hoshino would return, even if it's just a cameo.