Kamen Rider Gotchard Reviews

Gotchard Episode 34 Review

Following the last episode, we get Legendary Legend debuting right at the beginning. Completely understandable while people would be upset last week ended with his debut and not doing much. At the same time, it's not a big deal. This has happened before but with various circumstances. Ghost's final form didn't have the suit debut in it's first episode so they were forced to use CGI. Geats debuted Ace's incomplete final form, a rarity within the franchise, only to debut his true final form at the end of the Desire Grand Prix arc. Given that Kaguya isn't the protagonist, thirty three was jam packed enough as it was, and we had three insane ongoing fights, it's completely fine for it to go ham, when it's the culmination of the buildup from the past episodes.

Legendary is Kaguya's final form, and to put it up against Dark Kiva, who through discussions, was so powerful and dangerous it could kill any non Fangires after enough usage, and the Wake Up Three was rumored to potentially be a self destruction attack with the power to wipe out...anyone, it's cool they did that. It shows the people who haven't seen Kiva the dangers and scope of the major antagonist, while also serving it as a solid challenge for Kaguya.

From research, found that Dark Kiva's got three different Wake Ups. The Wake Up One is the Darkness Hell Crash, a Rider Punch. King's Burst End, Wake Up Two, is the Rider Kick, and King's World End Three is what clashes with Kaguya's abilities. The Legend Riser undermining it might seem like a bad thing, but given Hundred was after it to gain it's power, it's fitting irony Saigetsu gets defeated by it.

That being said Saigetsu getting berated by the Hundred leaders threatening to execute him is generic, but the idea of a terrorist's organization's generals not even being the actual heads: actually makes sense. There's a risk to be done in not showing them, but it presents Hundred as a force that can continue to co-exist by finding new generals to replicate Dark Kamen Riders on their quest for global domination. 

It was also very adorable to see Rinne, Sabimaru and Renge all dressed up by Kaguya's will to make their appearance elegant and gorgeous to him: though it definitely would've been fun to see Spanner and Minato entertain the notion.

While Spanner naturally would dismiss the opportunity, it was nice to see Rinne mistaking Butler for Kajiki and Kaguya mistaking Kajiki for Butler.

So the Aurora Curtains malfunction: this one has gotten some sort of criticism, but dimension hopping constantly has its own risks in other stories and given the overuse of an invasive army, it's honestly reasonable here.

That being said, poor Sabimaru: Minato has to help Kyoka deal with Lachesis, Rinne and Butler partnering up makes sense given they have the most common sense in the room, Renge's got her part time job now that she's graduated, and Houtaro's got his remedial English classes because they actually remembered that his educational intelligence is very faulty. Food for thought in the future. So Sabimaru and Spanner have to serve as his retainers for now. And it goes exactly how one would expect.

But before that, the sight of Kaguya upset Hotaro wasn't able to remember is going to be a big talking point for this episode and the next one to come, but it does lead into an argument about his character for later, depending on how you see Houtarou.

But to its credit, Kaguya shows up willing to defend their friend in a certain way. Remember when back in episode 13 for UFO-X's debut, the Three Abyssalis Siter outright murked their English professor? Yeah, he never came back, so Kaguya trying to teach him and Kajiki English is actually wholesome when you take out the absurdity of him rolling into school and getting the new student transfer association so much he's able to get his own fan club.

Though it was worth a chuckle seeing Spanner have to smile and get irritated dealing with Kaguya's shenanigans. We don't see Kamen Riders be officially outing themselves to the public unless their identity is meant to be commonplace to the world: think Aruto from Zero-One and Ikki from Kamen Rider Revice technically, so it was funny to have Kaguya try to do so based on the logic of his world. Based on his actions, you can already infer that in his world, everyone knows and treats him like a celebrity. And given he spent his life as an orphan who eventually developed the technology to become his world's savior, it makes sense to him that he would act that way. 

As for the fight, great action, but there's an argument when Kaguya took Hopper1 and Kaguya to use to help him in the fight. There was two sides to this: the people who hate Houtarou were arguing this was good because Houtarou has to actually consider he was in the wrong for something and needed to apologize and understand people better. The people who like Houtarou argue that Kaguya was in the wrong for just using the creatures as nothing more than ammunition to help him fight and Houtarou was made to look like the one being unreasonable and the story forcing him to apologize.

It's not so black and white. Heck Houtarou has spent past episodes learning to understand the perspective of others to try and help them out in their own ways or taking a step back to let them handle their problems while he supports them through their own actions. Kaguya's just another friend who's perspective he needed the time to understand. But he does have a right to be angry. There's a difference between being angry and staying angry and as we come to see later, he's not the latter. Once he learns from Butler, he immediately understands Kaguya's perspective and tries to resolve the issue, which shows he's getting better at resolving conflicts once he takes the time to understand why. Three episodes ago, he did that with Rinne and Seina, and almost did that with Clotho before Gigist arrived, so it's bizarre to say "finally Houtarou's growing."

At the same time, Kaguya's perspective was just trying to appease and appeal to his friend, using his friends to help him out in battle, showing off since he has someone who he can fight alongside Houtaro, and based on Butler's words, that's his first friend. This kid has been fighting terrorists since he was a child and his social cues aren't exactly the brightest. Meanwhile, you have someone in Houtaro who has that awkwardness as well, but his experiences have made him more emotionally intelligent for both Chemies and humans. Had Kaguya just asked Houtarou to let the Chemies assist him instead of just snatching out of the driver, yeah their conflict could've been avoided. It just comes down to a lack of communication on Kaguya's end, which Houtaro could, and later does mend the field.

Understanding and learning, as well as fixing flaws is not always "hey this person is phrased to be wrong," but showing, describing, and explaining, and offering solutions, so it's a bit tone deaf to blame either one without the context.

Also, we got Zero-Two vs Ark-One after five years, which some people argue it could be a Zero One episode since Gotchard doesn't do much, but Zero-Two was made as a collaboration between Satellite Zea, Izu's Singularity, and Aruto so it fits Kaguya's development would allow for a new form debut.

Saigetsu gets executed and was touched up, but the echo of Ark absorbing and activating a time bomb made out of the Satellite Ark emerging from Saigetsu's corpse is pretty wild.

All in all, a solid episode, but there is one issue that'll be talked about when we get to episode 35. For now though, it was interesting to talk about even though the negativity surrounding this arc is a bit dumb in hindsight.