Kamen Rider Gotchard Reviews

Gotchard Episode 35 Review

So a criticism people had an issue with this arc so far is that Gigist has appearance in the arc where supposedly he does nothing but stay in the background, but given Legend was the focus, it was actually pretty smart to have him show he's a looming threat without a fighting while leaving the audience intrigued about what else he can do for the future.

There's also this interaction:

Saigetsu: "Hey, you're sure about this? You're letting me destroy this world?"

Gigist: "If it ends up broken...Then I shall simply rebuild it."

When you remember the previous main antagonist in Geryon, his goal was to dye the world in gold. Effectively, he could decide who lives and dies and turn the whole world into his experiment, which sounds freaking insane, and Gigist is far above him in terms of power. 

Gigist is so far, the threat into the Door of Darkness Geryon was attempting to unleash and summon, so to have him be able to merge Saigetsu, who could keep up with Super and Final Forms, an ability that allows him to use four Chemies at once.

And it's kinda fun to have Gigst enhance Saigtsu in the middle of the fight before he could get outmatched again to the point he has to drag out Gokigentmeteon floating above the Earth's stratosphere. Man for the most part, these things are not a danger, just raise them right. 

Saigetsu getting turned into the Ark Malgam serves as a unique final boss for this arc. A transition between who will be the active main big bad for the next episodes and then active villain seemingly working together is an interesting take. Usually in crossovers like this the villains will be working together from the start but since Houtaro's target from Hundred really only stems from his involvement in stopping them from defeating Kaguya, it's interesting to have the inverse amongst the villains.

Kaguya turning on Houtaro for no discernable reason, even though it's pretty cliche is fine for the most part. The stoic hero doesn't want his boy friend to get hurt by a super dangerous force they are familiar with and decides to fight him to get him out of the way of harm.

That being said, without context or with context, it's debatably if Kaguya's actions are justified. Without context, we as the audience can see that an explosion from something called the Dooms Clock has the threat to wipe out humanity. With context, this was the device that seriously harmed Kaguya's world, the World of Quartzer, so being completely serious in trying to make sure his only friend's world doesn't get destroyed is validated. But the episode tells you either way through Kajiki, it doesn't tell you that Tsukasa was the one who destroyed before it could go off again.

But it does lead into Kaguya's narrowmindness: to jaded from his experiences to understand the perspective of others, but also too traumatized to be able to voice his concerns. Butler is his communication magnet after all, but he has to be able to grow out of it. The actor does a good job conveying a simple state of trauma and dread without saying a word before trouncing Houtaro, who rightfully was unprepared in case someone argues this has to be an anti-feat for some versus scaling XD.

Also, the running gag of Butler being mistaken for Kajiki with noth him and Rinne gyrating around while the latter tries to play It off so much she gives him a Death Glare is just peak.

And it's genuinely nice to see Valvarad rush into protect Houtarou. They're far from friends, but the Spanner from episode three would've never done that. Even later when Kaguya pushes Houtarou away, its him who points out he won't abandon or crumble to protect the people he cares about.

He even says to Sabimaru himself: in his own way, his friendship with Houtarou is his treasure, something he can't grasp. And Sabi learned this too, he values his ability to connect to people but he was only allowed to do so by sharing with others: he's an introvert but he doesn't need to change, just grow and carry those bonds with you.

Here's a question we are never going to get an answer too: how did Kaguya manage to have a gembath while sipping wine set up inside of a high school?

Plus Kaguya does redeem himself for properly apologizing for getting him involved, proving he's not some one dimensional jerk. It wasn't entirely his fault, but he wants to accountability for Hundred. It's just now he's got more people willing to help him out to do so.

Also, Gotchard is one for reminding people not to give into the guilt of others to blame yourself. Only use that guilt to stop more tragedies: we saw it with Rinne standing up to Atropos, Spanner passing Minato's test, and now Houtaro helping Kaguya face his burdens than putting the blame on himself. Responsibility and guilt are two different things.

Houtaro's convictions are also a strong point: Saigetsu uses the Chemies in ways one by one to harm the two, so Platinum works with similar cards in X-Rex, X-Ufo, and Gaiard to cancel them out and make Kaguya see the value in seeing the Chemies as real friends who can help out.

Only in this franchise, could you say "why didn't he use the flag, it's way stronger than the arrow." Granted it would've been interesting to see Kaguya elegantly fight with the Kachidoki Bata, even if it's funny to see Legend Forms don't prescribe what weapon the user will get. Though this works really well if newcomers because like Houtaro, they'll also ask why he didn't use it. Kaguya doesn't give even a reason, other than "he's rather not."

It's completely understandable to be annoyed Legendary Legend doesn't use any other Final Forms beyond Zero Two and Grand Zi-O, though it's only fitting for a dimension hopping character to use the God of Time's powers and split himself into three versions in order to take on a world destroying threat. The quadruple Rider Kick between three Kaguya's and Platinum blasting through Saigetsu and the Dooms Clock was at least entertaining enough. 

Four Rider Kicks to stop Four Chemies, fitting. But this is episode thirty five, not four. Oh well.

As for the celebration for Kaguya, it's a nice sendoff and wrap, even as Spanner leaves when it's time to for Kaguya to go. Man really became the unsung MVP of this last episode.

And we get previews of Daybreak Houtaro as well as an egg inside of Houtaro? Definitely sure this won't lead to anything bad down the line.

This episode can be really good or bad depending on who you asked, but it completed Kaguya's arc, put the heroes on high alert, advanced the actual main villains of the story despite not having too much focus to favor Legend's villains, and kept a solid theme of growth through others.

The only major criticism is that Lachesis and Kyoya disappear after episode 33, and while Kaguya gets great moments with most of the cast, Rinne and Kaguya don't really have a moment to shine when their character trajectory and backstories have a fair number of parallels between them.

All in all, for an arc of four episodes people will argue was just jangling keys or filler, it was pretty solid and set out what it wanted to do: be a fun story with a lot of heart as the school semester starts and the endgame approaches.

The funny thing is, without Legend or his villains, they could've had Lachesis and Spanner's arc be the focus of this whole event through fighting the Chemies but they put in the work to establish legend's ties to the world without having to go on a bunch of exposition dumps. And all in all, it was a good time.