Kamen Rider Gotchard Reviews

Gotchard Episode 42 Review

The Kings reaction to Geryon's revival, counterattacking Gaelijah's ability to read the stars/destiny(?) is odd: maybe because Germain was transmuted from a dolls and has their level of divine energy, he can keep the Philosopher's Stone inside of him, but it's interesting to note why he considers himself better than them. They're willing to lose their identity for power using the stone to gain more power from the abyss, while he wants to create an ideal golden world.

To be fair, a lot of people have called Geryon's plans stupid, and the thing is a lot of villain's plans don't make sense, which is how and why they're undermined and defeated: but it's their own their belief and rationale that makes them understandable. It actually paints Geryon in a more ambitious light: when you have all that power, what are you gonna do with it?

Also, it's a good Rinne's book to find out more secrets and means to beat the three Kings and how the Daybreak Alchemist of the past pulled it off. It's also good to learn from the past to go beyond rather than using the past to put yourself in a high pedal of authority and never do anything about it: like the Union does. 

Then Rinne gets frozen from Houtaro's plans to try and make a freezing formula...well it worked, nice job. Hope that comes back later on.

The real meat on the table, someone made a one hundred second Chemy, which was supposed to be outlawed (a solid explanation on why there's only one hundred one), Sabimaru's the most eager to join and Spanner's at least willing to lead the way. Poor Rinne though, probably guessing they wanted to tri,m the fat and focus on the guys for this one, explaining while Renge gets frozen.

Though that is a wasted opportunity since Sabimaru knows Renge the best. 

And we finally get some more world building with Kongou Laboratories: Mami Kongou, their female director, and Keichi, Sabi's brother and the head research.  They're also researching the alchemical transmutation of a complete soul, something that might actually be able to help Lachesis down the line perhaps? 

Plus creating Chemies, which Spanner points out is forbidden, which while he has a point, given Chemies can be extremely dangerous in the hands of intended malice, the Association allowed themselves to work with a megalomaniac who also murdered and covered up the deaths of several students, faculty, and alchemists, so point to the dubious scientist.

And yeah, Geryon's back is going to put a lot of fears in people's hearts because out of the active villains, he's the one most in tune with Alchemist Society, so him showing up later with all the knowledge possible to screw with everyone is just gonna make things worse. Yeah the Lab split from the Alchemists Union, justifiable so and has a alchemical barrier, but he can still find ways to enter it.

But it's realy cool to get more research into Sabimaru's home life and the reason why he entered the Academy was for the Chemies hinted at way back with UFO-X, like Rinne probably should've lived here after her father died given her communication issues, and we even have the explanation for Isaac!

Unit 13. They've taken soul transmutation to and applied it to an AI designed to improve communication with both each other, and Chemies, including Alumi, who doesn't speak at at all, so she only exclusively communications through her AI partner. Though AI is a serious talking point and it shouldn't be used as a cheat code for the creation of art over hard work, there is some merit into using it to aid than steal from humanity. Huh, feels like Zero-One flashbacks. 

Though props for the naming choice: Alumi>Aluminum, the 13th element in the periodic table, her AI partner is Isaac No. 13. That's so damn clever.

Also because the actress can't speak with her mouth but has to do so through the AI, it's freaking gold she has to express her feelings with her face through voice over and making fun of a ninteeen year old. Spanner's definitely got the weirdest relationship with women: one raised him as her own son, another constantly tortures him only to feel bad for how his life was treated and tries to work with him be only sees her as a doll as a bit of self deflection, and now he has a little girl who's better at social skills than he is.

Just watching him lower the screen after she thought he wouldn't survive was priceless.

Good to see FireGotchard again, even using the abilities to chain the new Malgam right as Renge is able to learn that Kenichi worked on the 102nd Chemy: and earlier it looked like Geryon showed up and killed her...nah, either just tranmuted her into the Malgam, or she transformed thanks to her own unstable, conflicting emotions. 

Almost makes one wonder: he was so involved with the Academy as a professor that he managed to get someone to fall in love with him?

Nice to see Mad Pirates fight the Tank mode of the Malgam, so Rainbow's solution is to FIRE Valvarad through the cannon as a Rider Kick shield for Rainbow to stop Kamedon before it escapes the Chemy card capture was unexpected.

But Kamedon's abilities are pretty cool, having two different forms for a Malgam is unique : the Turtle form has really strong defenses and reflects her desire to protect her research and students from Geryon. The Tank form shoots projectiles and represents her present feelings for Geryon.

And how do you defeat the power of love? You don't deal with it when you're hiding and repress it, you shoot it straight down unlike the heartbreak blasts you backs to reality, bad jokes aside, it's pretty video game ish in a good way that you have to fight a boss battle, but it's only weak point is when it's attack, so you have to find a way to attack and defend at the same time instead of taking advantage of his defenses.

As for getting this episode very late into the game, on one hand, fair arguments can be made in that Sabimaru could've had a focus episode earlier, but given this is the 102nd Chemy, it's makes more sense to focus on this now than later.

Heck Uchida and Hasegawa's original scripts for episode 5 and 42 were very similar but they figured it worked better here, plus, hey, better late than never, right? Plus the episode answers a lot of questions we've have before, so looking forward to how this ones ends.