Kamen Rider Gotchard Reviews

Gotchard Episode 44 Review

Finally, Gaelijah finally gets to do something: playing the intellect to Geyron's idealism while also questioning how a mere doll like him could grow to forge his own individuality (heck the opening has part of that as lyrics), and making this a battle of conflicting villainous ideologies.

Wait, there was a whole summer festival event and they didn't make that an episode? Still, good to know they're working on properfly modifiying Lachesis to use forbidden and ancient alchemy. They also have to find the person who Lachesis was modeled after, and retransmuting sealed memories by reversing the memory manipulation.

Though it's nice to get some more clarification on how memory wipe works. they overwrite their memory by covering them up so they don't completely forget. That would explain why every kind person they've helped with their problems have some ability to take what they've learned from the experience to grow and change like before. 

Even Fuga's helping out with the materials offscreen...when Clotho goes to fight Rinne to get her sister back. Props to Rinne to briefly fighting with a book before Clotho overwhelms her, even Saber couldn't just use a base book as a weapon: though he'd probably make a good effort. 

Though Gaelijah trying to get the sisters away from Geryon, almost feels like a villainous chess match to control the pieces. 

But Lachesis has been getting more empathetic than Kajiki: the reason? Hijiri Himeno, the best Malgam host of arc one is back! She ended up breaking up with Kajiki, because her co-workers ostracized her except for her boss and co-worker: one of which had the balls, or tacos in this case to tell her why instead of gossiping behind her back, and her boss even pointed she didn't have to quit.

Just the fact she almost threw away the issue that she and Kajiki bonded over until stopping herself by having faint memories of the second them she fell for him is still satisfying that got pay off.

But um, Hopper1 and Nijigon, did you both forget you're a secret, but it causes Kajiki's brain to go haywire remembering every memory possible before Minato has to come in for the save. Then again, Renge and Sabimaru also slipped up by revealing Hijiri's brother was also in jail. To be fair, with news being so widespread, it's a bit odd he never bothered to double check....but at the same time, not prying into your significant other can be a good thing and shows trust if both of them are genuine enough as people. 

Hey remember the stalker dude from episode three: Kariya, who's first name we know is Mamoru, which means to protect? Yeah, Clotho got him from prison, and it turns out he wasn't just stalking Rinne back in episode three, nooooo, "this one grew obsessed with a number of women before ruthlessly taking their lives."

He was going to murder a seventeen year old that he treated as nothing more than a s_x object, stalking her with full control of his Malgam mode.

And speaking of apathy towards human beings, Geryon doesn't even care someone's manipulating Clotho, his own daughter for her own ends. When Atropos is showing concern, you know something's wrong, like he's just able to prey on the father daughter angle to get her to stop talking.

At least when it comes to the Chemies and Kajiki's situation, Minato's the one making the most sense here: like Houtaro just can't freely break the laws for personal reasons, but they can't just fracture Kajiki's mind and the laws have to take into consideration extreme situations.

And any human who were Malgams before that still have Chemy essence in them can evolve, which Gaelikaj and Clotho can exploit, and this adds up with Germain's claims from earlier. Looks like they can also get slightly stronger than they were previously or use their abilities more effectively since Kariya as Submarine was also able to submerge Rainbow underwater.

But with Kariya back, this means Rinne finally has her chance to beat the ever living crap out of him. But we get Venom Mariner as a Gotchard Brother to help in the fight, eventually cornering him with their missiles while Majade does a pretty good job against the golem until Rainbow gets both villains to crash into each other. It's always fun watching Hotarou and Rinne divide and conquer like this, especially since she gets extra hints on him before being able to destroy him.

Plus, we get Lachesis debating on what to do with her humanity even as Kyoka gets the machine ready: it's good to get this character reflection on her past transgressions with the very real possibility her model wasn't a great person either. It's actually fairly similar to Drive in that the antagonists replicated themselves off mostly decent people.

Surprisingly or fittingly, it's Spanner pointing out her being honest with herself is her most respectable trait: which also stays consistent: she's been the most vocal when it came to the Malgam hosts and their potential, her opinions on...men, her care for Clotho, her concern of Geyron and Atropos, them being dolls, actual wtf towards Spanner's treatment, Minato's waning ability to fight him, offering Kyoka support to get Minato to the Ouroboros dimension, defecting:

Like unless being a doll means she'll run out of time or can lose her life getting transmuted, she's arguably become more human that some people in the cast who thinks they can understand them.

Even when Houtarou asks Clotho if she's changed, it's almost like Gaejilah took her memories with her since the concern she had for his death just fizzled out. 

That being said, it's finally glad to see Kajiki properly integrated into learning the whole truth: UFO_X,  Hopper1 and Steam he's had the most experience with, Sabo and Nijigon are the more open, really it's kinda weird Skebows wasn't chosen to join that. Like they've been teasing him properly joining the Academy, and if there was anytime to finally do this: better now than later.

And Minato isn't stupid enough to put his student's lives at risk. At this point it makes sense to have him join the Alchemist because of his head gets messed up, they're the ones to blame. 

The great news is while the Jungle Malgam is out in the open, Hijiri's all arrived in Tokyo instead of being in Kyoto. The bad news is Jungle's out and her memories are causing her to go haywire.

Not sure if she's going to become a Malgam or her brother's also going to get turned again.

That being said this episode is pretty great. The advantage to not having most of these characters killed off is that any of them can be used to flesh out the world even more upon their return. They actually explore the nuisance with Houtaro and Spanner, but emergencies force Minato to pick the choice that benefits his well being. We get to see how what's been going on with our characters of the week instead of just using them as props. The memory gimmick is shown to have consequences.

We get an inverse of the Gigst making a Malgam from one Chemy where as Gaelijah is able to create a Malgam from a single human.

And Gaelijah has Clotho's suffering being reset so Kanon Miyahara doesn't have to sweat for the action scenes and because the Malgam's powers are tied to their previous host, using their Malgam factor means Houtaro and Gotchard Brothers can use the cards they were made of to beat them. 

Overall, an episode that seemingly had little going for it managed to actually be compelling enough and take advantage of the lore while paying off some developments from even the earlier arc. Looking forward to the next one.