And then they proceed to refuse to do anything until Gauma exposits to them, which in turn it letting the KE get away with whatever they wanna do and could've easily gotten everyone killed, as Gauma himself points out.

There's wanting to get more information and then there's being an actively stupid risk to, well, everything.

Also it's hilarious how despite all of the grandiose nonsense over "bridging a gap" or whatever, Gauma proceeds to give them a complete non-answer anyway, and that's apparently good enough.

If you wanna argue thematics over logic or whatever, sure, but even then the whole scenario just made me groan.

So according to the toy images, Dyna Soldier awkwardly riding Dyna Diver is the official combination between the two, Diver Combine. Thankfully, the official novels went the less silly route of just having the combination be Soldier with Dynazenon's legs.

Also I just found out that the interior shots of Dynazenon aren't a cockpit, but what Ultra Series fans call an "Inner Space" (I'm not quite sure I can explain the concept beyond essentially one of those shots of the guy inside the super suit, except said suit is a 200 foot giant of light).

And the first kaiju summoned by Onija (onscreen at least. They confirmed that he was responsible for Shalbandes in episode 1's rampage) is Burnaddon, named for the concept of burnout, the idea of doing something long past your ability to engage with it.

Again, I don't think that's how I'd characterize what happens in the fight? The team absolutely tries to defeat the kaiju, but when Gauma orders them to combine, the team points out that they can't do that because they don't trust Gauma, and Gauma's the one who drags his feet on coming clean about his motivation. Like, they aren't refusing to combine, they're pointing out that Dynazenon's feelings-based combining (maybe not the best system, admittedly!) is being stymied by Gauma ignoring the multiple times they've asked him to come clean with them about why he's doing what he's doing. (They even tried the night before the battle! And Gauma blew them off!)

I will definitely not do that, then! Sorry!

I am now genuinely curious if this is some sort of edit to the script that the dub made, because atleast in the Simuldub version, they literally just stop fighting and refuse to do so until Gauma tells them more about himself. To which Gauma responds "Can't this wait until after the battle?" Which, ya know, he's right about.

I don't... you really don't like this episode, and I'm not trying to convince you that you're wrong to not like it -- art's subjective, and no explanation can make you retroactively appreciate it; plus, it's just an episode of a cartoon robot show -- but here's the script on my copy, and then I'll get into how I interpreted it:

GAUMA: Let's combine and fight!
YOMOGI: We can't combine without--
GAUMA: Wrong! If our feelings are one, we can do it!
YOMOGI: We'll never unite our feelings.
YUME: Gauma, are you not telling us something?
YOMOGI: Gauma, tell us the truth!
GAUMA: Fine, but let's do this later!

So, it reads to me like the team telling Gauma that his strategy of "worry about this later" is a) not exactly going to assuage a trio that has explicitly told him that they can't just forget about the mystery he's actively avoided explaining to them for over a day now, and b) pretty obviously a way for him to not eventually explain this to them later, once they've defeated this kaiju, judging by the way he's bailed on mutliple polite discussions up until this ultimatum.

Like, they for sure get distracted by Gauma's reticence -- they almost get exploded! -- but no one opts out of the fight just to spite Gauma or anything.

Oh this isn't even about my feelings anymore, I am just genuinely curious on if FUNi messed with the script or not. And as such...

I went ahead and pulled up the SimulDub real quick to compare, here's what they say, word for word:

Gauma: This Kaiju's' power's a real beast! We'll have to combine to fight this one!

Koyomi: Combine?

Yomogi: Hold on a sec! We haven't had time to practice that!

Gauma: Hey, if our feelings are together, then it will work!

Yomogi: No it won't.

Gauma: Why not?

Yomogi: Because we'll never unite our feelings.

Gauma: Say what?

Yume: Gauma, we all think there's something you're not telling us.

Gauma: For real?

Yomogi: All we want is for you to be honest with us Gauma.

Gauma: Okay, fine, but can we please just do this later?

Yomogi: NO! We wanna know NOW!

And then the Kaiju blows stuff up more.

Gauma: You moron! We almost bit the dust because of all your yapping!

Yomogi: Well it's your fault for not answering! If you'd spit it out then we could all move on!

And then Yomogi proceeds to demand that Gauma talk to them, meanwhile everyone continues to just like, do nothing and blah blah blah this conversation goes in circles at this point.

For the record, I'm not demanding you see my viewpoint, I'm just trying to make clear why I feel the way I do as well as the version of the story that I saw.

It's great to see Die celebrating the upcoming 10th anniversary of Kamen Rider Ghost by reenacting the kind of arguments I used to get in frequently on here back in 2016. :p

...wait that's less silly?!

Yeah, I think it's cool how mystical it is to see them in this, like, Toku Void, but there's still an entire Steel Battalion controller they get to carry around and use, too. Best of both worlds!

I appreciate you sharing it!

My time on the boards is shining bright!

An apt comparison, since that controller is a very direct recreation of one from the OG Gridman -- basically just a regular old flight stick that the protagonist's friends would hook up to their big computer to command the Assist Weapons, exactly like a video game, except there's an actual superhero inside that computer they're actually helping save the day. Again, the whole fantasy that show was presenting was pretty brilliant, though I do have to give credit where it's due to Dynazenon for acknowledging through Yume that Dyna Wing's greatest use is just to beat traffic.

Every time I see Gauma's Dynaboat (or whatever), I just think of Knightboat, from the Simpsons:

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/...nightboat.jpeg