The broken horn helmet came from the final episode of the Encounter arc.

Wow, I didn't even notice.

Nice observation!

I feel like Takahashi's works have a habit of making good points delivered through ambiguous phrasing, which can cause those points to be lost in translation. My take on the moral about recklessness and bravery from Episode 9 was that Neon and Michinaga chose recklessness cause it was still better than the alternative of giving up on their dreams and accepting their unhappy lives the way they were. In this episode though, yeah, there was a very clear difference between bravery (retreating to come up with a plan and working together to accomplish it) and recklessness (what Michinaga did). Of course, the whole thing about making martyrs is applicable to Bushido culture in general.

Well, Michinaga only wanted to crush all Kamen Riders, which was due to losing his friend to the DGP. While Kaito wanted to commit genocide of humanity (like Kanato), which was due to a single flashback in his V-Cinema where he got abused by his father. So I'd say Michinaga is still the more heroic and frankly more justified of those two for acting the way he did. But sure, his flaws like you said are ultimately what got him killed, so we can't ignore that either. I want to remember him fairly for both his good and bad points.

But then Giroli would risk compromising the secret of the DGP's existence, as fans across the world of the Star of the Stars of the Stars would seek justice and the truth of why his own father would murder him in such a cowardly way. The management would probably just fire Giroli at that point to detach themselves from his infamy. I think Ace knew what he was doing with these desires to deter such plots against him.

Jyamato: "Curse you, Geats!"

Geats: "Join the queue."

He must be trying to assert his secondary-ness after Toei put his Core ID in a campaign.

When actually Tycoon got the actually appropriate color for being the opposite/tanuki to Geats' red/kitsune... green is red's complementary color :lol

Oh, so you'd still view retreating as bravery (if making further future plans ofc which I agree), as I thought it'd be a cowardly move in your eyes, based on you throwing shade at hesitating to enter a creepy basement in Revice ep. 17 (which to me doesn't seem like backing away but just thinking for a while how to go through it), and I thought by this someone ought to always throw yourself into danger or action no matter what the circumstances (Michinaga here) or else they're "cowardly". I don't even know if you're also throwing shade to Keiwa and Neon here, of which Neon emphasized that they are not strong yet which can sound like said working on plan, to get eventually strong enough to win.

My point is actually this, other character types, like the kind-hearted and good-natured ones can be talked down by the audience as being (or even just exaggerating following flaws) weak, naive, dumb, crybaby (if they display emotions), and for those who started off weak/underdog, even later people can cling into the status quo of the part of them being incompetent at the beginning. While the rough and mean characters are played up by the audience as someone who is sensible, tough, badass, realistic (playing up cynicism as this), and mature, who is always right but misunderstood, or "mistreated by the writers", thus it was my point about them having their shortcomings ignored, or even 'praising' them as 'actually not having plot armor' unlike others instead of acknowledging their fault in their failure/demise. The audience also can view growing hateful, resentful, or negative as growing mature instead by this.

This happens when people brand Kaito as the one most clear-headed and who actually gets shit done and mocking others whom they see only ruin things due to never listening to him (yeah, Kaito's the one that got some people justifying him, NOT Micchy, though for most of the series Kaito spent his time as an anti-hero so this feels similar to many other secondary Riders) or only met his end due to his non-main protagonist role despite being the 'sensible' one. Or to a lesser extent, probably when Keiwa and Neon are insulted for showing vulnerabilities compared to Michinaga going nuts to one-up Ace.

For shortcomings, I also meant like Rider-wise, like acknowledging the reasons Buffa can't measure up to Geats (as he asked) like being a loner, stubborn (extends to reckless), and irrational (e.g. attacking Geats which leads to Knight Jamato getting away) traits, instead of playing it off as only due to Geats being the protagonist with 'plot armor', of which in comparison Riders like Tycoon or Na-Go can be played off as weak even now (including to Buffa, of which some seem to ignore that Buffa stands no chance to final bosses just like them) due to various reasons.

Man, you're right, it's actually really a dumb decision actually to stab him in his sleep. I just thought that Ace as a normal human without DGP makes it easier to finish him off by any plan likely with DGP choosing to not revive him if they can, if they're scared of killing him off in-game that his desires can be an ingredient of an invincible Jamato Rider.

There goes Michinaga. I definitely think Keiwa is winning this round now, though as some have said it definitely feels like there will be catch, whether it is the dead Riders coming back as Jamato or even just Keiwa being unable to forgive himself for killing Geats.

I think a lazer-blasting final boss kaiju is more dangerous than some spooky stairs. Maybe a normal human should think twice before entering places like that, but Little Miss "Invincible" was a Rider, so I thought her retreat in that moment was cowardly and pathetic rather than tactical, when she could have just henshined for protection before descending further. Neon and Keiwa are different, as they were concerned with more than mere self-preservation, they didn't want their lack of confidence to interfere with the critical job of saving the world inside the Jyamar Area and thus they decided that leaving it to Ace was the logical conclusion. They show potential for development, as they're honest about how they feel and they have the will to improve, so eventually they can become as brave as Michinaga and as wise as Ace, as long as they continue to learn and train.

Yeah, got it, so context and bigger picture is involved here (which is good). I can felt wrong previously when defending those 2 as I thought any form of fear is cowardice from that and that I was "promoting non-admirable trait" before.

Though not like they'd have different outcome if they didn't have lack of self-confidence as Michinaga's the one who is presented as (over)confident here and he got killed. Them being braver later is also probably'd be different from Michinaga as they've called out Michinaga's approach several times.

Aside from that, I'd hope that Keiwa giving his Driver to Ace for multiple occassions previously in ep. 13-14 is also based on this, feeling more sure in leaving it to Ace for the mission of collecting all Drivers for Rider's safety, instead of him suddenly being naive again. As at the end he did similar thing of giving his Buckles (instead of Driver). Albeit seems that there are more complaints of him (and Neon) undergoing self-doubt here than his ep. 13-14 decision, and this is the one they see as regression, instead of ep. 13-14, opposite of mine.