Man I wonder what'd be other people's reaction regarding this, that you use Neon as a point of comparison for Keiwa's repressed cynicism and zealousness here.

Man, this description is actually personally relatable. Otherwise, about people being surprised of Keiwa resorting to this, dunno if people, those who want to watch Kamen Rider for the spirit of heroism (l̶i̶k̶e̶ ̶K̶e̶k̶e̶r̶a̶), may just be disappointed of how the only character they see fit for this, Keiwa, also becomes sinister like others, making the series too much for them to bear (like your problem for series like Gaim). And if he would've eventually snapped without relating to Sara, guess some people'd insist he'd not have turned out this way if others don't "dismiss" or "mistreat" him or such, so only putting the blame in others to turn Keiwa like this (this can already happen in even pure evil characters when they had tragic backstory) and get the "karma" of Keiwa giving them the taste of their own medicine if he doesn't choose to be "nice" (which is what I fear honestly, to perpetuate the view of kindness is weakness and cruelty is strength, when he has a new form to succeed).

Honestly don't really know IMO if that studying Jamato is actually innocent (can be a meme) or just happens to not attacking others at that time, but if he's not studying he'd do the same to humans.

You aren't a hero simply by having good intentions. As you said there, there's cruelty in the path of revenge, "same" idealist hero has little to no cruelty - more important than having good intentions. He's currently a well-intentioned extremist anti-villain, doing the same thing as Suel did - kidnapping Tsumuri, turning her into a Goddess against her will, potentially kickstarting another DGP, to achieve his wish. Albeit ofc, he'd be a straight hero previously, but alignment change happens that now he's an anti-villain, but as his redemption would be expected, he'd be 'temporarily' turning anti-villainous. Though otherwise I don't like the view "too much power corrupts/drove him crazy", as it implies only powerful people can be vile and cruel, and that weak people are inherently good and innocent, when they're possibly only harmless, but can be as vile in their mind just doesn't have the means to act on their ideals.

Feels that perhaps there are those moments before, but can be overlooked because feels that people can be in denial of the idea of Keiwa being wrong in anything, and just shifts the blame to anyone else who they demonize for "not being like Keiwa" (those who can only stand Keiwa in this series). The ep. 8 scene was really Keiwa being in the wrong and selfish (self-righteous), not others being selfish and wrong to "leave others to die for the sake of their wish". Firstly, others would still fight the boss, thus it'd be saving people in the process, just that they don't want to be only baits for others (which was what Keiwa suggested), and Ace questioned him if he'd care about the world if he and Sara can be safe and happy, of which Keiwa had no response, his priority was about keeping Sara alive, and as shown here, his priority is keeping Sara alive and it'd be meaningless to him to strive for world peace if Sara is gone - thus it'd be ok for him to throw the game here as long as she's still alive. Guess what happens before was that, anytime Sara is in danger, it brought the worst of him, to desperately keeping Sara's safety, he dismisses others' wishes to have them become mere baits to guarantee that, and I guess him brutally beating up the Jamato who carried pineapple bomb (though it's a deserving target, being brutal isn't virtuous), and some people do think of his darkness when he "borrowed" Sae's Zombie. People are more annoyed about this, but he had blamed Mitsume since ep. 31, dismissing others' explanations regarding this.

By "hero" I meant the hero of the show, the story, and so on. And under the "idealist" - not "ideal", but an idealistic worldview, when your idea of ​​the world is placed above practical observations. In this regard, the Count of Monte Cristo is an idealistic hero, although he is not driven by good intentions.

And in my opinion, given that in almost every story where this topic is raised, there are henchmen or weak villains, this rather gives an excuse to the strong. That is, strong villains could not control their strength, and weak ones are simply evil. It's just that it's a matter of point of view though, like someone is bullying an opponent in the last quarter of a Build, Sento or Evolt.

However, we know from his manipulation of Giroli and Tsumuri that subtlety is one of his skills. Unlike Ace's method of deception, Keiwa appeals to people emotionally and leverages their perception of him, sometimes without even trying. This is why he didn't get voted out as the Desire Star, as the others believed in him enough to figure out Daichi was playing them. So, if his development was too obvious to the viewer, it might instead diminish the impressiveness of that skill and probably make other characters look like idiots for not being able to notice it sooner.

That totally sounds like something Ace would do. Using a monster to create an antidote for their venom/poison is a pretty common trope in Tokusatsu.

I do find it a little humorous that I managed to predict this turn based on an apathetic reaction to a popular streamer. My intuition was working hard on this one.

Considering the theme of parasocial relationships in this show, I think the fans' contention over Keiwa's development might even be the outcome that Takahashi intended to happen. Some people got so attached to this character from the start, or rather, they got attached to this idealistic static image of a pitiful underdog soba-eating good guy, that they resisted the idea that he could be anything else. This is a fallacy of the viewer perspective, that viewers can project too much and get offended when the character to whom they relate doesn't live up to their expectations. I think the moral here is that characters are individuals, not only archetypes. You can't just murder anybody's family and expect them to become Kazami Shirou.

Not sure why they won't acknowledge the spirit of heroism in Neon though, as she's fighting for true love, which is more heroic than merely saving lives. I guess Keiwa is kind of a more realistic depiction of Kouta (who also had a big sister), where Ace, Neon, Michinaga and Tsumuri actually call him out, instead of giving him the Hero's License to get away with some bad deeds.

But in the mentioned Desire Star there was a scene where Sae votes against herself, then Neon runs away in tears to say goodbye to her, and in the next episode, Ace and Keiwa figure out the true Star from dubious actions and words, although it is obvious that Sae would not sacrifice her dream for any of the guys. Or remember at least the Goddess of Creation, in which Ace's mother was suspected, as soon as she was first mentioned, and the immortal Fox himself (who, moreover, knew more than the audience) needed a direct explanation and a meeting with the statue to realize this. So the viewers has enough reason to recognize the characters as idiots.

The second example doesn't make much sense, why would Ace immediately make the assumption that the Goddess is his mother? Until the end of the JGP the only thing the main trio know about the Goddess is that she's a thing & that the DGP uses her to grant wish, nothing else. For all Ace knows his mother could've used the Goddess to wish for him to reincarnate over and over, and possibly wished for herself to never be found. His mother could've also a been running or be very high management for the DGP, for him to immediately assume the Goddess IS his mother would be complete leap in logic considering how little information he has to go off of.

Also Ace didn't that much about the inner workings of the DGP, the only things he knew very well was how to play the game, the rules, and what happens to players when they lose (memory/desire loss & unable to return if they die, he did not know players turned into Jamato). He's been shown to not know/be caught off guard by things such as not knowing that the Gamemaster was a Rider, he had a hunch about the DGP having an audience but didn't know for sure, he didn't know how the DGP selected players, and he didn't know how the DGP granted wishes.

The funny thing here is that I liked what they were doing with Keiwa, but at the same time, I'm starting to feel a little conflicted with how it's being executed. Granted, it's not as bad as Daiji, but I do kind of feel like, even barring broken irrational behavior, it still feels a little too extreme in cases.

Maybe it's just me, but anyway, Bujin Tycoon is now one of my favorite forms this season (this season has too many good ones). The music was fantastic, and I love how clearly more animalistic and brutal Tycoon's fighting style is now, which I guess means this is this season's Berserker Form in a sense.

Next Episode: Meet the new Papa Rider! *And Batman*

I partially agree, but here for me everything rests on the fact that Ace has been looking for his mother for 2000 years. That is, if the audience of the show guessed before (who, again, then did not even know about his reincarnation), then he should have at least guessed.

I still wonder though that Keiwa does seem to still get development later on before, where he becomes more understanding to other's wishes as he said to Girori, so I thought that can be him working up on his cynicism and bitterness inside, but what do you think?

Funny, that we acknowledge Neon's for opposite reasons, you do it because of the difference of her reason of fighting to Keiwa's, while I do it because I see that she often performs similar actions as Keiwa - when Keiwa helps someone, most of the time she'd do the same as well. Seems that because ofc, her desire is for herself, and as what said in Die's Revice post, people seem to want endless hardship and suffering for the heroes and measure how heroic are by how much of those they get (like Kekera), thus they if they want to help themselves (of which Neon's wish is personal), or even just self-preservance, they got bashed.

Seems that any dream for themselves (and sure you define selfish as anything done for yourself, but those people are using selfish term as in, they're shitty people) are seen as greed, no matter what, and by the require of suffering, they want heroes to "not be tempted by greed" and always give up anything they have or they can have like said wish for others, or at least for family, they have to always choose sacrifice over anything else (of which using a wish for others would be seen as a sacrifice for potential benefit).

Also seems that many people has either/or mindset, where you can only be one thing or the other, can't be both, like you can only care about your dreams OR being good to others, when you can be both - do good deeds outside of main goal - and if someone has personal main goal, anything good they do is twisted as only done for ulterior motives (like you know who), or either ignore the moments (not their big character moment or such). Heroes are those who have positive qualities and regularly do good to others, and sacrifice is only one kind of good deed not only one - and felt like there can be double standard if Ittetsu got praised for this, while Neon's got perhaps overlooked or twisted, Ittetsu's wish is also for personal.

It seems that anything Rider-related on Geats is treated as DGP game (other than likely Ace's DGP now, and you did too..), thus it may be also seen as another ulterior motive even though... the show displays Chirami being baffled over Keiwa and Neon urging to help people against JGP without rewards (and Ace pointing out that to them as well) to emphasize that it's the Riders' own will to fight.

We also know that protecting lives shouldn't be the end, but the ultimate good is protecting happiness, but many people seem to downplay and diminish bad deeds if it's not murder because people can bounce back from it, lacking sympathy for people's problem in life overall, unless it's death as it can't be reversed (unless depends on the show's setting), thus those who save lives, or even villains not killing anyone, can be glorified as saints or never did anything wrong.

Yeah not everything is just the show's fault, sometimes it can be just the real life audience's too.... Someone isn't inherently right because they post criticism or outright hate to a show and fight against bandwagon or something, negative bias is also a thing, but there can be mistakes that some audience had as well, not only the show having plot armor or such, like how audiences should learn about dramatic irony - they can not know as much as the real life audiences do and that there can be internal reveals.

For sure, he's had a mix of good and bad development, morally speaking. He's dived deep right now, but he can still climb his way back up. Same goes for Michinaga.

I think Neon's desire is also the same reason why she helps people. True love isn't something only for one person, it's a mutual feeling, so even though she started streaming for her own sake, she genuinely cares about her fans and wants to bring them happiness as well, going as far as declaring herself Sara's fan to show her reciprocation.