That's not how DNA works. That makes even less sense than JyamaDaichi gaining emotions from memories.

Vram used the power of evil for the sake of good? Yep, he's officially a Kamen Rider now. Especially since Nyelve gave Lakia the Purujelly while under the assumption that he was still on the side of evil. Actually, I wonder if Nyelve will even be concerned about him defecting, as this may turn out to be part of his secret agenda. For a start, this makes fools of Lango for hiring Lakia and of Glotta for losing a super high quality product line, while Nyelve might be laughing at them behind their backs.

I think it's more likely that Bully Shouma is another Granute, maybe Jeep, wearing a Shouma disguise made from the DNA sample Suga obtained.

Lakia must've sealed his heart deep down after suffering the death of his last living family, until seeing Mitarai desperately looking for his son awakened it once more. Now he realizes that Granutes and humans are the same and he can't allow Stomach to hurt anybody else. Shouma gave him the courage to do the right thing.

Interesting timing for you making that reference, since I literally just started playing BO6 last weekend.

Despite starting hostile towards Sougo, Geiz was fortunately capable of critical thinking, as shown when he became the voice of reason after Tsukuyomi went full anti-Sougo mode, with Geiz pointing out how Sougo used his powers for good. I would presume that Hanto is the same, as there are lots of scenes with him thinking by himself about the subtext in Shouma's lines. Maybe this is another reason why Nyelve wanted Shioya out of the picture, since Shioya would be the first person to encourage Hanto to look from other angles and prevent conflicts of misunderstanding.

We hate to see it, but we cannot help but watch.

Agreed. While Hanto makes it a problem for Shouma to trust him with his biggest secret, there's no doubt that Hanto's reaction would've been much less severe if only he'd heard it from the source earlier, instead of having to wait for Shouma to get outed as a Granute and a Stomach by Glotta. The fact that Shouma refused to go with him to the Granute world but eagerly went with Lakia makes it sting even more.

We must remember that prejudice is caused by confirmation bias and a lack of education. So Shouma keeping Hanto out of the loop has only been enabling prejudice. Hanto merely punching Shouma instead of trying to destroy him shows that his moral compass is at least better than people seem to give him credit for. It's clear that Bitter Gavv's introduction is necessary to escalate their conflict by framing Shouma as an evil Granute, since Hanto would otherwise have come to the right conclusion after some time to think it over.

Hanto's surgery has given him a Granute's healing factor, so it makes sense that he has a Granute's strength and resilience as well.

https://i.imgur.com/o9pxyDj.jpg

I think what I found most interesting about this episode, in between all the thrilling raids on enemy bases and live-on-stage showdowns, is how it explores the idea of... perspective is probably the best word I can think of, at the moment?

Like, the reason Hanto ends up exploding at the end (not in the literal sense, for once) is really all down to his inability to see the full picture of what's going on. And it's not really through any particular fault of his own. Between the things he's experienced firsthand, the things he's been kept in the dark about, and the things he's been unconscious for, I don't find it unreasonable for him to make the assumptions he does. I think it's a little beautiful, actually, that the very first huge misconception he has here is seeing that photo, and immediately worrying about Shouma, fighting alone against four opponents, not realizing that while he was napping, the guy who put him to sleep decided to start fighting alongside Gavv. Because, like, why *would* Hanto think that? Granutes are the bad guys, and Shouma is not only an ally, but a friend, so he rushes out to help, only to arrive and discover that -- as far as Hanto's current worldview can process -- that friend has betrayed his trust, and maybe has been this whole time.

The flipside of all this is then seen with Lakia (which I guess is the romanization I'm going with until further notice!), who has a massive change of heart when he's directly confronted with the damage left in the wake of the show's villains -- damage he's contributed to -- and finds himself unable to avoid seeing himself in the all-too familiar pain felt by the victims. I think that's a lot beautiful. How Lakia actively tries to brush off humans like this world is less important than his own, only to instinctively feel the same sort of empathy Shouma does, and start turning that into the same sort of desire, not to merely avenge his own loss, but to prevent others from ever having to suffer that same sorrow. Kamen Rider Vram starts to become a hero because he simply can't force himself to be a villain after facing perspectives outside his own. It's a rather striking rebuttal of Hanto's preconceptions, and a scene I'm most likely going to be thinking about any time I'm thinking of what Gavv is *about*, in that broad sense of the word. Again, it's a little tricky to put my finger on it with any real precision right now, but I think all of this is speaking to very central themes for the whole series. It's a show about these Riders who have spent so much time alone, gradually forming connections and learning to share themselves with others, and standing against antagonists who refuse to look beyond their own selfish goals, so, so like...

I guess what I can say in this instant is that, despite the ending of this one promising some bitter developments in the immediate future, it's probably good for Shouma in the long run that the secrets he's been keeping are out in the open as early as they are. It might not be easy for any of these characters to deal with the emotions this is all going to kick up, but it seems abundantly clear this far in that Gavv is a show where the effort of getting to know and accept people for who they are ultimately leads to happiness more often than not.

I mean yeah, shows can have/display tragic/heart-clenching moments other than just happy and sunshine scenarios. Like even if moments like a beloved character's death are so saddening, and some curse the show/producers for showing that, gotta let the show do that and cook what they intend to convey (if it's not done for pure shock value), rather than forcing them to revive them just to make one feel good.

One can still care about their family or friends, while being callous about those that aren't their loved ones. No need to seal one's heart to show care for their family. One can casually exterminate enemies like cockroaches, while still spending time with their families and friends if not performing their war duties.

It's generally expected for the other ally Riders to develop as a better person, and often it's due to the influence of the main Rider. Just that by this case, Hanto'd be another one with problematic traits that he'd grow out from, rather than someone that is the righteous paragon of morality from the get-go like most of the main Riders (or similar type of characters like Keitaro) who changes others to be more like them. Other than his hostility to Sougo, Geiz also had a black and white mentality at first, like him jumping to conclusion in attacking Hayase in ep. 7.

I hope you won't take me as demonizing Hanto as a bad guy here, as I'm just talking about he'd start become villainous if he does something (that hasn't happened yet in the series) and that he's not that right now, though I also gotta point out that, Hanto does try to question Rojoe too about the company he worked in, putting aside his hunger to destroy them if it can get him useful information. I do think by that, Hanto can be level-headed despite running on hatred and vengeance.

Then again, you think highly of Faiz. Though, people likely wouldn't criticize Gavv for this unlike it, but ironically they may not realize this show is also another one that shoehorns conflict by contrived scenarios made to get Hanto assume the worst about Shoma, not to mention Bitter Gavv just to escalate the Rider infighting that those who feel the franchise strayed from its roots would hate.

I’m thoroughly impressed by the writing in this series. Very well executed work

Several additional points and elaboration:
- The Bitter Shouma(?)/Dark Shouma(?)/Clone Shouma(?) could act in a childish, immature behavior due to being a clone with artificially accelerated growth.
- Alhough I hypothesized in my first post above that KR Bitter Gavv could be Bitter Shouma(?)/Dark Shouma(?)/Clone Shouma(?), there's also the possibility that he could be the real Shouma himself. Shouma could have a split personality caused by Bouche's abusive treatment toward him and his mom and has secretly made him *wait for it* bitter and resentful toward Bouche and the rest of the Stomach family except Dente. A negative behavior on an adult that's caused by abusive, traumatic childhood, especially between age 0 to 5 is a common phenomena in psychology.
- Or perhaps Shouma would be possessed by an unknown dark entity that's been lurking inside him for quite some time. This dark entity could be the one who triggered his kid self's transformation into the elusive feral Wolf Granute who kidnapped Hanto's mom 18 years ago. This dark entity could have a virus-like power to spread to other Granutes and corrupt their Gavvs. Or perhaps Shouma would somehow eat a piece of Dark Snack and his Henshin Belt Gavv would be corrupted by it.
- Why was Kid Shouma allowed to freely roam inside the Dark Snack factory? Why was he allowed to get near the kidnapped humans such as Hanto's mom? Why was Hanto's mom even allowed to freely roam inside the factory in the first place? If she was a prisoner or a trafficked human like the other kidnapped humans, then why wasn't she put inside a cell with them? Why wasn't the factory kept sterile out of external interferences like Kid Shouma who posed the risk of messing with the Dark Snack production line, and even leaking the internal secrets of Stomach's illegal drug factory?
- Why does Glotta call KR Vram a Granute hunter? He's never killed any of Stomach's part-timers. Heck, he even acted as a bodyguard for the (bird?) Granute of the week in episodes 17-18 when she was confronted by Shouma/KR Gavv and Hanto/KR Valen. So why, Glotta? Why? Are you behind with the news that badly, Glotta?:confused:
- There's a fatal, plot-breaking logical anomaly regarding Lage 9 that I've just noticed. How could've Lage 9 known that his convenient power was effective on humans in the first place? He had never even visited the human world nor had he encountered a living, breathing human prior to episode 15 (his debut at the court room), so how the heck did he know that his power was able to easily maximize humans' level of happiness in an instant which in turn transformed them into premium-quality Hito Presses?:confused: That kind of calm demeanor was only possible if he had already had the knowledge that his power was effective on humans via prior experience. He was obviously a total noob with zero experience, so how the heck did he gain that knowledge?:confused: Like I said in episode 15 thread, his power was soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo convenient for the plot. No convenient power = No plot for Lage 9 = No KR Vram. Gosh, the writers just can't stop shooting themselves in the foot, haha.:lol

See the screenshots below. How on God's green Earth does this scene in episode 12 @ 09:09 imply that Shouma actually got a good look at the photo of Kid Hanto and his mom?:confused: Shouma was very very very obviously just looking at it from a distance from the side(!), so it should be quite hard fo Shouma to be able to discern the facial detail of Hanto's mom in that small, wallet-sized photo. The camera even went out of focus from Hanto's hand before it panned and focused to Shouma's face, which is another visual evidence that Shouma was indeed positioned further from Hanto and his photo.
https://i.imgur.com/L8mb49C.jpeg
https://i.imgur.com/YPkhnF0.jpeg
You call that taking a good look?:confused::confused::confused: There was only one character who took a good look at the photo in that scene, and his name was Hanto Karakida/KR Valen, not Shouma Inoue Stomach/KR Gavv.

That scene just shows how pathetically, laughably, indefensibly lazy, sloppy, and atrocious the writing of this series is. Like toughfighter83 said in his post in episode 18 thread here:
"[E]verything is just getting thrown in there and hope it sticks."

You're right, and I fully concur. Of course that's obviously not how DNA works, like I mentioned in my hypothesis in episode 19 thread here that hair and finger nails do not contain DNA, aside from the follicles and nail roots. It'd be even more inaccurate if the 1 strand of Shouma's hair was used to create a clone of Shouma which will transform into KR Bitter Gavv in episode 21 like I've hypothesized since several episodes ago.

KR Gavv's story has demonstrated a gazillion of instances of violation of logic, rationality, and common sense, so what's the harm in being scientifically inaccurate for artistic purpose? A minor scientific inaccuracy for artistic purpose is a much much much better excuse than writing a super duper hyper mega ultra convoluted story that violates all laws of logic, rationality, and common sense. After all, this is toku, so scientific inaccuracy for artistic purpose is a very very very common trope. What's atrocious in KR Gavv is not the scientific inaccuracy, but the pathetically, laughably, indefensibly lazy, sloppy, and atrocious writing.

Yes.

Well, if that's what you say, then you've finally demonstrated that you've voluntarily abandoned logic, rationality, and common sense in any way, shape or form. I have nothing more to say to you.
https://i.imgur.com/rU7gd3c.jpeg

My logic, common sense and rationality is working just fine, but keep on with your illogical assumption.

https://images.sr.roku.com/idType/ro...1_e_h10_ab.jpg