So Gou must hate ALL Roidmudes including Chase despite being Proto-Drive.

But wonder about 001, 002 & 003, because 002 & 003 must be Heart and Brain. So 001 must've evolved and is responsible for Gou's change.

Yes, she is. And Bouken Blue will appear in the next episode as well.

One thing That stands out to me: Gao seems concered that they still have so many Roidmuds left to fight. My theory right now is that there'll be a point where his body can't stand the Mach transformation and he'll have to give up the driver to Chase Or:

Drive takes over the singal bikes as using them in the shift brace unlock type Next

I'm actually really starting to like Gou now. They toned the silliness, which was much needed.


And does this mean Chase is the Kamen Rider equivalent of The Winter Soldier? Former ally repurposed as the personal tool of the enemy faction, and is likely going to use his newly acquired powers to become an ally again.

I think my one problem with the show is that the Roidmudes are just pointlessly dillydallying. Their goal is to surpass humanity and then replace them, right? The Reaper is there to delete any progression in the wrong direction so that the second time through, they learn from their mistakes and evolve without fault. But shouldn't they just use their already extensive power to just slaughter humans left and right? Why not continue to surpass them AS you mow down their numbers?
I had a similar problem with the villains in Wizard. They boasted such a big claim about how powerful they were and everyone made them out to be such a big threat, when in reality, the Phantoms had little to show for it and hid in an abandoned garage most of the time.

Their main goal at the moment is to reach a preordained number of evolved Roidmunds. I'm going with a wild guess of 10-12 or 6-8 so until the roidmuds number really start to drop they have some breathing room.

It seems like an all-out fight doesn't fit their goals. The inability to destroy cores seems to be both significant and obvious so they're probably not actually afraid of a fight but they might think that war won't give them adequate opportunity to evolve.

It was a good episode, but I feel the show is getting back into predictability again. Chaser being Zero was obvious right from the get go.

I have a feeling that Chase being Zero isn't suppose to be the big plot-twist regarding his character arc.

And they never succeed to produce other Phantoms from human Gates (but one may argue that the original White Wizard's sabbat could count).
You can't expect to have regular collateral casualties, like in Kuuga, in nowadays Toei's toku shows. Except isolated cases that specifically serve the plot or, of course, if Urobutcher is the main writer (and you get human mooks, civilian victims of parasite plants, and then an invasion in Gaim).
Maybe the next rider will be edgier, but Drive is nowhere to go this way.

Yes, but the heroes need to lose at least once. That is one of Wizard's biggest failings. Haruto never lost. It would have made far more sense to have him lose, someone becomes a Phantom, and that be the reason for the Infinity stone being created.

Him being Zero feels much more like a catalyst for the bigger character progression and not the be all end all of his development. We have more than 30 episodes ahead of us so Chase is most definitely not done yet.

In regards to the Roidmudes. Why is it a problem that they are not slaughtering humans left and right? During the Global Freeze they tried exactly that and were completely beaten by one single person. Of course they dont try the same again now that they have to face Kamen Rider again especially since Drive is much more powerful than Proto-Drive was and he even has help now thanks to Mach being there.

Going into an all out attack would be the most dumbest thing the Roidmudes could ever do. Sitting back, hiding and trying to evolve unnoticed so that they can get stronger than the Riders is much more intelligent on their part.

Except they weren't supposed to make more Phantoms. Fueki didn't need Phantoms, he needed Wizards. The entire point of the Phantoms was to find three more Wizards; if that didn't work, Fueki didn't want to risk having another Phoenix or Gremlin come along that could potentially interfere with his plan.

You're right, but neither Medusa nor the other Phantoms (except maybe Gremlin) knew this. Meaning they sucked at their job, big time.

Also, I believe while the exact plan was to find Wizards, making Phantoms wasn’t a disadvantage, but part of the plan. The thing Fueki wanted was to make as many Gates as possible to fall into despair, and find those strong enough to chain their inner phantoms so they develop the potential to become Wizards.

His plan was obviously to make as many Phantoms as possible in his Carbunkle-form, and if a Gate would show potential he would just port in as the White Wizard and "save" them.

It's not like he chose the most incompetent Phantoms so Haruto could defeat them and save the Gates all the time.

Yes, but we did not need the series to spend 45 episodes on a group that was utterly pointless. They should have gotten rid of the Phantoms by the halfway mark since they did not need to exist.

It's a shame the Phantoms' origins would've explained more if they were connected to OOO's time since the Philosopher's stone thing.

And of course Fueki would've discovered the Phantoms if they were actually monsters sealed away by ancient mages long ago, and Fueki would've made a deal with one of them if they help him revive his daughter.

Just a theory.

I actually dont mind the origin the Phantom had in the actual show. There was lots of untapped potential in that the Phantom would eventually find out that they are just a byproduct of Fueki experiments and having three groups working against each other in the end. With Fueki, Haruto and the other Phantom all working against each other.

But this sadly never happened.

I would've been better off if the Phantoms were actually monsters based on mythical creatures sealed away by ancient mages (the ones who sealed Chimaera).

In Fueki's case though, one of the Phantoms (if not Gremlin, but someone else) spoke to him and that they would help him fulfill his dream of reviving his sick daughter if they had him find a way to release them. Either as a full-fledged Phantom or a Gate sealing some of them to become mages themselves.

Meh. Rather have something new than the generic and rider typical "They were ancient monsters sealed away hundreds of years ago" storyline.

Good point.

That said, I still can't get behind the idea that gaining information from duplicating a pervert, painter, or author forwards their goals in any way. What are the exact logistics there? How do they decide who to copy and how it will give them any of the data they need? On top of that, how does simply helping a human instead of copying them accomplish anything at all? These are things I've had trouble understanding since episode 1.

It depends though. I would rather have a reused plot line that is well written than a poorly written bs plot.

No, we did not. But Kamen Rider has to fill ~48 episodes ever year.

They're trying not to pigeonhole themselves by following one line of evolution, and if one seems to be either a dead end or drawing too much attention well... that what Chaser is/was for.

Me too.

My whole comment was based in the hypothetical situation were the plot of wizard is written good.

... Right, now I defintely need that TK Proto-Drive. To the internet!
(Also, they treated the reveal as such a big surprise... when it was pretty damn obvious...)

Still think this was mostly meant for the characters and not for the audience. Given how much obvious hints they made at it I dont believe they actually thought that noone would put it together.

I get that, and it was nice seeing Chase's reaction. I so want him to be redeemed...

After seeing Proto-Drive I want that too. Mainly because even as Proto-Drive he was still very similar in personality to Chaser, meaning he won't start being a lighthearted, joking hero once he get's his stuff back together. He will still be a butt, but at least one that isn’t controlled by the other Roidmudes.

My initial fear at the start of the show was that they would get rid of Mashine Chaser entirely and Chase would become a Kamen Rider with a completely different personality. From what it looks like now, he will get a new form and join the Riders against the Roidmudes, but he's still the same dude and I wouldn’t be surprised if he's still called Mashine Chaser.

Agreed. I can see him working to defeat the Roimude's by himself as 'atonement', not caring about anything but taking them out. Possibly with a new form, despite how badass the current suit looks.

Can I like Chase even though he's Leangle rehash? Because I do, and I don't quite know why. Maybe it's the cool suit.

Gou seems a little less jerky, and a lot more protective. I don't mind that.

Overall, while the Roidmudes are fairly underplayed over the slapstick routine and hard-boiled storylines, I don't mind it.

How's Chase Leangle rehash? I don't get it.

If any thing Micchy last season was a Leangle rehash, from the colors to the shifting allegiance bullshit. Chase is just a poor bot whose unsure if he wants to shoot anyone ELSE besides Drive, since he's regularly okay doing that.

Not even Micchi is like Leangle. Micchi chose his side himself, Mutsuki was being controlled by Spider Undead for most of the show. Also, Mutsuki was totally obsessed with the belt and... yeah, not like Micchi. Not at all.

Plus Mitsuzane was a backstabbing manipulative bastard of epic proportions.

Supposed to be a good guy, turned into bad guy, lots of screaming and holding of the head as we get the sensation he's fighting his identity, but then is turned into bad guy to make us dislike him/like him more before he's turned into a good guy. Kind of the same deal with Leangle, even if the origin is different. Granted, Mutsuki is nothing like Chase's origins, but the use of Spider somewhat emulates with Leangle as well. Still, this isn't a bad thing at all. Just something I noticed.

That made me laugh. I wonder if that should be the catch phrase. "I'm only shooting you because you exist". Which come to think of it, is not that far removed from what we saw with Drive Episode 0 where Proto-Drive's tag line was "I don't need to introduce myself to something I'm going to destroy" (Spoiler in case some haven't seen it yet)

Oh yes. Yes he most certainly was.