So I watched Ex-Aid 12 with my 8 year old niece who LOVED it ("I could watch this all day!"), so we started from the beginning. After two more episodes it was time for dinner and she was so invested, she almost threw a fit!

You started her with 12? You monster. I hope you stopped after the Christmas-part was over. :lol

Oh, this kid watches ID programming with her mother (odd, I know), she's pretty unfazed by the grim. She likes the melodrama!

Well yeah but... now she knows that Lazer dies :(

Ah I'm just kidding, kids don't care :lol

Thing is, he started on episode 12. She is not emotionally attached to Kiriya yet. Unlike us :( .

I'm pretty sure kids don’t understand Kiryia like adults do.

I could be terribly wrong, but I think he might be a character that is more appealing towards adults, like Jonouchi from Gaim was.

Jonouchi was stated to be popular with the staff iirc, and kids are taught lies are baaaaaaaaaad so yeah

Hmm...so Kiriya's health bar is decreased mostly because he using Dangerous Zombie Gashat.....

Hmm.....yeah after his health bar is decreased, Genm in Zombie Gamer is more easier to kill Kiriya...

Saddest episode so far.....

Next episode, Emu obtain Mighty Brother X Gashat from Pallad....probably Pallad has different plan? Hmm....I think it would be interesting if Dan is betrayed by Pallad....

I have a feeling that the Nico girl is a Mighty Action X player and maybe Emu has a higher score in the game, so she feels threatened by that.

"Aren't I so clever?"-Toei social media person.

*Five minutes later*

"Aw no people actually liked that guy!"-TSMP

"Now how can we use this newfound information to make money?"-Toei

Actually there were a couple of other things I wanted to note in my last dumb post but I forgot.

The discussion about the Bugster virus evolving to get stronger in response to the CR's work makes me wonder if at some point they'll get strong enough that the immunity granted by the candidate operation will no longer protect the Riders. One of them getting infected could make for an interesting story at some point, maybe.

Another thing, though not actually that much about this episode, but. They have mentioned how the Proto Gashats damage your body, Kuroto even stated last episode that his body was doomed to die early anyway because he used PMAX too much. This of course raises the question of how long Taiga's stint in the CR using Proto Bang Bang Shooting was. One can assume it's probably why he has the white streaks in his hair now. I also only recently remembered one of Graphite's lines in episode 3--he called Taiga "a walking corpse." While it could just be Graphite being dramatic, now that we know this much, it raises the possibility of Taiga possibly being in a much worse condition than he appears to be. If he was dying, it would add an interesting (and kinda Zolda-ish) element to his character. And they just offed another Rider, so it could really happen. Probably not for a while knowing he has toys coming through February, but eh.

And another thing, to sort of tie things back to episode 12...man, I really was expecting Graphite having the Bugster Buckle to be relevant in some way, you know? Even if it was like, Kuroto killing him to get it or taking it from his corpse...somehow. But nah, he just...pulls it out. Ok, I guess. Hopefully they explain it.

TFW you low-key want that shirt

So there is a rumor that the Nico girl will become the next Lazer One person joked on Kyria's magazine scans or episode 4 thread that the dating simulator gashat would be the final form if Nico Girl becomes Lazer MERE WORDS CANNOT DESCRIBE HOW MUCH RELEVANCE THAT JOKE HAS

Unlikely, at least for now. We know that Emu will use Bakusou Bike in the Kimewaza Slot
to summon the Bike Gamer (Eyeless Lazer) and Dan has Chanbara right now.

:lolol
Oh wow

"Here you go sweetie."
"Yay! Thank you mommy! Thank you daddy!"
*watches episode 12*
"................"

Well I watched the first half and thought, well THAT was a really silly episode. Kinda surprised they do that, but whatever it's a nice break from all the dark drama.

Then the second half hit. . .

As for Emu, I've been guessing for a while that the real Emu died during or before the operation and the character we've been following is a Bugster, maybe even the very first Bugster, created to carry the memories of the original. That why the You'll still be you thing was said.

Toku fandom around the globe apparently is treating this like the death of Superman and rightfully so. Just shows what an impact he left.

I have watched the episode and I wouldn't comment too much since the others have commented about it. Love the drama between Shuhei and his mother. Seeing Nico, I'm much more sure that she might become someone like Kiriya. Anyway, the best part between Laser vs Genm for me was when Kiriya still retaliated and performed one last cool kick to Genm's finisher. It failed miserably but you need to praise Kiriya for doing that.
http://i1.pixiv.net/c/480x960/img-ma...master1200.jpg
Well, otsukare-sama desu, Kiriya. This might be your last time but I'm sure this won't be Lazer's final act.

Wait, his actor got the flowers?

...

:(

...

:cry:cry:cry:cry:cry
:cry:cry:cry:cry:cry
:cry:cry:cry:cry:cry
:cry:cry:cry:cry:cry
:cry:cry:cry:cry:cry

I mean... f***, where do I even start with this episode? Like, I really have no clue. I'm not even sure I liked it.

So like, I guess the whole thing was just one elaborate practical joke by Toei? Because, I mean, they clearly made Lazer specifically to be insanely likable, and then treated him as part of the main cast, and then for the episode he dies in, it literally airs on Christmas, and, just to further give the viewers the middle finger, they explicitly put "Christmas Special" in the title, and awkwardly glue the first half of some filler episode that was never meant to be into the second half of an actual episode and... my brain hurts. And also I feel sort of manipulated.

I'm... I'm suddenly appreciating how restrained Urobuchi was with Gaim. He would've never done anything like this. I can respect the guts Ex-Aid had, but between typical deathshadowing like highlighting Kiriya's sympathetic side really hard or having him and Emu patch things up, and the melodramatic rain from nowhere (the sky itself mourns Lazer's passing), it almost felt kind of overdone.

I mean, almost. I think I enjoyed the episode. Probably. Like it was probably well written? Except for the part where the tone is all over the place, but like, yeah, I liked the last 5 minutes or so a lot taken by themselves. Dan is a properly threatening villain, and Kiriya was Kiriya to the very end. Of course, it's easy to be threatening when you basically make the rules of the game. It would've been sort of awkward for Dan if his new Gashat didn't make mooks to stall the other Riders and they all just ganged up on him at once. Also, I love how Kiriya explicitly singles Emu out as he's dying to give his Driver to and also have a dramatic couple of lines before he goes. It's like he's indirectly calling Brave and Snipe out for being jerks.

But of course, in the dog eat dog world of a multi Rider show, I suppose we can't have two Riders on good terms for too long, can we?

I'll give Ex-Aid this, it's definitely Exciting, but surprising me a bunch and telling a good story are two different things, and it's gonna have to work pretty hard in the coming weeks to truly convince me getting rid of Lazer served a purpose beyond shock value and "he knew too much".

Although on that note, I guess he didn't know not to tell important secrets while the camera cuts away. Actually, I think that means he technically kept up his end of that bargain with Genm. :lol

6 pages in and no one mentioned Salty Bugster being held captive by Pallad. Poor dude, I bet he is really salty atm.

just caught the subs, and HOLY CRAP, that was a savage tone shift

Gemmu Level X - FANTASTIC henshin fully embracing the zombie theme. Ex-Aid as a whole has done a good job of giving each character a distinctive style, down to the henshin, that fits their game genre

Kiriya - alas, you left us too soon. You were too smart for your own good, and you deserved better. Hell, you didn't even have a level 2 human form, you were jobbing out as a bike.

Indeed. This was an awesome episode. Love Genm Zombie!!!

Anyone getting that rip Lazer t-shirt?
Bad enough he dead already they gotta add more insult to injury.

Now after seeing the episode:


- This is somehow even worse than Hase's death. With Hase, he was a C-list Gaim Rider, but Kiriya...Kiriya was a main guy ;_; not only that, but Hase remained pretty antagonistic up until his death, but Kiriya, he was just on the verge of becoming a firm ally. And to top it all off, as everybody mentioned, this is a death following goofy Christmas shenanigans. Then with Toei's trolling. Jeez, man.

- I don't think I saw anybody else mention this, but Kamen Rider Chronicle? What the hell is that about? A possible end-game final Rider?

- Zombie Genm is AWESOME. I really, really, really hope we get a Figuart of that, it would be a crime against humanity if we didn't.

- The reaction to Poppy revealing herself to be a bugster was absolutely hilarious. I love how it was "supposed" to be a big reveal, but Emu just goes "Oh yeah, we already knew that" and just brushes her off. This show is handling its comedy quite well all things considered. Even the two obvious comedy relief characters are being kept in check, unlike Onari just running loose and ruining entire episodes.

- If I could nitpick ANYTHING about Ex-Aid so far, it's the use of the "Jerk ass little kid that is secretly sad about their parents" trope that persists throughout all toku, but that's such a minor complaint.

- "The black president is Genm's Ex-Aid". Well, I guess that's official confirmation that Barack Obama is indeed a Kamen Rider.

I really pity Emu for going into pediatrics. Most of the kids he's treated so far have been total assholes.

But I agree with a lot of you that this was a really weird episode, tonally. The first half was pretty standard and ended on what is possibly the strangest damn scene I've encountered in any tokusatsu series this year (the truly bizarre Jingle Bells segment with Ex-Aid, Brave, and Poppy Pippypoopypants). But then that ending... man, that was one of the rougher Rider deaths I've seen so far and I've seen Ryuki, Faiz, and Gaim. No Rider show has ever killed off one of the main Riders this early. Ex-Aid is blazing some new trails here and I'm really curious to see where they go.

So... I guess the writer has read/watched FMA recently...

What? Likable ally to our protagonists who comes extremely close to blowing the lid on the villains whole agenda only to get offed right before he can, all very early on in the series, sounds like Hughes to me.

IF this keeps up This will be Fitst rider machine that i really care about..
It has freaking sad back stories... That i care:cry

A lot of series do that. It's not an FMA thing, just a thing that was already pretty common that FMA happened to do too.

In the end, he was given flowers, meaning he won't be returning until some time later, and probably only in movies.
But after all, we should appreciate Hayato Onozuka for being such an awesome actor that made us emotionally hooked into his character.

To brighten your day up, have a pic of your favorite coroner when he was just a baby:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CyQZ0ecUkAAVNF9.jpg
Source: His twitter.

I Loved this episode. For one thing they explained the Christmas shenanigans with a throwaway line that, in today's gaming, actually makes sense. For another, Brave, once again, was totally confused by all of the seasonal baloney - pretty much just standing there with his mouth open. That they returned to this joke actually worked, given the context. Speaking of jokes, Poppy is clearly the in-show troll, the writers acknowledge this during her admittance of being a bugster and everyone being "No shit, Sherlock". Man, did she reach critical obnoxious during the "Pipo All the Way (Straight to Hell Mix)" part of the first half.

Third - I liked the cruel tone shift. It's so Rider to have a big bummer moment; for Ex-Aid, a seemingly bright and shiny show (bolstered by that X-Mas segment) to do it and on X-Mas... brutal! I'm thinking that maybe Toei expected that Kiriya / Lazer would be a loathed character - his forms have been less than loved, he was a liar and stubborn - they might have expected this to be an X-Mas present? Ah, but Onozuka-san just did such a great job with his portrayal of Kiriya that just didn't happen!

I hate zombies (I suffer from AZBS) but, damn, I LOVE Dangerous Zombie Genm - what a great design / Henshin sequence / bugster control. So cool!

Okay, so am I the only one slightly disturbed by the idea that Ex-Aid may be riding around on something amounting to Lazer's corpse? Are they going to make Junior Genius Gamer N (Secret Sister) Nico Lazerette? If so, that's going to be even more awkward than before! Still, we need more Lady Bikers, so I'm all for it.

Also, Snipe needs some serious CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT (as vinish13 would say), I'm pretty sick of his one note ass.

Finally, again, I love Episode 12 for hooking in my niece in; we didn't really need another bonding activity - but she knew my obsession, it's nice that she now shares it.

A lot of people keep saying stuff about Taiga needing development and more stuff. I'm pretty sure Nico appearing is in response to that. Think about it, he's the only rider who's usually by himself when at his home base meaning we barely get any scenes of him because he can't carry a long scene by himself.

So now we introduce Nico who wants Taiga to beat Genius Gamer M. A lot of people I've seen are speculating that Nico is similar to Poppy so I'd assume that Taiga would have his own possibly less annoying version of Poppy to interact with.

That being said on the subject of Poppy, that is the worst rendition of Jingle Bells I have ever heard, ever. Like you could have left it at an up-beat pop version but then you had to let Poppy sing...

This episode......... is weird. There are parts of this episode that are good,parts that are off putting, and parts that I don't think are that great

We've finished our Victim of the Week story, not much to say there, I've already explained that these have been the least interesting parts of Ex-Aid to me. Really the only thing that's note worthy to talk about is the whole Christmas scene at the end which is humorous at best and random at worst. The real meat of the episode is everything else. More teasing on what the heck is up with Emu, teasing on the Kuroto's plan, hints at maybe the backstories of Emu and Kuroto, and of course the death of Kiriya. All of these are for the most part executed well and leaves us with some intrigued for what's to come.

Now let's talk some of the problems I've got.
1. The tonal whiplash. This episode took a massive 180 in middle. Going from a Christmas scene celebration to suddenly the death of a main character. I mean Kamen Rider had been tonally all over the place at times but this has got to be the most massive it has been.
2. Poppi being a Bugster. For such a massive reveal about her character, the show treats it like it's some random throwaway scene. The way the scene goes seems to imply that we were supposed to have figure it out ourselves. The problem is that there has only been one scene that implies that the Bugsters are based off the characters in the video game and that was back in episode friggin 1. So since this show started, we've been given no answers or explanations over who/what the heck Poppi is and when we finally do, the show treats it likes it's nothing. I mean seriously this reveal raises a ton of questions like why is she working with the CR?, How is she able to materialize in the real world permanently?, How is she active during Zero Day when that was supposed to be the first Bugster outbreak?. Can you see what I'm talking about here.
3. Kiriya's death. I........do not agree with this story decision, at least not at this point in time. Killing him off this early waste a number of story potentials that's still possible with him. His whole guilt over his friends death is still not resolved, we haven't seen how his bond with Emu develops, for that matter Hiiro and Taiga don't have much interaction/development with him. As a result, killing him off now doesn't have the emotion and weight it should have because his character doesn't have the development it needs for us to form a stronger attachment. Really that final scene just kinda sums it up for me. The only one that's crying is Emu, everyone else is just sort of staring at him.

I found it more baffling than annoying. That scene is up there with the Liar Dopant episode of W in terms of raw, unadulterated "What the fuck am I watching right now?"-ness.

At least they acknowledge in-show that she's a terrible singer. One of the things that makes Poppy work as comic relief for me is that her more bizarre behavior isn't just taken for granted - most of the other characters are willing to call her out when she's being silly instead of just rolling with it or playing along. It makes her far more tolerable than your Shunpeis or your Onaris (as does the fact that she can turn the wackiness off and be serious when she has to).

It's entertaining because this show has Straight Men to balance out the Funny Man, er, Bugster.

Whoa now, I think maybe your general dislike of this episode made you read something that wasn't actually there. By now, it's pretty clear that nobody - including the characters - much like Popi Poopy...pipplopiehole. It was just a good bit of humor that the one time she gives up some interesting info to us, the viewers, the other characters would deflate her moment with a clear "Yeah, yeah, we know that - moving on!". That's just keeping her in the "useless character" status quo, not mocking the viewer for not figuring it out; as you said - there's really no way we could have. This isn't a Marvel comic (ba dumbum-tsshhh).

Disagree here. Many had a strong attachment to Kiriya. And his death makes total sense. He, out of all of the Riders, was the biggest threat to Dan. He had to be taken out now, not later. This was explained pretty well in the episode, as well as the earlier episodes. It also shows how much of an effective villain Genm is. He didn't twindle his thumbs on whether to kill Lazer, or send someone else less qualified to do it. He did it fast and he did it himself. It shows he's a huge threat.

That makes sense now that you mention it but I just took that line as a meta comment that you should've bought that Christmas cake. :lol

I'll be totally fine with it as long as Ex-Aid actually starts riding his bike, now that it's so convenient. These are some of the least rider Kamen Riders we've had in a while.

It'll probably happen. I mean, we DID just get rid of a main character, so, at least until a certain new Rider shows up a couple weeks from now, there's less people vying for screentime.

Of course, I'm still waiting for Graphite's death to mean anything more than one throwaway line from Hiiro, and I'm starting to think the show is too busy to ever get back around to that thread.

It's a little frustrating because one of the reasons I was starting to get so into Ex-Aid was that it didn't have any of the warning signs I constantly brushed off during Gaim by saying "I'm sure it'll pay off", or other such lines, but between the show casually tossing Graphite in the trash like it was nothing after making him a key player in the backstory that motivates both Brave and Snipe, and now offing Lazer so early, I'm starting to think its fast pace is as much a weakness as it is a strength.

Of course, I won't really know until the show has actually moved forward, and I'd love to wrong about that. I AM still enjoying the show a lot, it's just that this week has kind of kicked up my Gaim-related PTSD pretty hard. :lol

Honestly though, what I really want is for those flowers to turn out to not to mean what they used to, though that's some extremely wishful thinking. But then, between establishing that the Bugsters can come back after being beaten, and Kiriya's G-rated fading away, it really seems like the show is deliberately leaving enough wiggle room for them to come back, especially in Graphite's case. I would've never assumed from the way he went out that was supposed to be his actual exit (and I didn't! Check the episode thread).

Didn't Hiiro say he knew Poppy was a Bugster Because of her name being a pun in Japanese?

Because I guess between pulling the wool over everybody's eyes about his identity, his ability to always be a step ahead of the Riders, and even deliberately getting himself killed just for a power up, he was just so hard to take seriously?

Like, yeah, obviously it makes sense that Dan wants Kiriya out of the picture, that's why they wrote it that way, but it isn't the Plot that's the (hypothetical because I'm still giving the show the benefit of the doubt) problem here, it's the character.

Kiriya added a ton to the show's whole dynamic with his more laid back personality, and he clearly still had a lot of room for development. If you're going to give a character the axe you want to make sure you've got nothing left to do with them, or that it provides some closure to their arc, but I'm not sure Kiriya's death really meets either of those criteria as much as it ought to.

I think I might have undone a lot of the tension of Kiriya dying because the whole week leading up to this episode I was like THEY'RE GONNA KILL KIRIYA ON CHRISTMAS. So by the time it actually happened I was like, "Oh there he goes, bye Kiriya."