Yeah, they definitely sound somewhat similar. Had I been unaware of Geats and someone told me the Geats theme is Revice's 2nd theme, I probably would've believed it.

I like it!

Interesting piece of info came out of the Gotchard production blog. In it they state that that Houtarou and Rinne's relationship/dynamic is less so protagonist & heroine but is instead more akin to W with Shotaro and Philip in that they're both the protagonists of the story.

I see. Though I wonder if she'll be a future rider or more Ichijyo from Kuuga as in someone who doesn't become a rider but is equally key story-wise and prominent action-wise. Only difference if they make her Ichijyo 2.0 would be that she fights with alchemy and not a firearm.

I'd honestly prefer Ichijo 2.0, it'd be nice to have supporting characters that are important/useful without the need for them to transform in any way.

I could definitely respect that.

It turns out he can access the Wild Mode with a normal transformation. I wonder if the Fevers change depending on if he's in Wild Mode or not.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1qrUcQbNg8&t=142s

So there's been some wierd stuff going on with the DX Gotchardriver's card reader. I've seen quite a few people recently describe the card reader as constantly giving error sounds and not wanting to read one or both cards (video show some examples of this). I recently got mine in and it works fine sometimes & other times it will only want to read one card (doesn't matter what slot). So uhh... buyer beware I guess?

I've heard that inserting the cards too fast like they do in the show causes the error

I've heard that too, however I've also heard other cases where putting in the cards slowly still doesn't help, heck it's the case for me where now where it doesn't matter how fast or slow the I put in the cards.

Admittedly this was something I was worried about with the return to the card gimmick since I recall the Decadriver also had an issue of the card reader failing over time.

The guys does the slow insert in the video and it still errors

I actually wouldn't mind this IF these are character we spend time with throughout the show and not just thrown in at the last minute (oh who am I kidding)

So the Gotchard website dropped some interesting regarding how the standard and wild forms work, it's dependent on how strong Hotaro's bond with the Chemys are. If Hotaro's bond is weak it results in a weaker and lower quality fusion which is the wild forms (cgi forms), however if his bond with the Chemy's is strong the fusion will be much stronger resulting in the humanoid Rider form.

Ah. So the Wild form is almost always gonna be first.

Oh, that's a cool in-universe explanation for the meta reason of limited suits. Just like an alchemist, Gotchard can dabble in everything, but not everything can be mastered. It makes a point that while the GotcharDriver is mixing 2 cards, Gotchard is ultimately a gattai of 3 lifeforms. In theory, anybody can use this Rider System, but Houtarou's synchronization with the Chemies adds importance to him as the human component.

Rumors about a female rider coming into Gotchard. Gotta be Rinne I bet.

But if she becomes one, what card type would suit her? Job? Animal? Artifact? Or Plant?

singer Beverly will perform an insert song for Gotchard.

https://twitter.com/KR_avex/status/1700667430077714643

Alright so some new stuff regarding Valvarad, it looks like he has his own Chemy Riser just colored purple, and it seems that when he uses a card other than Madwheel instead of gaining a new form he gets a new weapon/limb of sorts (in this case Gutsshovel gives him a shovel arm).

Valvarad's Chemy-riser also has what appears to be a gun barrel sticking out of it, so I assume they can be used as weapons too.

So it's like the Demons Driver. Except judging the visual appearance of the GutsShovel arm, it seems the ability uses MotW parts instead of custom weapons. That's rather clever, cuz now they can get an extra use of the cooler/useful MotW parts by having Valvarad use the card later.

All the best music this season!

Here's a message from the production team regarding what they're trying to go for with Gotchard and the dynamic between Gotchard/Valvarad (also this was machine translated so there are few typos with names).

EDIT: replaced image with one that features the whole comment

Since Leangle where someone’s a victim of the Spider Undead’s evil, what if the new rider would be someone possessed by an evil Chemy? In a way like Scar?

So, a Rider that's also a Malgam?

I guess so.

So here we have not necarrily new rumors but elaborations on existing ones regarding Kamen Rider Legend (Gold Decade). There have been rumors for a while that Kamen Rider Legend's driver apparently has an opening gate gimmick akin to the Beast driver and now we have a sketch of what that gate apparently looks like (since it seems that's how we're getting leaks nowadays). Although recently it's been mentioned that the base of Legend's driver looks identical to base of the actual decadriver (pic included for reference) with this gate opening peice attached to the center (mock up also included).

Also just to quickly round up the rumors we've gotten so far regarding Kamen Rider Legend. We first learned about this from Chinese listings (same place we got a lot of the Geats final form leaks way ahead of time) which simply listed this character as Decade. Then Iron Heng jumped the gun and said that Masahiro Inoue would be returning but at this point it's pretty much confirmed to be false. That being said though, the rumors for Legend never stopped and have all said that he straight up looks like Decade and exclusively uses legend rider cards. Eventually Color (a leaker who seems pretty reliable leaker and actually leaked the toys for Q1 accurately day before they went up for pre-order) stated that Legend (I believe this is where first got the name Legend?) is more of TwoKaiser situation where he is only themed after Decade but doesn't actualy have anything to do with him, also leaving the description that he literally looks like a golden Decade. And lastly his weapon is extremely similar to the Zenrin shooter (Mach's wheel gun) but the front of gun apparently looks identical to the machine decader just colored gold.

And I think that's everything so far, also remember guys grain of salt and all that.

The design looks good. For some reason though, I am guessing either Minato or Fugo to be the Legend guy. I just have this weird thought that maybe one of the two (so far) older, wise men (lol) of the series will be the Legend guy. Or maybe, just maybe, Houtarou?s dad will finally appear and he will be turn out to be Legend guy? Just pure speculation.

That could be why he's traveling the world, looking for Legend Rider Chemies.

Does anyone like the idea for the Three Dark Sisters to create their own Rider system similar to Gotchard or let some dark alchemist appear create one? But this dark alchemist won't be a rider, so he'll likely find some candidate to become that rider.

Kind like the Leangle route. Some evil Chemy would probably possess its user like how the Spider Undead does it.

Fun fact: Leangle is named after his weapon.

To add to your post while the main motifs are that of the playing cards we see to this day(and the insects on their ace cards) it seems that the names are based off of the Italian version of the four suits of cards.

We better have a Gotchard vs Valvarad soon before Spanner transitions to a rider.

it’ll be like Blade vs Chalice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6tvNr9Hf5Y&t=574s

A look at the Souchaku Henshin line.

So a recent interview came out with the production staff concerning Gotchard's development so here's some interesting tid bits from it:

- Head writer Keichi Hasegawa originally wanted Gotchard to be much darker and more mature, something akin to Ultraman Nexus in tone/style (a series he also was the head writer for).

- However co-head writer Hiroki Uchida and Producer Minato fought off the idea as they wanted Gotchard to be a very light show instead.

-Producer Minato originally wanted to do something different with Gotchard and have it be a series without a main villian. The series would just have been Hotaro and the gang catching Chemys the entire series with no greater threat to deal with/no one controlling the Chemys.

- This idea was rejected by upper management as they felt Kamen Rider is a series that NEEDS a main villain.

I can see Blade as swords, Chalice as cups, and Leangle as sticks/clubs (kinda), but how does Garren relate to coins?

It’s a pun on “Currency”

Oh no, those edgy social media people who are all like "It's not Geats!" are going to blame Uchida and Minato now. Personally, I don't mind Gotchard taking a lighter tone, at least to start with. I'm sure there are going to be some more mysterious dark themes when the show finishes setting up its world and lore, which it seems to be doing at a consistent pace. Otherwise, I'm not familiar with Hasegawa's works outside KR, so I can't say whether or not the darker tone he wanted would've fit.

How would that have even worked? I mean, Hibiki technically didn't have a main villain, but that might be one of Toei's many regrets about that show, so I doubt they'd be willing to take such a risk again. The theme of KR is all about using the power of evil to fight for good and it's pretty difficult to imagine that the evil actions of individual criminals and opportunists could generate enough conflict to last an entire show. I mean, Winspector did that, but it was a different franchise in a different era (and it had Miyauchi).

Makes sense.

Granted Nexus isn't the be all, end all of his Ultra work, he's done a lot of work on lighter Ultra shows like Ginga (which I feel Gotchard owes some credit too).
So was the ideas the Chemies would just transform randos week-after-week for Gotchard to defeat and then collect the cards?

To be fair, Hasegawa probably would've changed his tune the moment they showed him the kind of cgi they were working with for the Chemies. Also, this debate is literally what happened with the Pokemon franchise, and we all know how that went...

Well... the show's kinda doing that right now. Sure we see the 3 Sisters swiping Chemies or watching people turn into Malgams. But the Chemies overall are still a very random uncoordinated force. Which honesty, I really like. Seeing the stuff like the rando Submarine Malgam or the Academy Staff just suddenly having a card or two already, really does help make the world feel more alive.

It doesn't feel like the Chemies, the Alchemist Academy, or the Sisters are all just sitting around for 6 days a week, waiting for Houtarou to get up and do something. No, they all got their own lives and are all out catching/capturing Chemies on their own time.

Wonder how many forms in live action and how many in CGI?

Plus the Dark Sisters need to meet another alchemist who’ll develop a new rider system to counter Gotchard’s. Like how Leangle was created.

They’ll probably steal the Gotchardriver temporarily and that alchemist will probably create its own similar to it.