This was a spin-off of the hyper-stylized SIC line. Instead of 7", though, they were a little larger than 3.75" scale. The sculpting and painting was really on-point, but some had pretty bad articulation issues. Bandai did figures from several of the early Heisei shows, often hopping between series at random and never completing a full line-up of anything. It was mostly downscales of the big SICs, but there were some original molds like Wild Chalice. The were a few bikes and a web exclusive Denliner playset, too. The line abruptly died without any notice or compilation after a few years, which is a very Bandai thing to do.

I put most of the figures in storage ages ago, but I have some of the Riders with bikes still out. The Kaixa is still one of my favorite action figures in my entire toy collection.

Neat! They look very cool. I especially like how the Blade figure looks like he's been carving up your table. These SIC guys got no respect for anything!

Yep. That sure is Blade and totally not years of putting drinks on that spot without a coaster.

Belatedly - sometimes I don't have much to say either, other than "Oh yeah I liked this" and I, too, would just read these as blog-style posts without the discussion. The discussion is also great. There is no bad here. But since this is basically the end of the thread, seeing your Blade commentary has honestly been a really positive part of my day for the better part of the last two months, so thank you for sharing how you see each episode of these shows. :) (I should say that more often.)

tho now i am wondering a little bit how many of the positive feelings i have for blade are colored by the spectacular ending XD which, hey, i still enjoy revisiting it periodically, so i'm not going to worry about it

Thank you! That's a very kind thing to say. I view these threads as a little oasis, sometimes, so I'm glad they can be helpful for others.

The ending of Blade is 100% so good that it's easy to forget some of the lackluster ways it got there. One of the downsides of how focused the ending is on Hajime and Kenzaki is that... like, there's a lot of the show that ends up being not a big part of the finale. It's not like there's a lot of dead weight in the season or anything, but there are more than a few threads that have zero impact at the end. But that ending! Real easy to forget about the stuff that didn't matter so much.

which sucks because this show IMO Does concepts and ideas both of these shows have and does them a million times better than both of those shows do

yeah literally almost EVERY CHANGE Made in Hibiki's second half is for the worst unlike in Blade not sure how spoilerlythis is I'm not saying oh X character does this or specific details but you can probably figure out what or who I'm referring too as we go in Hibiki. nteresting/likable characters get pushed to the side in favor of probably the WORST character in the entire franchise (moreso than Kusaka)an increased emphasis on toys/power up gimmicks A SHIT LOAD Of retcons/asspulls and unlike here where the staff of the second half did a good enough of a job to not make it obvious this wasn't planned from the start if it wasn't you can tell none of this was planned, At a point in the middle the shows pacing reaches a screeching halt and a bunch of new characters/ideas that weren't really established get introduced the shows pacing also changes from slower to faster after it but so much is happening to the point where your like wtf is happening.Doesn't help I am not a fan of pretty much anything the guy they brought in did after the 90ies, it feels like he does the same few tropes that people liked in his most popular show every goddamn show he writes (do you consider who it is a spoiler)

Oh... you're more interested in the Sealing Stone? A crucial artifact that existed in fantasy series like this. And not talking about villain opinions, but in Blade no, there are no other "series villain"/"main villain", there's only Tennoji for that role. The others are all one offs like Isaka or Miyuki, arc villain at best, everything happened in Blade is merely Tennoji's fault, especially Trial B whom he directly reprogrammed. Probably, with him being not a big deal in episode, this shows that not every series necessarily needs villains, unlike how some claims? (no villain =/= no journey/conflicts the characters face). Or, the villains here feels like those you'd see in purely black and white tokus like... Sentai?

Then again, the one where Hajime was suspicious at Kenzaki was proven right when Kenzaki just shamelessly took Hajime's pudding to eat it himself. And then, eventually Hajime became MVP here for noticing Titan's disguise by staying with him long enough, showing his schemes were successful.

And speaking about Titan, lol, disguising ability reminds me of.... Hajime a.k.a Joker. Hajime, like the Joker card itself which can be played as any card, Joker can transform into anything other card has. And now Hajime has to deal with something similar to him but better, he can seemingly transform into anything, outside the cards. So Joker's ability as a special Undead isn't better than an ordinary Undead lol?! The Chameleon Undead, which is one of the Titan's Fusion Materials. And...I don't think it talked for only 1 time is a big deal, he can just choose to talk or not if he wants. Hirose gets away with being angry of being accused as one and lifting a chair (this one lifting is ordinary).

Four Of A Kind finish was the other version of Royal Straight Flush with auras.... I don't think the second version is as good as the first version used on Trial D, the one where Blade shoots a giant beam. And this part is an irony from Faiz before, other than Faiz being about the Riders originated from good leader in evil organization (Hanagata in Smart Brain) where Blade is about the Riders originated from evil leader in good organization (Tennoji in BOARD), here, in contrast to Faiz' miscommunication, the monster impersonating Riders to sow discord is resolved very quickly by the characters checking with each other and assuming the obvious. In Faiz, the cast would never dream of doing that, and such a situation would've resulted in everyone hating each other for ten episodes, surely.

This is what I mean for "not everything is opinionated", not everything can be given room for interpretation. There's opinion and there's fact. Like for example, if Jungo from Ex-Aid is dead, then he's dead, it can't be given an interpretation that Jungo was only hibernating/faking his dead/etc. There's actually a clear cut, for "directly take over Mutsuki's body, but its grip is too fragile to mantain in battle for extended periods of time", as seen clearly in Leangle's debut, where in human form, Mutsuki was an insecure kid wanting to prove himself, but when he transformed into Leangle, he becomes a bloodthirsty warrior with a deep voice who attacks friends and foes alike (brainwashed). Spider Undead becomes a voice on Mutsuki's soldier so he can completely brainwash Mutsuki, inside and outside battle, and succeeded after he kills Shima.

One of his lucid moments has Mutsuki tell Tachibana he is afraid that the Spider Undead will completely destroy his self and obtain absolute control of his body and mind, which is eventually prevented by Shima's sacrifice, which takes effect after Tiger's sacrifice.

Yeah, the villains on this show are pretty bland. There's nothing interesting about any of them, which... I mean, if the villains don't matter in the storytelling, why are they even there? Why waste so much time and energy on them? It's frustrating.

Then why didn't it talk before when it was trying to fool the Riders? Seems like it could've come in handy before! It just feels like an additional ability that comes out of nowhere. We never, ever see it talk... until it's able to sound so much like Amane that three-quarters of the Riders are fooled. I don't know, it bothered me.

I don't know what to tell you. I fundamentally don't believe the show is saying that Mutsuki was blameless in his actions. If you want to think I'm just reading the show wrong, okay! I don't mind! But, no, I don't think he gets a free pass for what he did as Leangle, and I don't think the show is suggesting (let alone stating) that he didn't make any of those decisions.

Mutsuki's story is one of addiction, and the easiest lie an addict tells is that it wasn't really them who did those things, it was their addiction. Part of recovery is taking responsibility for both the things you did while under the influence, and the reasons you were under the influence to begin with. If it were as simple as Nothing I Did Under The Influence Was My Fault, recovery would look very very different.

Kerberos btw. The Tennoji's evolved form is simply Kerberos II. As the human Undead told, probably Hajime wasn't critically injured (he ran away from Kerberos), but he put himself to sleep here. The battle royale's reward seems to be more about shaping the world, and probably it's there to add up the stakes (it's so dangerous if someone undesired wins the fight like Tennoji or Joker). I want to see the personality of Human Undead, how he behaves, I guess here is what we got.

I feel in this part, the part where what's the meaning of justice was brought up again, after long at the beginning where Tachibana "betrayed" BOARD. This time obviously, from Tennoji using the Riders as his pawn to seal off other Undeads and make Tennoji the winner for a generic goal to rule the world, remake the world in his image. But what happened is the opposite of that part, the Riders just reaffirms their mission, not being tied to BOARD, and that'd include disposing of Tennoji. For a brand-new BOARD, well, throughout the series it wasn't seen much on how the cast does with BOARD (other than reappearing Karasuma), but it seems that the cast still lingers on Karasuma and BOARD up that time. For Tennoji "resigned" from BOARD, it's commonly what happened in plot twist villains, them doing something to hide their status like faking their death, etc. to progress more in silence (until the story reveals their true colors). And yeah, as I said previously in reverse irony with Faiz, Blade is about the Riders originated from evil leader in good organization (Tennoji in BOARD), so Tennoji feels entitled to control every Rider as he found BOARD and created the Rider system.

Tennoji was being too dumb to live here, he should've just left the area instead of holding onto Kanai, chanting the Riders to seal him, if he wanted to live and continue his scheme for another day. And let's talk about how Kenzaki (and Tachibana) responds to this situation, he wants to stop the threat, and did so, but as an ideal hero, he won't give any more retribution to those that are powerless for now, he thought about sparing Tennoji, because he's powerless human now, and is seemingly harmless.

True, Tiger Undead isn't one of the good ones, like exactly you described there, she's only nice to specific person. Which I've seen people to label their favorite characters (like anti-heroes or anti-villains) as purely good based on how they're nice to that specific person and performed good deeds for them, ignoring how he does to others. And Mutsuki here, possibly suggests the best outcome possible to prevent the end of the world, like probably what the audience thinks.... just unseal Shima! He won't do any harm as a living Undead being a pacifist, and Mutsuki has been freed from Spider Undead's brainwashing now, so it's safe without Shima protecting Mutsuki now. Unfortunately the story seems to side with Hajime to label that as naive, even if he doesn't want Joker to be unleashed on the world (which means he shouldn't be the last Undead standing). Dunno if Mutsuki is too empathetic here, without Spider Undead, he's troubled, but the flaw he has aren't mean ones, which are cowardly, insecurity, wanting to prove himself (but not by committing vile things, he feared to use Leangle after he realized he injured innocent people).

Hmm, I don't think the fights are fun here. For 45 probably yeah, Kerberos being the ultimate Undead, surprassing Joker, which is very advantageous in this series, taking away the only thing that can make a Rider function; the Rouzer cards, and even worse for Undeads, just absorb them. But in 46, this is the usual Rider case of forgetting the abilities? Tennoji as Kerberos II rdidn't even for once use the ability which is the main achilles' heel for pretty much everyone in this series, if Kerberos II is only Kerberos fused with Tennoji in that way (dunno if Kerberos II has new powers). The fight between Tennoji also was so anticlimatic here. For the idea of Undead/Human coexisting, well, it's up to the people to accept it or not, and it's obviously less likely in Undead, probably, the reason Undead attacked humans at the first place in Blade was them being salty that the world was now based on humans, a.k.a, the Undead that sealed all of them and became the winner of battle royale.

BOARD has to be formed, Undeads have to be unleashed, and the battle royale has to be modified to be different from the past time; in order for things to work for Riders.

Dunno if I'm wrong on this one, but probably it does in ep. 43, the part where when others question Kenzaki, he (obviously) claims he's himself in a more cheerful manner than usual, though it's unknown if it's from the poison or disguise...

My subs said "Cerberus". Sorry!

Nope, it's Elevennouji.

I don't think it's one or the other? I think it's probably that because Hajime was critically injured, he put himself to sleep.

Kenzaki's a very sweet boy!

There are no time limit in the battle royale, and.... if Kanai a.k.a Giraffa Undead still vows to win the battle royale like the old times.... then the present day battle royale isn't fully fake, it's just without the Sealing Stone and it's replaced with sealing cards. And the participant difference is that there's a human with god complex that wants to take advantage of the win and restarted the battle royale.

Eats? We've already seen that, when Tachibana visits Kotaro's house. Like the scene where Kotaro cooks (and being praised).

Tachibana getting to know what's behind the Undead battle royale, sealing stone being the artifact that cleans up Undead after defeat, and probably not fully from the cast in Kotaro's house (narrated by Human Undead), the stakes of the battle royale is huge, the winner being able to literally change the world. Well exposition (no matter how neat the tone is) is necessary here, it gets Tachibana to act! Kenzaki not being integral to Mutsuki's story, it's Kenzaki's choice, when they interact, Kenzaki only wanted to snatch away Mutsuki's Leangle belt. But obviously buddy-buddy, he praises Mutsuki for "overcoming" his dark influence and handed him King's Sword. That's obviously Kenzaki putting away his judgment to him.

Yeah, it is when you use a strategy to gain upper hand (Tachibana rarely uses the Jack Form upgrade!). Time for Tachibana to implement his expertise as a scientist in battle. Kanai seems to have a weak point that even a base Rider can get through, beneath his shield. The strategy is smart, but it's still dependent on what enemies faced against. If Kanai has no vital weak point then.... Now Tachibana inherit more things from Kenzaki to stand by Hajime's side.

I don't think it's a better plan than Mutsuki's before (eh, what about my explanation to it being too empathetic to you?). Unsealing Shima is more simple, and nothing would be lost. But unsealing Human Undead will practically cease Hajime's existence, which is a loss, especally that takes a toll to Kenzaki. By that you can still seal Kanai, and let Joker be, and the consequences of Joker winning the fight won't occur.

Hmm, this scene shows that, no matter how awful or terrible someone is, there would be someone who cares about them, even if only 1. This goes for both Hajime and Amane. Probably this is why ideal heroes take the no kill approach like Kenzaki (and most of the lead Riders, y'know) before, like to... Tennoji, what they want is to stop/neutralize the threat, but doesn't necessarily mean killing. Even if that person deserves killing, what'd happen to those that stick to them? That he's the first to be so adamant of sticking up to Hajime, trying to redeem him and resist Joker's influence, something that even Kotaro (except at the first), a part of family doesn't get it.

Oof... fair enough. Pin this first regarding the true original name.

To me, it's less important that Tachibana's getting information, but how he's getting the information. If he'd had it recounted by Hirose or something, I might not buy his later actions. But being in the room with the divine vessel of God's will, I think that alters the scope of the consequences for Tachibana. It's definitely giving things a lot more urgency than I think the rest of the cast feels.

It's so sparsely used. I wonder if Tachibana feels guilty about using it, normally? He got that card from Hajime. I wonder if him using Jack Form now is, like, him accepting Hajime's help for the first time. Food for thought!

I think Tachibana sees any outcome where the Joker survives as being too dangerous. His strategy of unsealing the Human Undead and sealing the Joker also ends Battle Fight, which has to be seen as a greater good (by Tachibana!) than just letting it go on indefinitely and hoping nothing else bad happens.

Killing somebody is a permanent solution to what could be a temporary problem. Better to believe in rehabilitation, no matter how unlikely, than to assume that people can't change.

Also, man, Amane isn't that bad! She has a whole bunch of people in the cast that care about her! She's just a little bit of a brat!

One more thing (unless I get bored) I'm genuinely surprised we didn't get into a debate about whether the secondary rider is Garren or Chalice. Tbf TOEI confirmed it's Garren but I and many others thought for the longest time it was Chalice(TBF the first half probably intended it to be Garren but the guy who wrote the second half wanted to put more emphasis on Hajime) Hibiki does NOT have this debate and makes it clear who it's secondary rider is supposed to be, in fact really other than maybe Ex-Aid I can't really think of any other Rider series that has multiple riders where it's not clear who the secondary rider is and even then Hirro's plot gets more emphasis than Taiga's does as does how different Hirro and Emu are

The secondary rider is Leangle because he’s the Q2 belt

If people restart the "debate" I'm going to buy a Garren Rouzer and shoot myself with it.

It did come up pre-Leangle, if I remember right. There was... not a lot of enthusiasm to seriously challenge Garren as the secondary Rider. There were a few jokes, though. I think I'd declared Blade to be the secondary Rider of Chalice, something I meant humorously but now could probably argue in favor of.

I really wonder if this show would've been viable with the exact same cast and setup, but just shifting the focus more fully to Hajime. Would it've just felt too much like Faiz?

I think it’s very funny that Blade is the only season that has any real debate over who the secondary rider is because it just continues the streak of Tachibana being the most pathetic man on the planet. Dude can’t even get people to trust that he’s the secondary hero!

Jokes aside, “Chalice is the secondary” is very much “Tajador is the final form”. In a pure literal sense of marketing and Toei’s definitions and a bunch of other media mentions and cameos, yes, obviously Garren and Putotyra wear these roles. But spiritually, emotionally; in terms of what strikes a chord with people especially in the context of the final episode, what it means to the characters, and how we think of these terms beyond just the hard boxes we place things in? Tajador is Eiji’s greatest power of his own that represents everything good about him and the relationships he’s forged over the course of the series, and Hajime is the second main protagonist of Blade whom the story is about.

90% of Tachibana's heroism is him just showing up to things even though he has no idea what he's doing and he's often a distraction that keeps other, more talented people from succeeding, and I find that intensely relatable. Maybe he's the Primary Rider?

I think I'll always have a tough time slotting Chalice in as the secondary Rider, because I don't think his story is subservient to Kenzaki's in any way. If anything, his arc is the dominant one for the show! I view Chalice as existing outside the Blade/Garren/Leangle structure (which has an indisputable hierarchy), and more of a parallel Primary. That's maybe splitting hairs, though!

(not me fanning the flames) Yeah, all that is exactly why Chalice is undoubtedly the big Number 2 of this show.

Anyhow, the blasted hard term of 'secondary rider' didn't even exist until a certain someone named Kamen Rider Diend came along and then made everyone retroactively put so much more stock into it. It gets even worse and stupider when each person doesn't even realise that they define secondary completely different from each other (whether it's second most important character, secondary to the 'main' story, or literally second to show appear), somehow not realising that's not consistent even in Toei's own 'official' designations.

Would this be a good time to mention one of the memes I never brought up is that Garren's Jack Form is often jokingly referred to as 弱フォーム, with the kanji for "weak", which is read as jaku? You know, on account of how he loses half the fights he uses it in? This guy can not catch a break, I tell ya'.

Fifteen years of Toei and Bandai: The secondary Rider of Kamen Rider Blade is Kamen Rider Garren.

Fifteen years of the fandom:
https://media.giphy.com/media/8vyZou...A7Lp/giphy.gif

not me being bitter that para-dx isn't considered by anyone to be more important than brave and snipe even though he's only ever either our main character's mirror foil or best partner and their teaming up is (at least meant to be) the biggest emotional climax in the whole series : (

Wonder how much a Garren Rouzer is gonna cost me on Manda these days... And the shipping too...

Anyway, here's Akiba's totally legit and Toei-sanctioned list of Secondary Riders!
1: Kuuga with a gun.
2: Gills. You may say "What about G3", to which I respond that he has a 3 in his name, so he can't be secondary.
3: Scissors
4: Faiz, but like, not Takumi Faiz. One of the other Faiz.
5: Blade because he's the second Rider to be on screen.
6: Post Episode 30 Hibiki.
7: PunchHopper
8: Den-O Rod Form
9: IXA, but only in the 2008 timeline. In 1986, he gets to be the primary.
10: Diend
11: The right half of W
12: Gotou
13: Meteor
14: Magical Girl Beast
15: Zangetsu
16: Mashin Chaser
17: Spectre, except when his actor isn't there that week and Necrom gets to be Secondary.
18: Genm. He even looks like the Player 2 icon you'd let your little sibling play as!
19: It can't be Banjou, because he gets to be Build for like five minutes at one point, so I guess it's Utsumi since he appears next. Mad Rogue stans rise up.
20: Zi-O II. It has 2 in the title, so it must be true.
21: Same logic with 02.
22: I haven't seen Saber yet, so who knows?

Look what we've done! We've broken Akiba!

Anyway, the Parado thing... I think the problem is that we don't really have an accepted term for what characters like Parado from Ex-Aid, Yuuji from Faiz, and Chalice from Blade really bring to the narrative, so we try and shoehorn them into pre-existing nomenclature.

Like, Parado isn't a sidekick, like a normal secondary, he's a soulmate. Same thing with Hajime/Kenzaki and Yuuji/Takumi. They have a bond that transcends teamwork and heroism. A secondary can be a soulmate (Sento/Banjou), but a soulmate doesn't have to be a secondary, and a secondary doesn't have to be a soulmate.

Actually, I know from a guy I follow on Twitter that Gaim, Drive and Ex-Aid had similar debates. That guy was relieved by the existence of the Geiz Majesty Ridewatch, since it was saying who was the Secondary for each season.

Every Rider on Ex-Aid thinks they're the primary and the other three guys are secondaries! That's the joke!

Personally, I find that the whole debate about who is or isn't the secondary Rider exposes how ultimately pointless such distinctions are. Kamen Rider is a show telling a story, and storytelling is an art form (Even if said show exists primarily to sell toys). And art isn't something where you can just slot everything into clean, obvious formulas. Saying "this character = this role" and "that character = that role" does nothing but diminish the work as a whole by treating it like a problem to be solved, instead of as a work where characters and the purpose they fill in the narrative is often murky and shifting around based on how the story develops.

The term "secondary Rider" is thrown around constantly, but what does it even mean? Riders like Kaixa, Baron, Cross-Z, and Geiz are all considered secondary Riders, but they are vastly different characters. Kaixa is a straight-up villain, Baron regularly walks a very fine line between uneasy ally and antagonist, Cross-Z is a trusted friend and ally, Geiz is a cautious ally with major reservations about his relationship with the main Rider. Technically speaking these guys are all the secondary Rider, but the roles they fill in their respective seasons are so massively different, what's the point of trying to shove them all in the same "secondary Rider" box? It just doesn't mean anything. It just seems pointless to me to try to shoehorn characters into these predetermined, meaningless categories. I would much prefer to critically engage with characters in terms of how their roles and characterizations fit their respective shows than try to figure out who best fits into some arbitrary franchise term that has no relevance to the narrative itself.

So, yes, I absolutely agree with you. Trying to take a story and attack it diagrammatically, to force it into a template, it's never going to work. (If it does work, it's probably not a very good story!) I don't think I spent a single second of my time watching Blade and wondering which guy was which predetermined role. When people brought it up on the boards, it's a fun diversion to engage with, but nothing that has a definitive answer or any inherent value. It's like talking about what kind of pizza each Rider would order.

The thing is... I get why a segment of the fandom obsesses over trivial things like this. The second you construct a fictional space for stories to exist, there's going to be people who care about the rules. When you have decades of stories existing in (more or less) the same fictional space, that emphasis on Definitive Answers becomes more and more pronounced. It's... it's like the flipside to the kind of engagement that keeps us all caring about these characters and stories. It's just what some people find valuable about stories and fiction. Do I? No. But I get that they do.

Alright, so Emu's pizza has nothing but toppings on it, every square inch is covered in something, he always asks Hiiro to cut it and he always gets turned down.

Sento does his pizzas half and half, somewhat to fit his aesthetic, but also because Banjou is always asking for half of it and Banjou has far too much protein on his half, so better to keep all the meat to one side.

Kenzaki has margherita and he likes it that way.

The instant I started typing that analogy, I just had this flash of Oh Akiba's Got Thoughts On This.

Tachibana's pizza of choice is, of course, None Pizza With Left Beef.

Oh for sure, hopefully my initial post didn't come across too judgmental! If other people enjoy that kind of thing, I don't intend to disparage anyone for it, it just isn't my thing. I certainly think that fans all having such different interests and priorities in what they want from stories is ultimately to the benefit of everyone, since it allows so many different types of conversations and gives us all new and valuable perspectives.

"Who is the secondary Rider of Blade" is one of those discussions that's interesting at first, but I've been in this fandom long enough to know it just ends up going round and round in circles, and poor Leangle is once again left out of it all.

Leangle eats pizza with black food dye in, btw, for that extra bit of edginess.

Takumi's pizza is covered in jalapenos and red pepper flakes because Mari is being passive aggressive again.

For sure! There are so many parts of this forum that I don't have any real engagement with, but I'm always happy that they exist for the fans that need them. It's great.

Mutsuki takes a slice of whatever someone else ordered, puts a ton of hot sauce on it to prove how strong he is, and then throws it away after one bite because his mouth hurts too much.

It's like, if we can't send a Blade thread off with dumb jokes and memes, why did we even have a Blade thread?

Mari is the only member of Team Faiz who gets to choose the pizza, because Kusaka stares down anyone who objects to her choice, so Takumi just goes over to Team Orphnoch and Yuuji lets him get whatever he wants.

I said Leangle! As the first post!!

Probably the part where no one's seen Hajime was made up as a mystery, why something new, Darkroaches are coming and swarming the city. Turns out at the end, it's from Joker winning the Battle Fight, and his way of ending the world is shown as Joker swarming Darkroaches. So the end the world from Joker's part is actually progressive, and it probably lowers the stakes (other than emotional attachment Kenzaki has with Hajime), because the "end the world" process can still be halted, though not by keep attacking Darkroaches as they're seemingly endless, but by dealing with Joker. The effort is about finding the source of the Darkroaches, which turns out to be Hajime.

So because of the stakes being higher here, you want for Kenzaki not to give blind optimism and to acknowledge the current situation (but still making an effort to stop this, ofc)? Probably it'd be a sight to see if Kenzaki failed to save some people here due to being overwhelmed by the Darkroaches' numbers (like previous series giving monster bodycounts), and how he reacts to it.

And I don't think if the attack connects, Kenzaki would be able to do so anyway. It's only a base form Blade, and Joker was matched with Blade King form before.

The cast probably made a mistake in this episode, not realizing their plan previously, like Mutsuki unsealing Shima, or for worse one, Tachibana unsealing Human Undead (but he still went to seal Kanai anyway), as seen here, via Battle Fight mechanic, it's too late, that after the Battle Fight is over, you can't unseal other Undeads anymore (nerf to Leangle too!), and with it being Joker, the worst outcome occurs (something that even Kanai didn't want to happen). And Nozomi, be mindful of the situation right now... something much more important has to be dealt with.

Yeah, my point was comparing Tachibana's plan, to Mutsuki's plan, which will give better outcome, due to nothing at loss, just unseal Shima, Joker won't win and Hajime remains.

Unfortunately as I've said, the mindset of believing in rehabilitation is seen as naive, not only by some in-universe characters but also the audience (that shit on ideal heroes like Kenzaki giving a chance to someone like Joker as stupid). And for Amane that's more of my point ("even one" is a minimum, it can be more like hers and Hajime's), her mom obviously cares for her as her daughter (probably in wrong way to not reprimand her), and the cast would have standard decency to take care of a child. Though still, from home, to school, to future jobs, bratty behavior tends to escalate as a child grows older and manifests itself in different ways (approaching actual bad territory), Missing Ace is a bit of an escalation, becoming an actual delinquent.

Mutsuki will add you to his supporters list. You're among such honourable members as:
- Nozomi
- That spider that lives in his head
- That tiger that lives in his head
- Tachibana, maybe


Shinji keeps trying to order pizza but Ren won't let him eat it.