Different authors - different morality. Hana/Aguilera is in many ways still a child, incapable of making decisions. She is not as vicious and ossified in her evil as Asakura. And just because she said she wants to die doesn't mean it's her real wish. Rather, banal stubbornness due to their own pride, which Olteka and Giff had previously trampled on well.

A broken promise is also quite unpleasant thing. Hana could well be offended, considering this another betrayal. Even so, she would have survived in the end.

She was also happy hanging out with Sakura and when Sakura said why she saved her instead of killing her and Hana realised that she was wrong. She only wanted to die because she thought she had nothing left. The entire point of this episode is that she's not alone; she has Sakura

I don't think breaking a promise is more cruel than murder. I wouldn't trust Sakura of she did kill her. And I'd say Hana is happy that Sakura broke that promise.

Suicide is suicide. There is no glory, regardless of whether it's a fight or not. It wasn't even a real fight anyway since Aguilera wanted to lose. And again if she wants to die in battle, she'd be better off fighting Akaishi, a bad guy who would actually want to kill her.

Yes, Riders have killed before. But they're usually in life or death situations. There is no benefit in killing Aguilera

On a more personal note, I will never think that suicide is ever the right decision. Ever. Regardless of circumstances, honour, glory or whatever, I will always be disappointed if a character thinks that suicide is the best way to deal with a situation and nobody stops them

This is the thing, there was no "right" choice to make in a morally complicated situation like what occurred with Hana. I felt flexible about the outcome, whether it was Aguilera dying or being saved, because the most important thing is showing that Sakura thought her actions through and picked what she truly thought was best and that she had the conviction to see it through. I'd argue that this is a major theme of the show in general, which can be seen in other character arcs like Hiromi's self-detrimental dedication to heroics and even Tamaki's dedication to assisting Aguilera. Just my take on what the show is trying to convey, it isn't about right and wrong so much as doing what you truly believe in, which is actually exactly how I see Ryuki too.

Daiji: "Why won't you die!?"
Akaishi: "ViStamps, son! They activate in response to physical trauma. You can't hurt me, Jack."

Alright, so seriously, this was better than I was expecting, though the only thing preventing me from giving it an *(Hudram voice) excellent, * is that I feel maybe they could have done a little more with Aguilera before this arc, but overall, I do like how they ended here arc. You done me proud Tamaki!

I also kind of wish Vail wasn't just Red Vice, though I still think Vail is Revice's best villain. Though after this episode, I have a better grasp on Akaishi, in that since he's technically an ancient alien (yes, I said it) he doesn't quite understand human emotions and thusly isn't able to properly convey them (i.e., his half-humored laugh, his sarcastic nature, and facial expressions). I don't know, definitely agree I prefer Isaac over him in a way, but thinking this, I can take a little more seriously, instead of thinking "this guy has a neon sign saying, 'the villain' wherever he goes with a villain theme to boot."

Maybe it's because I don't quite trust Weekend, but I have a feeling they might run Hana through the wringer, just because she used to be a demon or something. But it was great to see some of the old Genome forms and Revice taking a bit of a backseat, and Lovecof becoming a rebellious teenager (great to see Vice hasn't forgotten he can do that ability and that it fit perfectly with the show).

Next Episode: Vail: "Vice, the pandemic's over, you can remove the mask."

I don't know since when Olteca 'wants to be understood' or something, what he wanted was to make the world his and he had sadistic pleasure in watching others suffer in his evil deeds. Who cares about 'being understood' at that point. Personally I'd not see tragic backstory as redeeming trait or 'valid' excuse for villainy, because actually hardship and trauma can make someone more empathetic and kinder due to how they're more able to understand other people's difficulties and understand what others have been through. The abuse partly explains why he acts that way but doesn't mean Olteca should not be held accountable and responsible for his misdeeds and shift the blame on anyone else like the heroes/others for 'not understanding him' or such. I mean also, just because you see another villain being able to be talked down (and sloppy one at that for Zero One's Gai), doesn't mean it can apply to every one of them, that's generalizing.

I personally never saw Julio as being romantic towards Aguilera and I'm not a fan of shoehorning romance in anything too, it's about Aguilera picking up Julio when he was at his lowest thus Julio has boundless loyalty to her, it's like the Three Crows fiercely following Kazumi around in Build, for examples of same gender ones. What Julio wants is to repay her, like keeping her safe, not for Aguilera to get on his dick. It's not shown but he should've gotten what he wanted here if it's to keep Aguilera safe.

I don't know why this is 'wrong' for contradicting other KR message, why certain other KR messages or traits here are regarded as authoritative that being different from those makes others 'wrong' or such (and I feel like for some reason you really make something like Zero One authoritative for all KR). Those other stuffs are also coming from humans with own personal tastes and preferences. The messages for both shows doesn't seem to show something really bad, other than you seemingly having personal vendetta against any promise breaking, regardless of context, when Olteca's particularly terrible not necessarily for breaking the promise, but about how he does that by continuing his murder spree of people and gloats about his misdeeds to her, not solely the act of promise breaking alone there. But Sakura's actions are nowhere near as depraved as that one to gloat about murder spree, promises being broken for normal human reasons is actually more common, including for something out of their control too, and it's also even better when they'd try to explain why the promise is being broken and try to compromise. At least Sakura does the latter to compromise for Aguilera's life entirely by being there for her, that Aguilera's complaint was about having nowhere to go (that she's wrong).

No offense but there's some BS regarding this claim in your part, like you'd demonize those who actually did that, doing the said unpleasant things for the sake of justice and burden it, because of how it doesn't fit the better outcome that you thought can happen, like Kouta. You were also kinda still treating it as hostility from Geiz to promise to kill Sougo when he turned evil in his conquest for his sake. And also as someone said, the unpleasant thing here can be the broken promise, but you contradict yourself here by championing for Riders to do unpleasant thing yet talk down exactly that.

Dunno about murder, but Sakura previously was someone who'd support/justify bad deeds, when it's something that can give 'good outcomes', like Bon and Seiko (well this one's her karate coach). She probably has now changed since becoming Jeanne but just a reminder.

Jack in this series is his older brother Jack Revice tho! A̶n̶d̶ ̶p̶r̶o̶b̶a̶b̶l̶y̶ ̶i̶t̶ ̶s̶h̶o̶u̶l̶d̶ ̶b̶e̶ ̶G̶i̶f̶f̶ ̶C̶e̶l̶l̶s̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶ ̶N̶a̶n̶o̶m̶a̶c̶h̶i̶n̶e̶s̶,̶ ̶n̶o̶t̶ ̶V̶i̶S̶t̶a̶m̶p̶s̶ ̶b̶e̶c̶a̶u̶s̶e̶ ̶R̶i̶d̶e̶r̶s̶ ̶u̶s̶e̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶s̶h̶i̶t̶.̶ Otherwise it can be a fun idea to have Akaishi retains his 'human' look while directly fighting Riders like Steven Armstrong, and like more memes potential like said Armstrong (a̶n̶d̶ ̶w̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶M̶G̶R̶ ̶p̶r̶o̶p̶o̶s̶e̶d̶ ̶v̶i̶a̶ ̶m̶e̶m̶e̶s̶ ̶t̶a̶l̶k̶). Probably him absorbing Giff to power up later like Armstrong absorbing Excelsus remains (and for KR, like Masamune absorbing Gamedeus).

It's humorous how you contrast Aguilera with Asakura, since Aguilera's actress is called Asakura.

I don't think we can arbitrarily decide whether Aguilera's wish was real or not. That's undermining her independence, the same as Deadmans grooming her to believe she only had one option in life. It's not like her decision was even that uninformed, as she was briefly shown another way to live. But when that time came, she was resolute about having her honorable battle to the death and that's a choice she made on her own. Showing people other paths is okay and helpful, forcing them down the one you want is not.

A broken promise is an unnecessary unpleasant thing. If a person has no intention of keeping a promise, then they shouldn't make it.

I respect that you have your own philosophy, but I have mine. I guess it's true that the fight was a sham though, similar to Ikishima Midari rigging gambles in the opponent's favor. A possible solution would've been for Sakura to give an ultimatum as an added condition, to make the fight even and make Aguilera agree to live in the event that Sakura dies instead.

Just curious, what did he accomplish here to make you proud of him though?

Olteca mentioned in his backstory that due to his super genius mind, he grew up being misunderstood by everybody and abused by his jealous father, which is the reason why he became a misanthropist and joined Deadmans. I guess he's another case of Adel, or Daido, or Mika from Kyuranger Episode Stinger, where an innocent character becomes corrupted due to succumbing to despair. Olteca couldn't empathize with others, since there was nobody who shared his experience, not even the other cultists who were ostracized for other reasons. Not denying his evil deeds, but he's still a tragic character who wouldn't have ended up this way if he had been shown more love. Probably the most tragic part was that it looks like he realized too late the value of his friendship with Aguilera and Julio, before he was killed by Gif.

I'm not saying that KR shows are wrong to contradict messages from other KR shows or anything like that, but if two messages are opposites, then it makes sense that I would lean towards the one I most agree with. Just like the writers who have their own personal preferences, it's the same for everybody else. I'm usually critical of Kobayashi, but I appreciate the story she wanted to tell with Ryuki, about the futility in always trying to do the right thing and the necessity to strive for it anyway. I can't just go from that message to a different one that tells me to embrace the cynicism of impossible best case scenarios and give up on doing the right thing. That doesn't feel heroic to me.

Promises can be renegotiated or absolved, but only on the recipient's terms. The promise maker is still morally obliged to keep the promise as long as the recipient holds them to it. Otherwise, it'd just be an empty word with no meaning. That's why I have little tolerance or respect for people who make promises lightly.

Are you referring to Kouta killing Kaito? Hmm, okay, perhaps I was hypocritical about that.

Regarding Geiz though, I never had any beef with him and I don't recall demonizing him, just saying his promise with Sougo was made out of mutual respect for each other's determination. Geiz isn't the kind of person who trusts easily, which is a good quality in moderation, so it would've been OOC if they were suddenly best buds. That scene was Geiz giving his arch enemy the chance to prove him wrong, which was a pretty big step for his development.

Fair point, probably the best argument I've seen so far in favor of this episode. The idea that staying true to your belief is more important than halfheartedly doing the "right" thing. It's not enough to make me like this episode or the direction the show is taking, since there's really nothing I can do about the fact that this simply doesn't work for me, but if Kinoshita's intention was to make the viewers feel passionately in either way about what happened, then I guess he succeeded. Thanks for sharing your take.

It wasn't much, but because he actually helped give Sakura an idea of how to help Aguilera, by having fun with her while waiting for her driver to get fixed, instead of just getting slapped and calling it a day. The fact that, in a way, he contributed more than just being a rejected nerd made me happy.

Actually I'd want to reply on this topic on the oncoming latest Revice episode discussions if I got a chance (the talk that corresponds to this), but for this one I'm doing it as probably there won't be these kind of talk anymore in the future.

Oh fair enough, I did forget for a moment about Olteca's relation with others part here sorry, and yeah for this part you did view him in tragic light here previously too, and certainly there are parts of it with his parental abuse (if his father abused his mother too, it's probably not a society issue as a whole but just an individual), but otherwise Olteca's past was about having superiority complex over others due to his talents, him being prodigious makes him disconnected from others with normal abilities, like how he doesn't need school due to his genius, that shows his difference to typical humans, and he'd view other humans as worthless and foolish for that (which fuels his goal to forcibly evolve humans to 'his' level).

Though it's true that Olteca did display the negative/unpleasant side/stereotype about being intelligent, how it can give them isolation, like how studies show that people with significantly different IQ scores do have trouble relating, a number of bookish/intelligent kids being quiet and reserved, a greater predilection towards clinical depression... or even serial killers falling on the extreme ends of the IQ spectrum, also reinforcing 'unable to relate'. Olteca displays the most malicious take of it (plus the serial killer part of said example), he always knows how intelligent he is and he had grandiose sense of superiority by that, wants to put other worthless idiots beneath him... just like his father being offended with his son being superior.

I admit you did explain yourself quite well regarding him being 'misunderstood', but sorry that I had problems/triggers with the general talk about villains' tragic and/or misunderstood, like either the "wouldn't have ended up this way" you brought up here or "just misunderstood" (others also can add up "not/never evil" for this one) talk is frequently used (in my experience), to shift the blame to everyone else but that villain, like blaming others for exactly not 'giving them love' but instead "denying" them from what they want (like fighting against their schemes), and like what I said, thinking that 'understanding' them meant agreeing with them and letting the villains win and get what they want (combined with utter lack of care.concern of their victims, or treating others/the whole world as "deserving" of that due to 'not understanding them'). I don't want to immediately have apologist view on villains (that is liked by audience), and I want to focus on giving counterarguments instead to their current actions and character, explaining what forms their actions has been done far more often, also often to the point that only the backstory and what happened to them is taken into account, ended up romanticizing them as a whole.

About the flashbacks with Aguilera and Julio, sometimes KR did a bait-and-switch for characters, like the aformentioned Takeshi Asakura, who had a part of the audience being led to think that Asakura had some sympathetic traits by trying to save Akira from a fire in their house, but turns out that it's just a lie made up by Asakura and worse he's the one who started the fire, and he meant for others to lure Akira to be killed. For Olteca, he had flashbacks of him working with Aguilera and Julio, but after that, he lamented about his failure to make the world his. It means he still only cared about ruling the world, and it's required for him to work with both Aguilera and Julio to achieve his goals until they're no longer useful to him (or even temporarily re-work together due to Aguilera having mutual goals to bring forth Giff) like the time to sacrifice Aguilera for Giff, so flashbacks about his attempts to dominate the world would involve both of them. B̶o̶t̶h̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶m̶ ̶a̶l̶o̶n̶g̶ ̶w̶i̶t̶h̶ ̶K̶i̶t̶a̶z̶a̶k̶i̶ ̶a̶r̶e̶ ̶a̶l̶s̶o̶ ̶a̶l̶l̶ ̶v̶i̶l̶l̶a̶i̶n̶s̶ ̶w̶h̶o̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶m̶o̶s̶t̶ ̶a̶c̶t̶i̶v̶e̶ ̶t̶h̶r̶e̶a̶t̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶ ̶s̶o̶m̶e̶ ̶t̶i̶m̶e̶,̶ ̶b̶u̶t̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶r̶e̶a̶l̶i̶t̶y̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶y̶'̶r̶e̶ ̶p̶a̶w̶n̶s̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶s̶o̶m̶e̶o̶n̶e̶ ̶w̶a̶y̶ ̶b̶i̶g̶g̶e̶r̶ ̶(̶O̶d̶i̶n̶,̶ ̶A̶r̶c̶h̶ ̶O̶r̶p̶h̶n̶o̶c̶h̶,̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶G̶i̶f̶f̶)̶.̶

Of course everyone would have their preferences (I also hated the message on ep. 23 for Revice before), but prefering the messages someone agrees more is still a subjective thing, it's still based on how someone feels, not hard facts, so it's probably better to not instantly deem a message contradicting/you don't agree with as the 'wrong' one and the one you agree more with as the 'right' one.

I know that people shouldn't make promises if they can't keep it, but people still can't see the future and I'm also against the hindsight bias view to blame people due to how to those, "they had it coming". Like promises can put someone at a dilemma, when someone wants to please a kid by buying them what they want, as first they don't know 100% whatbut turns out that what they want is something inappropriate for kids, and then both outcomes now has both something good and bad, to not expose that kid into something appropriate but would break the promise, or fulfilling the promise but poisoning that kid with the content. And like I said, promise can be undone by something out of their control like, being hospitalized due to accident after promising to attend someone's special events like graduation or such. There are rooms of improvement for those, but actually none of those are outright terrible stuff, far less than being a genocidal dictator, or even behaviors like gashlighting toxic abuse even if those are upfront. And in inverse, someone's cruelty like Olteca continuing his murder spree of the cult members, would stay cruel whenever promises are involved or not.