That was a nice end to the series. I wish it hadn't sidelined Jonouchi's moments so much in favour of the Micchy redemption, but I guess that was what the episode was mainly about. It wrapped everything up pretty nicely.

I'm glad it had that little bit at the end as well which justified why Kaito had to die.

Gentlemen, it's been a fruity ride but it's time to "Drive the Kamen Rider!".

Well, that was disappointing.

Maybe I'm just annoyed that Jounouchi was rendered completely useless so quickly, and that Kouta suddenly showing up just made the other Riders feel even more useless than before, but this episode didn't feel like there was any effort put into it. Yes Jounouchi found out bout Hase dying, but it's sidelined in favor of Micchy being put on the path of redemption, which I think should've been saved for the inevitable movie.

Same here. Though, I do agree with everyone saying that Jounichi should not have just gotten curbstomped. The thing with Kaito, though...is he the tree? or was it just his ghost? Jam's design is a bit gaudy, but not TOO bad, and the parts reuse from Bujin Gaim bothered me; oranges aren't apples, Toei.

Honestly It doesn't trump Den-O as my favorite series, however it is tied for second with Fourze. I like it a lot, and it is the least formulaic Kamen Rider series we've had in a long time, and I'm glad Mr. Urobuchi was allowed to get this nuts with it. However, there are some things I think could have been done better or improved on, namely on some of the secondary character, but overall I still really like this show, and would say it's one of the best Kamen Rider series we've gotten in recent years.

Gaim was a fun ride, and I'm going to really miss it. Stay fruity my friends.

I took him as a spirit that'll probably watch over the tree (which Mai recreated) from now on. Seems like a fitting end for his character.

Hm...yeah I can see that.

You're acting like Jounouchi was this important character that had huge character development to begin with. He was an average character at best and his development equates to maybe a single episode length compared to Micchy, Kaito, Takatora, and of course, Kouta.

Jonouchi was an important character, and his character development was definitely better than Kouta's. After a while I was watching this show for the Supporting characters, I could care less about Kouta's lackluster story. Though I did enjoy Kaito, Micchy, and Takatora's but Zack, Jonouchi, and Oren stole the show for me.

Reminded me of the last episode of W in a lot of very good ways. Teared up at the end though..

Going to miss this funny show about fruit armor and inter-dimensional plant people.

Yeah, haven't watched MM, so I have no idea what you're talking about. And by the sound of that plot, a) it's been done before in other series, and b) it's not a Rider series, so it's hard to compare to how Gaim was written for the ending.

However, I do like your version of ending, that would have been as equally marketable for future Rider wars to come. Note how I worded that.

Total agreement. I'd watch a separate series with him.

On another note, I also think the tie-ins were heavy handed, but when you have an ultra popular season of Kamen Rider to work upon, you want as many marketable tie ins as you can get to sell other properties. Plus, it didn't help that we had real world sports event to kludge up this years airings. There may have been more episodes requested for production without them, we'll never know.

But we do have some hope with the eventual crossover movies, etc. If I had my druthers about a crossover with KR Michelin (Drive) though, it wouldn't be with Katsura Kouta (#badwig). I'd rather have Oren or Micchy or Jounichi with the lead. Or even Takatora. Although, I'm sure it'll just be some alternate 'futbol' universe version of Kouta.

That finale was really touching.Like others mentioned it reminded me alot of the final episode of Kamen Rider Double. The last threads were nicely resolved and the little bit with Jonouchi really made me tear up. It shows how he has grown as a character that he is man enough to admit that he is as much responsible for Hases death than anyone else. Maybe if he would have been a friend to him after Hase lost his Driver he would never have been so desperate to eat a Helheim fruit an turn into an Invess. Yeah it would have been nice to see him win atlest against the Hopper Invess but its still very fitting for his character. Even if he gets beaten and is laying on the ground he will always get back up, he will never back down, Never Give Up.

Seeing Akira and Takatora having cake together was also pretty cute. Oh and Oren you will never stop flirting with you little Melon :lol

The Star of this episode though was indeed Micchy. He truly turned into one of my favorite Characters from this show. For me he began as a little brat that wanted to play hero but was only in it for selfish reasons. This culminated in him becoming the little pathetic traitor that got manipulated by everyone around him without him even noticing.And all he ever achieved was the loss of all his friend, his brother gone and the love of his life dead on a table in some dark laboratory. And yet after all this he got back up trying to atone for his sins. Inspired by Koutas way of living and his heroic sacrifice he decided to finally become the hero he always wanted to be and for the first time in his life not doing something for himself but for others.
Its up to anyone if they can "forgive" Micchy for his actions and I dont think thats the point the show is trying to make. Micchy will never be forgiven and on top of that he will never forgive himself and thats why he will fight against any odds to still be as heroic as Kouta would have wanted him to be.

The other scene where I teard up was the last exchange between Kaito and Mai. With our favorite dancing banana pirate acknowledging once again that Mai has a strength he is lacking. The strength to still see the good in humanity even though she knows that they will never stop waging war. A strength Kaito could never achieve.

....because we've all watched Sailor Moon S?

Guys, I have figured out something: the final scene isn't Mai showing Kaito a scene from his past but instead those kids are just random people that came to play in that place and noticed the tree from the shrine replanted there (probably by yggdrasil to pay their debts with Zawame) and Mai used them as an exemple of hope and a new, good, future.

Jounouchi :lolol

And thus the journey comes to an end. I'm not really sure how I feel about the whole Jam plot, or about seeing kid versions of Kaito, Kouta, and Mai. But the episodes did seem to give some finality to everything. I loved the end the fight and the team work of Kouta and Micchy. Overall, not a bad ending.

Goodbye Gaim, I had a ton of fun with you. I look forward to watching you again some day.

Mai regrew the tree with her new fruit god powers :)

Jonouchi definitely did not have more character development than Kouta, and I like Jonouchi. Kouta through the entire series went from goofball with good intentions, to self-centered yet all-loving guy, to morally conflicted guy who feared achieving power, to confident hero and protector who embraced his power, to interdimensional Fruit God. I enjoyed Jonouchi's arc, but it's quite the stretch to say he was developed more than Kouta.

Not exactly relevant to the discussion, but your post count and avatar synched up nicely there. :lol

http://shuangxi-in-spring.com/Images/555.png

LOL nice! I didn't even notice.

I did not see Jounouchi remotely important. Hell, he disappeared for like 15 episodes straight.

Agreed. He hardly did anything that another character wasn't already doing. If you don't get it, think of it this way: when he appeared, it was alongside Hase. After Hase died, he worked for Oren, doing the same things that Oren was doing (namely, trying to f**k up everything the Beat Riders were doing). When he joined the rest of the Beat Riders, he did so with Oren. He lost his powers in the same fight as Oren. Other than his development in the very last episode (and the Bravo/Gridon training episode), not a damn thing would've changed if he wasn't in the show at all.

I do wish Drive did got a cameo similar how Gaim did in the last episodes of Wizard. Drive could have fit perfectly in the episode by showing up to help defeat Jam.

I´m actually pretty glad we didnt have a full blown guest appearence by Drive. The Wizard thing last year wasnt really part of the show anymore (storywise) so it fit (kinda) that Kouta would turn up in this.
Drive in this episode would have just felt too shoehorned in and he got alooooot of commercial space during the whole super hero time.

This episode was a great way to end a series. Jam could've been better but overall it was a great episode and I like how micchy redeemed himself and did no one ever think to tell jounichi that base died

Well Kouta tried it once and then got interrupted by Oren Pierre :lol

And other than him I dont think anyone that knew would have ever told him if he didnt explicitly asked them.

You know what I just notice, Micchy looks badass in those all black casual clothing.

It's certainly better than his awful Cosby sweaters.

What's wrong with Cosby Sweaters?

Only reason I use Madoka as an example, is that it is written by the same person as Gaim. (It is also a fantastic watch if you haven't al ready)

But, uh. I'm sory for my opinion as well?

The fact that I will now forever associate them with Micchy.

Don't feel bad. They just haven't accepted goddess Madoka into their hearts yet.

Get out Loson-San :lol

I will not rest until people accept Goddess Madoka as their lord and savoir! :lol

The fact that over the course of 47 episodes - 45 of which count - Micchy never once offered me a pudding pop.

Also, they looked ridiculous. But mostly the pudding pop thing.

Aesir translated The Staff’s Final Words

http://aesirsubs.wordpress.com/2005/...s-final-words/

PS Looks like it's not complete yet. Sorry Aesir if I posted this to soon.

I think it suits him better as that's much closer to what his actor usually wears as opposed to what he was told to wear to be in-character as Micchy...

No need to be sorry at all. I'll have to watch that series to compare notes.

Wow.
Well, that was quite the episode.
I'm in agreement that Jonouchi as Kurokage should have taken out the grasshoper/cockroach kaijin thing to really drive home how much he's grown, though what hit my emotions so hard was how when transforming, as they highlighted by throwing the brief flashback in there, he used Hase's Kurokage transformation pose, rather than his standard Gridon one, to honour his fallen friend. That was powerful.

Whilst certainly not yet plot-wise, to me personally, Mitsuzane has finally been redeemed- and shaped, by the end of the episode, into a character that I really quite like. I think the crowning moment of him doing his original henshin pose was utterly fantastic, though I would really have liked to see him dancing again with the other beat riders by the end.
Takatora's proud little smile after the final fight melted my heart a little though, I'm so glad that he finally has something to smile about.
Kaito's final moments broke me. How he understood that this world was not suited for him, as he was unable to accept that life will go on even after terrible things, as the new kids at the shrine were doing, and then admitting that his lack of acceptance was his own weakness.
I daresay the whole frustration people have about Kougane/Jam wouldn't be quite so much the case had we been able to see the summer movie already and as such known a little bit more about the nature of the character, but iirc the DVD release of the film isn't too far away, so maybe it will make a little more sense after that!
(sorry the post is so spoilertag-heavy, but I know that some people are a lot more sensitive to spoilers than others, so figured I'd play it as safe as possible)

What a ride it's been eh guys?

I think, for me, Gaim has been a shining example of not judging a book by its cover. I remember just being so set against the series when the fruit motif was revealed and the danxing, which completely turned me off of Kyoryuger. But I give it a fair shot week one and the rest is history.

I can't say that Gaim is going down as my favorite season of Kamen Rider, honestly it just missed making my top 3 I think. But damn was it a good show and I commend the entire cast and crew for pulling off a show about dancing fruit bug samurai warriors that have to save the world from an "evil" sentient garden in a way that was fun, dramatic, and honestly just worked.

The show had a few missteps, and the crossover episodes were definitely unnecessary, as was the "go see the movie" one, but there were far more hits than misses.

As for the finale...well, I wish I could say it avoided something just about every season I've watched did to piss me off at the end, but bringing Takatora back last week just continued that trend and having the last big bad be tied in with the movie was just a bit of a waste. I'd be fine with an epilogue episode like this if they didn't feel the need to just shove in a villain the way they did. It worked for W, it doesn't really work here. There were a few other little things here and there that could have been done better or been changed, but the half-assed final boss was my only big complaint with this episode.

Overall, it was a great show. Again, not my personal favorite, but it was definitely memorable. Bravo is one of my favorite riders ever, and his figuart looks fantastic on my shelf. Drive has some big shoes to fill following Gaim, I hope it gets a fair shot.

So Gaim comes to an end. Just seems like yesterday Kouta was doing his part time jobs with his Rider Form :lol. Such a great ride, and while I'll miss Gaim I'm happy to finally be free of fear of being spoiled. After doing that for almost an entire year I'm ready for a break. That being said, onto my usual commentary of the episodes.


NEVER GIVE UP!

Jonouchi stole the show with this episode. Having him learn the truth of Hase's fate and him becoming a Kurokage to battle Kougane and his Hopper Inves was a great coda to his character arc. Speaking of Kougane, I do like this episode addressed how the movie invaded the series. Makes the soccer episode feel less like a poorly timed filler and a meaningful plot point.