If we do have tokunation Gaim, I bagsy being Baron - or at least serving under him, at least until the divisions within Yggadrasill are greater defined. Kaito seems like a bit of an evil dick, so I won't feel bad about betraying him for true justice.

I call being Zangetsu.

I'm Zangetsu Shin!

I call dibs on Gaim.

I call Bujin Gaim.

Well wouldn't Comic technically be Bujin Gaim as well?

Who wants to wield the Edamame Lockseed?

Dibs on Marika. Someonw else can have the Lock Seed and belt, though, if they like.

;)

You mean the really crowded secret underground dance stage?

You mean that wasn't a waffle house?

It wasn't?!? SON OF A GRAPE!!!

This isn't a claim thread! :lol

Whatever happened to those? :lol

They have a Giant Fortress Tower that has a Laser array poised to wipe out the surrounding city at the push of a button. It's built around the base of a tree from another word/dimension that can open zipper themed portals to that world/dimensions. Their troops dress like pinecones and ride around ton dendelions and tulips. They have one kinda decent middle management guy who is surrounded by blatantly evil underlings who constantly undermine him. They're pretty freaking close to cartoon villains.

I'd also be reluctant to state that they know everything about Helheim and that their current plan is the best they could come up with. After all their plan seems to be entirely based on the research of one Ryouma Sengoku, who most assuredly does not have humainity's best interest at heart. Who's to say a different scientist, given the same time and resources Ryouma had, wouldn't have come up with a plan that doesn't involve six billion human deaths?

You know that doesn't count - all of toku is goofy to a point, even shows like Kuuga which was grim to the point of sickening, I didn't think I'd have to say FOR A TOKU SHOW at the end of every sentence talking about a toku show, you think that'd be kinda a given...

But the point is, with only ten years left, CAN another scientist come up with an alternative? I doubt it. Face it Ryouma's is the best we've got unless you wanna ride the idealism train with Kouta and hope it all pans out.

Too late, I'm Random Civilian C! :p

But, really, blowing up Zawame isn't going to stop cracks from appearing, and don't you think that literally all of Japan will notice an entire city being blown to bits, with the only remaining structure being the ominous as hell futuristic tower?
Plus, by the time Yggdrasil is done blowing stuff up, the whole city will probably be filled with Invase, what with the increase in cracks and all.

Calling it now, Blonde Mai knows how to stop Helheim without resorting to genocide.

The problem is that Ryouma and his plan being the best we've got seems to be based on the words of Ryouma himself. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that Ryouma stopped looking at other options after coming up with the 'kill billions' plan because he really seems to like that plan. All the statements of 'there's no other way' stem from Ryouma, and as far as I'm concerned that makes them far from reliable fact.

Ryouma's a sociopath who's using the Helheim Invasion as an excuse for his own personal eugenics project involving magic belt buckles and fruit-flavored padlocks.

Plain and simple. I think...

Another good episode. But good god this plan to stop the forest by Yggdrasil seems pretty half-assed if Ryoma is only trying to "meet the standard". Project Ark. LOL. Give a billion people Sengoku Drivers and let everybody else die? Presuming they're gonna mass produce even more Kurokages, that's a really bad idea. Seriously Ryoma, you're going to mass produce the one Rider type that has been consistently getting their asses kicked by the Invess? At least Mass produce the Genesis driver so the people could survive a full grown Invess, you sociopath.

And Kouta takes Yoko's lockseed like a boss. Nice to see more development on Kouta and the moping he's going through now that he found out about Yuuya. Although I expect next episode to include mild doses of angst.

Kouta is becoming Wataru. I love Wataru, I honestly do, let me say that first off. But it seems like every piece of news Kouta gets it's on his knees and he gives up for an episode. Least Kouta has a good reason to be upset this week. But he has to be the only person in the world who hadn't figured out he killed Yuuma.
Was nice seeing him snake Peach's LockSeed though, I just thought he'd use it against Shin Zangetsu.
And we're 22 episodes in and I still don't see a definitive Big Bad yet. Takatora seemed it at first but now he seems more like a Neutral. He's not evil, but he's not good, he's just trying to save humanity.. in the most batshit way he could think of. But still. Ryouma doesn't seem it either. He's what I think is a Choatic Neutral in this. Sid.. Sid's just an asshole. Maybe Invess Overlord? I dunno.

Perhaps the main villain of this story is not a being, but the collective flaws of all of the characters.

Unlike Wataru though he isn't spending most of the series locked up in a bath tub:lol

This.

The only villain is the one that doesn't follow the same justice system that the other does.

However, this justice is only defined by the Armored Rider that survives. A complex, but simple truth. Whom ever survives. Carves, and records their history. Only the variables will decide the constant.

My post became empty after I posted it? :/

But the point is, you're only perceiving this because of your own ideologies.

There are some things, which are inherently evil - like I dunno, kicking a perfectly healthy loving baby, down the stairs or whatever. There is no argument for how that could be perceived as good. Or at least no argument that functions under the laws of being a human.

Now you're writing off Ryouma as a psycho, fine, but with how much we've got to go on I think we have a lot of evidence to call his plan a necessary evil. You're fixating on the people who are dying, that is a perfectly normal reaction, but you're also assuming he's killing six billion people for shits and gigs like he actually could do more and is just refusing...for some reason. We have a LOT more evidence to prove that ISN'T the case, than we do to say it is.

Gaim is a toku show, granted, but it also seems to be going out of its way to capture the complexity of human emotion and the kind of complex moral, and ethical decisions that real world leaders have to make all the time. Sometimes the best option is sometimes the worst option in other cases, and some decisions are hard and don't make you any friends. With a different focus, Ryouma could have quite easily been the hero of the show. At least with what we have now, he might turn round and become a total nutter but I can't say that until it happens.

Especially as I'm someone who doesn't want to boil down such a complex series to blacks and whites like good and evil. I think if you peg anyone in this show as a wholly good, or wholly evil, then you've completely missed the point. I'm sorry.

"Necessary evils" and "the bigger picture" is standard Urobuchi as well, given how prominent it was by the end of Madoka.

Ryouma certainly has a screw loose somewhere and certain members of Yggdrasil shouldn't be reveling in it as much as they are, but good and evil are far from straightforward in this show.

Good point :lol

Because this is Urobuchi I'm hoping this doesn't end in "Yup, X was behind the whole thing. Lol Kamen Rider..."

Gotta go with Kouta here.


For starters, I'm thinking from the perspective of the average citizen here. If you were told that, out of a population of 7 billion people, only 1/7th of those people would be allowed to survive, you wouldn't think your odds are that good. Secondly, if Project ARK exists to allow the strongest humans alive, who does Yggdrasil consider 'strong'? I mean, even as a member of the audience, I don't know what the standard for that is, and I'd be worried if someone like Kaito had a say in who's strong and who's weak. Yggdrasil can basically choose to kill off whoever doesn't fit their standards and we don't even KNOW what those standards are. No offense, but this desire to create the 'master race' is all too familiar. And can I really trust the side that is so willing to pull the trigger on the vast majority of the world without remorse? I mean, you have Sid the shady, sociopathic lock dealer, Yoko, the one who follows orders and asks no questions and Ryoma, a guy who seems to be utterly lacking in emotion. Can you truly say this trio has exhausted all possible outcomes?

Even if Kouta doesn't quite have a plan yet, I can at least trust a guy like him to find an alternative that doesn't involve mass genocide, solely because of his passion for protecting humanity, a passion that I can't see in any of the four Energy Riders, save for Takatora, who's probably going to be betrayed by the other 3 anyway.

I think Ryoma is being manipulated from behind the scenes. I'm guessing the information about Helheim destroying Zawame City (and the subsequent plans) came from a secretive member of the Yggdrasil board who has a penchant for wearing rain coats and is portrayed by Tatsuhito Okuda.

http://www.shuangxi-in-spring.com/Im...i_emote_sm.png "Onore, Gaimu!"

(I'll show myself out. :D)

That said though, I do find it a bit irritating how often he regresses from "Let's protect the people!" To "I don't wanna fight any more!"

I'm guessing Toei didn't want to introduce two new armors in one episode.

You mean Wataru or Kouta?

Because when as Kouta said he doesn't want to fight anymore? He's been fighting none stop ever since, like, episode four.

Wataru never wanted to protect anybody. Selfish twit. To say Kouta is anything like that wretched little waste of flesh and air is an insult to thought itself. Kouta never stops fighting, he just gets taken aback. He should, if he didn't, he'd seem like an idiot who never ponders what he's exposed to. Wataru cried and gave up like a baby time and again. Whenever something shocking happens to Kouta, he briefly deals with it, but doesn't give up.

Difference is, Kouta's life is dominated by these problems. Everything he does these days is all about the main plot and how it affects him and what he's goign to do. Wataru, and I say "Wataru" the same way a cat ejects a hairball, never mentioned any kind of real problem, and just shut down into his own little world like a lump of wasted matter. He didn't care. He was oblivious to any and all suffering of others, and cried about his own petty problems. A Fangire kills dozens of people, and his problem is "I'm a bad judge of character."

I know you're only joking, but I'm thinking this may well be a possibility with the Overlord Inves. If it is sentient, then it seems like the perfect source of information as to what happened to Helheim, I mean how else did Yggadrasill learn about some other dimension/planet/whatever it is?

I'm also guessing if this is the case, the Overlord Inves must have some kind of personal reason for doing so as well and I guess Ryouma is the perfect person to strike up a deal like this with, as he has the kind of attitude that means he wouldn't notice a knife until it was planted firmly in his back.

As to what the Overlord Inves may have twisted, or kept to himself...who knows, but it's clear that nothing is as it seems.

What if the Overlord invess is Takatora's father?

Or DJ Sagura.

You'd think he'd recognize him if he was, though.

Who? Because if he can take human form, he should be able to keep his true self a secret.

That's a possibility, true.

It is very possible DJ Sagara is who he was before he got turned, which would make it an even more convincing disguise.

No, you don't become a Wataru until your character development is so unstable you don't know if you are supposed to be shy or brave that week.

Also Gaim doesn't have the Bathtub.

There's no need for a central enemy.

Eeyup.

See! :lol

Not necessarily.


The only time he really did that was back when he lost to Zangetsu in the beginning of the series. Micchy tried to convince him not to fight later on, but Kouta didn't really listen to him.