After seeing Madoka for the first time a couple of weeks ago,this was the episode I was dreading/anticipating.

Seeing Hase taking a bite of the fruit almost made me do a slow motion "noooooooooo".To break up the Kurokage/Guridon team was sad enough,but this took it one step further.I sadly don't see a way for Hase to come out of this okay without feeling like a copout.Urobuchi is definitely living up to his nickname.

This show is focusing on something I feel has been missing from Rider shows for a while and it's the reaction of the ordinary folk to everything that's happening.Seeing the Zawamites being angry and violent towards everyone involved with the Invess Game really makes me take what's happening seriously.It's logical that they would put the blame on the Armored Riders since they started showing up around the same time the bigger Invess started attacking people.Seeing the victims of the attacks still suffering after the fact really builds up the drama and if people start dying or becoming Invess from it,this could bring the danger level of Rider monsters back up to how it was in the early Heisei days.We haven't seen any body counts from MOTW's since W,maybe.Not that I haven't been enjoying Kamen Rider the last couple of years,but Gaim is really raising the bar for Rider shows.

Oh my damn. That was a great episode, we got Gaim Banana, Shin Zangetsu bein a badass, more Durian, oh and Hasse! :lol

ok THAT was cool...I liked how the Mango and Banana basically were double ranged styles that countered the close combat of Bravo...plus showed off the arms gimmick. Was like that one time in Ryuki when he used Zolda's cards...

This is taking a nice dark road, I've said KR has needed this. The fruits and themes, they are just window dressing. I haven't been this drawn into a series since W to be honest.

Kouta's sis is smoking HAWT.

Trivia time! Rika Izumi, the woman who portrays Akira Kazuraba, also portrayed Ami Mizuno/Sailor Mercury in Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon

Thanks!! Googled her and...DAT PRETTY FACE.

And that's a bad thing ? I think it fit pretty well in this story, because it's coherent. It's less annoying than some of Inoue worst works that set characters with illogical behaviour and reactions.
It's a classic trope after all, Madoka was not the first fiction to use this trick and Gaim won't be the last. Psychopass (excellent anime by the way) from Urobuchi also use a form of this contagion/transformation theme, but not as a twist, rather as a fatality.

If you read the gaim threads regularly it was unevitable to not see it coming since weeks ago people already speculate about the Hellheim fruits.

That was awesome. Shin Zangetsu was badass. It was good to see Gaim and Baron get over on Bravo, which I hope leads to him joining the energy riders. It would have been a good slight to have Hase join Zangetsu, but he did what most of us suspected. Now we just need the other shoe to drop and Kouta realizes that he has probably been killing humans when destroys the Invess.

Wow, shit's getting real. I did not expect Gaim to have a person, let alone Hase, turn into an Invess on screen. I also like the darker tone of these past 2 episodes, from the Invess disease, Micchy wanting to give up on the driver, to Hase's lust for power, this is a welcome change. I have a feeling next episode won't be the last we see of Hase.

Man this show really doesn't waste a single second does it? So so good.

Between Bravo "playing the hero", Banana Gaim, Shin Zangetsu and DAT ending, I was glued to the screen from beginning to end.

What I'm very interested in seeing though is what the next role DJ Sagara has to play in this will be.