Just hope the writers don't give M/Emu an easy out.

Maximum Gamer has level 99 reprogramming skills. We just need to wait for Emu to realize that.

So first off the episode was great. The more I think about how this was tackled and that they allowed it to happen in the first part made me realize once more how great this show really is.

Now that we talked about this, let's focus on the important stuff:

Kamen Rider Poppy. I should hate her. I hate idol girls. I hate cutesy stuff. Like hearts, rainbows and sparkles and shit. But I can't hate her, she's too awesome. It really helps that we saw this character through so many situations and that we always had the puzzle pieces since we knew she was a Bugster for quite some time but they never really told us how she came to work for the CR and why. I mean they haven't done it now either but we can put some pieces together and I'm pretty sure once the show works on getting her back to the good side we'll see some flashbacks.

And the actress continues to do a fantastic job. Her voice is amazing. The way she can alter it really helps with the delivery, the way she says "Henshin" in this episode for example, so good. Her suit isn't the best, her fighting style (while different) isn't all that exciting, but dang I'm still very glad that she's here.

So yeah, bring on the merch, Kiwami needs a Kamen Rider Poppy Figuart now.

I swear, if Taiga really is the next to kick the bucket I am legitimately afraid of my ability to guess the order of deaths in this show, haha.

That was a good episode though. I liked Kamen Rider Poppy, the antagonist clearly have thought through their plan (I am super intrigued to see how they plan to recover from the bad publicity of their game murdering people goes), and I liked that we got some nice moments for all the main Riders. Good stuff!

Agreed. As silly as Poppy is as a character she's still, well, a character which makes her infinitely more tolerable and even likable than some other comedy relief we've had in the Neo-Heisei era.

Something about Kamen Rider Poppy though really reminds of something you'd see in Super Smash Bros., too, and I can't point my finger on it. Maybe it's just the idea of this very colorful, very eccentric and very unique fighter that's just coming in and wrecking shit.

Ditto on the Figuart too, this might be the first Rider series where I'd try to go all-in.

So Ren really is a complete Bugster, seeing that he seems to be using the Bugvisor I to transform in the previews. Meaning he definitely has some Dating Sim powers that allowed him to capture Poppy. Although how exactly Parad or Ren reset her memory is still a little iffy, unless there actually was a program in KR Chronicle specifically for resetting her memories when she entered it.

Speaking of Poppy, it turns out this entire time, she was yet another one of Dan's backup plans in the form of a spy that could unknowingly (or at least I hope unknowingly) gather data on the CR for him.

That's... Actually another completely perfect explanation, right up alongside the Dan is Genm reveal.

After what happened on the Zero Day, why would the CR let a Bugster just hang out at their main headquarters?
- She was a spy donated to them by their "trustworthy" friend Dan to help fight Bugsters.

Why did Asuna/Poppy seek out Emu to become a rider for the CR?
- Dan wanted Emu to be a rider, so he could get his full revenge on Emu.

How did Genm know the location where Kiriya asked the other riders to meet with him before Genm killed him?
- He could've just logged into Poppy's databanks and found out about it.

One issue with that. It contradicts Dan screeching about not being able to get a Doremifa Bugster. If this was intentional, he'd remember Poppy is the Doremifa Bugster and thus no new ones could come out

Hmm... see, now I'm wondering whether that is a contradiction or if we're going to get some explanation on that.

To be fair, he was kind of having a nervous breakdown at the time.

I don't buy that, Sure, it was bad enough for him to outright go insane when fighting but logically he would have done it right after corrupting Emu's Driver when he finally obtained Genm X

Dan was always crazy, just a question of how functionally so he was at any moment.

Sometimes a character just does something stupid. You know, like all the bonehead things any person does in a given day.