Yeah, those two scenes have to do a lot of heavy lifting to make Tachibana's turn feel not just exciting, but character-driven. The exciting part is fairly easy, you know? Just have him show up and declare whatever bullshit platitude sounds appropriately stirring, Henshin, fight song, heroic victory. That's how a lesser show would handle it, and I don't think most people would care to complain.

But it's the way Tachibana isn't exactly fighting for Hajime, it's that he's fighting because his friends are fighting for Hajime... I love that. I love him seeing the value in actual real people, real connections, not just some figurative People that he's always doing insane things for. I love him thinking outside of himself, considering other viewpoints, finally, at the end. I love how it takes what's pretty much already a slam dunk (it's such a great fight!) and just, like, keeps dunking. Keeps finding little things that were flaws in Tachibana and saying Let's Just Address Those Real Quick. Love it.

It's such a good fight! It's really just tactics, and taking hits until you can hit back. Like, it does more to make Garren look good than any other fight. It's a thing where, if I ever go back and rewatch this series, I'm going to have it in my head that Garren is a bad-ass, not 160 lbs of failure crammed into a rubber suit.

And, honestly, I might love the Leangle/Garren fight more, 'cause he beats Leangle in one move!

I keep thinking about that Tachibana/Hajime scene from the beginning of the episode, with the Sealing Stone. It's so absolutely crucial to Tachibana's arc in this story.

Usually, Tachibana's working off of the same information as everyone else in the story (or less!), and so when he makes his inevitable I'm Doing This For Your Own Good terrible decisions, it's mostly him opting for pessimism instead of optimism, fear instead of hope, suspicion instead of faith.

In this one, he sees the Sealing Stone. He touches it. He's the only one of the human Riders to do that, to see the shape of their destructor. Because it's not the Joker who's going to destroy the world, it's the Sealing Stone who will. It's the vessel for God's judgment. And he's touched it.

For the rest of the cast, What Happens If We Don't Seal Hajime is vague, debatable. Who really knows? Hajime's a good guy, he'll find a way to overcome it. For Tachibana, it's like he touched the atom bomb. He knows exactly what's going to happen, and he can't debate any of it. The apocalypse is at hand.

But he sides with his friends anyway. He has more reason than ever to disregard the trust they've placed in Hajime and make the hard choice, and he's still willing to side with them. It's so much more powerful, him making that decision knowing what only he and Hajime know. Such a smart scene to include.

see and this is why Blade is Lightyears ahead of Faiz/Agito/Hibiki(TBF you'll find out what happened with Hibiki soon enough) with it's characters Tachibana knows he's a screwup and decides he has to save the world anyways the only 2 Rider series I have above Blade are Ex-Aid and Gaim in that order funny thing is tbfh I know it's easy to say Gaim is just Ryuki 2000's edition but I'd say it takes more queues from Blade tbf first half of Gaim is very much Ryuki 2.0 before they COMPLETELY Twist most of the concepts of the henshin hero genere on it's head and then it becomes more like Blade also Kachidoki Arms is BY FAR THE most badass form debut in the franchise like IDK HOW YOU CAN TOP THAT S--T

Thank god that Kamen Rider Series generally don’t announce the title, or you’d have been given this episode’s plot twist early (for the record, the title is “Garren Eliminated”)

Anyway, a lot of lasts from this post. First, we have the last of the show’s memes.

Notably, if one of the Riders*had just used the*Remote Tapir card to unseal*Noboru*Shima in this episode, they would have been free to seal Kanai without causing the Joker to win the Battle Fight and destroy the world. Some fans poked fun at this overlooked solution

And we close the Rouse Card Information Kiosk with a special retrospective for Garren, looking at some of the cards he uses.
Change Stag


The Stag Undead (スタッグアンデッド Sutaggu Andeddo) is the unseen Category Ace Undead*from the Suit of Diamonds. When sealed, the Stag Undead allows the transformation into Kamen Rider Garren.

* Suit: Diamond
* Category: Ace
* Effect name: CHANGE
* Card name: Change Stag (チェンジ・スタッグ Chenji Sutaggu)
* Consumption points: +3


https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/...20200603052321

Bullet Armadillo


The Armadillo Undead (アルマジロアンデッド Arumajiro Andeddo) is an unseen Category 2 Undead from the Suit of Diamonds. When sealed, the Armadillo Undead allows Kamen Rider Garren to enhance the efficiency of long range-weapons.

* Suit: Diamond
* Category: 2
* Ability Name: Bullet
* Card Name: Bullet Armadillo (バレット・アルマジロ Baretto Arumajiro)
* Consumption Points: FP 400

Upper Frog

An Undead who has powerful uppercuts

* Suit: Diamond
* Category: 3
* Ability Name: UPPER
* Card Name: Upper Frog (アッパー・フロッグ Appā Furoggu)
* Consumption Points: FP 600

Drop Whale

An Undead with powerful drop kicks.

* Suit: Diamond
* Category: 5
* Ability Name: DROP
* Card Name: Drop Whale (ドロップ・ホエール Doroppu Hoēru)
* Consumption Points: FP 1000

Fire Fly

An Undead with fire based powers.

* Suit: Diamond
* Category: 6
* Ability Name: FIRE
* Card Name: Fire Fly (ファイアフライ Faia Furai)
* Consumption Points: FP 1000

But, that’s not it for me on this thread. I’ll be back after the final episode to share the three alternate continuations (The short story by Sho Aikawa, the SIC story by Masato Hayase and the novel by Jun’ichi Miyashita).

Throwing my hat in just to agree that Garren's big showdown at the end of this episode is absolutely epic. It beats out even his victory over the Peacock Undead as potential top 10 hypest moments of all time. His fatalistic speech then capped off with throwing himself and the Undead off that cliff, the drama of it all... It's art!

I don't know if we're going to be in agreement about Blade being better than Faiz or Agito (Faiz does a phenomenal job building Takumi over the run of the series; Hikawa is Tachibana if all he thought about was other people instead of himself) but there's a lot of baggage to Tachibana that his final speech both acknowledges and overcomes, and that's one of the reasons it's so great. It feels like every lesson he's disregarded snaps into focus after watching Hajime lie to Amane, every single thing everyone's been trying to tell him gets that Oh Shit RIGHT moment of clarity. It's a super good scene.

Yeah, that would've been a bummer. And thanks for the card info!

If the card won't go to the monster, then Garren will bring the monster to the card. It's a hell of a finish!

(I still love the Hajime/Garren scene more.)

TBF Agito's problem for me is it's story being all OVER the place and not making much sense (though the problem with Faiz I had was I found everyone but Kiba/Crane Orphenoch to be an unlikable asshole and Kiba turning evil pretty much flanderized him for me since it came right tf out of nowhere)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdPJd8DBWrQ

Godspeed, you failure of a man. Godspeed.

Yes, Tachibana. Very, very slowly inch your way towards the defeated Undead instead of just throwing your card at it which has had a 99% success rate in terms of every other Undead faced in the show. That won't seem contrived at all.