My subs said "Cerberus". Sorry!

Nope, it's Elevennouji.

I don't think it's one or the other? I think it's probably that because Hajime was critically injured, he put himself to sleep.

Kenzaki's a very sweet boy!

There are no time limit in the battle royale, and.... if Kanai a.k.a Giraffa Undead still vows to win the battle royale like the old times.... then the present day battle royale isn't fully fake, it's just without the Sealing Stone and it's replaced with sealing cards. And the participant difference is that there's a human with god complex that wants to take advantage of the win and restarted the battle royale.

Eats? We've already seen that, when Tachibana visits Kotaro's house. Like the scene where Kotaro cooks (and being praised).

Tachibana getting to know what's behind the Undead battle royale, sealing stone being the artifact that cleans up Undead after defeat, and probably not fully from the cast in Kotaro's house (narrated by Human Undead), the stakes of the battle royale is huge, the winner being able to literally change the world. Well exposition (no matter how neat the tone is) is necessary here, it gets Tachibana to act! Kenzaki not being integral to Mutsuki's story, it's Kenzaki's choice, when they interact, Kenzaki only wanted to snatch away Mutsuki's Leangle belt. But obviously buddy-buddy, he praises Mutsuki for "overcoming" his dark influence and handed him King's Sword. That's obviously Kenzaki putting away his judgment to him.

Yeah, it is when you use a strategy to gain upper hand (Tachibana rarely uses the Jack Form upgrade!). Time for Tachibana to implement his expertise as a scientist in battle. Kanai seems to have a weak point that even a base Rider can get through, beneath his shield. The strategy is smart, but it's still dependent on what enemies faced against. If Kanai has no vital weak point then.... Now Tachibana inherit more things from Kenzaki to stand by Hajime's side.

I don't think it's a better plan than Mutsuki's before (eh, what about my explanation to it being too empathetic to you?). Unsealing Shima is more simple, and nothing would be lost. But unsealing Human Undead will practically cease Hajime's existence, which is a loss, especally that takes a toll to Kenzaki. By that you can still seal Kanai, and let Joker be, and the consequences of Joker winning the fight won't occur.

Hmm, this scene shows that, no matter how awful or terrible someone is, there would be someone who cares about them, even if only 1. This goes for both Hajime and Amane. Probably this is why ideal heroes take the no kill approach like Kenzaki (and most of the lead Riders, y'know) before, like to... Tennoji, what they want is to stop/neutralize the threat, but doesn't necessarily mean killing. Even if that person deserves killing, what'd happen to those that stick to them? That he's the first to be so adamant of sticking up to Hajime, trying to redeem him and resist Joker's influence, something that even Kotaro (except at the first), a part of family doesn't get it.

Oof... fair enough. Pin this first regarding the true original name.

To me, it's less important that Tachibana's getting information, but how he's getting the information. If he'd had it recounted by Hirose or something, I might not buy his later actions. But being in the room with the divine vessel of God's will, I think that alters the scope of the consequences for Tachibana. It's definitely giving things a lot more urgency than I think the rest of the cast feels.

It's so sparsely used. I wonder if Tachibana feels guilty about using it, normally? He got that card from Hajime. I wonder if him using Jack Form now is, like, him accepting Hajime's help for the first time. Food for thought!

I think Tachibana sees any outcome where the Joker survives as being too dangerous. His strategy of unsealing the Human Undead and sealing the Joker also ends Battle Fight, which has to be seen as a greater good (by Tachibana!) than just letting it go on indefinitely and hoping nothing else bad happens.

Killing somebody is a permanent solution to what could be a temporary problem. Better to believe in rehabilitation, no matter how unlikely, than to assume that people can't change.

Also, man, Amane isn't that bad! She has a whole bunch of people in the cast that care about her! She's just a little bit of a brat!

One more thing (unless I get bored) I'm genuinely surprised we didn't get into a debate about whether the secondary rider is Garren or Chalice. Tbf TOEI confirmed it's Garren but I and many others thought for the longest time it was Chalice(TBF the first half probably intended it to be Garren but the guy who wrote the second half wanted to put more emphasis on Hajime) Hibiki does NOT have this debate and makes it clear who it's secondary rider is supposed to be, in fact really other than maybe Ex-Aid I can't really think of any other Rider series that has multiple riders where it's not clear who the secondary rider is and even then Hirro's plot gets more emphasis than Taiga's does as does how different Hirro and Emu are

The secondary rider is Leangle because he’s the Q2 belt

If people restart the "debate" I'm going to buy a Garren Rouzer and shoot myself with it.

It did come up pre-Leangle, if I remember right. There was... not a lot of enthusiasm to seriously challenge Garren as the secondary Rider. There were a few jokes, though. I think I'd declared Blade to be the secondary Rider of Chalice, something I meant humorously but now could probably argue in favor of.

I really wonder if this show would've been viable with the exact same cast and setup, but just shifting the focus more fully to Hajime. Would it've just felt too much like Faiz?

I think it’s very funny that Blade is the only season that has any real debate over who the secondary rider is because it just continues the streak of Tachibana being the most pathetic man on the planet. Dude can’t even get people to trust that he’s the secondary hero!

Jokes aside, “Chalice is the secondary” is very much “Tajador is the final form”. In a pure literal sense of marketing and Toei’s definitions and a bunch of other media mentions and cameos, yes, obviously Garren and Putotyra wear these roles. But spiritually, emotionally; in terms of what strikes a chord with people especially in the context of the final episode, what it means to the characters, and how we think of these terms beyond just the hard boxes we place things in? Tajador is Eiji’s greatest power of his own that represents everything good about him and the relationships he’s forged over the course of the series, and Hajime is the second main protagonist of Blade whom the story is about.

90% of Tachibana's heroism is him just showing up to things even though he has no idea what he's doing and he's often a distraction that keeps other, more talented people from succeeding, and I find that intensely relatable. Maybe he's the Primary Rider?

I think I'll always have a tough time slotting Chalice in as the secondary Rider, because I don't think his story is subservient to Kenzaki's in any way. If anything, his arc is the dominant one for the show! I view Chalice as existing outside the Blade/Garren/Leangle structure (which has an indisputable hierarchy), and more of a parallel Primary. That's maybe splitting hairs, though!

(not me fanning the flames) Yeah, all that is exactly why Chalice is undoubtedly the big Number 2 of this show.

Anyhow, the blasted hard term of 'secondary rider' didn't even exist until a certain someone named Kamen Rider Diend came along and then made everyone retroactively put so much more stock into it. It gets even worse and stupider when each person doesn't even realise that they define secondary completely different from each other (whether it's second most important character, secondary to the 'main' story, or literally second to show appear), somehow not realising that's not consistent even in Toei's own 'official' designations.