Kamen Rider Gaim Episode 18: "Farewell, Beat Riders" Discussion
 

For any users who'd like to view this episode via live stream feel free to head over to Taima TV. They play other random programs up until the live broadcast starts.

Looking forward to seeing Duke and Knuckle's debut.

This show keeps topping itself week after week, let's see if the streak continues.

Someone really needs to tell Mai that the show isn't about street dancers anymore. I don't think she's watched past episode 10 yet.

The dancing is still a major aspect of Mai's character. She won't drop it so fast.

But at the same time it's something that literally nobody else cares about anymore - both in the show and the audience. She really needs to get her head out of her ass and rejoin the show's real plot.

Or in my case, never cared about Mai to begin with.

You do know we are talking about characterization here? Mai expresses herself by dancing and this is how she gets over her problems. Even if everyone else stops it, she won't. Because it's the most important thing in her life.

And part of characterization is character development. And Mai needs to develop out of the dead-end street dancing plot. Hopefully this will be the episode where she realizes that it doesn't matter how big of a show she puts on in the barn, beat riding is dead. I don't dislike the character, but she needs to start realizing that this isn't the first ten episodes anymore and there isn't going to be any more stage battles and public dance shows. Because so far all of her scenes in the last few episodes have been about trying to return the show to the same plot it had at the beginning and last week's episode was stronger for not having a "guys we need to save beat riding!" digression.

But development won't come with a snap, like: "Rider battles? Oh well, I guess no more dancing."
Remember that Mai doesn't even know the fate of Hase and Yuya, she knows nothing about the Energy Riders or what Kouta and Kaito heard from Sengoku. She has no idea about what Micchi does either.
For Mai, it's just the old setting getting disturbed by Helheim- but she doesn't know any details. Of course she'd want to continue as before. She still hopes everything will return to normal, because she doesn't know it's too late. And even if she learns about all this, it will take her a while to fully understand what's going on.

Exactly. Mai needs to be informed. I find everything about her so immature and old hat, and somebody just needs to tell her "it was all made up, stop trying to pretend we can go back to normal."

It's tiring, the way she's been left out of the loop. Bring her up to speed and get her to knock off the dancing shit.

MISTER KNUCKLES!!! Love it >_<

The way he henshins into Knuckles is only one word....slick.

I think we may have just had our first filler episode of Gaim. I don't know how much plot development could have been squeezed in based on what I saw. Still, it looked interesting and Bravo was entertaining as always. I really hope they release a Knuckles Figuarts, because he's all kinds of awesome. Also, were there a couple of new Beat Rider teams squeezed in there or have we seen all those before?

Edit: Truthfully, I was mostly hoping we were seeing the end of the dancing thing, but I guess not.

Everyone dancing together made me ridiculously happy. And omg, the Oren Pierre/Jonouchi-comedy was just amazing xD

Another good Episode. Liked last weeks episode alot more though to be honest. I have to wait for a better version (again laggy as fuck) to judge it properly.

FINALLY we get the dancing brought back in focus like the plot promised! :D
I don't care if I'm the only one who loves the dancing, I just watched all of Riverdance last night after one of the Olympic male figure skaters used a song from the ending dance number so to go from that to enjoying getting to see glimpses of all the different dance teams styles and reassurance that the Dancing aspect isn't going to just fall to the wayside has me pumped!

Though I'm going to have to wait for subs to comment on anything else or even rate it.

Great sub ending to the beat rider story. Im glad both michi and mia got there wish. Even Ornac got into the dance. Bravo was realy on deaths door back there. I dont think hell last much longer. Next week looks to realy feed the fire (tokkuger pun inteneded) for the remainder of the show. Its kinda "now that we are done with the dancing thing we can get down to business". Espcialy if jimba gaim keeps up being awsome this next fight between gaim and zengesu could be a real Gaim changer (nossan joke intended).

Also wanted to add, even without the subs it's clear that their are still characters other than Mai who care about dancing. The rest of team Gaim obviously care, and it was Peco's desire to dance that actually got him to tell Kaito that he wanted to go against his decision which from what we've seen so far is unusual for him. Even the other teams who did not appear at first were watching the stream intently and eventually came on their own will. Just because a lot of people here don't care about the dancing at all doesn't mean that the characters don't. And as long as Dancing is important to the characters(and as long as Urobotchi wants to focus on it) it is going to stay.

I fail to see how the characters caring about the dancing in any way is supposed to affect my opinion of it. Some people love the dancing, I don't. I respect other people's positions, but I'm not sure why we're getting lectured for having a different point of view.

You're not alone ;) I also enjoy the dancing, especially the dancing in this episode <3

I don't mean to say you have to like it, I'm sorry if the way I phrased it sounded like that.

I guess I'm tired of all the flack Mai is getting for still caring about the dancing and claims like Switchblades that the Dancing is obviously irrelevant now because no audience or character cares about the dancing any more when it is clear that characters do still care and it won't just disappear from the plot.

Each person is obviously free to have there own onions just don't claim that your opions dictate the opinions of the characters(or other audience members). Again I wanted to apologize if I sounded like I was trying to lecture on how people should feel about the dancing, that is the absolute opposite of what I was trying to say ^^;

https://31.media.tumblr.com/0656aa5c...9h2o2_1280.png

Pic of Knuckle and one of my favorite parts in the episode-
https://24.media.tumblr.com/ab581354...2o1_r1_500.gif

Good that Jonouchi still seems to care at least a tiny bit.

Makes me think this is going on in his head-

"I AM A POWERFUL WARRIOR!..."
*Pose*
"OF DANCE!*

:lol

Two things :
You can't stop dance
Bravo Butt Bomb

Jonouchi and Oren :lol Now those two are the comedic odd couple of the series. Love them!

And as for Knuckle cracking skulls that rocked!

I am amazed that Bravo can be both pure slapstic, and still be credible muscle. He's not easily beaten, and as he is quick to remind, nobody has beaten him fairly. Gaim always needs some form of assistance.

I really hope Knuckles sticks around longer then Kurokage did.Pure fact,he's a much better fighter then him and Gridon,so I can see him sticking around for the most part.

Bravo is just hilarious,but he's turning into a joke now.They need to give him that badass moment he needs to get back into that funny/serious balance he had before.

The one thing Team Baron does better then anyone else is henshin poses.Period.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtP6eH0skKU

Knuckle has overthrown bravo as my favorite!
(Why is the video so damn big?) -_-''

To those who speak Japanese, what did Kaito say to Zach when he gave him the belt?

One of my other reasons I like Team Baron,most of their people are competent fighters.Also to cosplayers out there,finally a renewed usage of Hulk Hands!

I haven't seen the episode yet, but I'm going to assume it was some variation of "Try to be less useless than Hase and Junouchi."

He basically said "I'm leaving Team Baron, it's in your hands now". He later explains in the episode that he wants to get stronger to fight Yggdrasil and that dancing doesn't matter to him.

EDIT: Actually, after Suzu's post, it does sound more like "gift" than "leave". I'm not very proficient, so you should probably listen to her instead.

I have no guarantee that this is 100% correct, but from what I got, he said: "This is my farewell gift. Team Baron is now your business."

Waiting on the subs. I can't stand watching the raw. Hell, I'm lost as far as what the hell is going on in Battride War without subs and I've seen several of the shows that I assume the awakening missions borrow their "plots" from.

Well that episode title was misleading. Aside from that and wanting more of Duke then just a tease this was enjoyable. Knuckle is pretty cool and I was a bit surprised at first to see Kaito leave the team but it works with his character and the revelation that dancing was only important to him as a display of strength. I wonder what's going to happen with Jonouchi, will he be leaving Baron's side or come crawling back only to be punished?

I don't think the title is misleading, it pretty much is what Kaito is saying to Team Baron, as he passed on the leadership role to Zack

I see it now, but the preview/title did make it seem like there was a different context.

AesirSubs has HD subs up!

I was hoping it would mean this dance off was a total failure and every body finally quit. Oh well. Guess we still have some dancing for a while, though Kouta & Kaitou aren't doing it anymore. So at least the arguably 2 most important riders aren't wasting their time :lol