Kamen Rider Geats Episode 7- "Chance Meeting VI- Last Boss & Kick The Can!"
 

The final round of the Desire Grand Prix begins- with a simple game to decide the fate of the world.

Definitely an interesting episode! A ton of tidbits were revealed about Ace's backstory, including his motivations and how long he's been playing for.

However, more questions have been raised as well. Not sure if I'm missing something, but shouldn't the world have been destroyed if all the Kamen Riders were defeated in a past DGP? Also, I'm actually kinda surprised they never showed more of the public's reactions to the giant Jyamato, as I don't think their memories have been wiped yet, since they're still in the middle of a round.

Also, the Ninja Raise Buckle is super cool. I know that they need to show off how cool it is, but it does seem far more OP compared to Magnum and Zombie. Perhaps they should have limited some of those special abilities until Keiwa uses it, being compatible and all. Though, I do love how Boost alone wasn't the solution to the problem.

In theory, the world should just stay the same. We don't know what the Jamato really want: destroy the world, conquer it or just have fun and disappear again.

It's definitely suspicious, since the DGP is premised on defeating "world-ending" threats. Love the mystery, but one of my nitpicks is that the characters don't ask the obvious questions. (^.^')

It seems Ace are born in the Ancient Rome Era....

Ace's mother really reminds me of Sophia from Kamen Rider Saber series...

As I understand it, the world is destroyed by parts. That is, after the failure of the riders, the Jamato irrevocably destroy the area of ​​the game, killing all the civilians there and disappearing. And then they appear in another place and everything repeats.

An interesting episode in which no answers are given, but new details emerge. I found it interesting that even though Ace wished to be a "star among stars among stars" it seems that Neon still attracts more attention. Is this related to the limitations of desire he mentioned earlier? If so, then if Michinaga wins, all current riders will disappear, but nothing will stop DGP from recruiting new ones. And if win Keiwa, the current wars will stop, but, again, new ones will break out later.
It also seemed strange to me that in his experience, Ace knew about the secret mission, but at the same time managed to kick the jar directly into the hands of the monster. Just screwed up or testing the game?

By the way, if all the riders died in the failed DGP and the play area was destroyed (I believe, along with the civilians), then how can Ace know about this? One of the previous desires was to know about all the DGPs that have passed? Or he just asking a lot game`s staff?

I really did not like Ace in this episode.
The super cool protagonists always have those episodes where they use another character's naivete to their advantage, but they never do so to the extent where they're a bloody mess on the floor.

Also, Ace seems to be ageless, if his comment on when he started participating as well as his carrying around a Roman coin seem to be true. So there's a lot to unpack considering his history.

I think Kagami and Yusuke will dispute this. Plus, perhaps this is a parallel with Kabuto, where Tendou essentially raised Gattak as a hero. Another thing is that even if it was meant, it is perceived differently. Kabuto went through all obstacles like a knife through butter, while Gits' path to victory is illustrated by a shot from the opening, where he runs away from multi-colored hands. It seems that without such deceptions, Ace, in principle, cannot be defeated. And, given his vast gaming experience, other riders are not that far behind.

Most of the time, Kagami got beaten up because of his own decisions. I don't recall Tendou tricking or goading him into doing something that ended up this badly for him.
Typically, things ended badly for Kagami when he didn't do what Tendou said. Here, Keiwa listens to Ace, and got shat on for it.

It's just that they weren't rivals, but here the rules are different. But in general, I think the characters are too keen on competition and ignore cooperation. That is, tell Ace Keiwa about the secret mission, he would willingly agree to help and no conflict would arise in principle.

It's still why I didn't like Ace this go-round. Other "Ace" riders tend to let others face the consequences of their actions, typically in not listening to them.
Ace goads Keiwa into action solely because he knows of the secret mission and how to beat the monster, and lets Keiwa get utterly destroyed in the process.

I get that they're rivals, and Ace plays to win, but it's also the reason why I didn't like Ace this time. When we just finished an episode that tried to play Mary off as the backstabber, Ace honestly comes off as much worse.

I agree, they really overdid it. The fact is that they slipped us a protagonist for whom profit comes first and he helps others only when he is sure that this will not prevent him from winning. In fact, this only confirms that Ace needs character development, as he doesn't do the right thing with a swaggering face like Tsukasa. It looks like Gits is actually capable of villainy.
I hope that Keiwa will be able to fix he, although so far everything is going to the opposite.
P.S. In general, Ace is very lucky that he is not in Ryuki. Odin just counted on guys like him.

Wow, Ace's youth would make even Amatsu Gai envious! However, living for such a long time and spending most of it fighting a neverending battle against both the Jyamato and the DGP system sounds like a heavy burden for one man to bear alone.

I have a theory about our missing Miss Ukiyo. Maybe she was once a Kamen Rider who succeeded in becoming a God of Desire, but her desire was to erase an event from memory for some reason, including herself as a side effect, a memory that Ace is trying to revive.

The Ninja Raise Buckle makes sense as the solution for defeating the last boss, as the combo of stealth, speed and defense is useful for approaching the can unexpectedly and kicking it. The way of obtaining it might even be a reference to Kamen Rider Shinobi, as Geats acted as a "shadow to protect the weak" by completing the level's secret mission, albeit only by letting the "weak" Tycoon endanger himself first using the same deception from Episode 2.

I think the DGP has the power to abort the end of the world as a last resort if there's no God of Desire to create a new one, but at the cost of the world and lives lost inside the Jyamar Area and leaving the last boss alive to return at a later date.

They have the same fashion sense anyway. Not sure about her character yet though.

Well, people still have free will and personal preferences, so even though Ace became the most famous man on the planet, there can still be people who for their own reasons don't like him, or people such as Sara who simply love Neon more. Kanato especially hates famous rich people like those two due to his prejudice against them.

Michinaga's desire was to gain the power to crush all Kamen Riders, so he probably wants to deal with them personally rather than let the DGP erase them. Even if they recruit new Riders, I imagine he'll just rejoin using his God of Desire privileges to crush those as well.

Keiwa's desire would cause humanity to become stagnant without adversity to spur them in to action, while leaving the Jyamato who aren't part of the world and therefore exempt from world peace to continue their rampages against a world unprepared for any kind of violence. Alternatively, the end of desire and free will, but I doubt the DGP would accept that.

So this episode finally focuses on Ace, more about him unravels here.

So actually the theory of Ace living for very old time is true, he has been fighting since 1 A.D. He seems to be looking after his mother, who told him to forget her and move on, and so this is how Ace thinks that the best solution, along with how the history of a DGP where all Riders are killed by the current final boss Saboten Knight Jamato got erased, is just to forget the tragedy and move on, which he demonstrated on Michinaga when he first met him. Ace seems genuine to try helping with this method, but of course, he's misguided as it's terrible solution as this'd downplay their problems, and toxic positivity is something that runs on this.

This creates even more questions around him, or his mother and DGP, which is good as more hook to the series, like why his mother left him, and what identity her mother held (who resembles Sophia in Saber for some reason), or if his mother was DGP participant and had a wish relating to Ace's immortality or if it's Ace's own wish in his early DGP, or if DGP also started that long and dunno how the world hasn't been fucked up by the wish considering how many despicable person can enter it, or if Ace has won all of them since 1 A.D, which also questions what list of wishes did he have, etc. Same question remains on why DGP is so secretive, like Tsumuri not telling that the can must be kicked outside the arena.

That's the explanation of Ace's nonchalant behavior towards any events around him, he may be successful in practicing that but doesn't mean others can. Otherwise though, as a kitsune, Ace can exhibit some textbook sociopathic qualities (which certifies him as anti-heroic lead), in how he's a smooth talker, which he uses as a superficial charm to bait others, a need for stimulation, and he can be manipulative as well as being apathetic to some degree, of which, the last one, is what his previous limited emotional affect towards events that don't concern him can manifest as, like his lack of concern to Keiwa's heavy injuries. He hasn't showed something as severe as this before, but it's not exactly an unexpected thing for him with his previous behavior. Keiwa calling Ace out for his games is likely the part of his stimulations.

Outside of being used by Ace, Keiwa still has grown more backbone here, as he refuses to give the Boost Buckle to Michinaga who demands it, and even guilt-tripping him to try making him give it up that it'd be his fault to try proving himself and fail, dooming everyone. Unfortunately for him, Michinaga's proven quite right that he'd not be able to win the game here with it, though it's against the final boss who has beaten Buffa up despite that Buffa underestimated him. And at the end he too, finally got mad at Ace for using him, not only to more minor characters like Morio before. Ace's behavior seems to have pissed off even Neon too, who confides to him before with their personal talk.

This episode (and moreso next one for Sakurai family, albeit by Sara being damsel in distress) focuses more on Sara as well, and her dynamic with Keiwa is a bit wacky and teasing but overall loving, and the big sister here feels more equal to the younger sibling compared to the likes of Airi or Akira Kazuraba who feels full-on mom. It's a joke on Keiwa's expense (he can be both lucky and unlucky..) that Sara thinks he's watching porn, but that connects to her big sister vibe to assure him that it's something fine for adult man to do. Continues on the reveal of Keiwa having his peacemaker desire since little as a note for his older self which Sara notes that he's still the same or has ninja fantasies, but is actually rooting for him to achieve that.

Fully expected that Sara would squee at a chance to meet both Ace and Neon at once, celebrities she's a huge fangirl of, though didn't expect for Neon to become a fan back at Sakurai family, albeit it's related to her established character of wanting to experience love which the siblings demonstrated behind the teasing part. This'd also even extend to a main plotline of Ace claiming he understands Keiwa's world peace wish to manipulate him, or likely there's some truth behind it to explore later in him moping against the Sakurai moments, likely longing for that experience, as Ace has mommy issues too, like Neon (more similarities other than them being celebrities). Other than the comedy of John crossdressing to catch Neon though, dunno why Neon still repeats the same stunt of livestreaming her escape after ep. 4 (though she'd be tracked anyway)....

The reveal of the other top-tier Buckle so far, Ninja, which can only be obtained via a rare sidequest, and it seems to be the most versatile Buckle so far, living up to the difficulty of obtaining it, to give you speed and some flight to avoid the Saboten Knight's attacks as well as multiplying yourself and giving you access to all elements. Dunno what's the drawback other than its rarity. Though despite his manipulation and said Buckle, Ace failed here, to kick the can into the boss instead, due to lack of information.

I just really like this show so far. I see some people don't like Ace, but I personally really appreciate that we are getting a protagonist who has some serious negative qualities to him, it can be rare to have that in Rider. I also think it will form a good basis for future character development.

I think a lot of people are just afraid that there won't be any development and the show will just say "love this asshole, he's right", like in the case of Tsukasa.

is the budget for this series far lower than Saber and Revice before it? Everything is recycled props, and everyone using the same black undersuit with difference in helmets only and some armor attachments. Also the CGI is lower in quality overall.

But the story is more captivating, and almost not relying to annoying quirks that permeate Zero-One, Saber, and Revice. Maybe this finally be the series that make me watch till the end.

That's pretty normal for "Rider War"-type series. Rider suits are expensive, and they're introducing a whole bunch right at the start so the costume budget has to stretch. It works in the context of the story.

hum...
O. Kay.
I always thought Ace was very old. The Caesar coin, him mentioning Plato and an old japanese general. i always had the feeling Ace met them himself somehow and he was old enough to know the Roman Empire.

But straight saying he joined DGP on AD1. It's literally the birth year of Jesus and with all the "God" theme of the show + Ace being tied with thorns in the opening, I guess there's a theme.

Not saying Ace is literally Jesus Christ or even "God" himself (I don't expect Toei to go deep into that territory). But still. The choice of year is peculiar and can't be a coincidence.
But Ace being a martyr, suffering for other people in the world to be okay, is probably a thing.

Well, he definitely cannot be Christ, because he can`t joined the DGP at the age of 1 year) But the very fact that this date is mentioned, and not the fourth century of the Yayoi era, shows that the lore of the show is more Western-oriented. Is it necessary to look for the origin of Jamato in the history and myths of Ancient Rome? I guess we'll find out in time.
By the way, if I am not confusing anything, at about the same time, Tassel, together with the future Megido and the first Master of the Logos, found the Wonderful World according to Saber's lore. If there are still global crossovers planned in the franchise, you can show how Ace saves these five (or, more precisely, those who can be called into the project) from Jamato or other monsters in the past.

I say Ace is immortal. He's lived for many years and is searching for something while being tormented by the Grand Prix.

I think the apparent lack of curiosity on the part of the players is just the writers room playing for time until the show's first Big Reveal, which gives viewers time to try to work it out on their own.

At this point, I'll be very surprised if the people running the DGP aren't the people controlling the Jyamato. Why is DGP gamified rather than being a professional world-protecting organization? Why are the Riders' upgrades - and thus, their likelihood of successfully repelling the invaders - left to chance? Why aren't they selecting for players who know how to fight, rather than seemingly-random people off the street? Why are the players given incentive to compete instead of cooperate? Who is the intended audience for the Desire Grand Prix?

Sure, the DGP is apparently kept hidden from humanity, but who says humanity is the target audience?

Naturally, the answer to all these questions could simply come down to "Toei wanted the next Kamen Rider to ape Squid Game," but making the people who run the Desire Grant Prix the overall villains of the series (or at least their amoral enablers) would make for pretty good television. A structure that pivots away from the game toward defeating the Jyamato's overlords would also explain why our three-four core Riders are getting more character development than everyone else, since the series implies the DGP can have only one winner, and we're already to the final round. (I wouldn't be wholly surprised if Buffa gets eliminated; he's just less interesting than everyone else.) I can see maybe one more DGP happening, in which the players finally start asking the right questions, before the series pivots.

I could be entirely wrong, but even the images in the opening sequence suggest that the DGP isn't to be taken at face value.

I wonder whether Ace even has the option to quit playing, or if he's stuck because he's too popular with the audience.

In addition to the most obvious: "DGP organizers are villains" I have another version. In general, everything that the riders were told about the Jamato threat to humanity is true, but the DGP is not a real fight against them, but the preparation and selection of candidates. Hence the game color of everything that happens. Jamatos are artificial and weakened versions of the real ones.

But why then Ace is doing it over and over again?

I have three options for this:
a)He's not good enough to fight real Jamato. What better way to show the power of the show's villains than that the invincible Ace is not even worthy of fighting them?
b)He is actually an instructor training future fighters. Therefore, he simultaneously gives useful advice and punishes for excessive credulity.
c)He is indeed the best of the best, but he does not have the necessary moral qualities. Isn't it strange that all the bad guys in the show lost their rider qualifications while only the good guys died saving others (I'm not sure about Michinaga's friend, but he had that vibe too)? What if they did not die, but went to a real war with Jamato? And they chose them, because we need not the best fighters, but those who are ready to sacrifice themselves for the greater good. Let's say, because they will either die for sure, or simply will not be able to return, forever stuck in the world of Jamato.
In this case, Ace is not so bad that he loses his qualification, but he clearly cannot go any further because of his selfishness. Perhaps he is deliberately left in the game so that by his negative example he helps to identify people with good intentions, but weak will. Whoever remains true to the principles despite losing on points and heroically "dies" defending others - gets into a real war; who will try to take an example from him - it remains to play.
Again, in favor of this story is that the game rewards useful items for rescuing civilians and other players, and not for killing Jamato. According to this logic, the most likely contender will go to "real war with Jamato" - Keiwa, but he needs to bring his principles through actions, not just words.
But, if anything, I'm still more inclined towards the more obvious: "DGP villains." Still, the opening hints that the game and desires will be at the center of the plot, which contradicts this theory. Although, I remember, Blade and Hibiki had two openings...

No hard feelings of how the series handle it so far, and it's expected of kitsune-tanuki rivalry.

But it seems that, in general cool and capable characters are often given negative qualities, while the relatively more incompetent characters (naive, weak, etc.) are more often being made as the all-good one. This can portray as if only worse people can get the job done, while the goody ones can only rely on people around them, hopefully competent ones, softening up for their sake, or if not, constantly endure until that happens, which is honestly unreliable as hell. That also can be overdone to the point that some can conclude this in something like 'someone good can't be all powerful, someone powerful can't be all good' when it's not true/set in stone, just writing choices.

Then again, those asshole traits can be their main appeal of which development risks taking it away. Hypercompetent assholes can make for an ideal power fantasy that can make those seemingly critically acclaimed. And hypercompetent characters who aren't assholes has bigger chance to be bashed as "gary stus".

It depends if they'd keep him practically similar throughout the series looking from his predecessors, but a reminder that character development isn't only applicable to characters with serious negative qualities, albeit writing that is easier.

They made Agito with Overlord of Darkness.

Though otherwise, medias can and has employed 'messiah archetype' characters, when their role and story can use some of Christ references. There can be even a darker versions of that too and Ace likely gotta be that type considering what he did in this episode.

Well, we have an example of an invincible benevolent protagonist in Hibiki. Did the audience call him "gary stus"?

Hibiki is in a curious position. He's a teacher to Asumu, so he was portrayed as the person who can guide him down the right path. It makes sense they wanted to write him as competent and wise. He was old enough to have made his mistakes and learn from them before we met him.

The Last Boss is... A Cactuar!

I really enjoy the Chadguards, but the scene with Keiwa and his sister meeting Ace and Neon was cute. But as usual, Ace uses Keiwa to get ahead, and seems to be from Roman Times or something. He knows a lot about the Desire Grand Prix, so it's no question he witnessed that event he mentioned.

I guess Keiwa wanting to be a Ninja (DonBrothers Flashbacks) is why the Ninja Buckle will fit him, when he gets it that is.

Next Episode: Will Keiwa become the Hero of Justice he was meant to be? Or will Geats steal the win once more?

I think in two thousand years Ace also had enough time to learn from his mistakes ;)

Considering the only way for Ace to get people to like him is to use a reality warping game to force the world to like him, I don't think so :lol

Shounen isn't invincible though. Unless you mean Hibiki himself, who is neither a protagonist (same goes for Yuki Joji) nor invincible, he barely survived the first Bakegani encounter. He's not supernaturally gifted or lucky like Mary Sues either, by his own admission, he's just a man who trains a lot, which is arguably more bad*ss than being a Mary Sue.

That explains how it managed a party wipe. The Riders never saw the 1000 Needles coming until it was too late!

Yes, but the same can be said about Geats. He is clearly not at the level of Kabuto (who in his place would most likely only use a water buckle to show how cool he is) and is better than others only because he is more experienced. And, judging by his words, much more experienced. Well, Geats still has less screen time than Hibiki in his first 7 episodes, so he is also a very conditional protagonist. I just want to say that Geats' negative character traits don't make him more realistic, they're just there to create the conflict and atmosphere of the show.Because with a more benevolent top player, the competition quickly faded away and the winner would take turns granting their friends' wishes at the end of each DGP. By the way, it's true! You can just wish that the wishes of everyone else come true. True, at the current stage, because of Michinaga, this is tantamount to suicide, but why not try in the future?

So far, Geats seems like an invincible protagonist due to not having taken any damage yet, but his benevolence is dubious. He's kind enough to donate a large sum of money for Taira's son's operation and save Na-Go from becoming zombie's lunch. But he's confirmed that he's not fighting for peace, love or destruction, so we're left to wonder what is he fighting for, since his written desires are merely steps towards a secret true desire presumably involving his mother. That desire will determine where his morality lies.

Here's some fan art I came across:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ffdvp8EU...jpg&name=small
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fab_STEU...jpg&name=small
I wonder if the artists are in a hurry to draw conclusions about Tsumuri. That is, Poppy and Izu were originally declared as assistants to the main riders, while she was just one of the employees of the DGP. And given how little we know about them, it could very well turn into a vicious kaijin in the future. And in terms of style of clothes, Tsumuri is closest to Medic.

This is the reason why a ruthless method that seemingly produces good result shouldn't be immediately justified due to the outcome alone or having cynical view of 'this is how the world works, it's unforgiving'. Though the problem here is about letting Keiwa become a bloody mess (unlike ep. 2), and dunno how much of a requirement would fulfill 'saving Rider' in this kick the can mission...

Yeah right, Hibiki's also invincible, but is benevolent (the actual protagonist here would be Asumu). Though for this one, it's not the matter of them viewing Hibiki as a "gary stu", but... if they would even consider Hibiki on the same level of badassery as Tendou or Tsukasa. Not to mention Hibiki seems to be one of the least-well known series... in general there are much less discussion about Heisei Phase 1 tbh in KR fandom than newer ones...

This should be more acknowledged as an indicator that naivety, incompetence, or pushover aren't inherent by-product of kindness. It's just the writing choice to portray those as that (Keiwa fits tanuki motif so..). Then again as said above, Hibiki is less well-known (CMIIW)...

He already is. Accomplishing things more would make him a more ideal hero. But, why wouldn't he be one if he didn't win or just less competent than other more morally questionable characters? He already focuses on saving civilians at games, trying to take care of the Riders' well-being, insisting DGP to be used as world protectors, being heroic isn't only about beating up bad guys or being big in accomplishment, and yeah, someone who can't fight at all can be a hero if they consistently perform good deeds still.

Enough time, but seems that he never has any incentive to do so. He's hypercompetent and is able to get anything he wants.... except flirting women so far (what he loses hard to Tendou). And of course, Tendou and Tsukasa (except photograph) has no incentive to change much throughout the main series either, other than Tendou changing his stance against Hiyori to not make her live a glided cage, as he genuinely has soft spot for her.

The talk before was about how typically it seems that more capable characters are more often given more negative traits, with the benevolent role being more often given to the more incompetent characters (naive is the 'incompetent' part). The pattern just makes it quite expected that Ace and Keiwa would follow said 2 scenarios respectively like usual. By that speaking of Hibiki it's quite surprising to me that Asumu performs better than Kyosuke on Hibiki's training.

Otherwise there are much more than desire/motive to determine where someone's morality lies, like... pretty much the list here. By this point, it seems that Ace is shown to be ruthless, this manipulation is more severe than ep. 2 one to leave someone a bloody mess without much concern of it. Even if his true desire is noble, he'd still have his ruthlessness to make him anti-heroic (his donation and saving Na-Go are the hero parts).

In ep. 3, Ace brought up about the unification of Japan being done via a bloody war, but seems that it's not just a talk (also his Julius Caesar coin), Ace seems to be also the Oda Nobunaga type character himself too, implementing cutthroat warlord qualities on someone that's still overall good guy. Seems similar kind of foreshadowing as Morio bringing up money before being revealed as illegal casino worker who embezzled money.