Kamen Rider Geats Episode 14- "Conspiracy V- Glare Of Anger!" Discussion
 

The Riders must fight to reclaim their Desire Drivers, or else be kicked out of the Desire Grand Prix.

Tons of big reveals today:

So in an epic twist, it turns out Ace gave Keiwa his driver back because he knew Michinaga would swipe Ace's original driver. Thus Ace and Win would be stuck in a similar situation, and Ace could try to get close to Win to get more information out of him.

Neon learns that her body guards were Riders in the DGP as well: A White Tiger and a Black Cat/Puma(?). And it's confirmed the DGP have multiple sponsors, including Neon's Dad and an elderly man who originally hired Win.

Keiwa discovered that the Jamato Riders are actually former riders when the one he was fighting repeated Ginpen's words.

And so, as the mystery surrounding the Games division of the DGP collapses around him, Girori decides the gloves are off (literally) and reveals himself as the Game Master and Kamen Rider Glare. He uses Glare's ability to "hack" other riders to mind control/body control Win and have him fight Ace long enough for Keiwa to take out the new Rook-class Jamato, ending the round while Ace still hasn't gotten his Core ID back into a Driver yet. Meaning Ace loses this round and is retired.

Next week a large scale Jamato attacks, and with Ace out of the picture and Keiwa without the Command Twin Buckle for some reason. How will the Riders survive this round?

I think its a white tiger & a "black panther".

And don't forget the Ace reveals his true reasons for competing & winning the DGP, is to be reunited with his mother and find out the truth why she left him those thousands of years ago.

Adding to Pineapple924's post the old man is Win's grandfather and a sponsor of the DGP. And I hope the two bodyguards get their moment to shine later knowing what we know about them now.

Oh hey, a black guy is a Rider. Sweet. Hopefully he'll get to do something cool.

Anyway, Gamemaster is kind of a dumbass. So he tells Win that he'll restore him should he be defeated, then he places PunkJack in a situation where he'll be erased, then double crosses him and tells him the only way he won't get erased and have his memory wiped is if he becomes the god of desire, meaning he has to win the DGP.
And then he's surprised that the person he's double crossing opts to not follow him anymore? When Gamemaster stated once again that PunkJack's mission was to eliminate Ace, I was expecting him to retort that he can't eliminate Ace if Gamemaster was about to let him die.

Additionally, we already know about mystery man who sent the Twin Buckles down, so there's clearly someone either higher or at least on equal standing to the Gamemaster, so this stunt he's pulling is probably gonna ruffle a few feathers.

Glare is neat, not a fan of the cards, but I guess it makes sense that his belt isn't just your average Desire Driver. I do like it having a fingerprint scanner, though.

Also, the timeline is a little odd. The DGP's games tend to last little longer than a few weeks, if even that long. If Ace has been winning since 1 AD, then what the hell were his wishes? We know he wanted to participate in the games forever, that he was the star among stars among stars, and that the DGP staff was his family, all in an attempt to learn more of his mother, but that still leaves an innumerable amount of wishes he's achieved.

First of all, we only know for certain that Geats won like 5-6 games, since that are the cards we actually saw.

Second, it is not at all confirmed Geats is actually 2000 years old, since the only information on that we have gotten is from Ace and we all know how unreliable he can be.

People really shouldn't just assume those theories are 100% canon, or they may be surprised in the long run.

Wow, what an episode! So many new discoveries. I also hope that the Neon guards will still be given the opportunity to turn again, since they are still spinning in the background. Also, not so often comes across an episode where the main character does not stop at all. The disclosure of the connection between Jamato and the dead riders was foreseen by all and sundry, but the removal of Ace was very unexpected. It is expected that he will return in the next episode, but if he is reinstated and wins again, it will already be cheating. Although it is clear that he can be returned to the game, because Girori broke the rules. Tacoon's fight in team uniform was cool, but Glare looks like something that could have appeared in a Ryuki remake.
Of the minuses, I note that if it were not for the stupidity of Girori, he would calmly get rid of Ace, without exceeding his authority. It is not necessary to fulfill the promise made to PunkJack, but even with frankness it would be possible to wait at least until the end of the round.
And just a guess: given that all the riders associated with the Kurama family have a cat theme, does this mean that Shiro and Dapan are also related to PunkJack's grandfather's company? Maybe they are some kind of cousins ​​of Ween or children of co-founders of the firm?

And another crazy theory: if Ace's mother was a previous DGP navigator, is it possible that he wasted his previous wish? So Girori is actually his father and Tsumuri is his sister.

The invincible turns out to be not so invincible after all. And I guess this episode also answers some of the stupidity complaints before, outside of a bunch of reveals.

I'd say that, Ace being eliminated here is quite expected for me at this point due to how being eliminated is only being sent back to normal life and they can regain DGP memories via ID Core, and also due to already seeing the secondary Rider eliminated at ep. 7 before, though it was the most unexpected Geats decision for me at that time. The ep. 15 preview even still focused on Ace. Just ironic that one of the more actually invincible main Rider is the one who didn't get plot armor and lose here. Otherwise, Ace still got a clever plan to deal with his situation, as Neon anticipated, almost always one step ahead. There are those which complained Ace being stupid to neglect his Driver, but actually it's answered here that it's on purpose to lower Girori's guard and get Ace and Win stuck in similar situation.

Overall yeah, Win is Michinaga 2.0, both are Ace's rivals who can never measure up to him, but Win is more on the trickery side rather than Michinaga's fighting or gaming. Every single of Win's schemes got foiled, from the toilet excuse which had Ace dominating Jamatos to here where he purposely manipulates the events that got him the info he needed. Win obviously only gives information to Ace after Girori backstabbed him, so I guess Ace also made a right guess about Win having a hard time serving under the GM, and thus Ace also expected the GM to think Ace is eliminated, and then backstab Win, leaving Win more open to help Ace. This also reveals that Win is the total opposite of having blind loyalty to GM, actually he's purely mercenary type to only do the job when he can get something to gain, his memories in this case.

I thought Ace revealing his goal to Neon is about him being attached to her, but actually, Ace reveals even more of his goals to Win?! Though probably there's a difference when revealing something due to needing the answers or just because he can (to Neon). Otherwise, the reveal is also that Win isn't a villainous Rider made totally hatable (.. and seems to get along with Ace faster than Michinaga), actually he had struggling and sympathetic part as well, of him being a failed musician in debt... again losing to Ace, in job department where Ace is a world-famous star. Thus his grandfather assigned him to become a DGP Staff in Management. Which also gets him to reveal that Mitsume, Ace's mother, was a DGP Navigator and Tsumuri's predecessor. Unlike Keiwa though, actually Win being 'tricked' by Ace here opens him a better path, thus I talked about Ace's main problematic trait is being ruthless before to leave Keiwa a bloody mess.

I'm annoyed again at the beginning where Keiwa offers Ace his Driver again to beat another Jamato Rider, which appropriately got stopped by Michinaga. But I guess, the reason for this is kinda answered here? So Keiwa and Neon, despite their growth, are revealed to still have some insecurities regarding the game, they're kinda dependent on Ace to tackle bigger problems, thus by this Keiwa seems to prefer leaving the task of getting Desire Drivers back (by fighting Jamato Riders) to Ace who is more guaranteed to defeat them, with how Neon temporarily hesitating to keep fighting against Jamato Riders shortly after. Another discovery for him so far is the Rider's desires being used to make Jamatos, Ginpen's in his case. A Jamato named Rook claims to not be lumped together with Archimedel... but was it genuine or just emulating Shirowe?

Neon particularly lamented over being powerless against the Knight Jamato final boss and the current game being more difficult. I guess this is the reason too Neon is more open to teamwork now? Where she rejected Keiwa's teamwork suggestion before as other than to win, she'd think the Riders simply can face the boss head on without convoluted team plan to beat it and save the captured civilians, but after being beaten, she recognized the DGP's stakes better even as a capable player? Thus since her return she looks after the other Riders while competing, to Buffa for this case. I'd also say her deeming herself as powerless to Knight Jamato explains how she thinks Propeller Buckle sucks. I guess her performance as human is displayed in this episode, brief but able to block Jamato's attacks with her henshin pose, giving her less openings.

So Buffa didn't actually attack Na-Go, it was only an illusion created by the Hide-and-seek Jamato a.k.a Red Hat Girl. Michinaga was someone who'd attack infected Neon before, but I guess those 2 are surprised due to having no clear reason to attack here, as they don't see him as an enemy (Keiwa using '-san' honorific for him). Poor Buffa seems to be overshadowed by the Riders he deemed extras, Tycoon and Na-Go are beating a Jamato Rider each, and Buffa got caught by the illusion again with Na-Go to have Tycoon use Command Twin Buckle to clear the game. This fight now portrays the 2 as Buffa's equal, but yeah, that wouldn't erase their doubt against the final boss because it's Ace they're measuring up with, and Buffa was also equally powerless to Knight Jamato as Na-Go. Tycoon clearing the game though, inadvertently makes him the one to kick Ace out of DGP.

John and Ben claimed to be on Neon's side rather than at least her father (dunno about her mom), but so far they're only serving Irumi, not Neon, as they're dragging Neon home against her will, with their concern on Neon so far only their reaction when Irumi attempts to slap Neon. If they're loyal to Neon herself, probably they should eventually protect her from her parents themselves, though currently they're cooperating with her. Neon speculated that she re-entered DGP due to assigning her bodyguards tasks related to her wishes. That was done before she regained her memories? Which'd mean her inherent personality still exists that time (like Keiwa regaining his motivation to take action?).

John and Ben are not people who'd later become Riders, but are past Riders, who had big cats theme (white tiger, black panther). Their fighting skills as a bodyguard should be advantageous, but they're the eliminated ones if they lost their memories but regained it via ID Cores. This is done to reveal that Kurama Foundation is one of DGP's sponsors, and a possible nepotism for Neon or her bodyguards, as Keiwa speculated. I hope this Rider reveal can be more significant for those 2 later.

This episode's DGP rule talks about the Game Master being forbidden to manipulate the game, which Girori clearly breaks by joining the fight as Glare (another Rider with same name as the user like Geiz... just english translation). And actually Girori is more than just power tripping here, he only attacks Punk Jack, and using a valid, if harsh reason to do so by leaking DGP information, and actually didn't directly attack Ace, but just making Punk Jack mind controlled to take advantage of Ace's surprised reactions and knock the Driver out of his hands, leaving the DGP's game conditions to eliminate him. Dunno though about the DGP itself, and dunno if Girori insisted that it's for DGP's sake if he's gonna be fired. So far Glare's ability is about being immune to the player Rider's attacks, purple energy hand to hand combat, and Hacking On. A̶ ̶m̶e̶t̶a̶ ̶i̶r̶o̶n̶y̶ ̶t̶h̶o̶u̶g̶h̶,̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶V̶i̶s̶i̶o̶n̶ ̶D̶r̶i̶v̶e̶r̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶v̶o̶i̶c̶e̶d̶ ̶b̶y̶ ̶K̶i̶r̶i̶t̶o̶ ̶(̶S̶A̶O̶)̶'̶s̶ ̶V̶A̶ ̶Y̶o̶s̶h̶i̶t̶s̶u̶g̶u̶ ̶M̶a̶t̶s̶u̶o̶k̶a̶,̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶w̶h̶i̶c̶h̶ ̶n̶o̶w̶ ̶h̶e̶ ̶t̶a̶k̶e̶s̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶r̶o̶l̶e̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶K̶a̶y̶a̶b̶a̶ ̶i̶n̶s̶t̶e̶a̶d̶.̶

Imagine Bryce Papenbrook saying the lines.

Oh hey, they actually had Geats lose already. Really thought he'd stay in at the end. Based on the preview, I'm thinking it might end up as another one where nobody wins because of that..

I guess if anyone was going to have a different driver, it should be the Gamemaster. I just hope he isn't the start of a deluge of new drivers lol. The simplicity but versatility of the Desire Driver is too nice.

And John and Ben being confirmed as former Riders is awesome! Do hope we at least get to briefly see them actually transformed.

And it seems to me that Ace, during the Jamato attack, will touch the Core ID, remember everything, convince the guy in charge of the buckles to return and snatch victory at the last moment.

By the way, given the complaints about Tacoon's willingness to give away his driver to Geats, I think that many people do not understand Keiwa's position. It's not about naivety, but about the difference in priorities. For him, the DGP is primarily about saving the world, not about competition. Hence the willingness to cooperate to the detriment of oneself. Because the main thing for him is that Jamato does not win and all the dead civilians are resurrected. And his own desire is a nice bonus.

XD
What a legend

Spot on there! We all saw how he basically did the same thing in the kick the can episode. Also all those times he gave away the boost buckle.

My problem this week was that Buffa should have killed the final jamato. Keiwa killing it before confirming Geats had obtained the driver and was safe, well, it just makes Keiwa look stupid, right?

At least you could have had the jamato threatening a kid or something, or have some sort of countdown time limit. As it stood it just looked like Keiwa was styling on that fool and just decided to kill him completely forgetting about his bro!

Should have just let Buffa do it, since he wanted to take out Geats anyway. Or if you have a mind control rider, have the mind control rider take over keiwa to kill the jamato and eliminate geats.

It?s really only a minor complaint though.

I definitely agree Ace is winning this DGP, but I think Michinaga will transfer his entry rights, personally, like with Keilow before. I doubt we?ll lose any of our big four permanently until maybe the finale, so I think he?ll be back a few months after Christmas (like with Kento and Kiriya), but I do think we?re losing Michinaga for a while, and that rather than die, he?ll simply drop out for a bit.

The fact that the Chadguards, Ben and John, were Riders only makes me love them even more.

But also, Glare certainly leaves an impression. He looks like he's from the future, as if he's above the Rider Players (not the Ex-Aid ones), which he is, but the aesthetic surrounding him is really cool! And the fact that his armor comes off and becomes a mask to control others is a neat feature.

I kind of figured Geats would lose at some point down the line, but wouldn't ya know it? He goes out the very next episode I make that claim.

I have a feeling that the sponsors are going to go against each other at some point, since I'm assuming one of them, sent Ace the Command Buckle, then we have the Kuramas and Hallelujah's grandpa's company all as known sponsors, and now that Giroli has stepped into the game (which the outro says he can't do no matter what as Gamemaster), there's going to be some infighting, unless there's a real Gamemaster.

Oh yeah, there's also the Planter Guy who makes Jyamato. I have a feeling he's using the Rider's memories to feed this new batch of Jyamato, given the implications of Tycoon's Boss' last words being uttered by one of them.

Next Episode: Kamen Rider Geats-is-no-longer-the-Protagonist.

I obviously know that he's cooperative. I do think that he may be able to cooperate by fighting more of the Jamato Riders himself to get more belts for other Riders, instead of just letting them be to ensure other people's elimination after being in safe position. Taking action for others while still maintaining your safe position. Though which is why I suspect that this is probably done due to Keiwa still feeling insecure to some extent (obviously he's lot more confident than early on) for some parts in the game and felt safer/more guaranteed if he leaves the quest for getting all the Drivers back to Ace, based on his talk with Neon of them being dependent on Ace.

Not necessarily about Keiwa but also it seems that some can forget that being competitive and caring for others' well-being isn't mutually exclusive, as being competitive seems to be associated with cutthroatness and willingness to do anything to win (yeah Michinaga's a type of this), along with "nice guys finish last". But yeah, one can both really motivated to go for victory, like doing their best to complete the task required to win, while still care for others' well-being, including for competition, not wanting to see them end up in bad shape as you beat them.

Regarding the Boost part, some people also seems to equate kindness with naivety for this (and KR portraying many kind ones as that doesn't help..), I gotta say there's a difference between Keiwa getting tricked to giving it away like ep. 2, or intentionally giving it to help others he knows are in difficult situations, Neon for ep. 4 and Michinaga for ep. 5 (well yeah for giving the Driver to Ace, my thoughts above). We also see in ep. 7 that Keiwa refused to give Michinaga his Boost Buckle if there are no difficult situations (outside of obligatory Jamato fighting), even as Michinaga guilt-tripped him.

Though for the part of defeating Bishop Jamato, seems that he needs to do it before the Bishop Jamato tears the Riders apart by making the Riders fight each other via illusions seen in Buffa and Na-Go attacking each other. (in place of a child being threatened like you suggested, and killed Riders don't return.. unless Keiwa wins).

Ok. I’ll accept your reasoning, that Keiwa was worried about Buffa and Na-Go. It really just seemed like he was just styling on that fool, but Na-Go and Buffa were fighting each other too, I guess.

The episode can only be so long and there was obviously some much more important stuff going on with the other characters, so they did not have time to really communicate what exactly motivated Keiwa there. It was only a minor complaint I was making.

I’m really enjoying this show so far.

Damn, after all my predictions last week, I totally wasn't expecting Ace to lose his plot armor so suddenly. Geats didn't even appear in this episode. However, it looks like one of his desires, "to play DGP until I die", will allow him to stick around and have a limited effect on the finale, since he technically didn't die in the conventional sense. Maybe he can appeal to get back his qualifications by calling out Glare's very obvious rigging, just in time to defeat the final boss.

Yeah, for a guy running a competition about desires, Giroli totally failed to anticipate how betraying Win and leaving him in an unwinnable position might make him a little disinclined to keep following orders. And then there's the rule of the week that the game master isn't allowed to interfere with the result, immediately after he interferes with the result, so I think this is going to bite him pretty quickly.

I doubt the DGPs were always that consistently short. The first DGP lasted 6 whole months, which makes me think that the seasons decrease in length in adverse proportion to the growing strength of the Jyamatos. The fact that how only 5 players passed the pirate round was considered an abnormal result supports this, as more eliminations per round means less rounds until the final boss. Who knows how long they lasted in the previous 2000 years?

Even presuming Ace is telling the truth about playing since 1 AD, he could've written a desire to travel to the future, so he wouldn't necessarily have lived for all those years. The official KR site does state his age as 21 after all.

The other main difference is that Michinaga has a personal beef (haha, get it?) with Ace, while Win is just doing a job that his grandfather offered him due to his lack of success as a musician. I liked seeing Win open up and show his sympathetic side here, with the flashback revealing that his punk rocker style isn't merely a persona to hide his affiliation with staff, but rather a symbol of the dream he gave up on, something that Ace helps him to find once more. Just like him, he also got his revelation by falling to the bottom, that he can also make his desire come true if he seriously plays the game like the others.

For sure.

I took it as a follow up to Keiwa and Neon's talk earlier the episode about whether they needed Ace or if they could save the world AND get their wish, that Keiwa was willing to take the chance of Ace loosing. Coming after Ace was finally honest with him and gave him the new power up, I thought Keiwa was finally deciding to play competitively

For all we know, ace and keiwa could have planned this whole thing out behind the scenes. Keiwa kills the big boy, ace loses, then ??? and they win!

I’m still kind of laughing how they treated it like some great twist that Ace let Buffa grab the driver that was just left on the ground and ignored for, like, 20 minutes.

So maybe we will get a scene like that in the next ep with the same cool music playing as Ace explains how he told Keiwa to essentially eliminate him, and we can all be impressed at the great plan.

I was thinking that Ace’s wish to be part of the staff seems like a good defensive wish. Like, if he lost and returned to the world without that desire, he probably wouldn’t end up in a depressed rut like Keiwa or Neon. So it could all be a master plan to lose.

But I gotta say too that, plot armor term shouldn't be misused like that. Plot armor is when a character advances without explicit reason because the plot requires it, like a normal human (no, not humans in Rider form) surviving a direct and clearly superhuman attack at full output (not just casual swat), and they aren't established as something else than normal human (but has important role), but Ace won multiple DGPs because he's actually that strong, skilled, knowledgeable, and clever, likely from the hefty amount of experience too, that isn't plot armor.

I'd predict that the DGP would deal with his "play DGP until I die" wish by purposely launching a Jamato attack in an area Ace is present (his Star of the Stars of the Stars wish would make it easy to track him) so Ace can be murdered, and likely DGP's reset would make an exception for him like Keiwa's parents.

Win just doing a job is also kinda a reveal in this episode. Though it was my perception too before that Win has blind loyalty to Game Master as he claims his orders are absolute, and that I felt Win pulls rather sadistic expressions when trying to off Ace before or when he gloats which gave me an impression some personal things are also involved.

Kinda hoping this'd be true, as Ace also got stupid complaint last week of not taking the Driver (he can easily do that before honoring his promise to Keiwa), but it got answered here. Even without that reveal character types like Ace can still be brushed off, but it'd be far more detrimental for character types like Keiwa which is already infamous for giving impression of kindness being inpotent (and I feel, turned off people from virtue). They're going for kitsune/tanuki contrast, and there's a saying that "the fox has seven disguises, but the tanuki has eight".

E̶x̶-̶A̶i̶d̶ ̶a̶l̶s̶o̶ ̶h̶a̶d̶ ̶s̶o̶m̶e̶t̶h̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶w̶h̶e̶r̶e̶ ̶E̶m̶u̶ ̶c̶o̶n̶s̶p̶i̶r̶e̶s̶ ̶w̶i̶t̶h̶ ̶K̶i̶r̶i̶y̶a̶ ̶a̶f̶t̶e̶r̶ ̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶r̶e̶t̶u̶r̶n̶,̶ ̶p̶l̶a̶y̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶a̶l̶o̶n̶g̶ ̶w̶i̶t̶h̶ ̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶l̶i̶e̶s̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶g̶e̶t̶ ̶M̶a̶s̶a̶m̶u̶n̶e̶ ̶o̶f̶f̶-̶g̶u̶a̶r̶d̶,̶ ̶i̶n̶c̶l̶u̶d̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶n̶o̶t̶ ̶t̶e̶l̶l̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶T̶a̶i̶g̶a̶.̶

Yeah, I'm glad they decided not to go with 'Keiwa hesitates over killing the monster because "What about Ace?"', which was what I thought they were going to do this week. I think it plays better this way - Keiwa and Neon are seemingly the only ones that remember the world is actually in danger and it's not just a fun competition (hello Michinaga), so him going back and forth on it vs eliminating the problem monster to save people would be more of a regression than him and Ace trusting each other now?