Kamen Rider Gotchard Episode 30- "A Rival Arrives! Gotcha & Juliet!" Discussio
 

Houtaro takes on the role of Romeo for drama club.

AHHHHAHAHAHAHAHA freakin' Kijibrother and Sonoza in Gotchard? WHAT IS HAPPENING?!:lolol

I think what got me the most was Sonoza bringing a pole with him too. Like there's no way around it, that is him and Kijibrother's actors :lol

I wonder if they knew beforehand or just noticed each other during casting and were like "Hey! Wanna do a bit for our scene?"

Neon Kuruma is reincarnated as a real girl named Seina and is given another chance to relive her high school life, haha. Seina is the type of an aggressive boy-chasing girl who doesn't keep her romantic intention a secret. She thinks that Houtarou and Rinne are dating due to them wearing similar Rings, which means that people around them (especially at the school) probably have also been thinking the same.

Rinne feels intimidated by Seina's sudden presence and her closeness with Houtarou. Well, although it's technically not sudden since Houtarou and Seina have known each other for a long time. Perhaps Rinne feels that she's inadequate as a girl due to being not as outgoing as Seina is. Or she's just jealous, haha. I'm not sure whether Rinne has a romantic interest in Houtarou or not since it's never hinted at. If judging from the preview, then that might be the case. Oh, and Houtarou's mom's kinda low-key playing the matchmaker role @ 15:18, haha.

Atropos is upping her mind games by directly slandering Rinne in front of Seina. I'm not sure whether this is due to her having personal grudge against Rinne and her hobby of mentally torturing Rinne as usual, or her unleashing vengeance against those who defeated and "killed" Glion, who in this episode she addresses as her father. Now we're talking. This is the kind of things she should've been doing since many episodes ago instead of just being the captain of Glion's elite minions.

Lachesis is officially defecting and become Kyouka's underling. Clotho tries to pull her back into Atropos' sphere of influence, but she's met with resistance from her. Although Lachesis is unwilling to return to her old faction, she's also unwilling to let Spanner kill Clotho, leaving Clotho confused and frustrated. The dynamics of conflict between The Sisters is getting more complicated in this episode. It's interesting to see where this conflict's heading and how it will resolve. I bet one of The Sisters will die, preferably at the hands of another, haha.

Kijino and Sonoza actors from Donbrothers appear as members of the owarai club, although they look too old for high schoolers, especially Kijino, haha.

As expected, this episode and the next episode are another two-part filler episodes. I'll be patiently waiting for the big reveal. Momentum is being built up, for example by gradually nerfing KR Platinum Gotchard.

Next week:

Is Rinne gonna get the role of Juliet like shown in the preview, or is it just her imagination? Does Rinne actually like Houtarou more than a friend, or is it something else?

Donburako! Yo, Tricky!

But that's impossible. Kurama Neon can't be reincarnated as Himeno Hijiri and Tsukumo Seina at the same time! :p

Then I have to wonder what their fellow students think of homeroom teacher Minato, who also wears a similar ring.

I remember in Episode 6 when there was speculation about the possibility of a Houtarou-Rinne-Spanner love triangle, but now we know Spanner was only doing reconnaissance and here's Seina to become a rival to Rinne instead. I've only ever seen Houtarou and Rinne as a platonic friendship before, but based on Rinne's reaction here, seems like she sees Houtarou as more than that. A lesser show would've had Rinne suddenly become a stereotypical spiteful yandere (a totally valid concern when you consider that Hasegawa previously wrote the worst parts of Shindai Reika), but fortunately she's as courteous now as she always has been. She wants to be happy, but she doesn't want to get in the way of Houtarou's happiness either.

Since Rinne is a good character who refuses to become a stereotypical spiteful yandere, Atropos takes the responsibility upon herself instead. While Rinne is implied to have yandere-like thoughts about Seina, there's nothing wrong with that since she knows better than to act on evil impulses. Everybody thinks of doing bad things, but only the unscrupulous few would actually commit them. Atropos shows even more hypocrisy about human weakness, as she expresses a desire to punish Rinne in revenge for her father Geryon.

The underground fight scene between Valvarad and Dread was awesome with a lot of physical movement! While the Dark Sisters were compared to the Megid trio before, turns out they're more like an evil SOL instead. Clotho is Rintarou, who only wants the Dark Sisters back together. Lachesis is Touma, who sees the corruption and wants Clotho to open her eyes. Atropos is a problem. Even with Geryon gone now, she still only thinks about him and nothing for her little sisters. I hope Rinne can get through to her about the value of familial love between siblings. Regarding your hypothetical fratricide scenario, I can see Atropos killing Lachesis as a catalyst for Clotho defecting to the heroes, but man, I hope against odds that the Dark Sisters live and find redemption.

Humorous how out of the 9 Donbrothers, they got the 2 oldest actors to play high school students. Sonoza did canonically get cast as a high school student (zombie) before in New First Love Hero.

I think Seina looks closer to being Neon Kuruma's twin. They're like spitting images of each other. When I first saw the preview for this episode, I genuinely thought that she was Neon's actor. I was like, "Oh, Neon's actor appear as a guest cast...", and was proven wrong 5 seconds later, haha.

As far as I know, Minato doesn't wear The Ring when he's in normal attire. He keeps it inside his pocket.

I don't think Rinne even thought of doing bad things to Seina. She was just uncomfortable seeing Houtarou and Seina's closeness. A friend of mine once remarked that regarding hate, there are 3 types of people: People who only hate other people, people who think of doing bad things to people they hate, and people who actually do bad things to people they hate.

Kijino's actor is even older than Minato's actor, haha.

Perhaps not exactly Rinne thinking bad things then, but just the thought that it would be easier for her with Seina out of the picture, which Atropos manifests as an act of malice by forcefully giving Rinne what she "wanted" and guilting her about what happened to Seina, like how Chemies inadvertently respond to human malice. Even if it did cross Rinne's mind only briefly, she would've immediately recognized it as evil. Atropos would probably see that as more human weakness, as she acts without moral inhibition.

Difficult to verify if the first kind exists though, unless we can see inside minds. Somebody may claim to think no evil, but that could easily be a lie, whether conscious or not, to make themselves feel better than they are. Raidenji responding to the Himeno siblings shows that people can even think evil towards loved ones in extreme circumstances, so I doubt there's any hope for enemies being spared those thoughts.

Hate itself is evil, because it clouds a person's rationality and judgement. Irrationality makes a person prone to making bad decisions and doing stupid things. As the adage says, "Humans' stupidity is the greatest evil." There are several ways to arrive at stupidity. Hate is one of them. The other ones are fear, hubris, etc.

A relationship filled with hate, whether one-sided or reciprocative, doesn't necessarily mean the person who is hating wishes bad things on the person who is hated. It could only mean that that person only wishes to get out of that relationship, or, if it involves unbalanced in power dynamics, wishes for the person who is hated to not be in the position of power.

Back to Rinne. Rinne may only wish for Seina to be Houtarou's ordinary friend, or wish for her to never have transferred to their school. She did acknowledge her thought of seeing Seina as a romantic rival, but the thought stopped there. Rinne might think, "Hey Seina, go back to your old school!", not "Hey Siena, why don't you die already!", haha. Making Rinne doubt her own thoughts (and sanity) is the aim of Atropos' mind games. It's similar to gaslighting. Making you think yourself as someone you're not is a common tactic in a psychopath's playbook.

I think there's an important difference between wishing harm on someone and merely daydreaming about it. The mind is an open sandbox where possibilities can be explored without consequence, so while a sadistic fantasy may bring temporary gratification, making it real would have the opposite effect. All that evil hate needs to vent somewhere, so it's better to preserve rational decision making by directing hate to the imaginary sandbox where nobody can actually get hurt. This is part of why fiction exists.

Yeah, Rinne's thoughts were most likely innocent and I'd guess the more yandere-like stuff didn't even occur to her until Atropos brought it up. This is what I meant to say, but I could've explained it better. The self is a harsher critic than the third party, so even though we objectively see Rinne as innocent here, Atropos is once more exploiting her insecurities to make her think poorly of herself for alleged ill wishes. Since Atropos is scared to confront her own insecurities, this kind of petty manipulative behavior is all she currently knows how to do, sadly. Rinne is ultimately good and will continue to improve, while Atropos will stagnate (she's literally shaped like a kid) until she sees the error of her ways.

I like it and enjoy it so much. I am excited for other episodes to release. Are you struggling to complete your dissertation on time? I was in the same boat until I discovered https://ukwritings.com/write-my-dissertation Their team of professional writers helped me craft a well-researched and structured dissertation. The process was seamless, and their support was top-notch. If you need assistance, I highly recommend checking them out.

Houtaro has a childhood friend named Seina Tsukumo. She's portrayed as a contrast to Rinne. While Rinne has distanced herself from him until now and can still be occasionally cold to him, Seina has known him since childhood and is more openly fond of him, even being too forward at times. Her surname has characters for 99 (adding up to 100 with Houtaro's) compared to Rinne's 9.

I think Seina's seemingly romantic feelings are one-sided and Houtaro is more embarrassed by it. Despite this, it seems that Rinne is the bigger person here, despite also feeling jealous. Seina is more judgmental and tends to jump to conclusions, although Atropos caused it for her attack. Rinne is still trying to help her despite that.

This week's problem revolves around Mikuriya, a classmate who needs enough members for his drama club, including Hoshino. It might seem like a stereotype, but him looking nerdy with round glasses would make me expect him to have much less charisma than the Comedic Research Club. This would attract Houtaro, as his goal is to help others achieve their dreams.

However, something I don't like is how, despite being the popular consensus, "Romeo and Juliet" is glorified as romantic role models, when in actuality it's a tragedy of youth - about horny teenagers (Romeo's even a womanizer) escalating a bad situation, letting impulse run rampant, leading to the deaths of six people. Even the play is critical of their relationship.

I feel that lighthearted stuff can tend to sugarcoat things. It's what I gathered from Ghost too, where figures such as Edison or Nobunaga are glorified, with the 'humane side' being used for the latter's case, which is a similar excuse that those who justify villains use.

And the show also had Seina's return to Houtaro's life coinciding with the news of Kajiki still being in touch with Hijiri (which I'm glad Kajiki didn't get robbed of it as Kajiki can seem to be a loser type).

I feel that to use yandere here is blowing things out of proportion when, people can have normal jealous feelings in a normal extent, when yanderes are villains with mental issues. Albeit for Reika, she started as villainous so, her being terrible person is more expected. Otherwise, Rinne aside, about thinking of doing bad things, I think there's also a difference between those who don't want to commit them because it's the wrong thing to do, or those who don't due to fear of punishment, isn't in their best interest, or too weak to do so (can't oppose what they hate).

Being harmless doesn't equal being good, but it seems that it's too common that people'd assume if one for example has a clean record (including if they're total asshat on internet) are totally fine, while also assuming those who do bad things are inherent monsters separate from other humans, it's important to learn how someone can end up evil, as they're no different from other humans and share our everyday traits (e.g. doing mundane hobbies).