Kamen Rider Geats Episode 32- "Lamentation F: The Last Judgement!" Discussion
 

Ace challenges Michinaga to a duel for the last round of the Jyamoto Grand Prix.

They actually make the bad guys win.

It's something expected due to their differing goals, but the divide between the Jamato crew starts to show more here in Archimedel and Beroba accusing each other as traitors, in Archimedel wanting to win the JGP himself as Dunkleosteus Jamato by attacking the remaining Riders and get his wish of making ideal world for Jamatos, and upset of Beroba getting in his way with her schadenfreude wish, or her caring more about a Rider, and Beroba being upset that Archimedel gets in her favored Rider Michinaga's way, clearly playing favoritism.

Later part also showed Beroba being set to cut ties with Michinaga, once he's no longer the underdog, and ofc to further entertain her in his sufferings. Real life audiences can root for villains in fiction due to their underdog nature, and I guess Beroba has that part too of being tired of constant winners. Daichi doesn't get any part of this, but I hope he won't be wasted later.

Knew this from the preview photos, but Ziin returns earlier than I expected, which is good personally to not save everything that's left for the finale only like some people assumed. Guess the Dunkleosteus Jamato is the one who is on par with supporter Riders, with Ziin taking again the Laser Raise Riser from demotivated Ace to fight him off. Consistent with Kyuun fighting it off with Na-Go before, making Kyuun more of an MVP but it's reasonable.

Apparently now Ziin investigates the DGP where previously it wasn't a death game, but the winners get pure gold coins. Previously the DGP was more similar to legal sports like boxing/MMA matches with medals then. So it answers my question of, "if Mitsume was a DGP Navigator, then how did it run without Goddess of Creation"; Sueru changed the game format to ideal worlds. Still don't know why Ziin doesn't immediately grow sick of DGP by the time he knows how valuable life is though, rather than digging up some history first. Ziin is also the one who told Ace that he can use Vision Driver to visit Mitsume.

The Geats vs Buffa showdown is the opposite from before, considering Ziin's Boost gift to him, now Buffa is the one "handicapped" as for some reason he doesn't use Jamato Buckle, and it's good that it's consistent that Geats still has the upper hand on the fight, dancing around Buffa with various tactics like activating Poison Charge to push Zombie Breaker against Buffa. Was disappointed when seeing Buffa with disadvantages actually winning despite what's established before, but ofc, it was according to Ace's plan to shoot him while he's distracted to get the Vision Driver, thus Ace doesn't become suddenly weak here, just losing on purpose.

Niram's lack of empathy (though it may be also "professional" move) is highlighted here, in him refusing to make things easier for Ace, but force Ace to do him favors of "saving" the world to earn what he wants - the DGP way of doing things, which is retrieving the item Ace needs currently in Vision Driver, which the DGP also needs to keep it running. I thought Ace using the Vision Driver will involve the flashbacks from previous Game Masters, but so far it doesn't happen yet (or he needs to be actually Game Master?), thus Ace for now only runs on pure faith on his mom to defend Mitsume from Niram claiming she purposely made the world unjust, with the only evidence for now is the supposed crying sound from Goddess of Creation, unable to show any proof.

Other than possibly lying (like perhaps Daichi before) to likely get Ace end this quick or cover up DGP's sins, Niram also brushes off said evidence above and just tries to prematurely end Ace's reunion by taking the Vision Driver by force as Gazer.Otherwise, I'd think his performance as Gazer is even cooler here than debut, as he's fighting the much stronger Geats Boost Mark II, and he still casually brushes off any of his attacks. Gazer is still the top dog, would say he has more of an upper hand in this fight, and means he surpasses most other supporter Riders given his performance to Laser Boost who defeated Glare2 who crushed Ziin. I thought Ace's downfall would be his sentimentality to his mom, like the beginning suggests, but it'd be more due to Niram's inconsiderate nature the situation worsened.

The winner though, is Buffa, with Gazer and Geats on the depths of the pits, and Ziin being defenseless as he gave his Laser Raise Riser to Geats again, who uses his Zombie Strike to summon giant hands that pulled 2 of the strongest Riders below the pit, turning them into bubbles. Overall, the JGP does provide him the means to win, with how he also got the power to create games with its rules as the Game Master, eliminating the need to defeat these 2 Riders head on, of which obviously he stands no chance, but he only needs to pull them down and let the game rules delete them, the "ring out" way. And the credit also has to go to Beroba as well, who is the one who managed to be enough of a threat to hijack DGP, and allow Michinaga to take control, and the one who expects Ace to escalate his conflict with Niram like this before.

The other parts of the Heaven and Hell game isn't touched upon much, just the Evil Goddess escalating the hell to contain multiple colors; the bright ones, eliminating all of the civilians leaving Sara and the kid the "winner". The high school girl isn't focused more, not even named, unlike Shouta before. The Evil Goddess also just simply crumbles after completion, no talking about what happens to the ones turned into bubbles, or it'd be touched upon later considering it happened to the main characters in Ace, Keiwa, and Niram too. Michinaga would still have to put more work than expected in his wish, in the continued Desire Royale, which apparently has Game Masters like Chirami as another target and returning John and Ben. Apparently the "power" Michinaga seeks to destroy them all has to be activated manually.

What a way to end the Jamato Grand Prix! But why start another game to kill Riders when you technically get that after you win?

Eh. It'll all makes sense next week I'd guess.

But anyway, great fight with Buffa trouncing Geats, despite being outplayed and almost outmatched, it's still cool how Buffa technically won, but still lost the Driver, but that's another case. And then there's the battle with Glare and Geats, which reminded me of Kamen Rider Odin in Ryuki in a way, I just love how Glare just stands there and the drones just attack Geats, but then there's just the crazy anti-gravity shenanigans at the tail-end of that fight which was just pure joy to see, leading up to Buffa taking out both.

Geats' action scenes have just been something else and I love it for that.

Archimedel (I forgot that was his name) radiating "final boss" vibes for some reason, I'd honestly prefer him to not be, but who knows, it's still fun how he's the one who literally cares about the monsters and even the mooks, he's strangely interesting in that regard. And Beroba is now reminding me of that character from Sentai Daishikkaku. Boy is this new game going to be fun...

Next Episode: Buffa New Form. Buffa New Form. Buffa New Form.

It's just Geats intentionally losing to catch Buffa off-guard. It's also a strategy in fighting instead of Geats just being weaker; Buffa was never his equal, Geats previously matched Zombie/Jamato and even Command Twin with only Magnum. And for sure Gazer (not Glare) puts a show there, displaying his sheer power to casually take on an overpowered Rider. By contrast, I personally think Ryuki's fighting scenes aren't that good, though ofc not all.

I knew there are characters like Heart from Drive and also Jin (start of his revival, not him at the beginning) from Zero-One before.... but Archimedel feels more depraved despite his care for his species.... perhaps because he's the instigator behind those attacks himself?

Ace.... Lost! It finally happened.

I guess Michinaga remembered Ace's trick from the musical chair round, allowing his Driver to be taken so he could get closer to DGP's secrets. Here, Ace thought he was the one playing Michinaga by feigning his defeat and shooting away the Vision Driver, but Michinaga and Beroba were playing him and Niram the whole time. While the result for everybody else is bad, I have to respect that totally bad*ss tactical move, as Buffa got to simultaneously take out the two strongest Riders in the game and become the Jyama God!

Niram showing himself to Ace in Mitsume's chamber was a pretty climactic scene, leading to him inadvertently fulfilling his role as the JPG final boss. It fully established Niram as a Real villain who wants to continue DGP's format of granting ideal worlds and has no problem with sacrificing countless people's happiness and lives to keep it going, including Ace and especially Mitsume. I wonder if Michinaga has anything special planned for him in his new world, being the Producer for the game that ruined his life.

I think this is all according to Michinaga's desire. His personal hatred of Riders is so strong that simply pressing a "kill all Riders" magic button wouldn't cut it. He wants to destroy the Riders with his own hands, so he can make them all as miserable as him. He basically admitted as much to Ace in the previous round and Beroba mentioned that happiness isn't on his radar.

I was thinking of Odin for how Buffa's going to function in the Desire Royale, siding with the monsters, forcing the Riders in to a fight to the death, while giving himself the ultimate power advantage so he can crush whoever's left. Although Michinaga wanting the fight to continue for its own sake is closer to the stated motivation of fellow purple Rider, Asakura, except Michinaga is harmless to civilians and has a sense of honor.

While Michinaga pulls a badass move here (albeit it's a dirty one, to some people, contrasting his supposed fair-play tendencies), I hope that people still understand why Michinaga never got an upper hand to Ace before, instead of only complaining the story favors Ace (of which you sounds like it in your opening sentence here). Of course Niram is villainous, but I hope this isn't used to think Beroba and the Jamatos are in the right or such. More like disapproving of "real hero" or "real villain" arguments, there can be more than 1 villains, there can be multiples of them. Evil vs evil is a thing, many happens in KR, like Daguva murdering the Grongi tribe or ZAIA vs MetsubouJinrai.net.

Bruh... what are you smoking here? Michinaga personally creates the Heaven and Hell game which traps the civilians in the floating city and had the Evil Goddess sent them falling below the pits except the last one standing. I won't like it if Niram's callous actions got overlooked to Ace above only because "it doesn't result in a murder", but I don't know if you absolve Michinaga in this only because it's not directly in his hands those civilians perished for now? He's the Game Master after taking the Vision Driver in ep. 28. He has grievance over the DGP, and perhaps he made that game to show how it works, but he's still a hypocrite who has no problems imitating what the DGP or (worst) Riders did, killing people himself to prove a point. I thought your grievance of Gaim is that the assholes like Kaito aren't redeemed in the end but escalated and got stopped? Because Michinaga also escalated; I hope people who actually pointed out how shitty Michinaga is aren't viewed by you as "people who hold grudges and can't forgive or let go"... (though I disagree with those who want to use him as deserving target of sadistic pleasure).

My opening sentence was intended as an expression of surprise, not complaint. Sure, I don't condone Beroba's actions either, although I will admit that she is the most competent sponsor, deliberately backing the loser Michinaga and carrying him to victory, while Ziin didn't have to try too hard with Ace, Kyuun had to go through an arc to learn what Neon needed and Kekera just sat on his table and watched Tycoon fall to his death. Niram's actions probably have the most severe consequences though, facilitating the millennium's worth of Rider deaths and civilian deaths like the Sakurais lost in the Jyamar Areas. There's also Kousei, who's not much of a villain but he's definitely a terrible person.

My bad, I forgot Michinaga was the Game Master now. :lol However, it looks like his world's going to revive Ace, Keiwa and Win so they can be killed again, so maybe the civilians will revive as well? At least Sara survived, I definitely would've remembered him harming civilians if anything happened to Sara.

I'm anticipating a Michinaga redemption arc eventually, like I did for Kaito in Gaim and Olteca last year. What makes Geats different from those is that Takahashi has often written redemption arcs, which I praise for how they can make me sympathize with characters I used to find despicable, so there might be hope for Michinaga as well. I think it's possible that next season could conclude with Ace finding a way to stop the Desire Royale and the season after that (assuming next season isn't the last) could have Michinaga starting to look for something else to live for besides despair.