[Zolda]

As expected, Deepmariner Malgam is completely useless. He's defeated in just 35 seconds. That's pretty much his whole screen time in this episode.

Valvarad's Chemy Riser is different than the Academy's ones. His has a gattling gun barrel. Could it be that his CR is made by a different organization? Or perhaps he modified it himself, given the fact that he's the one who made the Valvarad suit.

Why does Spanner act friendly and casual toward Rinne? Perhaps he has known her (and her family) for a long time. His smile @ 06:58 looks kinda creepy. Could he be the new Kusaka? He also says that he's equal to Minato (and the others, probably referring to other teachers at the Academy), but his Ring has green gem, while Minato's has red gem. I think he's the type of person who often overestimates himself.

Looks like my hypothesis in episode 1 about Kajiki was correct. He could be an outsider who eventually succeed in uncovering the existence of the alchemy world. Also, it turned out that Minato's Neuralyzer spell isn't as powerful as I thought it was. Some people managed to remember their encounter with Gotchard and or the Chemies and spilled it on the internet. The fact that Kajiki mentions (and still remembers) that some information will be immediately purged means that the spell doesn't work uniformly. The same information purged from one or several individuals/sources may still be retained by other individuals/sources. This chaotic information asymmetry will inevitably result in distrust in society. I think this is the most interesting aspect of Gotchard's story so far. Can the writers elaborate on this potential plot? It can result in a very interesting dynamic in the story.

Renge continues to be goofy. I'd like to see how she uses Kamantis for other purposes than capturing new Chemies. I wonder what was Sabimaru's actor's reaction when he found out that he only needed to utter one word in this episode. The synopsis stated that Sabimaru also likes Chemies. He'll probably switch his personality from an awkward, asocial nerd to a talkative nerd when Chemies come into topic.

Houtarou keeps transforming using 2 matched RCC's. Hasn't he ever wondered what would happen if he attempts to transform using 2 mismatched RCC's? I'm interested in seeing how the writers elaborate that.

VenoMariner form looks ugly. Both the shapes and the colors are ugly. Well, what more can I expect? The synopsis stated that there are 101 RCC's, so it means that there are at least 50(!) forms. No one can keep their creative juice flowing smoothly 50 times in a row. Even Build, which I consider the Rider with highest number of blatantly unnecessary forms, only had 30(!) Best Match forms, and 75-85% of them were ugly. So, I can expect Gotchard to have more ugly forms than Build did. Quality will always beat quantity. At least, the AntWrestler form that will debut in the next episode looks much better.

Lachesis looks strangely weak and incompetent in this episode. She looked more powerful in human form in previous episodes. It could be that physical strength isn't her forte, but mental/psychological manipulation is. Clotho is the muscle of the group, and she'll be the focus in the next episode.

The fact that Lachesis knows that Rinne is Fuga's daughter probably means that Fuga and the Sisters' boss were once allies. It looks like they've already known each other. They were probably working together to use alchemy to change the world, albeit to two different directions. I don't think Fuga was a random outsider who incidentally stumbled upon a sophisticated, newly developed tool and decided to steal it to realize his own ideals. Fuga's motivation was probably like Sennin/Edith's from KR Ghost.

From the attitude of several characters like Fuga or Spanner, it looks like the Gotchardriver is a whole different tool compared to other common alchemical tools or weapons like Valvarusher. I have a hypothesis that the Gotchardriver is a tool created by the Sisters' big boss, who is also the ruler of Ouroboros.

Houtarou's dad's face is still intentionally obscured. It starts to smell like a red-herring to me. LOL.