[Sh Ranger]

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Originally Posted by Zolda

Back to Tsurugi, his reasoning for his intention to getting rid of Hijiri is kinda weird. It's due to the stress and burden of being a good older brother and role model for Hijiri put on him by the people around him. The poor one in this episode is Raidenji. It's managed to be separated from Tsurugi by Houtarou, only to immediately latched onto Hijiri. This makes Chemies akin to evil spirits that can jump from one person to another. So far, no grunt-type Chemies/Malgams appear. It'd be a big problem if the villain begin mass-producing generic Chemies that can be released into society like a virus and wreak havoc.

Seems like Chemy influence amplifies the worst side of humans, as I doubt either Hijiri or Tsurugi would've wanted to kill each other under normal circumstances. Of course, there are people who are unhinged even before they become Malgams, like the hosts for Venomdake and Gorillasensei, but I think this episode shows that even suppressed malice can be unleashed by Chemies, who sadly have no choice in the matter either.

The plot twist of Raidenji being sucked in to Hijiri was surprising, but then I realized there was still another half an episode left. This episode felt especially climactic compared to previous ones, which is pretty appropriate for the last instalment of what Minato (the producer, not the character or King-Ohger's writer, so many Minatos this year) refers to as the first arc of the show. Ironic how Gotchard and his alchemist friends used swords (tsurugi) to defeat the second Raidenji Malgam. I was wrong about AppareSkebow and EnergyMaru, but at least Apparebushido made an appearance for the finisher.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zolda

Kajiki finally sees Kamen Rider in person. He even realizes that Houtarou is the guy behind the mask. Is the sentence read by Kajiki and Hijiri @ 18:03 actually referring to the Ouroboros world? Kajiki and Hijiri finally sees a UFO, that is the UFO X Chemy... and get Neuralyzed shortly thereafter. It's not a total heartbreak for Kajiki, though. At least he gets another chance to rekindle the spark and reenact the fateful encounter with Hijiri at the end of this episode. Oh, and it looks like Hopper1 is a huge (or small, haha) Kajiki fan.

Weird how the memory loss spell actually made Kajiki and Hijiri forget about each other, since before it was only shown to affect people's memories of alchemy stuff. Fortunately, they were able to have their fateful re-encounter, but it's even more reason why Chemy law seems bad, now that it's capable of interfering in human-human relationships as well. Like, who else may have had their lives potentially made worse by Alchemy Academy?

With Kajiki and Hijiri getting back together, I have to wonder if Hijiri will stick around as a recurring character. These 2 episodes did a good job at making me invested in the ship and I want to see what else the show can do with them, like finding out about the secret Alchemy Academy and all the Chemies, especially those in the Occult category that they're interested in.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zolda

And why does Flayrose's voice sounds like a seductive woman? Haha.

I would've expected that out of 101 Chemies some of them would be female, but actually hearing Flayrose caught me off-guard. A lot of male Chemies have female VAs, but yeah, this one's totally a girl. Makes me curious about the other female Chemies, as I have a few ideas for who they might be.

Anyway, since next episode marks the start of a new arc, I guess I'll use this opportunity to mention that, contrary to the criticism I'm often seeing from people (mostly Geats fanatics) on other sites, I'm actually enjoying Gotchard a lot so far. The plot is simple yet mysterious and the characters and action are keeping me consistently entertained each week. I'm intrigued to find out what happens next with those suspicious executive guys showing up at Alchemy Academy, like specifically how it might affect Houtarou's and Rinne's loyalty with the organization.