[Zolda]

Rinne has been blaming herself for what happened to Sabimaru. She thinks that Atropos used Sabimaru because she said that The Sisters' problems were with the alchemists, not Muggles. It seems like Atropos is attempting to manipulate Rinne by instilling a sense of guilt into her mind.

Spanner's direct superior finally makes her first appearance, albeit only in voice. She commands him to retrieve the Dreadriver and the Repli CC's. She also informs him of the exact location of The Sisters' hideout. Could it be that she has known about it for some time, but only informs him now out of convenience? It also seems like she's the one who commands Spanner to keep his eyes on Rinne. Why? Because she thinks Rinne could be a traitor/defector like her dad?

The Repli CC's have KR Dread's face on their rear sides. I wonder what happens if Houtarou inserts Repli CC's into the Gotchardriver's slots. Lachesis & Clotho do transform into KR Dread in this episode, and as I thought, the suit actor is male. I'm not convinced, haha.

X-Rex, being the Level 10 of the Ancient Creature category, has the ability to probe inside someone's mind, similar to the Legilimens spell in Harry Potter. Visually, it's similar to when KR Wizard accessed someone's Underworld. As the other kidnapped human (Mr. Manabe) says, X-Rex can see inside all his memories, especially precious memories he's trying to forget. Mr. Manabe's repressed memory is the one where he saw his daughter (Sawa) looking visibly disappointed in him after seeing him making gestures of submission and selling out his idealism and succumbing to his editor's pressure.

Aaaannnddd... *drum roll*

As I hypothesized here and here, it's revealed in this episode @ 19:11 that Houtarou does have some kind of (hidden? repressed? manipulated?) past memories that he's not aware of himself. It seems like X-Rex accidentally unlocks one small portion of Houtarou's past memories where it's revealed that he had already befriended Hopper1 when he was a kid. I pondered here whether there was a De-Neuralyzer spell that could reverse the effect of the Neuralyzer spell like the ones often used by Minato. Well, it turns out that X-Rex probably has this memory manipulation reversal ability. It seems like X-Rex is not only able to probe inside someone's mind, but is also able to unlock it and reverse any kind of memory manipulation. Though, I'm not sure whether X-Rex's probing/unlocking/reversal ability can completely uncover everything inside Houtarou's mind. This reveal makes my hypothesis about Houtarou's and his mom's memories having been manipulated/tampered with by someone are getting more plausible.

It seems like my hypotheses here and here were quite correct. Houtarou had already known and formed strong bond with Hopper1 since a long time ago, so it's no wonder that he felt nothing strange when he encountered Hopper1 for the first time in episode 1. He even probably had already known several other Chemies when he was a kid. This was the reason why Houtarou had already felt a deep connection with Chemies, mainly Hopper1, and even had had a grand dream of the coexistence between humans and Chemies, since his supposedly first encounter with them. This was also probably the reason why Steam Liner and Hopper1 chose Houtarou to be the user of the Gotchardriver.

What I also notice in this episode is the potential similarity between Mr. Manabe's/Sawa's and Houtarou's situation. Mr. Manabe is trying to repress a bad memory, while Houtarou's (hidden? repressed? manipulated?) past memory about his friendship with Hopper1 was probably done for similar reason. Perhaps Houtarou's (and his mom's) memories were manipulated to protect them from some kind of harm? Could it mean that Houtarou's dad was also an alchemist (probably a great one like Fuga) who sold out his idealism and defected to the dark side? Or probably his dad was a double agent sent by the AU to spy on Glion's/The Sister's death club? If so, then this could be a very interesting plot twist. Dang it. This reveal is sooo out of the blue. Sasuga, Mr. Hasegawa. Very well played.

Super Gotchard Cross X-Rex looks far less goofier than Cross UFO-X. Still not a fan of the undersuit. What I've just realized is that Level 10 RCC's only need one card to access the form, while normal RCC's need two cards. Also, Level 10 RCC's don't seem to have Wild Forms.

Next episode:
Rinne challenges Atropos in a duel? X Wizard will make its first onscreen appearance. Its head suspiciously resembles Bandora's head, probably as an allusion to its antagonist/villain wizard status. Not to mention that it's voiced by a female voice actor. It's holding 5 Level 10 RCC's, which probably are Exceedfighter, BeetlX, X Fortress, Lixion, and Xeggdrasil, which were scheduled to appear on Gotchard & Geats collab winter film.