[Locke]

I thought the first half of the episode honestly kinda sucked. Baron and Bravo's fight was meaningless, but not in a good way. And rather than feeling like it just stepped out of the pages of a comic, it felt like a Let's Play of some Japanese fighting game.

The two Rider's largely stood on the spot and bashed each other with generic attacks until they dropped a generically animated special move, usually followed by the losing player hitting all the shoulder buttons to access their rage mo-I mean the Rider actives their Arms Change for a second wind when on the edge of defeat.

You could argue that this generic by the numbers plotting of the fighting is true of all tokusatsu and I agree, but Baron and Bravo felt like they were really going through the motions.

Thankfully then, the second half of the episode picked up some slack. Gridon and Kurokage's fights have more energy, and personality and are probably some of the few comic relief characters I actually appreciate.

Kouta is one of the best protagonists ever, and despite fighting a horde of foot soldiers, his fight was actually way more thrilling than that opening fight as he chained his powers together and used his head.

But the true centrepiece of the episode was the brothers colliding. In such a complex web of characters Zangetsu feels a little generic and clichéd but man that battle was glorious.

Overall not the best episode of the show, but it was certainly as fun as I've come to expect Gaim to be.