[Fish Sandwich]

Man, this was really good. For a lot of it I was having that same frustrating feeling I have a lot with Ex-Aid of "I wish I was more into this than I was" but by the end I was totally into it. Just a great episode. In detail:

- Farewell, Genm, you crazy motherf***er. You will be missed. Probably not by me though. This was a good sendoff, and time will tell, but right now I'm really happy they're not dragging him out past his time. Bring on Parad, I love that guy.

- Oh, wait! I just realized writing this post! Gold Drive was also a way better nutjob villain in my mind too! I mean, Kuroto comes pretty close at points, but I don't think I've ever seen a guy that sociopathically obsessed with himself in Rider. He left a way stronger impression in a much smaller window. Not to s*** too hard on Genm. I mean, I like the dude, it's just... I wish I could like him as much as some of you guys do.

- I liked Maximum Mighty X. It's bulky and awkward, but I find that charming and am glad it's an actual suit instead of awkward CG. Although in a lot of those shots in was awkward CG because it was too bulky and awkward to do what they wanted... Oh well!

- Seeing the Riders gelling as a team continues to be awesome. Hiiro especially pulled a lot of the weight this week. I mean, I've seen this exact stuff before in Ghost and Drive and Blade and I guess pretty much any show with multiple Riders, but it sort of never gets old.

- Plus they're still honoring Kiriya's legacy. He was so awesome he managed to straight up posthumously save the day simply by being that proactive. And Emu is indeed rocking his Driver in tribute from now on, which is rad.

- Hey, speaking of everybody's favorite total loser in his own dang show, Emu FINALLY got to make a good showing again! Like, a REALLY good one! This is what elevated the episode from "a good episode of Ex-Aid" to "wow this was such a great episode of Ex-Aid" for me. Ex-Aid has always excelled at creating these big soap opera plot developments, but its emphasis on characters can be hit or miss. I was a little shocked at how well Emu was portrayed here. It's everything that made me like him early on played up fantastically. I'm so happy this bullet point is getting its own sub-bullet points just to break up the wall of text:

- For a little bit I was prepared to come in and whine about how "I'm a doctor before I'm a Kamen Rider!" would be this really great, weighty line if the title of Kamen Rider meant anything in this show, but thinking about it, they've made it clear enough that "Riders fight Bugsters" so... yeah, sure. Even failing that, it would still sort of work on a meta level.

- On that note, I loved seeing the emphasis put on Emu's morals. One of the things that I think really separated him from your standard "nice guy protagonist" was just how bullheaded he could actually be about the things he believes in, and seeing how unfaltering he is even when presented with pretty much the most repugnant human being imaginable was amazing. It really did his character a service and gained him major respect points from me.

- Which brings me to my last point. The last short little scene at the end was amazing. Perfectly capped off the episode. Just a super genuine bit of emotion from Hiroki Iijima, who like pretty much every Rider lead lately is really quite impressive when given the chance to be, and basically shut me up about the opening being gone. If this were Ghost, that scene would've been half as long as it should've been and gotten awkwardly cut off by the "See you next game" bit. But it didn't, and I'm super happy about that.