[barnstenchfartface]

The funniest part about the 7 Best Match specials is the mismatch between how they were advertised and where they sat in the show. The trailers mainly used that part at the beginning where Sento is pretending to be all excited about checking out all the new toys, so it was made to look like it'd be just a fully wacky fun thing, and we didn't know when it took place or anything. Then episode 21 happened, and they said "by the way, that thing takes place then." At the time it was just like, What? how do you have your hero kill a man and end an episode as a broken man to then go on and shill some toys? Build was some wild times

Well, they still didn't go too dark in the specials themselves, so it feels more like they knew *something* bad was gonna have to have Sento's spirits down, but nothing specific (since they mainly talk about how the general populace is blaming Riders for the war, iirc).

But yeah, repeating myself (and you) here but you gotta love Build's dedication for trying to get something out of everything. Utsumi is a character that I wish could have gotten some more focus in the series, since as you say getting his character down through all the changes he goes through is difficult. Having stuff like this definitely helped some. And, while not super character-relevant, bringing the SameBike stuff back for Utsumi's final fight in the show was a nice touch, too, as a sort of capstone moment, to both Build's dedication to continuity and Utsumi existing I guess.