[DreadBringer]

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Originally Posted by Fish Sandwich

It's a fairly unassuming start to what will turn out to be an epic saga as Sakurako and Ichijou look over the symbol discovered in the previous episode.

I think I'm going to have some questions for this part that I really want to know. So the Kuuga logo (that Yusuke has created in various attributes) are the Grongi's word for warrior? But of course Sakurako is the one understands deeper about the symbol unlike Ichijou or the audience, she's the only one having prior knowledge upon that language!

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Originally Posted by Fish Sandwich

On their way to take a more direct look at the ancient inscriptions, Sakurako starts elaborating to Ichijou on her theory.

Finally now it's explained what Lintos Grongis have been grumbling about actually are... so they're the ancient human race in the past. And with no difference between them, Grongis refer to present-day humans as Linto too. Even then, if Lintos rejected fighting (if you say they reject, means they would know what fighting is right?), they still don't come up with the word to identify if that kind of thing (what they consider taboo) happens somewhere, or like suggested, or another tribe provoking them that? But yeah, the production team actually mean it when they want the "warrior" character to be different from the others here. It's obviously a bad news for a lot more people because they don't have any power to fight back Grongis, let alone #0!

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Originally Posted by Fish Sandwich

Speaking of, over in Tokyo, Yuusuke's helping out Enokida with some research revolving around how the Grongi lately have had the ability to transform mundane objects into weapons to fight with... kinda like how Kuuga does.

I've always been interested in Kuuga's ability to transform objects into weapons (and I still stand by that his ability to change Try/BeatChaser might be related to that, but then Try/BeatChaser also has a mechanism in it to change the color as well), so I'm glad they're addressing it in-universe to be researched. Jean giving the book to Enokida to guide her only for it to be left.... that feels like some experience I've been. What if Kazari asks Yusuke about his changing lifestyle? How Yusuke's going to answer by that? Other than that, Kazari is right regarding Mika and Nana.... though he's just going to be that blunt to a family member?

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Originally Posted by Fish Sandwich

The monster in the spotlight this time is Go-Zazaru-Ba, who brings a sick, scorpion-like twist to her "game" by going around melting taxi drivers with acid.

This has to be some of the most gruesome deaths by Grongi, and the corpse here really are far from human shape now. And yeah fights and conflicts between villains are fun to witness.

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Originally Posted by Fish Sandwich

It's neat seeing Yuusuke be so included in this whole process now. He actively contributes ideas, like suggesting they focus on Zazaru for now, since she's the one actually on a killing spree at the moment, while also noting if her body is full of dangerous acid, he's going to need a safe enough place to let her explode.

And Yusuke even gets to hear the police reports in the BeatChaser! It's been neat since seeing Yusuke get to know the other cops from before honestly. Though can the radio call distinguish between mass reports and personal calls? Like when Ichijou asks Sasayama to bring the special bullets.

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Originally Posted by Fish Sandwich

Jean is at the lab to give her a disc containing a bunch of data on Gouram, but, again, I don't think Jean is here just because he cares that much about Gouram. As usual lately, it's a bit of an awkward atmosphere around the two, with them both trying to keep any conversation as quick, professional, and/or shallow as possible. It's apparent they both have some things they really want to get off their chests, but they can't find either the words or the will.

Would something happen for the Gouram with the bunch of its info now being collected in a disc and researched? E̶h̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶c̶o̶u̶r̶s̶e̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶ ̶k̶n̶o̶w̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶a̶n̶s̶w̶e̶r̶.̶.̶.̶.̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶a̶ ̶r̶e̶w̶a̶t̶c̶h̶!̶

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Originally Posted by Fish Sandwich

Meanwhile, Sakurako has found out from her continued research that the "warrior" character in the inscription with the prophecy about the sun being buried in darkness actually has two more horns than the normal version.

A tiny difference. I didn't even notice it at the first (I know she's talking about the horns, but the horns are a very tiny part that it's not easily seen). So the symbol isn't actually shared.

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Originally Posted by Fish Sandwich

He's going after the woman with the rose tattoo, seemingly with some deeper motive, but of course, it's all buried in his own language, as Gooma has never taken to speaking Japanese. I really respect how the show is still keeping the Grongi speech up this late in the game. It's very particular about what information it gives out freely.

So Gooma wasn't only being taken as a joke, he was isolated to be left behind in Grongi cultures... And as other Grongis pointed out, Bemiu gave a little of hint to the humans for their downfall.

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Originally Posted by Fish Sandwich

The sense of escalation in these episodes is insane.

Of course you shouldn't intervene in Grongi fight, it will turn into 2v1 if Kuuga interrupts and they saw a common enemy. You may can intervene from afar with Pegasus Form though, just to make one of them die quicker. And lol Ichijou, integorrating a Grongi (with a gun as a threat like a cop would do to criminals) wouldn't give exact results as it would be to humans. And this culminates the investigation, B1 isn't what they seek for. BTW, what does the B stands for in B1? Also how Ichijou survived whatever B1 did to him?

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Originally Posted by Fish Sandwich

While Ichijou recovers in the hospital, there's still the matter of Zazaru to deal with, which means Yuusuke is going to team up with Sakurai, of all people, to sort it out.

So this completes the assemble, the middle, the old, and the young ones for the cops working with Yusuke. And yeah it's significantly more light-hearted between Yusuke and Sakurai.... despite that they're recently interacted. Yusuke cares for Sakurai the most compared to others to treat him into foods by himself!

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Originally Posted by Fish Sandwich

Whatever Daguva's power is, it's also resulting in even further changes to Gooma's body.

But Gooma had to undergone such great pain to obtain more power.

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Originally Posted by Fish Sandwich

Over in Nagano, Sakurako explains to a colleague that the that the four-horned Kuuga mark is actually a separate character from the regular version, that was used specifically in that one inscription, but because the extra horns were a bit worn, she mistakenly assumed they were the same, and had it entered into her computer that way the whole time.

How did Sakurako invovled a random colleague into this anyway? And speaking of the subplot, I'm not one of them to declare it as a boring material in an action show. Though admittedly this part is a bit hard to follow, I have to read here to get clearer meaning of those. I follow KR because of things surrounding the action part too, so I'm accepting parts like this (someone in this forum hates the fact that the series showcases parts where Enokida has to focus on her child). And like you said, this is definitely important as this is an attempt to seek out #0 and following the cops hypothesis that dealing with #0 may solve the Grongi, though Ichijou got some further information directly from what they suspect to be #0 that she's wrong to be that.

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Originally Posted by Fish Sandwich

Ichijou wakes up in the hospital, despite Yuusuke earlier saying it would probably take around three weeks to make a complete recovery. Instead, Ichijou is going to shoot for about an hour or two, even if it's a bad idea. Add this to the list of similarities between the two of them.

This just echoes both Ichijou and Yusuke at the beginning part to keep going despite the injuries. And Tsubaki allowing Ichijou to still work here (with thumbs up!).

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Originally Posted by Fish Sandwich

This time the victims were in an elevator, and shortly after that, a bus. The mystery becomes what the connection between all these things is, and surprisingly, it's Yuusuke who does the deductive work here.

Now it seems Yusuke's significance is bigger than ever for him to also do the detective work here. The cops job now is to lure Grongis to safe place and evacuate civilians. The only thing's missing is that they don't mention which part of Yusuke's 2000 skills mention detective work.

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Originally Posted by Fish Sandwich

In the meantime, Yuusuke has finally met up with Zazaru, and attemps to keep her busy while the location to blow her up in is being prepped.

I thought the claws were a part of Zazaru's body... turns out those are weapons, and can be disarmed to gain an advantage. I wonder what will happen if the acid actually hits Kuuga, a being more than earthly level. And yeah this is the culmination of Kuuga's fighting to have him use all the form he has.... except Titan.

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Originally Posted by Fish Sandwich

Kuuga gets to the underground location the police have found to minimize the damage from the explosion, and tells Sugita to start shutting the gates while he's still in there.

Now I want to ask, how to determine Grongi's explosion from Kuuga's stamps? In this part, it takes abnormally long for Zazaru to explode here, I thought previously, the Kuuga's finisher move which left stamps at Grongis don't work on Zazaru, and therefore expires. But turns out that it still affects her when there's 3 of them after Pegasus shoots her, and she only explodes at that time. And were the explosions from the finishers in different forms add up, or Zazaru had a huge explosion solely from the Mighty Kick? There's also something when Sugita hesitates to close the gate with Yusuke still inside.

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Originally Posted by Fish Sandwich

It's getting late in the evening, and Gooma is running around the woods killing more cops like a horror movie villain. Fortunately, Kuuga gets there in time save at least one of them, going into Titan Form for some extra power, which I believe also makes this the first episode of the series (not counting the recaps) where all of Kuuga's base forms appear. One more thing that highlights how big in scale this plot is. Ichijou gives an assist with a device that generates sonic waves to disorient Gooma.

Kuuga didn't fight Gooma with Rising Forms right? How would it go if Kuuga does?

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Originally Posted by Fish Sandwich

It's really incredible how tense those last couple of minutes are. These four episodes were all about building up the threat of Daguva, this mysterious entity of great power, and it does it all indirectly.

Lol man... entrance and victims count for a threat buildup. Entrance is the main impression to see how powerful a threat is because obviously they would undergo an entrance first before fully appearing! And for some reason, the deal with Gooma here, it reminds me of Graphite in Ex-Aid, where both of them gets stronger by absorbing a tiny part of the big villains, but even if they got significantly stronger, it's still nowhere compared to the actual big villains, which are kept mysterious and only talked about until the one who absorbs a part of their power dies. Also Gooma doesn't explode like Kuuga's victims?