[Kiwami]

Okay wow, they finally used the "Let’s rise"-jingle of Metal Cluster Hopper – and would somebody have told me a robot dog would dance to it – I didn’t see that one coming

It was nice though. This episode is cool, I like how Gai is truly apologetic but everyone understandably won’t care. I really liked how Aruto, the main Rider who you would expect is all like "Sure buddy, no worries!" goes right for the throat by saying the shit he pulled with the Ark is not forgiven nor forgotten just because Gai is feeling sorry about it.

I think that’s what makes the alliance with Thouser believable – he gets the chance to do better but no one actually likes him for it. He doesn’t deserve that anyways. For now, I do think he’s on his way to at least change from being an insufferable piece of crap to a semi-decent guy (Gai).

Also, I do like how the whole "Gathering the Progrise keys"-thing came up again because at the time I just thought they did that to create the Assault Wolf-key and I was like "Huh?" but that was just me being dumb. The awakening of the Ark was the important part here, not what it decided to make after waking up. I'm feeling a bit embarrassed for only getting that now.

I‘m really looking forward to next week. Zero-Two is awesome. Such a great design for the final new Rider of the season, Aruto’s strongest form and I adore that he is making it himself. Of course Zea will magically materialize his designs or something, but at least he’s working for it.

Lastly… boy, Ark-Zero is really riding it home with the whole "No one can stop me"-shtick, isn’t he? This begs for an Éowyn reference:

Ark-Zero: "No one can stop me!"
Aruto: "But a two can!"

Aruto is also wearing a toucan costume while saying this by the way