[DreadBringer]

Kamen Rider Gaim watch

The Yggdrasill Saga

Episode 18: Farewell, Beat Riders

Written by: Gen Urobuchi/Nobuhiro Mouri, Directed by: Osamu Kaneda

The effort to restore Beat Riders' reputation continues as Mai hosts All Teams Dance Event while the other Team Gaim members are handing proporsals to the other teams. The logic is that how the Beat Riders are known to be competing, and the Inves Game are the means to it, so that'd mean if the Beat Riders put aside their difference, then it'd mean they (or at least not all, as shown by Red Hot before), don't revolve around Inves Game. One of the team, Team Pop Up, is a cameo of Kamen Rider Girls by the way. The other teams are more listening this time, likely due to it being technically still a friendly competition (a chance to rise off the ranks), and their arguments are regarding the events outcome like how it won't magically fix everything, which Mai acknowledges as them starting over again. Other than that, the teams also open up about the problem more that, Team Baron (who isn't present at the meeting) is the one that caused the whole conflict to start wars like taking dancers, which provides a reason for other teams to keep their Inves. So it's shown that unpleasant behavior like Kaito's social darwinism (or even worse, team's cheating) can really cause a problem in social. Though the other teams still leave, at least they're one step closer to solve the problem with Team Baron being the known root. The Beat Riders gathering scene is interposed with Gaim fighting some Inves on public where after defeating them, even in front of the crowds, they'd just run away from Kouta as he went to check on them, treating him as similarly monstrous as the Inves, so Gaim's fighting scene interposed here is a good demonstraition as the proof of the Beat Riders' difficulty.

Jonouchi is now paranoid about which Lockseed is the real one and left wondering about it, likely for some time as he moves along the stairs (with his previous locations still aired!), and as he henshins with one of them, it's the wrong one again, directly insulting him as NINCOMPOOP with also something that falls on top on him like Arms for Riders, but this time it's a bunch of cans... and a garbage man apologizing to him. Oren Rider Kicks Jonouchi in human form, telling him to go back to work, but notices a proporsal about All Teams Dance Event, and as someone who constantly jumps into conclusion, Oren just attacks Jonouchi again with his butt, assuming he's sneaking for that event. And as someone who hates "amateurs" or in his conclusion-jumping agenda to treat them as public troublemakers based on their reputation, Oren plans to ruin that event, with Jonouchi (covered in a trash bin) following suit. On the other side of Yggdrasill, there's a confirmation about how Yoko holds back in the previous fight with Gaim, as Ryoma thought her doing so will likely be the last time he'll collect Gaim's data, considering Yoko's combat skills. Ryoma also plans to test a Genesis Driver himself.

Mai (who Kouta goes with) visits Kaito and apparently points out about the Beat Riders conflict being his fault as Kaito questions about it being his fault, and the other team supporting his statement about his denial. Mai points out about how they won't be able to dance anymore, but dancing isn't a priority of Kaito as it's only one way to show off power.
As Mai storms off, Kouta reminds that not being able to dance would apply to Kaito too, but Kaito reminds how Kouta is also never concerned with dancing himself, which drags down Kouta's credibility, but Kouta still feel the need for this to be done to reveal the truth to others for the sake of helping, likely because the bad reputation impacts not only their dancing, but their daily life as well, as Kouta had experienced with his job hunt. Kouta and Mai's talk later about how Kaito messes up with them to paint what they're doing as futile also shows the impact of hurtful words Kaito throw at them, even if Kaito had tsundere traits for those 2, the harsh part of him is still terrible, his soft spot deep down aside.

Micchy shows a video about Bravo (with Jonouchi repeating what he said) pushing his agenda to drive away Beat Riders further, and it effortlessly wins over many people, compared to the Team Gaim's campaign, though those 3 still approaches other teams, which from Baron's campaign, gave them doubts as the hate is becoming worse. However, there are Team Baron members who genuinely wants to dance, like Zack and Peco (despite him being the cheater that Kaito reprimands), and as Kaito quits, handing a Sengoku Driver to him, the episode fleshes out on his character more, so this is the uplifting part of Team Gaim as they approach Team Gaim's hangout location, offering themselves to dance and informing that Kaito had quit, which made Kouta approach Kaito by himself. Kaito claims to quit to focus on the real enemy, battling against Yggdrasill, still brushing off other's helps as he claims he won't be dragged down by hanger-ons. Oren expresses the underwhelming dance move disdain better to relate it to art rather than 'power' than Kaito to me, but I got an insight from others regarding this part of how the "showing off power" by dancing isn't literal for Kaito's case, his ultimate goal is to bring down Yggdrasill, and rising his ranks up in Beat Riders is his way to gain followers or obtain some influence if he obtained the top spot for others to get to know about Yggdrassil being bad, and the way he can get to the top for Beat Riders is by dancing, and later, gaining the ability to control Inves and Sengoku Driver to proceed further (hence how he doesn't seem to care about the shifting focus to Inves Game), but as for now, Beat Riders are only used as Yggdrasill's scapegoats, instead they had bad reputation that others won't follow, so Kaito won't gain anything from dancing anymore and hence he quit.

It turns out that DJ Sagara is still maintaining his Beat Riders Hotline website, and before when Bravo pushes his agenda, he touches upon the Beat Riders' decline in popularity, but now he's hosting the All Teams Dance Event like he did in the Beat Riders Saga, which is attended by Team Gaim and Team Baron only, with few audiences, which got mocked over by Oren coming along to start his plan ruining the show, suggesting them to just go home. The other teams turn out to be watching the current DJ Sagara stream, and like how Sagara helped Kouta escape before, he turns out to be really enigmatic among Yggdrasill, actually encouraging for the Beat Riders to dance long after Yggdrasill's Beat Riders' stage of their plan is completed, which means he's doing it for his own volition, and is complained by Takatora for this.

Mai's determination is really tested here as many more disaster comes in the event, as she proclaims to keep dancing to spread their feelings even when there's only 1 audience (or 2 teams), with Micchy, Rica, Chucky, and Zack following suit with Kouta defying Oren, but he didn't stop as Jonouchi summons Inves to wreak havoc (a comedic type by taking the Beat Riders' stage to dance for themselves lmao) with Oren reminding the audience that Beat Riders use monsters (technically true as Jonouchi did it, but there's more to the context..), as Kouta henshins to Gaim to fight them off, and directly reminding them that the stage are Beat Riders'. Oren also henshins to Bravo to fend Gaim off from the Inves, with Micchy attempting to do so, but there's also Zack's debut as another Armored Rider Knuckle, using the Kurumi Lockseed and the gifted Sengoku Driver, with Kurumi Bombers as weapons. I feel that Knuckle's performance gives off more shaking and impactful attacks, destroying the Inves without the finisher, which shows off its strength convincingly, but I feel that it can also overshadow the supposedly stronger Riders like New Generation Riders before, or the debuts of more major characters like Kaito himself before, despite Baron coming to help him and claiming he's not on that level yet, but that's also a proof of Kaito truly considering them as friends despite differing paths now, and his claim to fight Yggdrasill alone is shown in soft way here to not drag his other teammates to Yggdrasill matters.

Gaim blocks Bravo's way and signals Mai to start the dance, but though Oren tried to cause disaster, him crashing the party while the other teams are watching finally convinces them to join the event. However Jonouchi still tries to sabotage the event by removing the Player Pass, but the dancers didn't budge as Micchy makes their own music and keep dancing, and the members of Team Invitto came across of Jonouchi (he leads an all-female team? what a harem king...and I get it now where his dandy traits come from), and instead drags him to their dance, with one girl putting back the Player Pass.
After Gaim drags Bravo outside and no more interruptions (with Jonouchi fully joining the dance), the event was a success, with them regaining their support, and likely will have their overall life improved too, judging what Kouta has gone through with the bad rep. I will say though DJ Sagara is likely the MVP here to broadcast the event, so that the other teams notice Oren crashing the party and the audience who doesn't directly come still knows about the event as well. When the teams celebrate, in contrast to the light-hearted episode which serves as the closure of the Beat Riders (the episode title also had a twist where it seems to be about the Beat Riders disbanding, but it actually had them bouncing back, and the title more applies to Kaito who directly leaves the team, or the closure of the story as it moves to the Inves conflicts), Micchy's rotten nature is now blatant, he claims he'll betray anyone to maintain the happiness he had in that situation. After beating Bravo, Gaim comes across a new golden-colored Rider.

As the closure part, I'll give my thoughts here about the dancing part. I've been giving some of the Rider fights a hard time if it doesn't come up to my expectations, but I've been mostly content to it as I follow KR more for the plot, but I can say the same regarding the dancing parts. It can tell a good story (still subjective) like how the KR series convey within its plots behind the Riders and monsters like the dancer's determination even when there are many obstacles in their way to ruin their dance, with efforts like making their own music or comedy like Inves literally taking their stage by dancing there, and how it had bigger stakes to their overall life, more than just fighting, like seen in Kouta's job hunt, but the dancing part itself is, like some of the Rider fights or ironically like Oren thinks (doesn't mean it justifies what he does), doesn't seem to be much effort is put in, either due to budget constraints, I don't know if it was due to budget constraints (unintentional) or due to the series wanting to give dance moves kids could easily emulate (intentional) or other reasons. On the other hand, this part had several dozen dancers in the scene so may be can't be too hard regarding this part with trying to choreograph the dancing, their difference of syncing (but likely not for previous dancing with fewer people).