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Kamen Rider Gaim watch

The Overlord Saga

Episode 27: When You Know the Truth...

Written by: Gen Urobuchi, Directed by: Satoshi Morota

Ryugen's depravity is showing more here as not only he shot Gaim in the back, he's even going as far to shoot the unconscious Kouta with Budou Ryuhou. However, Ryugen's advantage by his cowardly move is cut short as Baron jumps into attacking him. Ryugen argues that killing Kouta would be benefical for Baron too, but as Baron's someone who hates secrecy, it's expected that Ryugen would be someone who pushes the buttons of Baron. Ryugen's move on Kouta proves to be his mistake here as he had become Baron's target of real animosity, that Kouta was only a nuisance, but Ryugen's his real enemy; the one that resorts to cowardly move, as in, they're weak enough to genuinely test their strength head on, and Kaito hates cheating. As Ryugen ran off due to Baron using Genesis Driver, Kaito also approaches the unconscious Kouta, and while claiming him as dense, he did something nice to him to hide him in the leaved tree-branches from the Inves. Kaito does have awful traits, but he'd look good if there are other far more antagonistic characters takes action, like Micchy here, which sometimes make people, either in-universe or out of universe, overlook his nasty traits more than he supposed to have, not minding them.

Micchy returns to the garage, maintaining outwardly good relationship with Mai despite the previous tension. As Micchy claims he had made up with Kouta (in reality totally opposite to resort into killing him untransformed), Mai notes that Micchy was OOC before while handing a mineral water to him, and as he asks what's "in character" for him, it's pseudo-OOC trait again as Mai thinks Micchy isn't usually worried about his persona, which in Mai's eyes, Micchy is usually mature and in control. From here, it's shown that earlier on, Micchy claims that Team Gaim is the place where he can be himself, but that cheerful and friendly persona in front of his friends isn't actually true to himself too. He implements a real dark take of being himself, as in, firstly not caring about what Takatora thinks about him, but it degrades into dismissing what anyone thinks about him, which'd make Micchy a total mood-swinger, quickly switching his personality around as he see fits without any regard to others as the take of 'being himself', ranging from his cheerful self to his friends, closed-off elitist, ruhtless cutthroat, insane psycho, etc.

Takatora once claimed that he will be his own experiment's guinea pig, and it's shown here in him trying to test the Driver prototypes, henshined into Zangetsu for the first time, with Ryoma and his team observing this. Suddenly the Lockseed powers up to dangerous levels, with the scientists being unable to eject the Lockseed, forcing Ryoma to yank it off and Takatora being unconscious in his arms. Takatora gained a scar in his right shoulder for that, and it still exists now where it's shown in his showering scene, so all this time, Takatora has been one of the stronger fighters among the Riders, and he did it with a handicap within that scar. But Takatora feels that the pain is nothing compared to the sins that he bear for him commiting atrocity to save humanity. Him actually having a burden paints him as having a room for redemption, though it's not easy as he did try to shake off second thoughts by claiming to try break Kouta into despair, and shows the importance of mental injuries in addition to physical injuries of which the former can't be overlooked, the latter can be treated, the former is sustained forever. Aside from holding Takatora in his arms, Ryoma is shown to have admiration to Takatora at this stage, like apologizing to Takatora for the injuries with Takatora assuring that Ryoma's talent are hopeful. What Ryoma wants was already stated there to use Helheim as advancement for humanity, including godhood, with Takatora focusing on saving humanity, and Ryoma did tell Yoko to not report an Overlord photo to anyone including Takatora, deeming him as unambitious and not understanding what he wants, likely the start of him ditching his admiration to Takatora. In the present, Takatora shows his dedication to save humanity further, despite the atrocious means, by suggesting to cut corners in the Sengoku Drivers' production to go for quantity over quality, which got declined by Ryoma.

In the Helheim Forest, while Kouta is wandering there, it's revealed that attaching fresh Lockseed at worn Sengoku Driver prevents him from being hungry, which made the food he brought unneeded. Oren is stuck there, almost tempted to eat a Helheim fruit, but stops by remembering his survival training as soldier. While he's portrayed as comic relief, he gets his badass moment back here by showing his strong-will here to resist the overwhelming temptation of Helheim fruit. Kouta comes across Oren and approaches him, noticed that he ran into a crack and got stuck. Oren's still hostile to Kouta to suggest that he's that careless. As Oren is hungry, Kouta decides to share his unneeded food for Oren. Oren however, accuses Kouta to have ulterior motive like asking for his service. Usually this is used by morally ambiguous or evil characters who can't understand the concept of goodness or generosity, but for Oren it's likely his irrational hatred for Aquarians, as he has good will to put Beat Riders in their place before, albeit got hampered by his lack of knowledge which made him do crimes himself to achieve that, which will be remedied here by his venture to Helheim. Though why didn't Kouta tell him that Lockseeds in Sengoku Driver can stall hunger like he recently did?

In the Yggdrasill base, the red Overlord is attacking the researchers to look for Kaito, showing more (dark) humanity aspects of the Overlord compared to regular Inves other than talking, to swear revenge for those who wronged him, which is Baron injuring him. He leaves the scene as the green Overlord joins him, but the green one is interested by a Driver the red one picked. As Ryoma talks about the reason he declined is the limit of the rare metal for the Drivers, Takatora goes to help the Kurokage Troops in the base as the emergency alarm rings. Kouta tries to lead Oren into the crack on Yggdrasill's base to get him out, which made Oren joyous at a chance to meet Zangetsu again, and engages in petty squabble with Kouta again as he thinks Kouta also had interest in Zangetsu and put him in a neckhold. Both hear the Inves rampage at the Yggdrasill base (which really saves both of them time too), with Zangetsu fighting the red Overlord. As this is his first time, Ryoma not telling him about this, he's surprised by several aspects the Overlord have like being able to speak human language, joined by Gaim, and Bravo fighting regular Inves, which earns him the Kurokage's thanks later.

Gaim in Jimber Lemon Arms tries to apologize for Kaito's actions to the Overlord, but this enrages the Overlord as he feels insulted. Finally as it's Gaim talking to the Overlord on his own, he realizes that the red Overlord is similar to Kaito, which is true but as darker/evil version of him, as both are red, have European armor theme, and has drive for power, with him treating war as glorious and his loathe for the weak, as he declares the Riders as monkey and vows to finish them off. With Zangetsu not knowing what's going on, it's Gaim's turn to explain things to him about Overlord and what he plans to do with them. Zangetsu actually listens to his explanation, and plans to restrain the Overlord to talk to them. The Overlord finally gets a showing that impresses me here as his power to control the plants is used to control the big trees around both Riders, which makes for a visually deadly attack to be slammed by huge trees several times, and opens for more distress situations as the Riders can be in danger anywhere they're in the Helheim as it's a forest, depending on the Overlord's range. As the Overlord sends a fireball to Zangetsu, Bravo shields him from it. Bravo de-henshins into Oren, falling in Zangetsu's arms, with Zangetsu commenting his actions as reckless, but Oren doesn't mind as he's in the arms of who he loves. It's a parody of self-sacrifices and it's enhanced by the love Oren had to Zangetsu which only made it harder to die in the arms you love. Before resuming the fight with Overlord, Zangetsu throws Oren into the Yggdrasill base crack, which creates another crack.... in the TV screen as Oren's face hits the audience's screen.

The red Overlord's name is finally revealed here, which is Demushu (which translates to "shinku" or "crimson", fitting his color), as another Overlord, the white one, named Rosyuo (which translates to "hakua", meaning "chalk"), as he leaves the battle from the wounds inflicted by Gaim and Zangetsu. While Ryoma gains advantage for Demushu's interference here (which is Demushu unwittingly giving the humans' advantage due to his vendetta against Kaito), Takatora laments that he screwed up the first contact. Kouta however assures that it's only first meeting so no need to give up, which is credible as Kouta did meet the Overlords several times before, along with Kaito. As Kouta plans to negotiate with the forest rulers, he finally gets through Takatora, who as someone with same ideals as him, agrees to use the less vicious option to save humanity here, as the negotiation can increase humanity's survival rate, and he introduces himself to Kouta (only the given name though.. he won't know that he's Micchy's big brother yet!) while shaking hands, albeit still shoving him away after that. Though still, while this is a triumphant moment for Kouta to get Takatora in his side, I feel that Takatora forgets the evil without reason belief he upholds, as the Overlords can qualify for what he described as evil without reason, though Takatora's biggest flaw is trusting people who shouldn't be like Ryoma and Sid... this might be actually in line with his character but applied to the Overlords now, or he'd treat Demushu as another Kaito like Kouta does.

As they spot Demushu again, both henshin into Gaim and Zangetsu, but him being moved by Gaim gives more reason for Sigurd to dispose him, as he attacked Gaim, which Zangetsu told him to stop, holding him off to let Gaim chase after Demushu. As both de-henshin, Takatora tells him that the situation has changed, but he never realized that the other Yggdrasill characters never show any loyalty to him, all of them confide to Ryoma, with Sid smirking to Takatora changing the situation and Ryoma planning to put the tired soldier into rest. While Takatora is softened, this shows a consequence of Takatora's hypocrisy before about humans doing evil without reason, while apparently excluding the ones on Yggdrasill. The humans that actually do evil are actually the one that is besides him on Yggdrasill, he should realize that the Yggdrasill is operated by humans as well, and not elevate Yggdrasill members as the only trustworthy ones and above regular humans.