[Enchilada645]

Overall yeah, I'd agree that this is a nice epilogue, but it's also a good restart point and intro to our new Arc. It's very much showing where our characters are in terms of their allegiances and goals, sorta reorient the audience after just sticking to a formula for a good several months.

Nothing too incredibly groundbreaking but I love the clever usage of past events. Like I didn't even think the Humagear Keys were going to be brought up again, but nope! They have it be a backup that Aruto clearly thought about, both backing up the Humagear Data to preserve it from ZAIA and protecting himself from being shot! That was definitely a standout scene for me in the episode.

Also this fight, really enjoyed seeing Rising Hopper just bounce around his opponents again. And then the finish with Metal Cluster was nice, it was creative that Thouser disrupts it but it just turns into a drill that Zero-One enters before drilling into Gai and sending him smack against a wall with a satisfying explosion to boot. Overall fairly nice episode.

Also to answer your question on Yua choosing Fighting Jackal though. It's because Gai's clearly trying to push the Raider Pseudo-Rider tech and having Fighting Jackal lead the Horseshoe Crab Squad, is 1000% aesthetically fitting than Valkyrie doing it. It's also the shows way of just clearly saying, "This is Yua on the wrong side in many different ways".

Also I really like Fighting Jackal as a design and it's concept art might be the best I've seen yet. Though I'm not sure if I should talk about the particulars of that concept art... or even when I should talk about it come to think about it... eh I'll figure something out, after all there are major changes coming soon whether the show likes it or not.


*stares at the impending pandemic from back in 2020*