[Mesnick]

Watched the episode. Yes, in fact, this is the beginning of the second arc of the show, when accents are placed and questions are asked. By the way, apparently the scriptwriters read the comments of the audience, since they decided to show the cowardice of ordinary people thrown into battle. Also, this round immediately got rid of almost all background characters. I wonder how long Grandpa will last? The change in the characters of the former players, which is not associated with a change in reality (otherwise Sarah would not have noticed it) is an alarming sign. Father Neon is super suspicious. The desire of the GameMaster to get rid of Gits is understandable in principle, because predictability destroys the very charm of the game. And with the protection of the world, as can be seen from the finals of the previous DGP, Ace does not cope very well(In the 8th episode, Tsumuri noted that they lost more civilians than ever). So PunkJack will try to fake his death or loss of skill in the most unsuspicious way.
The beat is, of course, an extremely powerful buckle. Under the previous comments they called the cheating Ninja, but the Beat gives elemental attacks, and also allows you to control Jamato and even other riders. In fact, it can only be surpassed with Boost and / or Ninjas that give super speed, but Zombies have no chance against him.
My new theory: DGP is a Gamemaster game. Playing with itself, something like solitaire. Most likely, this game has some useful purpose, besides the entertainment of the organizer, but it is unlikely that it is too altruistic. Jamatos were created by the Gamemaster specifically for the game, but later they began to quickly evolve on their own and, at the same time, Ace continues to persistently search for a clue to the essence of DGP. So now the Gamemaster is losing control of the game and is doing everything to restore it.