[DreadBringer]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sh Ranger

Damn, after all my predictions last week, I totally wasn't expecting Ace to lose his plot armor so suddenly. Geats didn't even appear in this episode. However, it looks like one of his desires, "to play DGP until I die", will allow him to stick around and have a limited effect on the finale, since he technically didn't die in the conventional sense. Maybe he can appeal to get back his qualifications by calling out Glare's very obvious rigging, just in time to defeat the final boss.

But I gotta say too that, plot armor term shouldn't be misused like that. Plot armor is when a character advances without explicit reason because the plot requires it, like a normal human (no, not humans in Rider form) surviving a direct and clearly superhuman attack at full output (not just casual swat), and they aren't established as something else than normal human (but has important role), but Ace won multiple DGPs because he's actually that strong, skilled, knowledgeable, and clever, likely from the hefty amount of experience too, that isn't plot armor.

I'd predict that the DGP would deal with his "play DGP until I die" wish by purposely launching a Jamato attack in an area Ace is present (his Star of the Stars of the Stars wish would make it easy to track him) so Ace can be murdered, and likely DGP's reset would make an exception for him like Keiwa's parents.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sh Ranger

The other main difference is that Michinaga has a personal beef (haha, get it?) with Ace, while Win is just doing a job that his grandfather offered him due to his lack of success as a musician.

Win just doing a job is also kinda a reveal in this episode. Though it was my perception too before that Win has blind loyalty to Game Master as he claims his orders are absolute, and that I felt Win pulls rather sadistic expressions when trying to off Ace before or when he gloats which gave me an impression some personal things are also involved.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rabbitman

For all we know, ace and keiwa could have planned this whole thing out behind the scenes. Keiwa kills the big boy, ace loses, then ??? and they win!

Kinda hoping this'd be true, as Ace also got stupid complaint last week of not taking the Driver (he can easily do that before honoring his promise to Keiwa), but it got answered here. Even without that reveal character types like Ace can still be brushed off, but it'd be far more detrimental for character types like Keiwa which is already infamous for giving impression of kindness being inpotent (and I feel, turned off people from virtue). They're going for kitsune/tanuki contrast, and there's a saying that "the fox has seven disguises, but the tanuki has eight".

E̶x̶-̶A̶i̶d̶ ̶a̶l̶s̶o̶ ̶h̶a̶d̶ ̶s̶o̶m̶e̶t̶h̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶w̶h̶e̶r̶e̶ ̶E̶m̶u̶ ̶c̶o̶n̶s̶p̶i̶r̶e̶s̶ ̶w̶i̶t̶h̶ ̶K̶i̶r̶i̶y̶a̶ ̶a̶f̶t̶e̶r̶ ̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶r̶e̶t̶u̶r̶n̶,̶ ̶p̶l̶a̶y̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶a̶l̶o̶n̶g̶ ̶w̶i̶t̶h̶ ̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶l̶i̶e̶s̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶g̶e̶t̶ ̶M̶a̶s̶a̶m̶u̶n̶e̶ ̶o̶f̶f̶-̶g̶u̶a̶r̶d̶,̶ ̶i̶n̶c̶l̶u̶d̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶n̶o̶t̶ ̶t̶e̶l̶l̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶T̶a̶i̶g̶a̶.̶