[Tokumonkey]

Great episode, but I'm a little worried they're writing themselves into a corner.

SPOILERS abound:

I'm trying to figure out how many questions we have left after this episode's big revelation. If they're moving in the direction of "this is all a virtual world" - and so far, that's what the show has been indicating - that risks removing all stakes from the show. I don't really care whether Ace finds his mother or Neon finds love. I'm mostly here for the mystery. At this point, I guess the next question is "what relationship does the DGP have to reality?" The surprisingly-gruesome fates of the Riders - including this episode's not-quite-a-corpse - suggest there's some level of reality to the competition.

Speaking of those gruesome fates, I thought the broken ID cores being used as seeds was as dark as the show was gonna get, but their corpses being used as fertilizer takes it to a Gaim level of "what do you mean this is TV for kids?" Oh, yeah, and the "it's not suicide bombing, it's homicide bombing." Yikes.

BOO on Michinaga returning. That's a load of bull. (Sorry not sorry.)

I'm guessing our head writer has another major twist or two in store, but I'm really surprised they went and got explicit about the reality-show element so early.

What does the players' unawareness of the nature of the competition imply? And how much had Ace already guessed?