[Tokumonkey]

The is the first episode that felt to me that it fumbled the ball a little, given that the reality-show premise being something the players knew nothing about wasn't called out at all. Can Keiwa or Neon even be said to be willing participants? Until five minutes ago, Keiwa was under the impression that he was fighting the Jyamato in order to help people.

We've now established that experienced older players can just show up out of nowhere, but plot points in the previous couple of episodes make no sense if the DGP staff could've called back stronger players rather than Neon and Keiwa.

It felt weird that this episode also apparently skipped the opening round/the Culling. Maybe I'm being picky, but I really want this show to keep honoring the givens of previous episodes so the show's internal logic will continue to make sense.

While all of those things felt off to me, I still found the episode entertaining. I'm curious to find out whether this storyline's next twist is instead that both "new" players are the Impos-Star.

Anyone else find the brief pause before Michinaga appears in the credits to be interesting? I wonder if it'll be Shirowe next episode. Also, it's lovely to see that actor again, even if it looks like he won't be playing the same heroic character.

The tidbit where Ace meets his fan in the audience was very interesting. Even more so what the fan whispered. Sounds like the implication between that and the discussion among the other... audience?... is that Ace is actually an artificial being? It'd be very much in keeping with Kamen Rider as a franchise for him to be some sort of cyborg that gets his power from the enemies who created him.