[DreadBringer]

Obligatory 'tomato in the mirror' arc for Kamen Rider, also Yuya Takahashi pulling Kobayashi, Inoue, or Urobutcher.

Other than Neon celebrating her birthday in her channel, the birthday obviously doesn't go unnoticed by the major characters, where Ace and Keiwa are out shopping for her, though seems only Keiwa who attempts to give a present to her, while Ace claims a celebrity like her already has far too enough for gifts. I'd wonder what'd happen in his own birthday. Or at least, Ace would rather not buy her stuffs as a present, but rather giving the outcome she wants in winning the Bullfighting game, in response to her attempting to help Tycoon, which is true that gifts can come in many things.

These 2 also have casual conversations where Ace claims Keiwa isn't as shocked as he thought learning of his reincarnation, but it's expected where, as a nice guy, he'd be tolerant of how someone's existence come to be. I'd want for Keiwa to touch upon about Ace actually fighting since 1 AD, though at least Keiwa now knows why Ace dominates the DGP (which was the reason why he asked him that). I wonder if Keiwa would deliberately avoid Sara in trying to celebrate Neon's birthday here, due to her obnoxious obsession with Neon (I still feel that Keiwa'd still dislike Neon's videos even now, but doesn't mean he can't care for her as a person).

Ace and Keiwa's genuine wants to help people from Jamatos is detrimental this time as their actions lure themselves into the Bullfighting game, now made by Michinaga due to his new position as the Game Master by holding the Vision Driver. Other than how the game is obvious to Michinaga's motif, Keiwa points out too that he's a bull (actually buffalo, but he's also bullheaded), albeit actually the "bull" is the DGP Riders who previous Jamatos lured with the red flag. Technically Keiwa is still right though as the last round is Geats doing the bullfighting by facing Buffa. Franchise-wise, this game feels like Build's 3 round 1v1 representative match.

Other than how the plan is to use the comparatively weaker Riders in Tycoon and Na-Go to fight first and make Geats' participance unnecessary. This part also further shows Beroba's cheating nature, where as other Riders can't enter the arena, Tycoon's fight is actually 2v1, where Dunkleosteus Jamato attacks him from hiding - which I thought it was a trap in the arena. It's also consistent where Tycoon can hold his own against 1 higher ranked Jamato, but he's not a one man army yet to take multiples of them (only Geats qualify for that), and he constantly reminds that he only loses due to cheating.

I'd think despite this being a deathmatch, the losing condition is only being knocked out of transformation, instead of being killed like in the DGP, and that Keiwa is imprisoned instead. The JGP would rather keep Riders alive to feast on their misery? Daichi's behavior on Keiwa here also displays more stereotypical cruelty of his smirk, rather than just calmly being a birdbrain like in DGP before. I thought at first Michinaga responds back off to Keiwa complaining about the cheating, but apparently it's actually directed to Beroba, as she brushes off his complaint to only care about them winning, and Michinaga watching the Riders miserable as he wants. Beroba was the one who thought Michinaga would do anything for win, but I guess outside of the DGP where he attacks the Riders head on including cruelly ignoring Lopo's plead, Michinaga still has some standards.

Neon vows to win the next match, but honestly I think I'd rather if this part of a scene is shown by her training, either by making use of DGP's training facilities or likely getting her bodyguards involved, rather than sitting on a cafe again. Kyuun appears again besides her, carrying a present, but as usual, he'd throw some shade on her. Other than the training part, it's a good thing though that Neon and Kyuun's identity secret isn't dragged, and it's done by Neon's own term of figuring out herself that this salty man is her supporter, due to how he knows her wish and her location. The core trio all have shown capabilities to observe and figure out things by themselves without full informations known to them.

Kyuun feels more sympathetic here to be more vulnerable of lamenting why he can't be honest to her, but he's still in the wrong to consistently badmouth her, where as she notes, it just comes off as bullying her, burning bridges with her afterwards after she actually tries to be more friendly to him before claiming he's just salty when she realizes he's a supporter who also brings a gift to her. Apparently the next episode has Kyuun making up with her, I hope it won't validate Kyuun's rudeness as in, showing that being abrasive but caring deep down is better than her fans who turned on her after the truth about her get revealed later, as here, being rude isn't inherently being more honest, but actually the opposite for Kyuun.

In contrast to Kyuun coming off as a bully, being more honest and open without being mean about it can get through someone better, even though they'd not immediately comply, like when Keiwa explains how he figured out Neon was the DezaStar, or Neon herself to Keiwa at the start of ep. 4. Or even "lying bastard" Ace in this episode, who points out that Neon is more glum outside of her online persona despite her birthday, of which while at first she denies it to insist that she's fine, it opens more room to be continued to the point that she opens up about Ace about how her birthday is both a commemoration of her happiness and misery, due to her kidnapping happened on the similar day, not driving her away like Kyuun did (who likely will insult her online persona being more cheerful as being two-faced or hiding something), even if Ace suddenly appears to 'pry' about her kidnapping, after his encounter with Kousei.

More on Kousei is shown in this episode. Like his shady side with him (ab)using his position to confiscate Ace's driver if he doesn't do as what he says. Though he's also grateful to Kyuun being a supporter for Neon, despite that the irony is, Riders like Ace or Keiwa, the former Kousei was hostile to, is more considerate of her compared to actual supporter. This shows that actually Kousei doesn't know Kyuun as his supporter, despite Kyuun mocking Neon as too naive to be left out, resembling her parents' control over her. Also, Kousei isn't from future like suspected, he just builds connections with people from the future as a strategy to grow Kurama Foundation further with their technology, compared to Irumi who wants to maintain old business connection, albeit having both is better.

How Kousei got involved with the DGP is also shown. It seems that Kousei isn't a DGP winner? But rather made a deal with the devil, in this case, Niram, to get his daughter (technically) back, who actually was named Akari and died in said kidnapping incident, where he has to work as a DGP sponsor. Him handing the flowers at the kidnapping site instead of approaching Neon directly actually foreshadows about Neon's truth, due to how the practice is usually done as a symbol of the dead. Even someone like Kousei has limits on his stoicism for obvious reasons, in his reactions to Akari's corpse being carried by cops, or how he's really holding his anger on Niram when making the deal, considering how sus Niram is at that time, with his smirk over getting Kousei to do his bidding. This evens out Kousei seemingly worse than Niram in ep. 25 when Niram calls Kousei on his BS.

This is obviously a really dark and tragic moment to have a direct child's death, including how devastated Kousei and even Irumi was, but I think it's not the franchise reaching new heights in bleakness as this has happened before in previous series, like Ryuki with child Yui, or W with child Philip. Otherwise, now the name Neon carries deeper meaning by this. Other than how the 音 kanji of Neon (祢音) means sound (her being Beat user), 祢 also means shrine to the deceased which explains her fate, and that as the real daughter's name, Akari, means light, neon is a manufactured, artificial light, thus the Neon name on her means "artificial Akari" as Akari's replacement made by Goddess of Creation, where she keeps Akari's memories with everyone else's memories being altered to remember Neon instead of Akari, except Kousei himself. I wonder if this also explains how Kousei neglects Neon, because he only views her as a copy, including on the naming itself, like Michinaga viewing JamaToru as just a monster.

How depressing the reveal is also emphasizes how cruel Beroba is to milk off people's misery. Like how heroism isn't only limited on fighting, villainy is also not limited to destruction, as words can cut deeper than knives, where Beroba's probably most vile action here so far is doxxing, with her being the one who reveals Neon's dark truth to everyone, which was her plan previously when Na-Go fights to demoralize her, but fortunately has Ace stepping in instead. This also reveals that Geats is attached enough to his friends to get furious at Beroba ruining Neon, contrasting on how previous berserk forms were outside of the Riders' control, but here Geats is angry on his own volition. I feel that Geats using Boost Mark II (and Laser Boost later) should have him whoop the Jamatos faster though due to his sheer power.

So far, Neon's own misery here is shown in her fans (I wonder if it's just the DGP/JGP audiences, not including normal people, as likely they wouldn't know the DGP due to its secrecy) turning on her due to her fake status, which perhaps how she lost the motivation to live in the next episode, getting herself bruised worse than previously, is because of the hate she gets from former fans, while also knowing that her fake status is likely the reason why she wouldn't get true love from her parents. As this storyline has happened in several previous KR, perhaps this'd also end by her (along with others) not caring if she's fake or real, though now "Neon is Neon" can't happen because the real one has diffferent name (or it can be "light is light, manufactured or natural"). She seems to only use Beat with Boost (the present from Kyuun) next though, which raises worry of her not getting upgrades like previous female Riders from the leaks...