[DreadBringer]

Expected spotlight, but actually got taken out.

Guess from how he worked on a restaurant of one, Keiwa learns to cook tanuki soba himself. Which can mean they can lose potential customer of him cooking it himself. So this episode addresses Neon's hiatus, as Sara gets focus here. Surprisingly Keiwa's answer isn't that subtle as someone who's on touch with the DGP/JGP, to tell Sara that she's looking for a new home, which is a truth. If Sara claims she can't go living without Neon TV (which can be just overreacting), then I wonder how she follows Ace, her another idol. This little conversation, as usual, will also be implemented in the main plot later of Keiwa insisting that everyone looks for what makes them happy, directed at Sara's question of Keiwa's words being aimed at her or Neon.

The last round in the JGP, with Beroba already preparing the throne for the winner, is Heaven and Hell game, done by making the city float in the air, which'd get anyone caught up, like Keiwa and Sara above, stuck, and also prevents any other outside help outside of the Riders who got caught. The ones in the city would be subjected to trials to stand in a colored circle, or otherwise they got attacked by Jamatos, but a goddess will open up those circles to make people fall below, until there's one last man standing, depending on which color chosen as the hell. Surprisingly to me, despite Sara focus, it's not all her who looks out for people as there's someone who tells others that the Jamatos won't attack those in circles.

Finally Tycoon uses Command Twin Buckle again, though this is the necessary one to save the ones falling to the pit, in the red circle as for first trial, including Sara, with its flying ability after it's charged. And the series establish Dunkleosteus Jamato as something on different level to other higher ranked Jamatos, as Tycoon points out by struggling with Command Twin Buckle. Guess it was necessary for a future Rider like Kyuun to team up with Na-Go to defeat it before, Na-Go wouldn't be guaranteed to win that round even when she's not broken that time. Though the only way to win is to make someone fall to the pit, Geats Boost Mark II feels weak against Buffa Zombie Jamato here, as it was something that can be matched by mere Geats Magnum, with Ace's skills before. Though at least it wasn't Geats' defeat to showcase Laser Boost's flight ability.

Guess I'd think this is one of my favorite game rounds in this series, as something that is the most important and impactful for the plot. Which got explained by Beroba and Michinaga as representing the world in miniature, a world where there can be a few people that's happy with the rest being sacrificed for them. Beroba may have a point here, but this shouldn't be used to elevate her for fighting against the DGP and the Goddess which Beroba uses to taunt Ace regarding how horrible the latter is. Two wrongs don't make a right of which Beroba only opposes what stands in her way, how she'd want to make the world being different from the Goddess'.

He has standards, but this time Michinaga's on the same page as Beroba again despite claiming he'd quit working with her before. He has noble intentions, and as usual, he hypocritically acts like what he hates by he himself making that kind of game and pitting actual civilians leaving only one standing (with the circle color also can changing). He'd want to make others understand on why the DGP must be destroyed and holding nothing back in its demonstration, but the damage would still be done. Unless actually the goddess will revert the converted people after the game ends, which can be how Tycoon returns later.

That revelation shapes the core duo's next decisions, with Keiwa making a serious conversation with Kekera, who further confirms that the sacrifices are used as a fuel for remaking the world, which refers to ofc, the ideal worlds of the DGP winners. And it's confirmed that not all DGP civilian victims return for said fuel. Which'd mean, saving civilians in the game is something necessary too, not merely done only for the points, and the Riders' decency to save civilians would be rewarded by this, even without them knowing how the world is remade, as it's better to ensure civilians' safety rather than risking a non-guaranteed revival via reset. Ace directly asks Niram regarding his birth and, omitting future people marrying past people as they can't birth a child together, Niram also knows only 1 way how a reincarnating child can be born. So ironically Niram himself has helped Ace's pursuit of seeing Mitsume.

Further talk with Daichi claims that Mitsume wants happiness and uses her power to rob others' to get hers, which creates Ace. This paints Mitsume as someone suspicious too, but JGP and Daichi being themselves, who also goes out of their way to attack Riders' mental state, can also delivering half-truths like omitting Sueru turning Mitsume into one. It's also possible that the unsightly power Mitsume has refers to her power she already has before being turned into Goddess of Creation, but it's also possible that Mitsume creates Ace with the same power before being turned into Goddess of Creation. Continuing from Keiwa's talk with Sara before, he snaps, and grabs Ace for being someone born from others' happiness. As usual, he exemplifies heroic trait to try be unbiased, and vouches for anyone's happiness no matter who they are, and not neglect the unlucky few (or many in this case) for that, but it'd be irrational for him to snap to Ace for something beyond his control, in contrast to him accepting Ace before.

Like Gaim with Akira on ep. 34, perhaps this'd be an episode to show that the big sister/guardian of a boy scout would be someone equally noble, likely partly how Keiwa got that from, with Sara insisting to have no one else fall, though she's focused on bonding with a little boy, and to a lesser extent a schoolgirl. She's shown to be the only one who picks up the boy when he fell, though it's oddly slow, done to show she's the only one giving a shit? Sara also keeps holding the schoolgirl's hand even as she's attacked by the Jamato, until an actual fighter in Keiwa successfully rescues people. Oddly as usual, he uses Ninja again here instead of Command Twin Buckle, though he has some triumph in him eliminating the Rook Jamato, and also a sneaky trick in charging his finisher by dragging his spin disk across the floor as he's pinned.

An unfortunate thing for them though, is that the schoolgirl is willing to drag down others to save herself by pushing an old man into a pit to get on a circle not marked as hell, yellow this time. This'd be another time a KR shows a dark side from a civilian, which I think, she can run some more distance to get on a bigger circle instead of a small one by pushing another, and unlike how Tycoon just gets mad at Riders' cruelty like Morio's, he actually loses morale on how there are civilians who'd go that far, and like Neon before, this makes him an easy target for Buffa to throw Tycoon into the pit, claiming that the desire to be happy is the root behind all the fighting. So it wasn't Keiwa and Kekera's turn to get a focus after Ace and Ziin, then Neon and Kyuun's.

By this, perhaps Michinaga wasn't really a tsundere for Keiwa, that in ep. 6 his priority was eliminating Morio, like how he shows disgust to Jamato crew's actions before. For all the lenghts Michinaga go in this episode, actually he can get through Keiwa on how stupid the game/world is, perhaps this'd be a setup for Keiwa to fight the DGP itself later, saving the world for real, may or may not be after he undergoes a dark path.

Character death happens in Archimedel, due to him offering himself as a fertilizer for the Dunkleosteus Jamato, who consumes him as a whole, and later taking Archimedel's identity and form. This'd raise the stakes to combine its power with Archimedel's intelligence. Even Daichi was so horrified by this move, though afterwards he was awed, perhaps this can cement his decision to become a Jamato.