[Sh Ranger]

"The skateboard inside you just wants to have fun!"

I was excited to hear the new insert song by Beverly, since Be The One is my favorite OP. Gotchard's got a great soundtrack so far!

The action continues to be impressive, with how SteamHopper launched Golddash in the air and then jumped to land on it. Houtarou may be dense in academics, but to compensate for that, he is a quick and imaginative thinker to come up with these cool moves, as well as his unconventional solution to the alchemy test.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zolda

Rinne mentioned the definition of alchemy as creating something from nothing and or creating life from death/the non-living. I guess the elixir hypothesis I made last week is plausible after all. Looks like one of the villains is aiming to create an articial life.

There have also been several mentions of natural order. How big exactly is the scope of the power of alchemy? Can it defy the laws of physics? Can it manipulate reality? Can it turn someone into a God?

Alchemy seems to contradict itself. Minato talks about conservation of mass, while Rinne talks about creating something from nothing. But I guess that's intentional to depict alchemy as something difficult to understand, since Houtarou points out that the result is basically magic.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zolda

- I think The Sisters are similar to the Megiddos.

Yep, that's what I think as well. Atropos is Storious, Clotho is Zooous and Lachesis is Legeiel.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DreadBringer

Between the leads, there's a contrast for their father, where both Hotaro and Rinne's father leave them, but both reacted to it in opposite ways. Hotaro is more open-minded about why his father can leave it, particularly due to Tamami insisting that it's ok for her husband to go chase after personal dreams. While Rinne has daddy issues to resent him, regardless of reasons.

Rinne reminds me of Hirose, who also had issues about her father releasing a bunch of monsters from cards. Maybe this is why Rinne feels responsible as an alchemist, she wants to atone for her father's actions. However, Fuga honestly seemed like a pretty good guy, both in Houtarou's interaction and Rinne's flasback. Even though he "betrayed" the Alchemy Academy, I think he probably had a good reason.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DreadBringer

Though it's never seen how the Chemies as a card would eat.

Well, if the Ride Chemy Cards are merely containers to compress and convert Chemies in to a usable form, then it makes sense that you could probably put food inside them as well.

Makes me wonder about the biological needs of Chemies, as artificial lifeforms. While they can live for 120 years without visible aging, they still have a basic metabolism that affects their weight depending on their diet, which means poor physical health might kill them. Intriguing.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DreadBringer

Though certainly a more serious than Hotaro, the haughty part of Rinne in ep. 1 seems to be abandoned entirely, with her just explaining things to Hotaro, all facts without feelings (positive or negative). Continuing from the serious (and professional) part, she'd be the rigid type of following written rules and duties, to remind Hotaro about his tactics being forbidden. I guess like Akira Amami then... the hostility was a one-off but introductory part (with Akira getting reprimanded for it and apologizing), though she does refer to Hotaro as poem-lover again here, but wonder if her school side would be touched upon, with her seemingly more cheerful as a child.

Yeah, this episode was a much better impression of Rinne. She even smiles at Houtarou's dream to befriend all the Chemies, so looks like she shares some of his idealism and that her coldness from before was a defensive behavior that she drops now that she's had time to know Houtarou a little better. Kind of like an anti-Keiwa. Instead, the real mean archetype seems to be Spanner, who dismisses Houtarou's dream as an "unfunny joke", which I guess makes him an anti-Isamu.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DreadBringer

So far it seems like as usual, only Riders can solve problems and thus Rinne is used to job to the MOTW and showcase their abilities, with Hotaro saving her and intervening as Rider.... giving Kiva's Fangire Hunters vibe.

You compare Rinne to the Fangire Hunters, but her use of manholes is like Kitajima Yuko.