[Sh Ranger]

Legend's arc is finally over and the new arc is started in style by Inoue. Feels good to be back to the plot!

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Originally Posted by Zolda

Spanner finally loses his temper in front of the AU's top brasses due to their usual smug, idle, yet idiotic responses to the escalating situation that have made him and other low-ranked members of the AU the ones who paid the prices. So it's not so bad when Gigist vaporizes one of them, haha. Let them eat their own cooking. The AU's top brasses responses towards Glion's bullshits and other problems are one of the several things that have allowed the idiot plot of this story to exist for this long.

Minato and Spanner were already planning to do something about the corrupt Union after Geryon's defeat, so yeah, I guess Gigist did them a favor here. Spanner's reaction was a long time coming since he's clearly been holding his tongue for a while and it's gratifying to see him say what everybody else has been thinking. We can understand now (like the title) the nature of Spanner's black flame, the same power as Gigist's dark alchemy that should destroy humans' bodies as we saw with Harima's arm. But Spanner can use it safely as part of his nature, which even Gigist is surprised by. Could he actually be a homunculus as well?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zolda

Gigist calls Houtarou "thief" @ 15:18 and forces Houtarou to return his power, which very likely refers to the Nijigon egg inside Houtarou's body. It seems like the Nijigon egg contains a significant portion of Gigist power, though maybe not the largest one. This explains why Glion said that Houtarou was the one who forged and refined the Gotchardriver as the key that could open the door of darkness. That also explains why Houtarou is able to communicate with and understand Chemies. Gigist says @ 15:46 that the Nijigon egg was a part of Gigist body that was shattered 120 years ago, very likely when he was defeated by the Alchemist of Dawn. The Alchemist of Dawn damaged Gigist body and separated a significant portion of his power into the Nijigon egg, and then he (as Houtarou's dad) planted/hid the Nijigon egg inside Houtarou's body, or perhaps into his own body and was later inherited to Houtarou. The crucial question is: How could the Alchemist of Dawn (which was very likely a mere human) defeat Gigist (very likely a God) in the first place? The next shock factor is probably the appearance of Houtarou's dad who will reveal his identity (and face!) as the Alchemist of Dawn. At last, the most elusive character will probably debut on screen between episodes 37-40 and become the final ingredient for the birth of Nijigon and KR Rainbow Gotchard.

While Gigist had mostly been hanging around as a generic evil mastermind during the Legend arc, this episode reveals a lot more of his personality. It's intriguing and ominous how Gigist acts like a dark version of Houtarou and mentions that Nijigon inside the latter contains a fragment of him. Houtarou has the special talent to quickly grasp the abstract picture of something, even though he doesn't immediately see the details, which allows him to empathize with Chemies despite the language barrier. Similarly, Gigist has a habit of commenting on others' behaviors and feelings like he's acutely familiar with them. This is an enemy who possesses empathy yet abuses it for evil, which is a dangerous combination. He accuses Houtarou of being a good influence on the Chemies, presumably from having befriended them as a kid in Ouroboros World, so Gigist believes that he's acting in interest of the Chemies' welfare by restoring them to their factory default setting of evil. Yeah, I can tell that this guy is going to be much worse of a threat than the merely avaricious Geryon.

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Originally Posted by Enchilada645

That said bravo Gotchard, I already had an affinity for Skebows because well, I like skateboards, so getting me to feel emotions at seeing the white dead corpse of a Chemy I fancied? Kudos. And now I fear for every Chemy that has a Malgam suit because those could be next, and that's not counting the new ones they could make because uh...

First the penguin Rider in Geats and now the skateboard Chemy in Gotchard. Feels like somebody at Toei is targeting you.

But yeah, damn, that scene at the end was pretty dark, with Houtarou calling out to Skebows to try and reassure him that he's going to be fine now, but he doesn't come since he's dying. This shows that despite apparently having indefinite lifespans, Chemies are not immortal and sadly, Skebows is the first casualty of his kind. The existence of Dark Malgams confirms a suspicion I've had, that Chemies as sentient lifeforms are also capable of malice on their own. According to Gigist, this is basically Skebows' "true form". After all, we were told early that Chemies are involuntarily attracted to malice, but we weren't given a reason for that, until now.