[Fish Sandwich]

Also for the record, "chocolate bandito" was absolutely my runner-up for favorite form change going into this show. Really, if I didn't rate the colors of Fuwamallow Form so highly, the raw conceptual brilliance of Chocodan Form would probably push it up to the top. I don't think any other suit we've seen in this show yet sells the concept of Gavv as a hero with quite as much immediacy. It might not be the Gavv form I ended up immediately loving the most, but it's still the one I understood the fastest, even above PoppinGummy. You know he's cool because he's a gunslinging cowboy with a spiffy hat and poncho, but you know he's weird and silly and *fun* because all of those things are made from chocolate. His gun is literally just a bar of chocolate.

As I've learned to expect from this show, the execution when it comes to putting that concept into action managed to handily exceed even my already heightened expectations. Especially with Teruaki Sugihara back in the directing role for this episode, the fight scene here is a frenetic delight throughout. Not only is the gun just a bar of chocolate, but it's one Gavv has to take a bite out of to get the shape right, and the projectiles the gun launches are, naturally, also pieces of chocolate. Holding true to what impressed me right from the premiere, there's this simple but striking use of both digital and practical effects to bring the particular candy flavor of the fight to life, making this one into an energetic paintball match, punctuated by all the typical comic book sound effects and cute Gochizo antics. Like quite a few episodes so far, the Rider action is actually a fairly small portion of the runtime, but perhaps for precisely that reason, not a second of that action goes to waste. From the very instant Shouma first transforms, until he lands a finisher, basically every beat has something to it worth remarking on.

There's also like 20 other minutes of show here to talk about, of course, and all that was also living up to the high standards Gavv has been setting for itself. The biggest highlight for me is the Rider non-action at the start, which ended up being great for completely different reasons than I expected. I'm very happy to see a Kamen Rider show taking advantage of the "Kamen" part of the title, in the same way I'm always glad to see any actual Riding happen, but while mysterious heroes with secret identities are cool, I'm also really glad these particular two are also this *hilarious*. Their conversations in and out of costume here take advantage of how Shouma and Hanto have more similar overall personalities than a lot of main Rider duos do, playing up their mutual panic at the thought of being exposed, as well as the very similar-yet-opposite mistaken conclusions they jump to about each other's backstory. It's a quirky dynamic that still leaves plenty of room for dramatic potential on top of the fun gags, and that balance is just one more commendable thing about the way Gavv is written.