[DreadBringer]

Like when he sees Valen being de-henshined before, forcing Gavv to reveal that he's Shoma, Gavv also blurts out Nyelv's name while Valen is present, raising Hanto's suspicions about Shoma's secret. So far, Shoma has disclosed information about Stomach Inc. and the siblings who run it. Fortunately for Shoma, Hanto assumes positive intentions behind his secrecy. And Glotta's beatdown of Valen is brought up here too. Hanto doesn't suspect how Shoma knows so much about them.

It's also fortunate that Gavv didn't use the '-niisan' suffix when referring to Nyelv that time, where he still uses it later in his thoughts about him. We see Suga learning about Granutes onscreen for the first time, observing how they can disguise themselves as humans. Lage9 has a flashback about his younger brother Comel, who was addicted to Dark Treats and seemingly killed by Gavv, and he expresses disgust at the thought of being part of the Stomach family.

It’s misleading when people finally manage to avoid Chooul through a social media post, as it initially appears that Sachika is behind it. However, it turns out that Hanto simply drew her with Shoma, while Sachika just learns about the post and the truth that she was about to be abducted. I hoped that Sachika would join Shoma and Hanto when she discovers a post about Chooul's location, but that doesn’t happen, at least onscreen for this episode.

Chooul resorts to attacking humans directly and kidnapping them, which only leads to fear and unhappiness, which the story acknowledges that the Dark Treats' quality wouldn't be as good this way. Vram doesn’t seem as imposing in this fight as he did previously, though he still puts Valen in danger, albeit now Valen puts up a better fight. Although Gavv's explosion of Chooul could have increased the stakes by putting the Hitopresses in jeopardy, this does not occur, and Takeshi isn’t one of the Hitopresses present. Also, the show doesn’t depict the other people being freed in this scene.

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Originally Posted by gashatfreak

It does seem like Vram will become a heroic Rider, but let's not forget how this guy casually kidnapped entire rooms of people. I feel like that might be the next point of contention between Shouma and Hanto.

Would be like Necrom, Parado, or Gentoku's case, redeemed villains. If he stops doing his evil deeds he'd be heroic, but he's not someone heroic from the start like Shoma but initially villainous, people can change alignments.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kiwami

They’re building Lage9 up to quite the interesting character. So he had a loved one who was ruined by Dark Treats and decides to take the organization down as a result. He plays an addict to get inside and be hired, excels as his job to get higher positions and closer to his targets. At the same time he appears to be a Granute who is entirely disregarding of human life so while their goals align, it seems impossible for him to work with Shoma and Hanto.

There can be just enigmatic minions in a villainous groups, having their own agenda. And not all would be doing it for good intentions, but villain infighting can happen for that regardless. Evil vs evil stuff. Even Nyelv doesn't exactly follow the main agenda of Stomach Inc. Won't be exclusive to Lage9 that a villain may take down another villain, but actions matter more, he's another Granute that are no different to others, who see no value in humans.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kiwami

I wonder how this will develop. The easiest route for him to be redeemed would be revealing that he stored the humans he captured and they can be released again. Then again, we have seen his work collected by agents and Lango himself judged their quality, so it’s unlikely he could’ve used copied fakes.

I will applaud this show if they can keep Lage9 a rather despicable character we as an audience can understand and want to succeed in his goals yet judge for his deeds, not everyone needs a redemption arc.

If this happens this'd be the very first time in KR franchise, to have the 3rd Rider being a pure enemy like for example Reiji Nogi in Kabuto. Admittedly I rather miss when not all Riders would end up banding together, like some of the Phase 1 shows, where late Phase 2 shows onwards tend to have most of the Riders becoming allies. But getting redemption arc means they won't be judged for their deeds? There gotta be something they change about themselves to redeem themselves rather than them not really being in the wrong?