Kamen Rider Gotchard Reviews

Gotchard Episode 33 Review

Like all aspects of this show, this episode's going to be pretty controversial because of the continuity lockout: see Gotchard vs Legend was filmed in the beginning of production with Gotchard's earlier episodes, allegedly one of the earliest, hence why Houtarou's the only one in the cast who knew and was involved in those mini series, though the plans were to have Legend return in the show eventually.

In that special, Kaguya, Kamen Rider Legend was saved by Kamen Rider Decade, and via a promise to his dead grandfather, he ultimately decided to become Legend with his resources he amassed, and fights the Hundred organization in his dimension we saw from last episode: and as this episode shows, Hundred uses their technology to copy powers of Dark and antagonistic Riders. The special only introduced one of them, Gengetsu, and we saw the Kasshines they used as the foot soldiers last episode, Alpha was the captain but this idiot forgot to look that up.

It seems like the arguments online come from the fact that for some people this came out of nowhere and that you need to watch all the other content to get this. Honestly though, as someone who hasn't watched it's not that hard to get a grasp of what's going on here: there's another faction of antagonists out there with their own adventures and they just happen to cross paths with this world's protagonists. Plus the flashbacks give a good idea of the situation. Hell last episode we saw Butler designing the superweapon they're after that came to Gotchard's dimension.

And it feels natural: Houtaro vaguely remembers them, the King wants the Sisters to investigate, and the Alchemists have to deal with both factions wreaking havoc when Butler introduces himself.

The Door of Darkness got opened or leaked: best guest, given the inability to open the gate, the Abyssalis King Gigist probably used or retrieved enough intel from Geyron about the circumstances going on and used him as an alchemist conduit for a one time escape. Then again, Geyron's plans with the GotcharDriver was enough to open it from the outside, so the show will probably explain how he escaped later. Though speaking of that, it'd be a wasted opportunity if we don't see Atropos questioning if Geyron is okay, but she is the most pragmatic of the antagonists so for now it's fine.

So Butler and Kaijiki are played by the same person. Never learned that's feasible in production, but it's cool to have them both on screen, though it's funny to have Sabi/Isaac confirm it with a near 97% accuracy and everyone giving Minato the look because even their straight-laced teacher's super uncomfortable with that reality. It also helps the audience get introduced to Hundred: dimension invaded syndicate, and then we get the Aurora Curtain...

...which um, Decade has always introduced this filter of a dimensional warping portal, that never really a name. The Legend special was the first to give it a name...but this is the first we've heard it be said in a show, which is neat: it's always cool to see a current season build on what a past series has done before.
Tasogare, Mimei, and Saigetsu aren't going to be some deep complex villains, but they get enough of a personality: the former's the extroverted one, Mimei's just a sword lady of battle, and Saigetsu really likes to say scrap. They actually unironically fit in really well, Gotchard's Malgams have mostly been felons, minor criminals, abusive dads (funny how Geyron's not the only one).

Though as they're telling the hero trio about their plans to send more of their soldiers in through the Aurora Curtain's complete opening, the translation has Houtarou calling it Panna Cottas. Now Houtarou being book dumb is consistent, aurora and curtains are not hard to remember, but the fact food was on his first mind: panna means cream and some chefs were cottas it's just a fun nod to his mom's business.

We're getting a lot of hand to hand action in this episode even before the transformations: wonder who's directing this episode and last one: oh Koichi Sakamoto, that makes way too much sense.