The Weekly Ride Review with Ethan: Kamen Rider Gotchard Episode 31

Riders, Riders, wherefore art thou Riders? Oh, there you are. Welcome back! We have another episode of Gotchard to check out! I have an inkling you’re going to like it…  We have eclipses, calamari and a performance you don’t wanna miss!

Recap

This week, we pick up were last week’s episode left off with Minato arriving to give Rinne a pep talk, which leads to her and Hotaro beating the Mammoth Malgam and saving Seina. Back at Drama club, they need to find a new Juliet as Seina is absent. Rinne puts herself forward, having already memorised all the lines to help Hotaro practice. Mid rehearsal, however, Seina shows up accuses Rinne of trying to steal her role in the play and runs off when Hotaro defends her. 

On the rooftop, Hotaro and Seina talk, remembering a time when Hotaro, even at a young age, saved and inspired a young Seina. He makes an appeal to her to get along with everyone as the way she’s been treating Rinne upsets him and they should work together to save the drama club. Just as Seina says she wants to see Hotaro achieve his Gotcha, the school is attacked by the Kraken Malgam. Spanner tries fighting the new Malgam and ends up jobbing to show off its illusion ink powers. Perhaps we were too quick saying he beat the fraud allegations… 

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Hotaro and Rinne take a turn making calamari and also fall under the effects of the Kraken Malgam’s illusion powers. To break out, inspired by Romeo and Juliet, Rinne fakes her death by using  Neminemoon to eclipse the sun parts of her base form. This was so clever; I clapped. Together, they beat the Malgam. Seina, seeing the trust and faith Rinne and Hotaro have in each other, says Rinne should play Juliet. She does and we see narration from Hotaro that they saved the Drama Club.

During all of this, we get a scene of Lachesis and Kyoka having a meal out. Lachesis explains that she believes the giant monster hand from episode 27 (that I called out) likely belongs to the Abyssal King. The episode ends with the reveal Kyoka made Lachesis her own Valvarusher. I look forward to TokuStats on X revealing she ends the series with a better W/L rate then Spanner as the original version Valvarad.   

The Conclusion

Other than relitigating the Spanner fraud debate, this episode was pretty good and while I did enjoy it I don’t think I have much good or bad to really say about it. It’s cool they put the whole Romeo and Juliet performance on TTFC. The parallels between Romeo and Juliet and Hotaro and Rinne being their trust in each other and also a faked death was cool, and I appreciate they didn’t actually have them get in a relationship. 

The set up with the Abyssal King is interesting and it seems like we are getting the return of Legend as well. Makes me wonder if Hotaro and Clotho getting warped away to somewhere else to teamup with Legend means the rest of the gang isn’t having to deal with the King’s arrival. Now that I say it, there’s also a strong chance the King just ends up being the villain for the team up only. Either way, we will have to see next week. 

But what did you think? After that performance would you join the Drama Club? Did you also think Rinne’s plan was really clever? Should we put Spanner back on fraud watch? As always, I’ve been Ethan: Writer, reviewer and leading actor in The Toku Source Drama Club and I’ll see you next time!