Happy Pride Month, Riders! Welcome to this week’s Ride Review! Last week’s harrowing Kamen Rider Gotchard ended with our boy, Hotaro, becoming an egg and teleporting away. What will happen next? Let’s find out!
Before I get into the recap, I would like to address this up front; during the article in which I talked about Hotaro’s upcoming forms, I put forward a theory that Hotaro would make his own Chemy and that would be the source of his final form. My theory was wrong and, while that’s not what they do, they still 100% use that idea though for a movie form or something. I’m sure about this. Hey, Rinne and Spanner have powerups coming down the line, maybe we will see them use it there! Otherwise, you can look forward to a “missed potential of Gotchard” article at some point. Anyways, on with the review!
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Recap
This episode opens repeating the final moments of last week’s. Gigist’s gang leave and everyone rushes back to the Alchemy Academy to search for Hotaro. Mr. Minato comments that this is likely the work of the 101st Chemy and theorises that Rinne’s father hid this Chemy in the Gotchardriver because it’s so powerful it surpasses all classifications and rankings.
With the knowledge of where Hotaro is from Kyoka, the gang rush off to protect Hotaro’s egg form from Gigist, with Spanner and Rinne running interference on Gigist and the chimera Abyss Malgam he makes out of five of the remaining seven (not counting the egg Hotaro’s hanging out with) Chemies: Haodin, Macentaurus, Vanfenrir, Gingriffon and Donposeidon. While Rinne and Spanner are dealing with the Malgam, Gigist attempts to crack the egg.
It’s worth noting that, when Gigist makes this Abyss Malgam, he notes that Spanner’s dark flames within him are the same as his, implying that the warp portals he uses to grab these Chemies are something that he could do, also. Does Spanner getting control over his dark flame powers might mean he can make warp portals too?
Inside the egg, during all of this, Hotaro and Tamagon (as our boy names him) talk a little. Tamagon asks why Hotaro needs to be the one who fights. This is a big conversation, though and eventually Hotaro gets hungry. Inside this dream like eggworld, we’re transported to Hotaro’s family restaurant, where his mum makes him some thing to eat. Seeing how curious Tamagon is about his omlette, Hotaro offers to make him some, too. After sating Tamagon with a hideous looking ‘Gotchard Omlette,’ Hotraro declares that he’s made up his mind to go back out there and fight. He invites Tamagon to join him and, in what looks almost identical to the final world from Kingdom Hearts 3, Hotaro reaffirms his wish and the egg starts to crack.
Bursting forth in a torrent of rainbow light, Hotaro arrives, just as Rinne and Spanner get knocked out of their transformations. The rain stops, the clouds part and Tamagon hatches into Nijigon! Hotaro and his new friend transform into Rainbow Gotchard!
Finally realising that alchemy is just like cooking, Hotaro beats the Malgam, transmuting his attacks and the environment to beat it with ease before landing a Rainbow Rider Kick! The episode ends with Hotaro and the gang celebrating that Rainbow Gotchard defeated the Abyss Malgam without losing any Chemies. Hotaro was able to ‘Gotcha’ all five of them and the energy released by his first transformation into Rainbow Gotchard restored all the seemingly dead Chemies to date! He reunites with Hopper1, thanking him for his yellow flower and the gang look up at the rainbow that appeared after the rain cleared up.
The Bad?
There isn’t any bad! None! This episode was delightful. Instead I’m going to use this as an opportunity to address some criticism I’ve seen online already – Hotaro realises by himself that Alchemy is like cooking, Ninjigon doesn’t tell him that. There’s certainly a discussion to be had about how little Alchemy the Alchemy school seems to be teaching the Gotchard gang, but that’s for another day! I’m just using this as an opportunity to say, Nijigon doesn’t explain anything to Hotaro; he realises it himself during the fight. Guess the bad this week is some people’s lack of media literacy…
The Good?
Pretty much everything. It was a thrilling episode from top to bottom and it even had a Kingdom Hearts reference… Look at them side by side you can’t argue that. Additionally an Twitter X user put the fight from this episode side to side with the fight from episode one and its so nice how the choreography for the fight mirrors Hotaro’s first fight as Gotchard. A nice subtle way of showing how much Hotaro has grown now he can fight fully as an alchemist and Kamen Rider.
The Conclusion:
A wonderful episode this week and, yes, I cried at the Hopper1 reunion. Who wouldn’t? Next week, we seem to be dealing with the last two Chemies. This raises a question… we have over ten episodes after that, even assuming next episode forms the first instalment of a two parter, what on earth are we doing now all the Chemies are caught? I’m interested to see! If anything, here’s hoping Gotchard continues its streak of being just wonderful!
But what do you think? Did you like this week’s episode? Whacha think of the new form? Are you hyped to see where it goes from here? Let me know in the comments below! As always, I’ve been Ethan: Writer, reviewer and thing you will find at the end of the rainbow for The Toku Source. Cya next time!
