Snacks up, Riders! This week we have great uncles, dad reveals, sad backstory, spicy crisps and a new roommate! Join your server, Ethan, for another Ride Review!
Recap:
Picking up from the end of the last episode, Shoma finds himself in the cave hideout of his great uncle, Dente Stomach. The pair have an interesting talk with plenty of flashes back to Shoma’s childhood. Before we get into what they talked about, we need to talk about what happens during the talk…
Shitta and Jeebh are reflecting on their marshmallow flavoured beatdown and how Nyelv studied under Dente, recalling how Shoma was so weak before he couldn’t even summon his own minions and that, clearly, his time in the human world is what awoken his powers. Older brother Lango arrives, chastising them for not meeting the quota he set for quality spice shipments and going on to explain his plan; before the Granute’s world equivalent of the feds bust them, amass enough power and influence to rule the world using the Dark Treats their father and Dente invented. Basically, imagine Willy Wonka had the character arc of Walter White. As Lango leaves, he reminds the twins that deadweight is deadweight, regardless of if they are family or not. The twins spawn two agents and task them to gather spice for them.
Over in the human world, Hanto gets another tip about monsters and goes to investigate finding a little Popping Gummy caught in a net and freeing them. As Hanto tries to catch the spritely Gochizo, he stumbles across the two agents loading up cases full of people. Throwing a rock at them to buy time, the Popping Gummy runs off to get help.
During all of that, meanwhile, Shoma and Dente talk about when Shoma was little, revealing that his father asked Dente to use his abilities with technology and bio engineering to make Shoma strong and give him the power to summon minions of his own. We have found our parallel to Hiroshi Midorikawa from the original series, folks! Dente explains his own affection to Shoma is why he eventually moved to the human world – to learn more about humans after his surgery on Shoma was believed to have failed, only to fall in love with human snacks (offering Shoma a bag of spicy crisps) and staying. The conversation moves onto Shoma’s dead dad, with Dente saying he acted out his is own form of love for him, wanting to make sure the pair were so unhappy they couldn’t get turned into spice. Shoma argues his mother never asked to be kidnapped, or to be made the centre of his one sided affection or to be miserable. With this outburst and the spicy crisps in hand, he runs out of the cave. Dente, lacking the ability to assume a human form, is unable to follow.
After saving a child’s King-Ohger action figure from a drain (a custom painted one, too!), Shoma reaffirms to himself that humans should be living happy lives and the ones that are turning them into spice are wrong. He will protect them and find more than enough happiness to make up for his childhood. Just then, a Popping Gummy runs up to him.
Shoma arrives just in time to save Hanto and, using the power of his new spicy crisps, he makes quick work of the pair of agents and frees all the people they had captured. The people are scared of him at first but Hanto defends him as he leaves. Later that night, after Hanto leaves Amane’s place, Shoma goes in and asks to move in, to which Amane agrees. The episode ends with Soji Shioya, Hanto’s editor, mentor and father figure getting grabbed by the Mushroom Granute.
The Bad
It’s official, I’m downgrading the bad section and making it occasional, the worst thing I have to say about this episode is “wow that flashback is darker then last weeks” which even then feels like nitpicking.
The Good
I love the way things have been getting fleshed out. Of course the Agents are the Stomach Family equivalent to Gochizo! That just makes so much sense. Nyelv studying under Dente makes sense, too. Personally, I’m wondering if he’s a double agent, you know? The fact Stomach Inc is basically an alt universe equivalent to Cadbury’s but that it’s a front, like something from Breaking Bad… Los Dark Sweets Hermanos. Everything was on point, like in every episode so far.
Special shout out to the part of this week’s fight where an agent tries to stop Shoma from activating a finisher by grabbing his crank, so Shoma does a flip to turn the crank. Whoever thought of that part in the fight choreography should get a raise. Brilliant stuff.
The Conclusion
Another amazing episode! Hopefully this momentum can be kept when we settle into the status quo of Shoma at Hapipare, working for Amane. From the next episode preview, it seems she learns about, at least, the Gochizo so who knows how long the secret identity will last!
What do you think? Did you like this episode? Do you wish someone in Build pulled the flip trick Shoma did? As always, I’ve been Ethan: Writer, reviewer and other worldly being living in a cave for The Toku Source and I’ll see you next time!
