Also, the debut of this form.
Oren's transformed Armored Rider form now has a name, his name is Armored Rider Bravo and since then, he is dominating every single Inves game he is in. Meanwhile, Takatora discovered that the Watermelon Lock Seed is missing and asks his associates its possible whereabouts.
The episode continues Bravo's first fight from the previous episode. His debut fight also gave us a better idea on the personalities of the Nut Riders. Gridon runs away if he is in a disadvantage while Kurokage still continues to fight even though he is badly beaten. Funny, Gridon's Rider call has something to do with not giving up while Kurokage's call has something to do with striking in the shadows. Back to Bravo, his fighting style is elegant and brutal, elegant the way he flails his swords and brutal because he shows no mercy to his enemies.
After his first battle, he starts to dominate every single Inves game around and starts challenging other teams and that includes Team Baron. But that's not we are talking first; let's first talk about Takatora's reaction in this situation. To sum it up, he didn't like it. His reaction doesn't make sense, I mean they are gathering data and having an experienced soldier join the roster of lab rats makes a lot of sense compared to a bunch of random street kids dancing around in their free time if they are not busy playing pocket dimension monsters with other teams. His reaction made me wonder why the belts should be handed over to kids and not to some trained soldiers.
Speaking of belt handling, Sid is there to witness it, what's more is that DJ Sagara, the guy who likes to scream in front of the camera and hype the crowd about the Inves games turns out to be involved in this! Sid's involvement is something I already expected. But DJ Sagara's involvement is something I did not expect to see. I mean, he is a really cool guy and it seems like he is just there to cover the turf war between the dance crews for the masses to enjoy. But nope, he is working for Yggdrasill.
When you think about it, it makes a lot of sense in the grand scheme of things. I mean, since day 1 he has the orange and banana Lock Seeds, high level Lock Seeds that are hard to obtain unless you have a lot of money… considering the fact that his job kinda feels like something that will earn you a minimum wage, I wonder how he can manage to grab a lot of Lock Seeds with that kind of pay. What's more is that his actions feels like he is encouraging more kids to have Inves battles now that these battles are part of the scoring system in the turf wars.
Another detail that I failed to notice is that Sid is distributing the Locks and Sagara is promoting it, and Sid is the only guy distributing the Locks, it can only mean one thing, they've been working together for quite a long time now. Dang it, this episode made me realize a lot of things I failed to notice earlier in the series! Back to the episode, I just love that Sid and Sagara just pointed out that Takatora failed when it comes to protecting the Watermelon Lock Seed, its fun to see him fail for once.
Now back to Bravo, as expected, he defeated Baron and unlike his fight with Kurokage, he decides to return Baron's Lock Seed back because he sees his potential as a warrior. This act, in Kaito's mind is an act of mercy because he is weak and he doesn't like it. Now it makes me wonder what will happen next now that he feels total humiliation after getting backstabbed by his supposed associates last episode and his defeat this episode. Kaito is one interesting character when it comes to personality and I hope that his experience will help him grow as a person.
After defeating Baron, it's now time for Bravo to defeat Team Gaim! His fight with Team Gaim is really fun to watch, what's fun about it aside from his ignorance with how to control an Inves; he is one entertaining fighter to watch since he likes to make his moves look really graceful and the same time, look really painful. The best part of his fight with Team Gaim is him summoning a bunch of Inves without knowing how to control them. His ignorance with the situation is really adorable and showed us that he is not familiar with the mess he is in right now, making this anomaly more entertaining than usual.
To stop the threat of an Inves army terrorizing the city, Ryugen gave Gaim the Watermelon Lock Seed, which he acquired from his brother in secret. Now I am more disappointed with Ryugen, first he gives the Strawberry Lock Seed, now this? I am now starting to wonder if he is really fighting to impress a chick or to impress Kouta. Watermelon Arms' debut appearance is seriously ridiculous… aside from the fact that a giant watermelon falls from the sky and Gaim tries to lift it. The scene looks ridiculous, which made the form's debut more charming.
As for the form itself, the CGI for the giant watermelon looks really great, same goes with Gaim's new mecha watermelon armor. The mix of CGI and traditional effects gave me an impression that Bravo is really fighting a giant mecha watermelon armor and not something that is created via CGI. Speaking of CGI, the monster CGI is still impressive, but there are times that the shading of the CGI models did not match with the current background of the scene. I know, it's a tiny nitpick but some CGI scenes in this episode are well shaded!
At the end, Gaim and Ryugen defeated all rampaging Inves monsters, they are now at the top of the team rankings and what's more important, Bravo loses for the first time. But hey, he is still alive and someday, he will have his revenge... that is until he is done with his baking duties!
