While Emu is doing pediatric intern things, “former doctor” Hanaya Taiga is confronted by Graphite. Taiga wants to make Graphite pay for what happened 5 years ago. But another guy playing a video game appears and proposes a bet. He wants all the Kamen Riders to compete and see who’s the best by whoever can clear the most games.
Graphite and friend disappear.
Taiga sees Emu chasing after little Yuuki who was a patient with a cough. Emu uses his magical stethoscope and sees Yuuki has been infected. He realizes Yuuki is stressed because of a fear of doctors.
Emu takes his coat off as he calls Asuna for help.
Taiga walks out of the bushes and says he’ll take care of this situation. He whips out his Gamer Driver, but the Bugster Virus quickly emerges from Yuuki.
Taiga is looking forward to a virus in his game style, BangBang Shooting. He henshins and manages to separate Yuuki from the Bugster. Asuna arrives and knows Taiga is Kamen Rider Snipe.
Revolve Bugster summons regular Bugsters and Taiga fights them off. Yuuki is scared out of his mind and that allows more Bugsters to appear. Emu decides to henshin to try and stop Taiga. But Taiga wants to play.
Emu dehenshins and takes Yuuki to safety while Taiga takes care of the Bugsters.
Taiga approaches them and points out how Emu’s personality changes when he plays games. It’s very intriguing and Taiga wants to play with him more in the future.
Back at the CR, Asuna and the Director explain everything to Emu. Five years ago was Zero Day, the day when many patients died from the Bugster virus. That’s when the Ministry of Health partnered with GENM Corp to form the CR. Taiga, a radiologist at the time, was selected to be the Kamen Rider who would save the infected patients.
Yuuki’s mother explains he developed a fear of doctors when he became very sick once. Emu tries to ease his worries and promises to fight this new virus together, but Yuuki won’t have it.
Across town, Hiiro visits CEO Kuroto and asks why Taiga was given a Driver especially when he’s no longer a doctor and… he made a mistake that caused the death of a patient. Kuroto says Taiga’s skills are real, but Hiiro will not stand for it. “He took something dear from me.”
Emu heads to Taiga’s secret hideout and begs for him to stay out of this case because of Yuuki’s doctor-phobia. Taiga says he only cares about obtaining all 10 Gashats so he can have the power to destroy all Bugsters.
Taiga proposes they play a game. They will wager their Gashats to see who can defeat Yuuki’s Bugster first. Just then, Asuna calls Emu to tell him Yuuki has run away.
Yuuki gets caught by the Revolve Bugster as Bugsters attack Emu and Taiga.
Both Emu and Taiga henshin, level up and duel. But Hiiro arrives and proclaims that he will take Taiga’s Driver and Gashat. He henshins and changes the game stage to the Toei junkyard.
Hiiro and Taiga battle while Emu takes care of the just arrived-Bugsters. Asuna arrives to cheer them on.
Emu, Hiiro and Taiga turn their attention to saving Yuuki. Asuna reminds them to keep an eye on their gauges because if they hit zero, they’ll die. Hiiro sees his guage is too low so he dehenshins. Emu has to take care of this himself.
More Bugsters appear as Yuuki starts to disappear. Emu fights through all the shots. Taiga yells out to ask Emu if he’s afraid of getting a Game Over. Emu doesn’t care. He made a promise to Yuuki to fight this together.
Yuuki understands and is no longer stressed. That gives Emu enough power and resolve to get fired up and destroy the Resolve Bugster for good with a Mighty Critical Finish.
However, Emu wonders why the game hasn’t finished. Taiga comes out and sends a BangBang Critical Finish to the Revolve Bugster who was invisible behind Emu.
Taiga says he wins and asks Emu to hand over his Gashat. Emu takes his Gashat ouf of his Driver and Taiga grabs it. He says Emu can get it back once they duel.
Emu is still happy they were able to save Yuuki. They hug.
Another new random guy pops up.
Episode Thoughts
After a few seasons of “falling into despair” being what makes victims be susceptible to MOTWs, “stress” is an interesting change of pace. Should be interesting to see what kinds of things the show will use to stress people out all season. There’s definitely plenty of both legit worries and not-so-serious causes of stress they could use.
Here we go again with the need to “Gotta catch ‘em all!” though. I know it’s a toy thing, but I hope it gets integrated well into the show itself.
I understand the hair blowing and smile for Emu now. He’s supposed to be a different person when he plays games. So he’s serious and badass behind a console and clumsy everywhere else. Okay.
I actually kinda want to see more doctor stuff. And more story at the hospital. So far, the medical/virus aspect of the season has been kind of hollow especially since the focus has been on all the video game elements.
An okay episode, but I eager to get past these introduction episodes.
That backstory about how the first Bugster/Bugstar outbreak killed many people puts an interesting challenge in front of them There is really something different between saying that many people died because of this threat and showing that people do die because of the threat, and they really need to pull off the latter sooner or later to drive home the point that it is indeed that big of a threat. Recall how Gaim delivered that when people started dying by episode 14.
I also like how they hinted that there is something deeper about Emu changing personality the moment he transforms and that it isn’t just some quirk. It’s perhaps some nasty side effect of the Gamer Driver that Taiga seems to be aware of. Hopefully they will be able to carry it over properly.
Yeah, that’s been a problem last few seasons I think. We don’t actually see the threat. They don’t really show a level of danger other random MOTW attacks.