Kuroto congratulates Emu on his Level 3 accomplishment and encourages him on his quest to conquer the rest of the games. After Emu leaves, Parado and Graphite pop into Kuroto’s office. Graphite wants to crush Ex-Aid. Parado is more laid back about the situation.
Emu goes looking for the person from which the Bugster he defeated is from. He and Asuna find him at the university, but he’s in the middle of breaking up with his girlfriend. When the guy leaves, the girl gets the painful buzzing in her ears. They run over and Emu confirms she has Game Syndrome.
Hiiro arrives and says he’ll do the operation himself. The Bugsters pops out of her and Hiiro henshins. He is able to separate the girl and Bugster.
Asuna sees the Bugster has the DoReMiFa Beat Gashat. Hiiro takes on the Bugster, but Graphite appears.
Graphite says he wants to conquer all of humanity and rule the world. And to help with that, he infected the girl with two viruses, DoReMiFa Beat and Gekitotsu Robots.
Emu henshins and he and Hiiro tag-team the Bugster who begins to play the show’s theme song. Asuna tells them to play DDR and Emu happily obliges. Hiiro wants none of it, but that causes him to get zapped down the stairs.
Graphite also henshins, but Taiga arrives and wants to play too. Everyone levels up and it’s a bat… Graphite just swats them all away. Emu is the only one left standing and takes on Graphite as Kuroto Dan watches. He decides to henshin as well.
Emu attempts a finisher, but Kuroto Dan knocks it away and appears in front of everyone to say now is not the time for the big battle. Kuroto, Graphite and the Bugster leave.
Hiiro confronts Taiga and asks if Graphite is the Bugster Hiiro failed to kill five years ago. Taiga snaps back and says Graphite murdered Hiiro’s girlfriend.
We flashback five years ago to when Hiiro was very cold to his girlfriend Saki who had just brought him some sweet treats. He only realized how much of a jerk he was when she died as Taiga failed to kill Graphite. He had no idea Saki was infected. Asuna and Director Kagami tell Emu the story. This is why Hiiro wanted to become a Kamen Rider so much.
Emu and Asuna check in on the girl, Yoko. She asks them not to tell her boyfriend, Kuboyama Seiichi, about her disease. She explains that he is very focused on his music and getting into the orchestra he wants. Emu and Asuna understand her many worries.
Emu gets an alert about the Bugster and he hurries out.
The Bugster has Seiichi by the neck. Hiiro is focused on getting his revenge on Graphite. Emu and Hiiro henshin to Levels 3 and 2, respectively.
Emu tries fighting the basic Bugsters while Hiiro takes on Graphite, quite unsuccessfully. He won’t give up though, vowing to avenge his girlfriend. Graphite taunts Hiiro and continues the beat down. Taiga watches from a rooftop and just smirks.
Emu hurries over to help Hiiro and absorbs the big attack, forcing him to dehenshin. Emu compares Yoko’s desire to not be a burden on Seiichi’s dreams to Saki’s desire to not be a burden on Hiiro’s dreams of becoming a doctor.
Hiiro remembers Saki’s dying wish for him to become the best doctor evah. Hiiro perks up and changes the game field. He gets some power up coins to take on the Collabos Bugster and finish it off for good. Hiiro gets the DoReMiFa Gashat and uses it to level up to 3 to turn his attention back to Graphite.
Emu tells Hiiro to match the rhythm of the beat. But Asuna says Hiiro’s got no jams. Hiiro proves them wrong and is actually able to dance against Graphite. He credits his familiarity with cardiopulmonary resuscitation.
Hiiro tries a DoReMiFa Critical Finish on Graphite who has to retreat.
Seiichi apologizes to Yoko for being a jerk. But she says it’s alright. They both smile.
Hiiro enjoys a cream puff.
Episode Thoughts
It was an alright episode. I appreciate the backstory for Hiiro and Taiga. It goes along with Emu’s life changing “that’s why I became a doctor” experience. Also explains Hiiro enjoying sweets a little too much. lol
What would make the whole thing more interesting though is if Taiga was also in love with Saki or something. Something soapy like that would spice things up a little bit. Hee. A little fresh aspect to the usual Rider rivalry.
The games aspect still takes a little getting used to. Especially like in this episode with DDR, basically. It’s very different of course.
I still wish we were moving a little faster though. Last episode’s big Kuroto Dan reveal was good. But I know this is still the intro/foundation period of the season. Kiriya gets his background-filling episode next week, it appears.
It’s still early. Ex-Aid’s doing okay.
I was expecting this to be a “Hiro gets to finally chill out of his stoic nature” type of deal because of the DoRemiFa gashat, but it didn’t turn out that way. Also, the backstory of Saki feels kinda lacking in trying to explain his “don’t get too attached to the patient, just operate” mentality. Hopefully, this backstory isn’t just a one off detail that completely gets forgotten later on and is instead used to build his character more further down the story. But hey, Brave Level 3 with the large cap was actually hilarious to watch.
Please add Ex-Aid 5 tag