Evolto says Sento can help him create a new world with the Genius Bottle. Sento instead henshins and battles Evolto. Sento uses a Genius Finish on Evolto, vowing not to let him complete himself.
Evolto is forced to dehenshin. He does not understand the new sensation he is feeling. Then he realizes what the Genius Bottle really is capable of. He says he will retrieve it another time and leaves.
Ryuga calls Sento tell him about Papa Katsu being alive.
Back at Nascita, the gang goes through what they know about Papa Katsu. Just then, Gentoku walks in with a brand new stylish ensemble and pineapple drink. Misora and Kazumi shoo Gentoku out of the cafe.
The more serious trio continue their discussion. Sawa says Papa Katsu hid the fact that he was alive by using Reika’s smuggling boat to get around. She hands Sento a USB drive Papa Katsu told Reika to give to someone who might know his son.
Sento finds that it contains data on the Rider System. Papa Katsu designed it based on the Evol Driver. Ryuga wants to see information on Best Matches, but Sento decides to look into Lost Bottles instead. If one collects ten Lost Bottles, a cataclysmic event transcending the laws of physics will occur.
Gentoku, Kazumin and Ryuga laugh at each other using Gen-san’s hat before they plop it onto Misora’s head which she does not enjoy.
Misora wonders why Evolto has taken his time in destroying Earth. She suggests they recap the season.
Ten years ago, Evolto possessed Soichi so he could come to Earth and retrieve his genes from Ryuga. But he was not able to open Pandora’s Box, instead causing the Skywall Tragedy. Evolto escaped the hospital and made Papa Katsu restore the Evol Driver before disappearing. Several years later, Evolto popped up out of nowhere at Faust.
The recap continues with video as Evolto as Stark sent Faust Smashes in order to get Misora to purify Bottles. Even without any power ups, Evolto was still able to overpower everyone he fought.
Sawa points out that all the Smash have somehow been connected to Sento and Ryuga: Ryuga’s girlfriend, Reika, Nabeshima, Satou Taro’s kouhai, Sento’s mother, an Institute colleague and Sawa.
Gentoku says it was Stark who dealt with providing the Smash.
Kazumi thinks out loud about how weird it would have been if he married Miitan, as well as gain a father-in-law who were both possessed by aliens. “There’s no way I’d marry you,” Miitan says. Kazumin can’t believe he said all that out loud again.
Anyway, the war between the three Japans broke out, proxy fights aired on PPV. But Evolto continued to pull the strings, including to raise Ryuga’s Hazard Level and make Sento build up the Rider System just so he could open Pandora’s Box.
Evolto became Kamen Rider Evol and went through phases which included absorbing his genes inside Ryuga back, opening Pandora’s Box and giving Sento white hair which made him complete. The end.
Misora says the recap was a waste of time.
But Sento says while talking about people turned into Smash, he spotted the guy from all the way back in the premiere episode. Sawa offers to look into it. Now the question is what Evolto was doing while in hiding.
Sento and Misora visit Soichi in the hospital. Sento points out that the Best Matches and FullBottles are closely related to Soichi’s memories. Rabbit and tank, hawk and gatling… they are all from Soichi’s memories. The 60 Bottles of Pandora’s Box require elements of the planet. Evolto decided to ask Soichi in his mind and he came up with things Misora loved. He then asked Soichi for things that take lives before starting to give random items instead. Evolto believes Soichi wanted to protect Misora’s favorite things. Evolto says this was the first time he was moved by human emotions.
Misora apologizes for not understanding her father’s feelings.
Evolto goes through human emotions which he thought were foolish figments of imagination. But when Sento used the Genius Finish on him earlier, he felt actual human emotion. And it was fun!
Next morning, Sawa has information. The first Smash from the very first episode was Shimizu Kyoichi, Papa Katsu’s student. After meeting at University, he seems to have disappeared until becoming a Smash. Now he works part-time at his friend’s bar.
Sawa says she’s already spoken with him and he has agreed to meet.
Shimizu calls someone to tell them about being contacted.
Sento goes to the meeting spot to wait for Shimizu. Katsuragi asks Sento why he wants to meet their father who they haven’t seen in ten years. Katsuragi wonders if creating the Rider System designed by Papa Katsu was the right choice.
Sento says he realized Papa Katsu saw Evolto playing with human emotions. Maybe he thought these emotions, only present in humans, could defeat Evolto. That’s why he designed the Rider System where one’s Hazard Level increases with emotions.
Shimizu arrives and jabs a Ghost Bottle in his chest, turning into a Lost Smash. Sento quickly henshins to Genius. Shimizu says if he doesn’t defeat Sento, “they” will kill him.
Sento swears to save him and he quickly uses Genius Finish to neutralize the Nebula Gas inside Shimizu. The Lost Bottle pops out of his body. Sento asks Shimizu the whereabouts of his father.
Shimizu says he was Papa Katsu’s assistant. To create a black Pandora’s panel, Papa Katsu created the Lost Bottles.
But before Shimizu can continue, Evolto appears and kills him. He says he now has real emotions. So he killed Shimizu to feel the excitement of seeing Sento in a rage.
The two of them engage. Evolto delivers a Black Hole Finish to knock Sento to the ground. He says he found it easy to manipulate human emotions. So now, he will turn Sento into a Lost Smash with the Bottle his own father created.
Evolto jabs the Bottle into Sento’s chest. But Sento is able to neutralize the element in the Bottle. He kicks Evolto and says he knows his father created the Demon Bottles because he believed justice would prevail. Sento refuses to lose to someone who toys with human emotions. He vows to build back anything Evolto tries to destroy. And he will do so using the power the way his father intended it to be used.
Sento delivers a Genius Finish at Evolto who gets knocked to the ground. He does not understand why he was not able to counter the attack. He also doesn’t understand this emotion he is feeling at this moment. He charges at Sento, incensed that he could be defeated by an inferior being like Sento.
Sento believes Evolto’s anger has raised his Hazard Level. Evolto says he will let Sento live, but he will drive him to despair in the process.
Evolto takes the two Lost Bottles and heads back to his HQ. He gives the two Bottles to a masked scientist who inserts them into the Black Panel.
The scientist remarks Evolto got pretty emotional back there. But Evolto says it was just for fun. Anyway, he orders the scientist to speed up the project.
The scientist…
is Papa Katsuragi!
Episode Thoughts
This was an interesting episode. After a few weeks of feeling a little meh about Build, especially after some really great and exciting weeks, this episode kind of neatly consolidated what’s happened so far and made everything make as much as sense as they could. And I felt a little better after it.
The class participation in describing everything in the little recap was both fun and helpful. Which is a surprise to me considering I was iffy with the randomness in recent weeks (even though I usually love random gags). But that whole sequence was fine. And the comic interludes helped keep the whole thing form being just a simple recap. (Though one could agree with Misora saying it was a pretty pointless recap lol)
The recap plus the basically expository scenes with Sento and Misora at the hospital and in turn Evolto about the Best Matches and memories and children’s books worked to kind of pull everything together. Almost refocusing the proceedings.
Simply put, Evolto is now interested in human emotions. (What a novel concept! lol)
Drive and Ghost had the opportunities to play around with that theme and each of them had varying success (or failure… GHOST!). But what gives Evolto’s newfound interest in human emotions a certain freshness is that human emotions have been shown all-season to give one great power.
The Hazard Level, obviously is one example. But the bromance between Sento and Ryuga has also been a huge source of their power. Every time they seem to be down for the count, they just flashback to a moment with each other and they get powered up. lol And Kazumin losing his three friends has also been a source of power for him. First as a reason to fight and get revenge and now as a reason not to have had them die in vain.
So human emotions can be a powerful thing. As we’ve seen many a Kamen Rider and even Sentai season, driving people to despair is a favorite go-to plan for the villains in order to achieve world domination or destruction. So certainly not groundbreaking here, but it works.
They talked about other stuff like the cataclysmic power that defies physics (and logic, most likely lol), but we’ll just let that play out later. The emotions aspect is more interesting. And considering that overall, I think the character development for most, if not everyone has been really great. So having them feel and experience emotion in ways that make sense and have strong foundations, is a very good thing. Motivations for everyone from Sento to Sawa to even Nariaki are well defined. Evolto is the only one that’s a little sketchy for now, but this episode helped push his character and endgame in a positive direction.
Also, it will be interesting to see how the Papa Katsu angle plays into the endgame.
So overall, a pretty good episode. I enjoyed this much more than a few of the recent weeks and again, it helped kind of focus the series and story. Get the train a little more firmly back on the tracks.