Recap: Kamen Rider Geats, Episode 42 – Genesis IV: Completion of the Goddess, Blade of Darkness

After Keiwa forces Michinaga to dehenshin, Michinaga tells Keiwa to just kill him and finish him off if that will satisfy him. But Keiwa says he would rather Michinaga stay alive and suffer with the guilt of killing Sara.

Michinaga asks where he’s going now and Keiwa replies that his wish has not changed.

Keiwa goes to see Tsumuri and apologizes for having her tied up. She says she only wanted to help him and he tells her that she will need more from her in order to make his world a reality.

Jitto comes in and applauds Keiwa for evolving as Kekera had ensured. Keiwa says he will allow them to complete their goddess as long as he is able to have his desire granted. Jitto accepts the offer.

For now, Keiwa has one more target to take care of.

Daichi addresses some newly arrived devotees. But he immediately infects them with the Jyamato parasites. Michinaga arrives, declaring he will end the parasite game. Daichi explains that he is collecting human memories since Jyamatos absorb the memories and forms of their human fertilizers.

Daichi mocks Michinaga and asks if he wants to know what Sara was thinking right before she was murdered by him. Daichi goes on to explain that he knows all of Sara’s memories as he already ate her ripened fruit from the Tree of Knowledge that has been fertilized with the killed humans.

Michinaga cannot believe Daichi would take Sara’s body. But before he henshins, Beroba and Kekera arrive and activate their Premium DGP skins. Michinaga henshins and they battle.

Michinaga is unfortunately no match for the two at this moment. Beroba asks what happened to Michinaga not caring about happiness. Michinaga says he does not care about his own, but others’ happiness.

Outside, Neon can’t stop thinking about Sara. She stops Keiwa just as he is about to sneak in amongst the new hooded arrivals of Daichi devotees so they can talk.

Neon tells Keiwa about Sara’s promise to her to help get settled in her new home. Keiwa says that promise can still be fulfilled once his ideal world comes to fruition. Neon asks how that can be possible and Ace arrives, wanting to know the same.

Keiwa tells Ace that he will remake this world, but Ace refuses to allow him to use Tsumuri to do it. Ace demands Keiwa release Tsumuri, wherever she may be. But Keiwa blames Ace for not atoning in place of Mama Mitsume. Ace reminds Keiwa that Tsumuri has done nothing wrong, yet he is forcing her to become the Goddess so he can use her. That makes him the same as DGP management.

Keiwa just laughs, saying he is just reclaiming what the DGP took from them via the DGP.

Jitto has taken Tsumuri to the goddess room where Samasu is waiting. Jitto says Tsumuri must know why she was created. Tsumuri says she was created as a Navigator with Mitsume’s powers in order for her to succeed her as Goddess of Creation. Samasu says the compassion that Tsumuri developed while watching Riders fight and die is what helped her powers bloom.

Tsumuri says she did not watch them suffer for that reason. She tries to run, but Samasu points a gun at her. Jitto says it is time for Tsumuri to fulfill her grand purpose. He activates his Driver and the process begins.

Meanwhile, Keiwa confronts Daichi for having infected his sister in the first place. Kekera is excited to watch Keiwa’s own blossoming.

Daichi tells Keiwa that Sara-san never wanted him to end up like this. Hearing that only makes Keiwa only angrier. But Daichi continues to tell Keiwa about Sara’s memories which he has access to and how boring her life was. So her memories have no value to him.

Just then, Jyamato come in to help protect Daichi who says Keiwa has no value to him as well. He changes into his Jyamato form and battles Keiwa who he is able to knock around. But Keiwa henshins to Bujin, much to Kekera’s excitement.

Daichi asks Kekera to help him, but Mr. Frog just laughs. With the new power, Keiwa is able to easily defeat Daichi, forcing him to dehenshin. Daichi begs Keiwa to spare his life and offers they team-up to fight against Kekera who has manipulated them both.

Before Keiwa can finish him off for good, Ace arrives to stop him. Ace tries to get Keiwa to snap out of this darkness. But Keiwa just teleports away.

Back in the goddess room, Tsumuri is almost completely petrified. But she thinks about Ace and how she wants to stand by his side. That allows her to break free from the goddess transformation. That power sends her and Jitto back to the factory.

Jitto can’t believe she used her last bit of energy to stop it, but he believes she has lost her free will already anyway. Keiwa arrives and says this is not how their deal was supposed to play out. Jitto assures him that while incomplete, Tsumuri’s creation powers are still very real.

Keiwa shows Goddess Tsumuri his desire card. He wishes for a world with all the DGP’s victims resurrected. Jitto yells at her to do it.

Goddess Tsumuri prays.

Outside, Ace watches the city start to be remade as the new world is beginning.

“This is my world,” Keiwa says.

Episode Thoughts

I wasn’t as wowed this week as last week, but this was still a very enjoyable and reasonably exciting episode. It’s a lot of nice character-focused movement as opposed to underwhelming or contrived plot driven fluff. So that makes it much more enjoyable and exciting than the usual Geats episode.

Where to start. How about darkKeiwa? I enjoy him very much. I can see what they might have envisioned for his character. He was the typical and traditional hero that first episode. He wasn’t the title character, yet he felt more like the title character than the actual title character.

As interesting as Michinaga might have become in recent weeks, Keiwa has been and still is the second billing secondary Rider of the season. So having him go from your prototype title Rider to now a cynical and frustrated and slightly vengeful anti-hero is actually a very nice character arc to have through a season. Of course, I’ve harped on the season’s many missteps the entire year. But I can understand what they wanted to do with Keiwa. And it makes sense.

I think I mentioned towards the beginning of the season how I felt like Keiwa would be the last Dezashin before Ace at the end or something like that. Or him and Ace would eventually become the last ones standing in the endgame. Now, that was back when I thought we’d see several different winners of the DGP during the year. And as we know, that did not happen.

But an eventual clash between Ace and Keiwa I think was expected from the beginning. And an even more interesting angle would’ve been to have them basically switch roles from Episode 1 to the end. Ace ending up growing into the “traditional” title Rider mold.

Anyway, I am very much enjoying anti-hero darkKeiwa. Even if it’s for a fleeting few episodes, it’s fun to see a once-goody-goody character go “dark” for a little bit. I did kind of hope that Keiwa wasn’t just getting bloodlust or that he was being mind controlled by the frog. Lol Like, I hoped he was upset and angry and cynical, but still had a secret plan. Some kind of trickery of his own. Especially against Kekera. Something like maybe having captured Tsumuri without ever any intention of harming her. Just wanting to get her power to fulfill his desire (which, resurrecting DGP victims, is a positive thing and something he’s always been fighting for).

I wanted to see Keiwa outsmart Kekera and maybe surprise the others. Him sparing Michinaga kind of gave me hope for that. Though that moment could easily just be as it was, straightforward. darkKeiwa really does want Michinaga to suffer with guilt and be in despair for the rest of his life.

We’ll see!

The other big part of the episode was anything Daichi. It’s a shame the show did not really know what to do, or at least, know how to execute what now looks like a potentially great story for Daichi. Instead of him being some peripheral character most of the time, it would’ve been great to have seen how he would slowly develop into this power-hungry, maniacal character that we got these last few episodes.

Like I’ve mentioned, it just feels more like they chose Daichi because he was the only one left. They could’ve easily swapped him out for some other character and the story would’ve ended up the same way. I instead wish he could’ve gotten better material. A waste of great potential there for the character and the actor too. Dai Goto has been really great these last few weeks when he’s not required to have Daichi just lurking about, smirking at everyone.

I wish we got a bit more with Michinaga, especially in the aftermath of his battle with Keiwa and his ghost visits with Sara.

With Tsumuri, I felt like it was bit too fast to get to that petrification scene. I think we needed a bit more with Keiwa and Jitto before just jumping to that scene.

Tsumuri looks great as a goddess though! And I am hoping she gets some great material in the coming episodes. I’d love to see an emotional moment between her and Ace. And of course seeing her defy the expectations the DGP has for a goddess.

Kind of meh with Beroba and Kekera’s Premium skins. Their presence has become more of a nuisance rather than an integral part of the story. Even if Kekera hurled Keiwa to the dark side last week.

On the other hand, Jitto has emerged nicely now after last week and this week’s episodes. He comes across much better. But still, he could’ve been introduced much sooner.

In fact, a lot of things they’ve been doing these last few weeks could’ve been introduced sooner.

Oh well!

Anyway, I enjoyed this episode. I forgot to mention I loved the return of the truly jazzy fight sequence. Hearing the jazz scoring during Michinaga’s battle with the superfans was great and a nice throwback to the more hopeful early days of the season hehe. But overall, a solid episode.

We’ll see how the show tries to tidy up the Kurama plot thread next week.