Recap: Kamen Rider Gavv, Episode 23 – Broken Sweets

Shoma explains that one day when he was younger and before he found out what he was or what the Stomach Family was up to, he had snuck out of his room looking for his mother and got lost in the mansion. That’s when Hanto’s mother found him and helped to hide him from roaming Agents.

Hanto’s mother, thinking Shoma had been kidnapped as well, decides to help him find his own mother. She carefully takes him through the dark rooms until they arrive in one with unconscious people laying on tables. She asks which of the people are his mother, but Shoma does not understand and grows more frightened.

Hanto’s mother is surprised and asks where he came from then if he did not escape from here.

Just then, Lango arrives with Agents. Hanto’s mother is shocked when Shoma addresses Lango as “niisan”. She pushes Shoma to Lango out of fear and the Agents grab her.

Lango says they have to reconsider how they store their ingredient stock. Shoma asks what he’s going to do with Hanto’s mother as they drag her away. He explains that humans are special ingredients to make their Dark Treats very tasty.

Hanto’s mother cries out for her son before the Agents throw her into a vat of green liquid and she dissolves to her death to the horror of young Shoma.

Shoma tells Hanto that his mother finally told him everything after that. Hanto’s mother was desperately trying to escape, but stopped to help him. Shoma gets on his knees and apologizes to Hanto for everything.

Hanto says he thought he was prepared to hear it. He knew she had probably been dead after all this time. He understands that a part-timer kidnapped her and Lango himself had her killed, so none of this is Shoma’s fault.

Hanto says he is sorry, but he cannot even look at Shoma’s face at this moment. He leaves

The Gochizo who had been so excited and kilig at seeing Shoma and Hanto kiss and make up earlier are now sad at what’s just happened.

Shoma says he is alright and can’t blame Hanto for feeling that way. He feels he should go and tell Sachika the whole truth now as well.

Hanto heads to Suga-san to tell him about Shoma’s imposter. Suga feigns surprise before giving Hanto a Valentine’s gift. It is a box of prototype choco Gochizos so Hanto doesn’t have to rely on Shoma too much. He notes that they might be a bit more bitter than usual, but they should still come in handy.

At Hapipare, Shoma tells Sachiko everything. Including showing his stomach mouth. Sachika wants to know if Shoma crawled up out of hell or something because she is about to explode thinking about how evil his family, save for his mother, appears to be.

Shoma apologizes, but Sachika says he is not at fault one bit. In fact, she says he’s done well to have made it this far. She asks what he wants her to do for him now.

Shoma says nothing different. He just wants to continue helping her to bring smiles to people through Hapipare. Sachika says that sounds good, but she’d still like to help somehow. She can support him and provide him with sweet treats. Shoma thanks her

Sachika asks if she can watch one of the Gochizos pop out. But when nothing happens, he mentions how he has been a bit out of it lately and it must be affecting his Gavv.

Meanwhile, Hanto meets with his friend Katarou who has just been laid off and treats him to some grilled meats. Katarou says Hanto seems to be doing pretty well these days, writing big articles and having a great mentor. Katarou wonders when he will have someone pick him up off the street too.

When Katarou asks Hanto if he’s still chasing monsters, the restaurant owner listens in.

After their dinner, Hanto pays the bill and leaves while his friend looks for his phone. The owner actually has it and offers money for info on Hanto.

Next morning, Shoma heads out while Sachika stays home and helps Shoma’s image on Twitter

Shoma runs into Rakia and brings him along to meet Uncle Dente. When Uncle Dente mentions that it was he who created Dark Treats, Rakia jumps him. Shoma tries to pull Rakia off, but he faints instead.

When Shoma awakens, Uncle Dente reminds him to take care of his health.

Rakia notices Uncle Dente eating human snacks. He says he’s always enjoyed food. Especially since Stomach Inc. was just a regular old confectionary company before all of this now.

Uncle Dente recounts the story of his brother Zonbu Stomach, Shoma’s grandfather, who had established the company in the first place. Uncle Dente says he developed tasty treats using the ingredients they procured. And Zonbu would sell them, eventually turning themselves into a solid business.

But one day, Zonbu came with a new ingredient he procured from another world. Uncle Dente trusted Zonbu, so he began to work on the new project without giving the new ingredient much thought.

The new Dark Treats would eventually sell through the roof, resulting in huge profits and market monopolization for the company. Zonbu would ask Uncle Dente to continue enhancing the Treats’ addictiveness and more and more Granutes would do anything to get their fix. That’s when Zonbu got it in his head to use the sweets to rule over society.

At that point, Uncle Dente left and came to this world. He enjoyed researching Shoma’s modifications more. So he left home after handing the reins over to Nyelv.

On the other side of town, Katarou calls Hanto for help, saying the monsters are after him. But before Hanto can hurry over, Bitter Gavv appears and flips a car over with the driver still inside.

Hanto needs to go to his friend, but he can’t just let Bitter Gavv rampage either. He gives someone a call.

Rakia questions Shoma’s passive reaction to learning Bitter Gavv is not his long lost sibling. But before Rakia can say any more, Sachika calls Shoma to tell her Bitter Gavv has popped up again. Instead of saying Hanto had called her, she says she saw people tweeting about it.

Shoma and Rakia arrive as Bitter Gavv is spinning the car around with the driver still inside. Rakia kicks Bitter Gavv as Shoma helps get the driver out.

Bitter Gavv says they have never met before because there’s a lot of them. He brags that his master is something else and they will be sure to run into many more of him in the future. Rakia demands he reveal who made him, but Bitter Gavv says they’ll have to catch him first.

They all henshin.

Bitter Gavv grabs some Gochizos and uses them against Shoma and Rakia. Bitter Gavv throws the car aside and it is about to hit a woman who has injured her leg. Shoma stops the car, but the woman cannot walk.

Rakia says they don’t have time to babysit humans. But Shoma says he has to protect the peoples. Rakia says the priority is to get the name of Bitter Gavv’s master. But Shoma says not at the expense of people’s lives.

Bitter Gavv laughs at them before he speeds away. Shoma asks Rakia to take care of the two ladies as he goes to chase after his doppelganger.

Episode Thoughts

Damn, I should’ve watched this before Gozyuger because WTF! Lol. I was on such a positive feeling after Gozyuger and then the first scenes of this episode were of Lango having Hanto’s mother murdered in front of little Shoma. Like WTfreakinF! Omg lol

That scene of the Agents throwing Hanto’s mother to her dissolving death has to be one of the most shocking, darkest, devastating, horrific moments I’ve ever seen on a Toei toku. Absolutely unbelievable!

And again, just when I start to soften on the Stomach Sibs, they go and show something like this which is so irredeemable. Like, somehow having the people killed off screen for food makes it not as bad. But then having this scene, especially when it’s the loved one of one of our main characters and to actually show her death with Lango so brazen and without conscience like that? My goodness, there’s no coming back from this for the Stomach Sibs. I don’t care how horrible Papa Bouche was to you or whatever. Like, damn. To think about the number of humans they killed. And then to think about the number of Granutes they turned into druggists who, I will assume, also die from their addiction as well. I dunno.

Even Uncle Dente’s lack of remorse too is kinda sus. Hmph.

Damn, this season is crazy. Lolnotlol

Anyway, I really appreciate the maximum impact that resulted from having the two bros make up last week only to have them yanked apart again this week. It was done very well. Really maximizing the emotions for both characters. And a perfect opportunity to reveal the fate of Hanto’s mother too.

It’s so nice to watch a story that takes care into having the plot work hand in hand with the characters. No twisting of the characters to fit the plot here. Hanto’s reaction is well within the Hanto we have come to know so far. And even him calling Sachika to inform Shoma instead of calling Shoma directly too.

Even Rakia jumping Uncle Dente is warranted as well. If you heard this is the guy who created the stupid thing that got your brother killed, you’d jump the guy too! Lol

The same can be said for the scenes at Hapipare. Sachika’s reaction to Shoma’s revelations fit very much into the Sachika we’ve gotten to know. But maybe the biggest thing I got from the scene was her saying she would love to help, even if she can’t actually fight against the Granutes. I will tell myself that is foreshadowing to when she will eventually get her chance to become a Rider instead of her just being someone who feeds Shoma candies. lol

After that heavy start to the episode, the rest of it looked to set-up upcoming events. Everything from the trap being set for Hanto to whatever Suga is planning to Rakia potentially softening up to humans and even my delusional self thinking we got foreshadowing to RiderSachika lol; a good revving up for next episode and perhaps beyond as well.

Overall, another great episode of Gavv. Yes, absolutely horrific at the beginning. But story-wise and execution-wise, an episode that continues this excellent momentum.