Kamen Rider Gaim Episode 3 Review: Going Bananas

With Kouta getting popularity being Armored Rider Gaim, Team Gaim is getting a huge lead in the leaderboards, but will something come to change the stakes?

The first thing to talk about this episode is how Kouta is right now. He is easily letting this fame get to his head and since he had no sense of competition right now that isn't helping his attitude. Now I won't say he is acting like a jerk, but there is a sense that he is having too much fun. It gets to the point where it can seem that he is rubbing it in. Kouta is still a team player though as he is fighting as Gaim for the team since Yuuya is still gone. Kouta isn't stepping down on anyone he is having fun with fighting in the Inves battles even if he is having too much fun. So I am still liking the character as of right now as there is a part of me that can agree with how happy he is. I bet being back on the team for the moment does bring some happiness for him since it's like he realized being on the team was fun. I would compare it to a game I haven't played for a while because of a dumb reason, but going back to it, I realized on how fun it actually was. Overall, Kouta is having fun, but how are the others reacting towards this?

First there is Mai, who is surprisingly not happy with Kouta being back in the team. Now she is happy that Team Gaim has protected it's stage and can keep performing. What she isn't happy with is that she thinks Kouta is only doing this for the team and not himself. Now doing things for oneself doesn't mean being selfish and even then being selfish at some points isn't a bad thing. Sometimes people need to do things for themselves and it can only be termed good or bad depending on how the person performed the action. What Mai wants is Kouta to actually be happy with being in the team so she wants Kouta to be doing things for himself. Now if I was Kouta I probably would have said "I am doing what I want, helping you guys out." I can easily see Kouta saying that since that would fit his personality. Personally I don't like how Mai was acting towards Kouta because everyone else in the team is very happy, so I would think Kouta would be happy with that. Personally I do see Mai's attention to be good, but she could have worded herself better.

Even Kouta's sister had something to say about this since Kouta is now working as Gaim to get money. He quit his other jobs so he could help the team and nothing else. Kouta is even getting more money than he used to and can easily pay his part of the rent for even more than one whole month. Sadly, his sister is not happy with how he is getting the money. She wants Kouta to earn money from a meaningful job, a job that helps others. It's mostly more hard labor jobs like when he delivered food to hungry people or his other jobs. He was helping others and hear he is only benefiting his friends. I clearly see where she is getting at here because Kouta is pretty much an athlete. He gets paid for playing in a sport and way too much it seems. I have done many part time jobs in my life and being in college I do need to support myself at times. It does feel good to do these things for myself since I learn new things and get to meet people I wouldn't have even liked before. Now her definition of "meaningful" is debatable, but I see her point as doing good things for others is great. Even acting or directing for a movie or television series can be meaningful since entertainment can make people happy. Personally, I agree with her more than I do with Mai as her point can be debated like Mai's, but it has a better meaning to it.

The final person to react to Kouta being Gaim is Kaito as his team is having difficulties. They had a big loss from the previous episode and Team Gaim is soaring through the ranks. What Kaito is realizing though is that Gaim is only acting defensively. Kouta only fights when someone challenges to take the team's stage. Kaito hates how the team is acting that he threw a card at a television and broke it. For a person like Kaito his character easily takes the offensive as we have seen before. He doesn't sit around and wait for something to come, he would rather chase and struggle to grab what he wants. This ideology of his has Kaito challenging Kouta to a duel, but how will he exactly take on Kouta?

There was one more character moment which was in the beginning of the episode. We get a look at the character, Micchy. He was seen before, but he hasn't been doing anything as of lately. In this episode we see his life and he seems to be a rich kid. He goes to a school that looks very prestige. Micchy is also stays closed in while he is at school as he excels greatly at class with his smarts. I am going to take a guess here to say that the social life in this series is going to be split. There is the rich society which we have seen with Micchy's school life and the more common folk which is easily Kouta and the others. While Micchy stays silent, when he is with Team Gaim he can act like himself. This was a nice introduction for this character as I wonder if the others know about his life? I can say Kouta seems to know, but who knows.

Another prediction I'm going to make is that Cid is getting paid to spread out the belts and making people into riders. Since we have put into stone that there are people watching over Kouta and there is some sort of organization that is using the Lock Seeds for some reason. Now the reason why Cid wants to make Kaito an Armored Rider is to spice up the competition and make the Beat Rider challenges more interesting. I do wonder what exactly Cid's plans are and it probably connects to what the organization wants. I do like Cid though he is always confident that things will go his way. It sounded like he was one hundred percent sure that Kaito would take his offer. So will Kaito become the second Armored Rider?

He even tests out a new type of seeds.

So Kaito accepts Cid's offer and now he has a belt and a Lock Seed. This is Baron's debut and I would have liked a little more action for his reveal, but I still like it. First is how everyone was reacting seeing a giant banana fall down from the sky. Even his own teammates are confused on why this giant fruit landed on Kaito's head. Everyone is yelling out "banana," but Kaito wants people to say "Baron." So Kamen.... I mean Armored Rider Baron has arrived onto the stage as I do love his designs. Red, silver, and yellow are the three major colors of this suit and the suit really mixes them around nicely. I will say the banana horns is going a slight bit far, but the overall suit is great. There are little details that easily make me think of a Knight, like his weapon which is a lance not a spear.... I will let that slide it's such a little detail and I can accept that the creators will take some liberties on the riders. The other details that show the knight look are the emblems on his suit and the stomach area looks like chain mail. Finally I do love how the banana is shown with one the shoulder pads being bigger than the other. It's a fully detailed suit and easily tops Gaim in designs and I even like Kaito more so hopefully he will be a good rider.

For the debut we got a bike race as I do like these bikes. They are based on flowers with Gaim having a Sakura bike and Baron getting a Rose bike. They are nice and slim and the details on the bikes don't make them bulky or anything like that. I will say though the colors of the Sakura bike just don't match with Gaim, but the red rose bike works with Baron since he does have red. What was disappointing was that the bike fight didn't last long. To make things worse we have crappy effects! For some reason Gaim and Baron open up two holes to the mysterious dimension and while going in there, they are spinning in mid air. It really looked dumb and not believable whatsoever. Also they easily could have just had them not spinning around. What they could have done is that they had the flower petals make a road for the two and enter the dimension. I will say though I did like the effect with the auras that surrounded the two riders. 

Then we get to see the two riders fight two normal Inves. These two can fly though! Yea this was rather dumb as well since I have a bad feeling these are like the nest forms and will be used when the series doesn't want to go over budget. Gaim wanted to flee, but Baron went straight into the action since that is how he is. Now this was his first fight and he seemed pretty used to it already. I can say he easily learned somethings thanks to see Gaim in action before. He did get punched around and fell on the ground so he wasn't perfect. At least his first reaction was fight as I don't get why Gaim would run, I mean he fought these before and even took on an evolved one before, so why be a coward now? I will call crap on him using his weapon as a sword and not a lance or even a spear, but again this is his first fight hopefully he will get better. The finisher for Baron is funny and cool at the same time. His Banana Squash has banana appears when he stabs a foe which was great to see. For the final touch I love how Baron reacts to the girl telling him that he is making a choice that will affect his fate, but he doesn't care since he chooses his own path. So the fight was okay, but I would have loved a complete bike duel over this.

There are things I do like in this episode, but there are some moments that could have been done better. First is easily how Mai was acting towards Kouta being on the team and the whole fight sequence at the last moments of the episode. Overall it was a nice episode with Baron having an okay reveal mostly because again the fight was lackluster at best, but I did love the humor with his appearance. I would give this episode a B-

Next Time: A third rider already?!