Beginning the episode of was Bravo defeating both Kurokage and Gridon. This fight easily establishes what Alfonzo was talking about. He's an expert fighter and he's fighting amateurs so the fight was one sided. Even with the fact that it's two on one, Gridon just ran away. So Kurokage was just left to get defeated in the battle as Gridon tried to plan a sneak attack. Bravo's first fight does show his experience since it looked like he knew how to fight with this new suit of armor. He even knew how to use his headpiece as a weapon which is a spike as well. He used when he threw Kurokage up in the air and had him land on it, luckily it seems it didn't pierce his skin. I will say the only negative I have with the fight was the additions of the cartoon sound effects, I was never a fan of going too comedic in fights. It just ruins the moment because a fight is intense and sometimes having the more realistic sounds make it more gripping, heck sometimes it can make fights funny at times when there is no music and just hearing the real sounds. Maybe if the fight was changed up a bit it wouldn't need to use the cartoon sounds, but at least this does show Bravo's strength.
Also even though Bravo is not a Beat Rider he is causing a problem with the Inves games as he is taking the Lock Seeds from his opponents. With all of these problems going on Kouta seems like he wants to step in. Mostly his reason is that because Alfonzo is a problem for Beat Riders, but wait I thought he wasn't one? What happened to episode five with how he said he was fighting for himself and now he is clearly saying that he wants to help other Beat Riders, unless he wants to be a hero for his own personal reasons, so is it selfish of selfless? I will say I do love what Kaito says about the issue is pretty much, "You got a problem with it, punch the guy causing it." Kaito doesn't care if Bravo is wrong with his ideals all that matters is that his power is making his goals possible. Then meanwhile Mai is just acting even dumber than usual as she just starts to "sploosh" when she sees Kaito and Alfonzo, I'm not kidding. She's a Beat Rider and doesn't care that someone can easily take them off the stage for good. I'm sorry Mai is really ticking me off!
There was another moment during the time Kaito was talking about the problem and it takes place before. It's with the boss of the restaurant that the guys hang out at. The boss starts to talk about why he thinks Alfonzo is doing what he is doing. Alfonzo is an artist and he takes pride in his work. Now what many don't know about him is is combat experience. With that I can probably connect seeing his fighting passion as art since art is entertainment. Also don't get me started about how anyone can easily become famous in the entertainment business even though they got no real talent. For a man like Alfonzo who is a prideful artist I can see why he hates young people who don't have real experience getting all the attention. This is actually some pretty good satire on how entertainment is now these days. There are truly experienced people, but there will always be those people who don't know what they are doing. The idea of what is entertainment or art is easily debatable and this episode even shows the other viewpoint other than Alfonzo's view.
The other viewpoint gets showcased when Alfonzo appears at Gaim's stage. Even though the man doesn't know about the dancing world he still sees that criticism is needed. Pretty much what he is saying that there has to be some style of opposition or testing to see what is bad or good. Mai then ends up saying the viewpoint so at least she as an idea in her head. Mai says that does it really matter if it's good or bad, there are people who want to share what they think is fun to others. Personally I am on both sides here. I love great entertainment, but I do have guilty pleasures as well though and just have fun with that. I can still get mad about terrible people getting famous for their awful films, television series, or books, and in a way I am doing what Alfonzo does just verbally. So in a way Alfonzo is a critic of the arts, wow I can't believe I made a connection with him and myself. Overall, I do not hate this character, he doesn't make me laugh all time, but I like his background and what he is doing.
The final thing to talk about Bravo is that he also sees what I see in the series. He has a fight with Kaito and just like his other foes he takes him down. Baron used the same idea in his last fight though and that is summoning a bunch of Inves to serve him. Bravo still finds his way out by getting the three monsters close and take them down with the same slash. With them out of the way he quickly takes down Baron, but he gives back the Banana Lock Seed. This is because he sees potential in Kaito compared to everyone else. I bet it is due to that tactic since he did it himself when he fought Team Gaim, but didn't know he had to holding the Lock Seeds. So he basically let around ten or more Inves loose and they quickly started to attack people. I liked this aspect as well since he knows more about combat and nothing about the Inves games and he wanted an army so the more troops the better is what he had in his mind. Things even got so bad that an Inves ate all the Lock Seeds!
This episode had a huge focus on Bravo, but there was something important. Regarding with a trained soldier having a driver, this has Torataka mad. It seems that Cid was supposed to give belts to inexperienced fighters since everyone else has no real fighting talent, except Baron though. Also with the low amount of drivers that were available makes it seems that they were just testing out the drivers. What I expected was just a scene with Takatora yelling at Cid for letting a driver get into the hands of a real fighter. All of a sudden though Sagara, the deejay appears on the screen talking about the situation. I was not expecting this at all, I thought he was just a silly announcer, but he is actually involved with this. Takatora even says his show is just propaganda, just what exactly is going on here? There was even the involvement of a scientist who is the creator of the drivers as he is happy to see the data coming from Bravo; I guess having a real fighter testing out something you fight with is a good idea. That one scene was a big surprise as I learned more things, but I don't have a full grip on what is actually happening. Also it was fun to see everyone make fun of Takatora for losing the Watermelon Lock Seed.
Now I finally get to the thing I was afraid of. I remember being with my friends the Toku Warriors a podcast group I work with. We were offline one day and one of them saw this episode and got to the big reveal. He shown it to us and I was confused and so angry at the same time. Now actually seeing the whole episode itself and not the simple images, I still hate Watermelon Arms! When I heard there was a Watermelon form I thought of a Gatling gun form because of all the seeds. What it ends up being is giant mech armor that just overpowers any rider that is smaller than it. I will say that Bravo is stronger than the usual man as he did his best. Now I will say it does make sense since the Inves can grow large and since there are people behind the scenes working with the seeds I bet they have Zangetsu fight wild Inves. So the form does make sense and having it be large makes sense since a Watermelon is huge. The idea is good, but my goodness is the execution just terrible. First is that it's all CGI until we get shots of the head and it just looks silly. First having Gaim's head pop out in the Wrecking Ball form just looked like they had Gaim in a box. There was even a moment where he punches Bravo and cartoon eyes appear and they looked terrible. To make things worse, Ryugen does the same thing again and just tosses it to Gaim. Micchy you can be the hero, stop being the cheerleader! Now he does help with the fight against the giant Inves so there was that. So far we had two form reveals that just come from Ryugen tossing a seed at Gaim... Overall, the whole CGI fight was awful which sucks because the beginning of Bravo fighting Team Gaim was awesome. Bravo was using Gaim as a shield to protect himself from Ryugen's gun and overpowering the two, why couldn't we just have the two work together well to defeat an opposing rider, who have Gaim and Ryugen fight the monsters and protect citizens which would make Alfonzo start liking the two for their heroic deeds, no we just had to have a giant watermelon!
Episode seven is actually great until the end. Bravo was being a threat to the scene since it's messing with the kiddie games and also with the big plans in Yggdrasil. There was a huge focus on his character during this episode and again I didn't laugh much, but I still enjoy his character. He fights like a professional and can tell what real talent is or not. There were head scratching moments like Mai falling in love with two of the riders, Micchy just tossing seeds, and Kouta acting as the hero and yet still fighting for himself. Then there was the final fight which was just full of dumb moments and poorly made effects. So this episode gets a B- because that final fight literally dropped the grade to a B and with the other head scratching moments it drops it to a B-
Next Time: Knight of Mace! Wait its hammer?
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