Kamen Rider Gaim Episode 9 Review: Inves Busters!

With Micchy thinking that Inves are coming into the real world because of the rifts, Team Gaim prepares themselves for the monsters' appearances. Is there more happening than what they think though?

Easily the best part about the episode is Micchy as his good sides are showing up again like in the previous episode. Micchy is showing off his smarts once more and it may not be the darker side of him and threatening Cid, but he thinks about how the Inves are acting. I have to say it's a great thing that he is the leader of Team Gaim because he's a smart boy. Micchy was easily the tactical genius as he was marking maps, knowing how to lure out the monster, and what the think about the situation. For example, when hearing about Bandou the cafe owner getting attacked by an Inves, Micchy easily thinks of what happened. Bandou had a truck full of fruit and the monster attacked him for that reason, but the monster didn't eat the fruit. This then leads to Micchy thinking that the monster hated the fruit and went on a blind rage and he even goes as far to assume that they only eat the fruit from the forest. This leads to him getting some fruit from the forest and he even thought ahead with taking his belt off of him completely and then taking the fruit so that it wouldn't change into a Lock Seed. This isn't even the beginning for the greatness that Micchy had for this episode that is all I have to say.

Another interesting aspect of Micchy was his discussion with his brother in the beginning of the episode. Takatora talks about how there is a thief around and suspects it's one of the Beat Riders. Takatora keeps on talking about they are nothing, but trash that bring nothing helpful to society. Micchy ends up bringing his side of the argument while also telling his brother how he feels about his life. Micchy says that the Beat Riders like to have fun because they are worried about the future since there are people telling them what they want the riders to do. So they have as much fun as they can for the mean time while finding out what is truly important to them. I'm surprised Takatora didn't make the connection right away, but he did ask if Micchy has no doubts about his future as Micchy said no to that, so I guess Takatora believes in his little brother. That one scene perfectly explains why Micchy became a Beat Rider as it was told through dialogue and some style of interpretation and not just blatantly telling the audience. Micchy is a Beat Rider so that he can finally have some fun with his life since he does have a controlled life thanks to his older brother. It's also an easy trait to feel related too as people do have trouble with their lives while focusing on the future.

The final big moment for Micchy was with how he dealt with the Inves when they tried luring it out. Micchy wasn't focused on fighting it for when he first saw it. I bet he was worried if it got away again so he planted his cell phone on the Inves and tracked it with the tablet. This lead Micchy and Kouta to find the Inves in a factory where there was more fruit growing as it was looking like a part of the forest. After defeating the monster they find that the forestation has grown much more and see more Inves eating the fruit. Before they can do anything, the white rider makes his appearance with some helpers as he takes down the Inves while the men burn down the place. From this Micchy can tell this has happened before as the people there are experts and know what they are doing. The final thing for Micchy thing is that he notices the belt the white rider had on and he knows exactly who is belonged to. Micchy remembers seeing the belt when he took the Watermelon Lock Seed from his brother so he knows that it is his brother who is the white rider who attacked Kouta. Overall Micchy had many great moments and a little insight of why he is a Beat Rider as I do hope I can keep liking this side of Micchy because he is relatable and a genius at the same time.

Surprisingly for an episode that is having tons of development for one of the central characters, the actually episode is pretty simple. The episode is about Team Gaim trying to catch an Inves while they put the big chunks of the character moments. The episode even goes into the aspects of monster catching like how Team Gaim tried to ask for more help from the other teams since the Beat Riders are the only people with any knowledge about the Inves, or so they think. While asking Team Baron, Kaito tells them that he thinks they are being ignorant of their rank and thinks they are already getting bored with being number one. Also why would Baron help the number one ranked team since that would only be a disadvantage for the team and he says they will get the same response from the other teams as well. Again Kaito isn't being a bad person because his points do make sense. Micchy mentions that bystanders are getting attacked and injured, but for Kaito they got nothing to do with the situation of the turf wars. Also the fact is that they are number one is not going to get them help since that is the curse of victory. In war why would a smaller power help the bigger power? It's another small moment, but it does show how serious the whole Beat Rider deal is for people like Kaito and Team Baron.

This was another episode where Kouta didn't get the biggest focus like episode eight, but this episode still give him some good moments. First is how he was thinking again. In the first fight, he starts to use Ichigo Arms when he is in trouble and with the enemy being able to fly he can easily use the ranged attacks. Sadly though, all of his attacks miss even the finisher misses as the Inves flies away. The most Kouta got though was comedy though as he got unlucky in this episode. He thought that being transformed the whole time would be more helpful so he can get into the action right away, but what ends up happening that he starts to scare a poor old lady. This continues on with when the trap is set for the Inves as Kouta ends up striking when another old lady was passing by. Things then got worse for him as Kouta had to deal with kids messing around with the fruit and even crows got in the way. For the problems with the old lady it was funny because it was built up to be an actual monster like hearing the old lady screaming out that there was a monster, but it was just Kouta transformed asking her questions about a monster. Then in the end of the comedy, Kouta was on the ground with disappointment with a nice little effect of coloring the area black around him. It was nice and simple humor that was delivered well and I will say most of Kouta's comedy does work for the most part. So there are moments where I am laughing with the series.

Takatora ended up having a bigger moment in the end of the episode as he has a talk with the scientist who is working on some sort of project. Takatora tells him about how fast the rifts are appearing and affecting their world as it seems the forest is awakening. Also Takatora wants to know about how the new product is turning up. It seems that the process needs to be sped up and a person to experiment them with is needed. Takatora puts himself up for the test even with risks being much higher than the original. What I will guess is that there is a new belt being made since in a previous episode I can tell the scientist was the creator of the belts as I bet he is making some new ones or I should say upgraded ones. Well for Takatora he is taking things seriously which can easily be seen in the previous episode where he fought Kouta. We even get his reason for being as serious with the situation as he says the company will help the world's fate as he will make sure humanity's future is well in place. A nice little writing nod I have to give is that in the beginning of the episode Takatora and Miccy talk about how people worry about the future. For Micchy he is worried about not having any control and while Takatora is worried about what could happen with the future as he will try to be in charge to make a better future. Again there is some really nice writing in the series and the whole scene with Takatora and the scientist is another example as there is exposition, but we don't know what exactly they are talking about and yet we can still put a grip about it though. Like with them talking about the forest awakening we can tell they are worried about it awakening as they are burning down any interaction with it and their world. Episode seven even had some nice writing like this so the series will easily continue with it; well at least I hope so.

For the action the first two moments of it weren't really that fully packed, but they had their moments. In the first fight we got to see a nice little trick while switching forms as when Kouta is changing to Ichigo Arms the giant orange flies off and attacks the Inves. Along with that fight was Kouta using that form more effectively as he knew a ranged weapon would be helpful against a flying enemy. The second fight shown more of how Micchy made sure his plan was going to work. There were times that the Inves could have flown away, but Micchy kept sure he was grounded for more time. The third fight was the bigger moment as the two riders had enough with this monster and since they were in an enclosed area the monster couldn't get away this time. I did like the little moments of out of suit combat as the two boys had to react quickly as the monster got the surprise attack on them this time. I will have to say they were well prepared to fight the monster for previous times so I was confused on why they weren't transformed going into the factory. For the flying monster they actually used some wire works with him for bigger jumps and I love the pure aggressive style the monster had while fighting. It easily kept in track with how mad the monster is. The monster even had an interesting power with its voice and being able to make sound waves with it. Also I can tell Ryugen is getting used to more close ranged combat as he was blocking most of the time and then placing his gun onto the enemy when he was blocking. Then for the cherry on top, the finisher was pretty good with Ryugen shooting down the Inves as Kouta gives the final slash, but I was hoping there would have been more of a color mixture with the effects though.

Episode nine shares the same factor about how simplistic the actual plot is, but what make it special are the character moments. Both of the episodes knew what to focus on while having a more episodic like factor. Episode eight had saving someone and nine had monster hunting, and this time Micchy got the bigger focus like how Kaito did in the previous episode. There really aren't many flaws to the actual episode as the main part of hunting the monster was well done and the great writing easily helped to make it more enjoyable. I will say Gaim has really picked up well as I was already enjoying the series, but it is really becoming much stronger. No big reveals at all and yet this episode is on par with eight. Maybe the only flaw is some of the effects that were used as I do feel some more editing could have helped as the black coloring around Kouta did help with the comedy, but I can see where it could have been fixed as there are too many empty areas around him. So in a technical point the episode could have slightly improved on that, but with that with this episode gets an A.

Next Time: The only kiwi reference I got is Ivy the Kiwi? Yet that's a completely different kiwi.