Puppet, you complete me.
In this episode, we witness the first appearance of Toride Vendor, and we get more in-depth on Kiyoto Maki, the head scientist of Kougami Foundation’s Biotech Laboratories. As revealed in the previous episode, he is the one responsible for the Medal System OOO uses, he also carries a creepy looking puppet.
Aside from those mentioned, he is the exact opposite of his boss. Unlike his boss who loves beginnings, birthdays and anything related to it, such as cakes. Maki prefers endings and apparently, will celebrate once he sees the end of something. Umm, Maki, do you know the rumors about a certain 2012?
Aside from that, one of the thing that I love about his character is his dedication to science. He doesn’t care if his subordinates die or see people die, as long as he gets his data, he doesn’t care for human lives. Cruel, yes. Complex, definitely.
In this episode, we learn the reason why he doesn’t do much eye contact to anyone and when he talks, he usually faces his creepy puppet, well, I think this picture will explain it to you.
Based on this, it seems that Maki has this sort of psychological disorder in which he had a hard time talking to others if he doesn’t have his puppet beside him. Because of this, it is one of the things that keeps me interested about this guy.
Aside from Maki, one thing that is quite admirable about this episode is the fact that they are trying to turn Eiji into the second Yusuke Godai character wise. Aside that he is determined to protect anyone, and both of them share the same passion for travelling, with the introduction of the Tora Candroid, which merges with the Ride Vendor to form OOO Gour… I mean, Toride Vendor! However, unlike the Gouram, it needs a specific Combo for it to calm down, in short, OOO Latoratar Combo.
After seeing OOO use the said Combo while riding the Toride Vedor, it seems we will see this Combo being spammed in the later episodes because according to Maki, it absorbs residual energy coming from OOO, in short, the heat coming from OOO that is being released while using the said Combo. It was proven at the end of the episode that it seems Eiji is doing quite good… unless the editors have forgotten to place another scene with Eiji suffering after using the Combo for the second time.
I find its debut quite impressive to begin with. Aside that it fixes Latoratar Combo’s weakness; it gave OOO a good weapon! I love the fact that it roars its enemies and shoots giant energy blast that kinda looks like Cell Medals!
Eiji's fine all right.
Overall, this episode was a good way to end the arc. It made a good conclusion on Eiji’s determination to save everyone if he can do it and the way they introduce Maki in the series made the series a little darker with his desire to see things end, which gives a good contrast on his boss’s love for beginnings.