Chapter/Arc Three of Gotchard is finally over, and it went out with an interesting bang.

Geyron's obsession with gold finally comes to life. This is thanks to the production notes, but a talking point has been how alchemy is used and whether it's authentic or not. Haven't seen Full Metal Alchemist, but it's revealed that Geyron focuses on what "real alchemy" is: turning regular metals into precious metals, so his whole focus is to make the world and everything in it to dye the world in gold that lasts for eternity in place of this boring and worthless world.

If that was supposed to be the contrast of freezing everything else with life into something more meaningful with Houtarou's ideal of finding one's Gotcha/ideal and drive to move forward, then...they succeeded.

Geryon mostly realizes on playing up people's trauma, mistakes, errors, and his actions from the past to freeze the world's future, while Houtaro takes people in the present and his actions guide others to take how they are in the present to push forward, which for protagonist and antagonist parallels, it could be a stretch to some, but it's presented well enough here.

That's also bolstered by Geryon's revelation that he intentionally sent Malgams against the heroes because the Gotchardriver/Gotchard Driver grows through experience, combat, and more exposure to the Chemies. All of Houtarou's actions allowed it to become a fitting key for the Door of Darkness, while the Level-X/ten Chemies that they've built up to ever since episode ten gets to be enough to make up for the lack of the one-hundred and ten Chemies.

That's a clever way to address the out of universe problem that neither side combined has all one-hundred one Chemies while giving the fights more meaning and weight. Creative.

Watching the opening scene of him torturing the Chemies to gain dark energy from them in tandem with the Dread Driver in order to transmute it with the liquid spiraling into the Door of Darkness makes things even worse. Once he's done making the world into gold, he's essentially deciding who gets to live and die, and with the price of the the Chemies being the sacrifice, the man is condemning two groups of people to die, with only one of them having the mercy of survival. That's...heavy.

Triple henshins are always cool. Probably the first time all three have started out a fight united, but debuting Dread: Type Two and Type Three was even crazier. Debuting two forms in one episode belonging to the same person can be a bit risky, especially since Type One's debut was rather earlier. However, when you took into consideration Minato, Geyron and the Dark Sisters have more skill and experience than Sabimaru, with the big bad for this arc being so strong he could kill someone without touching them, it'd make sense he'd use Minato to test Type One before moving on to Type Two.

It is funny hearing, "your cheers are giving those brats strength," Clotho, this isn't a Precure movie as her and Atropos take on Sabimaru and Renge while Majade and Valvarad get Repli Malgams to deal with so Geyron can focus on his long awaited one on one.

But it's also nice to see Sabi and Renge get involved with the fight: Dread's former sword user and Renge using spears a nod to her coming from the country side perhaps. But one could forgot their upperclassmen, and given Renge has the least focus on her, it's nice to see the Dread fight encouraged her to train with him in combat alchemy to get stronger. Wish we got to see that onscreen though. They even managed to block Atropos' mind control with Zukympire's by transmuating his abilities into their rings, complete with his arrows.

That's both funny and clever, wonder if they brought the actor back for that or did they use edit stock footage. Clotho just staggering back from the ZTSD just makes it funnier. Show the seniors some respect indeed.

As weak as Majade's finisher is, it's really dope her and Valvarad are able to handle those two easily with their Rider kicks and assist Iron Gotchard through her agility making up for her best match's slow nature with Valvarad going long range. Maybe a callback to when his shot granted Gotchard enough time during the X-Rex part, only this time it managed to push back their opponent.

If it wasn't for Type Three, honestly, they may have been able to take him. As for Type Three, Unicorn, Daiohni, and Steamliner combined: yikes. The red/white/black asymmetry cover adds to the demonic nature, plus the power of that oni club is mighty: love his sadism being so strong he just casually throws it to stagger Iron's weight against him and knocks the other two aside.

Plus Clotho takes down the seniors with her brutish strength and just cracks Isaac, everyone's transformed, and the sadism as Ceyron exposes the fact he manipulated Houtaro to make the Gotchardriver the ultimate key through what he saw as helping Chemies and humans alive really shows what this arc of Gotchard has been about.

Look at the conversation between Kyoka and Minato as a parallel. Every adult and teacher in this show has had an impact based on their desires and impact towards how they teach and use the students: Licht used alchemy for revenge and in-show only saw Houtarou as potent when he was able to work with the Level-X Chemies, Shiori sold out Sabimaru's knowledge for the Dark Sisters, Minato has reserves with Chemies but was in support of guiding his students. While his concerns over Geyron killing his students the same way he did with his juniors continues to haunt him, his actions, training and pushing them, were all for their safety. The more he pushed, the more they pulled to show him they could take care of themselves. Kyoka did the best she could for Spanner and knows she messed up, but is trying to do the best that she could and continues to move forward.

The beast Geyron wants help to complete his goal, just the silhouette of it is nasty in it's own right, but just the presentation of treating the world as one commodity for his pleasure as he goes to cut down a teenager who he manipulated before his teacher comes in for the save: the one who saw potential and put the time into caring, whether he agreed all the time or not just makes things all the more satisfying. 

As for Platinum Gotchard: there's many cool aspects to it, with one personal downside.

Super, Fire, Iron, were all Hotarou focused. Super was tied to Houtarou learning to face the fear of a self-filled fate and creating another means to save Sabimaru with the help of the people around him than just killing with UFO. Meanwhile X-Rex was him learning he needs to be aware of people's intentions and emotions in order to connect to them better. Fire Gotchard came from him going back to his origins and rekindling the passion he has for both Chemies, alchemy, and his desire to treat innocent people after being hurt by the Minato betrayal instead of relying on Daybreak for his fights. Hence why his first alchemy creation came from himself. Then Iron was a test of his drive to save someone else even if he had to work through himself. Meanwhile Platinum was a test to see if the growth Houtarou had through their Chemies worked in the reverse. He had to get angry as a motivational tool to get some of the Chemies in order to also fight their pain rather than give up as a means to evil.

Besides, Houtaro was leading his classmates through the Alchemist Dissolved Arc as the head of the Kitchen Ichinose Alliance. So the Chemies accepting him as a leader ties all the way back to episode seventeen: we see Fuga leading the Chemies without becoming a Rider and helping him while Houtarou was watching. For that to come full circle as Houtarou takes Fuga's position is ultimately fitting.

His allies also helping out had some good moments starting from every heroic rider there holding back Geyron, Atrpos beating up the seniors only for Rinne to counter her while Spanner takes Clotho, and acknowledges Houtarou's Gotcha. They're still not friends, but there's still progress.

And it's not like what Houtaro is saying lacks merit, far from it. The Chemies have improved the lives of the core three some extent: the Machwheel with Spanner, more of Rinne's allowing her to thank the people who picked her up when she was down, and allowed Houtaro to find a purpose in life.

It was also smart for them to do this with the Chemies Houtarou has a form change with since they can't realistically make one-hundred one episodes, so focusing on them, while the Level-Xs Houtarou bonded makes sense. UFO and Rex we saw, Wizard was shown working with Fuga so we know before the movie he didn't hate humanity, Dragon and Gaiard got freed last week, and the other five played a role in the movie.

All of them transmuting their energy into making Cross Hopper be the one to save the Gotchard Driver after Hopper1 was the test to see if Houtarou had the heart to protect the Chemies so Iron could destroy the gate made the whole Level-X arc and evolution come for full circle as Platinum debuts.

As for Cross Hopper themselves, a gorgeous suit. For a Super Form, this looks like a final form. Since he borrows the power of the Chemies he befriended or earned through victory, it puts all the adventures Geyron intended to use as a vessel into Houtaro helping the Chemies defeat their jailer for a change.

One complaint: the CGI for certain attacks, mostly the finisher, was lacking. The rest of them were pretty cool, but that final hit could have used a bit more. That being said, the image of Cross Hopper kicking with Gotchard despite its size was a good touch to add. The power of one, no matter how small, can impact many.

And that Door of Darkness, wow! The way El Dorado, dubbed Hermes Trismegistus just snatches and drags Geyron into the door before it closes. It's both grim and well deserved! This thing can grant Geyron the ability to turn the world into a golden wasteland and suspend everything and anyone at once. Yeah, definitely gonna be the endgame boss for this one.

Plus, Minato stole all the Chemies to save everyone from Geyron's wrath, but the choice to not stand idly by means his actions helped get them all back. It's all about restructuring conditions.

As for returning to the Alchemist Academy, yeah the Union has a lot to ask for.

Lachesiss helped Minato get there in time? Wonder what her role will be now.

Speaking of which, Atropos has the cube. There's a bit of disappointment in the whole "Greyon will betray Atropos too," and if he comes back through HT, it wouldn't surprise me. Still, given there were questions about hyping up female antagonists only for a male to be the big threat, and eating words about them being a woman potentially, putting them in the driver's seat for now until El Dorado comes into the finale should have some interesting potential going forward.

At least next episode there's time to just have fun with Kamen Rider again, and after the past eleven episodes being one crazy event after the other, put eleven through fifteen there cuz they weren't all stars and rainbows either too, it's time to get back to a fun break anyway.

Oh right, one more thing. Is Platinum the Final Form? No, there's speculation Houtarou's final form will have something to do with all 101 Chemies, the last Chemy remaining, or something involving a Rainbow. When it comes, it'll be talked about, promise. But for now, it's alright, it should be interesting at the very least, so when it happens, we just gotta wait and see. Whoops.