Kamen Rider Gavv Episode 23 Recap and Thoughts

Last time, Shoma and Hanto reconciled after the two drifted off following Glotta’s unexpected reveal. Together, they defeated Bitter Gavv, who continues to terrorize people in search of snacks. However, the impact of the explosion following Bitter Gavv’s defeat unlocks memories from when Shoma was young.

Recap

Shoma admits to Hanto that, when he was still small, he met his mom in a time when he still didn’t know about Hanto’s identity or his family’s operations. This was in an incident when he got lost after sneaking out of his room to explore the Stomach mansion. Hanto’s mom found Shoma looking for his mom while she was escaping the factory. Thinking at that time that Shoma was also one of the victims of Stomach family’s operations at that time, she guided him to an area in Stomach Inc’s Dark Treat factory where all captives were locked held. This was for finding his mom but, unfortunately, Shoma’s mom was still nowhere to be seen.

During their search, Lango, aided by his Agents, found them and told Shoma that his dad was looking for him as he was missing from his room. This was a revelation to Hanto’s mom that he and Lango were siblings that, upon this discovery, she impulsively pushed Shoma towards Lango, who moments later instructed his Agents to throw her into a vat of liquid. This vaporized her and turned her into a Dark Treat ingredient. This incident that made Shoma realize what his family was doing and has scarred his young self. His mom then told him everything she knew about their family’s operations.

With this, Hanto realized his mom could no longer be saved. All he knew was that a part-timer from Stomach Inc. had kidnapped her and Lango had ordered his agents to kill her. This burdened Shoma with the guilt of blaming himself for the incident, knowing that Hanto’s mom could’ve escaped the Stomach mansion if she hadn’t helped him. He apologized profusely to Hanto for forgetting an important detail about his mom but Hanto couldn’t accept that this had happened to her. Although he admitted that Shoma wasn’t to blame for what had happened but he still decided that he doesn’t want to see him around. For being around Shoma reminds him what Shoma’s family had done to his mother, he needs time away to process these emotions.

Shoma talked to his gochizos, addressing why Hanto decided to leave him even though they had recently got back to being in good terms after Hanto got angry with him for teaming up with Lakia. Meanwhile, Shoma decided that it was time for Sachika to know about the truth about the situation as well.

Hanto visited Suga after he left Shoma and informed him that Shoma’s impostor, Bitter Gavv was wreaking havoc in the city. Suga was shocked that Bitter Gavv was defeated by him, but he noticed that Hanto looked glum after defeating his creation. Hanto dodged the question and left.

Before departing, Suga gave Hanto his Valentine’s gift — a Chocold gochizo based on dark chocolate. These gochizos are prototype gochizos that Suga cooked in the background so that he wouldn’t rely on Shoma to create Chocodon gochizos for him. However, the shady scientist warned that the chocolate is slightly more bitter than usual. Adjusting his eyeglasses, Suga looked on eagerly, anticipating how his experimental gochizos would perform.

When he left the lab, Hanto received a message from Kataro, inviting him to dinner.

Shoma shared his story about his life in the Granute world with Sachika later that evening16. He also told her that his second stomach is a Gavv that produces gochizos after he eats snacks, which he can then use to transform into Kamen Rider Gavv.

While Sachika understood his past, she was frustrated about his family and compared his life in the Granute world to a living hell. She also admired how Shoma survived living in the Stomach mansion. She also asked how she could help Shoma from now on, to which he responded by telling her to keep doing what she usually does. He also expressed his desire to help her at Hapipare and make everyone happy. Ultimately, Sachika decided to help Shoma by feeding him treats to make him feel better and to create gochizos that can help him fight.

Hanto went out and ate dinner with his old friend Kataro, who had recently been laid off. Kataro was envious of Hanto’s work paying well and how his late mentor, Soji, took him in. Hanto told him that he also continued to hunt monsters, which the server noticed as he glared at Hanto.

Meanwhile, Sachika noticed that Shoma hadn’t been producing gochizos after he ate snacks. Shoma told her that he had mental problems. She understood that Shoma has experienced a lot of problems lately. Shoma then decided to stop eating snacks for now.

Hanto left the yakiniku place after eating with Kataro. After Hanto left, the server offered Kataro money to provide information about Hanto.

The next day, Shoma headed off to meet with Lakia. As Shoma left, Sachika decided to help him by clearing up the misunderstanding between him and Bitter Gavv.

When Shoma met Lakia, he was informed that Lakia had run into Bitter Gavv and asked if he knew anything about him or where he came from. Shoma thought that Bitter Gavv might be his long-lost sibling. He then told Lakia that he was going to ask his granduncle about it.

Shoma introduced Lakia to granduncle Dente, who inadvertently revealed that he is the creator of Dark Treats. This triggered Lakia and led him to confront Dente physically. Shoma tried to stop Lakia, but unfortunately passed out.

After helping Shoma recover, Dente told him and Lakia about the origin of the Dark Treats. As it turned out, Stomach Inc. was once a regular sweets company, founded by Dente’s own brother and Shoma’s grandfather: Zomb Stomach. Dente had been assigned to create tasty sweets, and Zomb would sell them. One day, however, Zomb asked Dente to use a new ingredient–a chemical from another world–to add to their sweets. Dente admitted that he had trusted Zomb, at the time. After all, he had an eye for quality ingredients. So, Dente proceeded to work on the product without much thought about the new chemical or its contents, let alone origin. The candy did sell well, but this was not enough for Zomb, who only requested that the candies be more and more addictive.

As more Granutes became addicted to Dark Treats, willing to do anything to experience the addictive taste again, Zomb had the idea of ruling the Granute world with Dark Treats. Soon after, he stopped working for Zomb and focused on modifying Shoma’s Gavv.

In the city, Hanto was deeply focused on writing an article when Kataro burst in with alarming news of a monster sighting. Looking up from his seat, Hanto’s eyes widened in shock when he saw Bitter Gavv still alive, playfully terrifying a driver by tossing their car around. Though shocked to see his supposedly defeated enemy, Hanto’s concern immediately shifted to Kataro’s safety. Without hesitation, he left his desk and rushed after his friend who might be in danger.

After receiving a call from Sachika, Shoma and Lakia rushed to the city. They found Bitter Gavv there, alive and well, much to Shoma’s shock. The black-hooded guy stretched casually with no hint of recognition in his eyes. ‘I don’t know who you are,’ Bitter Gavv remarked, before revealing that he was just one of many clones. This revelation crushed Shoma’s theory that Bitter Gavv might be his lost brother. When Lakia demanded to know who Bitter Gavv’s master was, the clone refused to answer, leaving them no choice but to fight.

Shoma and Lakia activated their transformation devices—Shoma becoming Gavv and Lakia transforming into Vlam—as they prepared to battle the already-formed Bitter Gavv. Despite their combined effort, Bitter Gavv quickly gained the upper hand by absorbing stray gochizos that had been watching the fight. Seizing advantage, he grabbed a nearby car and flung it toward a group of terrified civilians.

Without hesitation, Shoma, as Gavv, leapt into the car’s path, shielding the innocent bystanders. ‘Stop protecting these humans!’ Lakia’s Vlam shouted, but Gavv stood firm. ‘I fight to protect humans,’ Shoma responded resolutely. While the two Riders were distracted, Bitter Gavv saw his chance—activating the Vrocan Spicy gochizo to make his escape. Gavv ordered Vlam to take care of the injured civilians as he used his own Vrocan gochizo to pursue the fleeing enemy.

Final Thoughts

This episode provided some much-needed lore about the origins of Stomach Inc. It also reveals how remorseful Dente is when he talks about his past as the creator of Dark Treats—he never intended to create them. His negligence caused Zomb to do everything for profit, as he didn’t care about how the Dark Treats cost the lives of innocent humans and destroyed the lives of Granutes, who got addicted to Dark Treats.

This episode has one of the saddest cold opens as it unveils the dark truth about the death of Hanto’s mom. The confession caused Hanto and Shoma to split up again after they reconciled in the previous episode. But this episode would be a prime opportunity to start Hanto’s Dark Valen arc, as teased in the series’ second poster. And with Suga’s suspicious smile after giving Chocold gochizos, Hanto would suffer some side effects when using those dark chocolates, which he might use against the suspicious server in this episode.

Finally, while the action in this episode was relatively short, it was also great, as usual. I love how the show utilized the flipped car by launching it toward the civilians. And those poor little gochizos…

Overall, this episode was great! I can’t wait to watch next week’s episode!