Special REVIEW: The Dark Revelation: Lachesis

Kamen Rider Gotchard is a series that certainly isn’t short of backstory. Between the creation of the Chemies, Glion’s relationship with Fuga Kudo and experiments with dark alchemy as well as the formation and students of the Alchemy Academy, it has plenty of potential for spin-off material for long after the series has come to an end. But a good place to start is with fan favourite characters, and when they’re also villains you’ve got the perfect recipe for a Toei Tokusatsu Fan Club special. The Dark Revelation: Lachesis is an exploration into the origins of the youngest of the Three Dark Sisters, receiving a limited theatrical release in Japan before arriving on the streaming platform at the beginning of April 2025.

Ten years prior to the events of Kamen Rider Gotchard, Glion’s experiments with homunculi lead to the creation of the third Dark Sister – Lachesis.

This is the story of Risa Arisugawa – an aspiring singer who lives with a positive attitude despite the tragic death of her mother. When Risa is scouted by the record producer Dupont Dougami, she believes all her dreams are about to come true. Instead Risa is unknowingly sucked into the world of dark alchemy, tragically leading her on a path she can never return from.

Toei Tokusatsu Fan Club specials are an odd beast at the best of times, so whenever one opens with a parental advisory warning it should come with a healthy degree of scepticism. After, making slightly more adult-oriented tokusatsu series is a very different thing to taking one for children and giving it an “adult” spin-off. The Dark Revelation: Lachesis is very much the latter, so if you’ve ever wondered what it would be like if you could see the Three Dark Sisters slashing people up in buckets of CGI blood and audibly breaking bones then you’ve come to the right place. While there’s no denying that sort of behaviour suits Clotho perfectly, whether the special truly needs the added violence is debatable. While the story itself having some slightly more “adult” elements is understandable, the level of blood solely feels there to make it edgier – and not in a good way. There's even some brief nudity thrown for good measure, complete with those cleverly placed light beams to cover up any naughty bits.

But then again, a much bigger problem with The Dark Revelation: Lachesis is that it feels like a whole lot of nothing. Certainly by no fault of the premise – the origins of the Dark Sisters was something barely explored in Gotchard so a TTFC special is the perfect opportunity to explore it. Lachesis is also the most obvious of the three to focus on too, given her desire to become human following her defection from the villains. The problem lies in that, despite being played by the same actor, Risa and Lachesis are ultimately two different characters – with very little crossover between the two covered here. The majority of the story follows Risa, and then at the very end she almost instantly becomes Lachesis with no memories of her past life. Although that is always how the story was going to play out, Risa feels much less of a character and more a means to an end when there’s little to nothing of her other than looks to hold onto.

That isn’t to say Risa is necessarily a bad character though. Actor Alisa Sakamaki definitely made her presence known as Lachesis in Gotchard and this special is very much a vehicle not only to show off her acting, but also her singing as well. Risa’s story is very much one of tragedy, her life having been tainted by the work of dark alchemists even before she was directly pulled into their world. Her path within this special is paved with misfortune, and in simply following her dream completely loses her sense of self. The thin strand of seeing the vision of her mother does help keep it together, and feels particularly poignant in those final scenes as Risa effectively disappears altogether.

But perhaps the strangest aspect of this special is that rather than more expand upon Glion and his experiments with homunculi, the catalyst for Risa’s transformation is an entirely different (and original to this special) character. Dupont Dougami (played by Tatsuomi Hamada, aka Riku Asakura from Ultraman Geed) is a really strange instance of creating a whole new character and then attributing a story to him that could have instead given to Glion with very little change. Ultimately the only purpose he really serves is to give Risa a thirst for revenge, which is then carried out following her transformation into Lachesis. The subplot of Glion’s homunculi versus Dougami’s Berserkers has potential, but not really the ground to be explored in a 30-minute special.

As a result of this, Glion doesn't have as much to do in this special as one might expect. Although an early encounter with Risa results in him scouting her to become his next Homunculi, all of the big revelations of the story really belong to Dougami. All Glion really does is swoop in right at the end and make her a homunculi when she's left with no other choice. It’s a shame because Gotchard painted Glion as a really good villain that wasn’t just good at manipulating people, but also often had plans within plans to ensure his victory. Maybe you could infer that’s what he was doing here and always knew how things would play out, but it comes across more as him just taking advantage of the situation. Perhaps it’s just a case having too high expectations, but the revelation that in many ways Lachesis exists because someone other than Gotchard’s main villain was playing god just feels a little anticlimactic.

The combination of the running time and being set so long prior to the beginning of Gotchard means there isn’t a whole lot of scope to feature other characters from the series, but that doesn’t mean they are completely absent from the special. Where Glion goes Atropos and Clotho naturally aren’t far behind, but neither really have much to do outside of being Glion’s henchmen. Atropos remains fiercely loyal and deferential to her master, while Clotho is hot-tempered and more prone to violence – pretty much business as usual for the pair. Showing Clotho as wanting another sister is a nice touch though, highlighting the care for her sisters she has that remained present in the series. Also briefly appearing in the special are Minato and Kyoka, currently still students at the Alchemy Academy during this time. Despite its brevity, the scene between Minato and Glion is good at highlighting the teacher/student relationship they had at the time as well as their attitudes towards Fuga Kudo. Kyoka, although not present for the exchange itself, is a good counterbalance for this – her suspicions affirming the good judge of character she proved to be in the series.

The Dark Revelation: Lachesis could have been an interesting exploration of some of Kamen Rider Gotchard’s best characters and Glion’s further descent into villainy, but instead is ultimately about a character that doesn’t really matter to Gotchard being tormented by a new character that matters even less. While Alisa Sakamaki undoubtedly uses the opportunity to show off her talent as both an actor and singer, everything that should matter in the special feels perfunctory and the whole thing just comes off as a missed opportunity. While similar specials exploring Atropos and Clotho’s origins would also be a great expansion of Gotchard’s backstory, they’d need to be a lot better than this.