Kuroto Dan

Kuroto Dan (檀 黎斗 Dan Kuroto) is the 30-year-old CEO of Genm Corp., inheriting the company after framing his father for his own crime, unaware that it is actually a set up by his father who purposely attempt to use Kuroto for his own personal gain and let Kuroto framed him. While Kuroto presents himself as a calm and polite person, he is a cold-blooded and manipulative narcissist who believes his intelligence is truly something to be feared. As a teenager, he created games for his father's company. But when Emu sent in ideas for games that surpassed his own, Kuroto began a 16 year long mission of revenge and hatred as he believed he was the only one capable of making great games. He was among the first people to learn of the Bugster Virus in 2000, having infected Emu as part of his revenge, and studied him for a decade before extracting most of the virus to orchestrate Zero Day with prototypes of the Rider Gashats known as Proto Gashats (プロトガシャット Puroto Gashatto). While Kuroto developed CR and the Kamen Rider systems for the Ministry of Health to combat the Bugsters, he allied himself with the monsters while interfering with the Riders' battles as Kamen Rider Genm (仮面ライダーゲンム Kamen Raidā Genmu). His goal would later be revealed to use the Gashats' completed data to create a Gashat containing "The Ultimate Game": A global-wide AR MMO death battle called Kamen Rider Chronicle (仮面ライダークロニクル Kamen Raidā Kuronikuru), and claiming himself a "Game Master" or a god of that "Ultimate Game" he created. Strangely, he also helps other Riders temporarily when it comes to threats to his agenda, such as when he helped Kamen Riders Specter and Necrom against the Great Eyeser's Gammas in Kamen Rider Ghost's finale.

In the Heisei Generations movie, Kuroto allowed the Next Genome Institute to take over Genm Corp. while he secretly recorded their battle data to create a "forbidden game" which allows him to summon digitized versions of Kamen Riders Wizard, Gaim and Drive via the Ganbarizing Gashat. This continued in Tricks where he creates the Legend Rider Gashats to gather the data he needed to upgrade his Ganbarizing Gashat and summons digitized versions of Kamen Riders Double, OOO, and Fourze. However, a new Dr. Pac-Man (later secretly revealed to be Parad in disguise) emerges and rescues Emu while assisting the other two doctor Riders against Genm and his summoned Riders. It is also revealed that he was the one who contacted Next Genome to use Emu's body on Zero Day and framed his father Masamune once Emu's condition went into a coma-state after his exhaustion from winning the Tekken tournament in 2010.

As Genm, Kuroto forces Ex-Aid to complete the Shakariki Sports Gashat's data by targeting Poppy and a patient Emu is currently handling. With ten of the Gashats' data cleared, it allowed Kuroto to survive Ex-Aid's attack by transferring the data of his "death" into the Dangerous Zombie Gashat as planned. This allowed himself to become a Level X version of Genm from that moment on. But following his act of murdering Kiriya to conceal his identity, Kuroto is exposed and goes on the run from the authorities while proceeding to relieve the Kamen Riders of their Gashats to complete his plan while allowed himself to be "killed" to achieve his Level X form's full potential. Deliberately infecting himself with the Charlie Bugster when the Ministry of Health's officer found his hideout, Kuroto tricked Emu to get away from being arrested by the Ministry and get Emu the refined Shakariki Sports needed to reach closer towards his goal while corroding Emu's Gamer Driver to be beyond use. But Emu uses Kiriya's Gamer Driver in conjunction with the Maximum Mighty X Gashat to reprogram Genm's data to render his Zombie Gamer form mortal so he and the other Kamen Riders can defeat him. After the fight, Kuroto ends up being killed by Parad who takes his Gashacon Bugvisor and Dangerous Zombie Gashat.

In Kamen Sentai Gorider, it is revealed that Kuroto had a backup plan by creating an unbeatable game before his death at the hands of Parad where he implemented himself into the Game World. He disguised himself as Kazuma Kenzaki in order to fool Emu and four deceased Riders (Another Agito, Baron, Marika, and Lazer) into being sent into an impossible game for one sole purpose: gathering the despair of dead Kamen Riders to power Kuroto's resurrection. However, using Blade's form proved to be a fatal mistake as using Undead powers attracted the attention of the real Kenzaki due to Undead being attracted to each other. His plan was stopped by the appearance of the real Kenzaki who destroyed the Game World by applying the Undead Battle Fight rules to said world and being the only Joker there, resulting in its destruction. After that, Kuroto transforms into Genm and gets upgraded by Totema via the gathered despair, only to be beaten by Ex-Aid and the Goriders. His anger leads him to creating a big purple space warp in an attempt to destroy Ex-Aid and Blade, but he is successfully stopped by the deceased Riders who sacrifice themselves to allow Emu and Kenzaki to escape.

Apparently, before his two deaths by Parad via the Gashacon Bugvisor infused with the Dangerous Zombie Gashat and in Kamen Sentai Gorider, a young Kuroto was revealed to have worked with Poppy's former host on a Bugster development project where he hid a Gamer Driver and a Proto Mighty Action X Origin Gashat as a failsafe from the infection. Poppy would later revive him, albeit as a Bugster, before he proceeded to save Emu from Parad as a means of getting revenge on Parad for killing him and having fun with the Kamen Rider Chronicle "game" without the former "Game Master" himself. However, Kuroto still can't be trusted as he still retains his sociopathic behavior. Thankfully, Poppy is the reason Kuroto regains his humanity due to the former being his mother's host and his past revealed that he was unable to save his mother when Kuroto unintentionally infected her, which is the reason why he unleashed the Zero Day and created Kamen Rider Chronicle, as a means to revive his mother, while also counting on reviving the other Bugsters' deceased hosts, including Kiriya Kujō. Because of this, he called himself as "Shin Kuroto Dan" (新檀 黎斗 Shin Dan Kuroto). When his father returns as CEO and reveals his true colors, Kuroto realizes that he was just Masamune's pawn which he is not happy about and figures he should have thought about killing him instead of only framing him 5 years ago if Kuroto knew what his father had been plotting behind Kuroto's back for 16 years. After Hiiro's betrayal due to being blackmailed by Masamune, Kuroto creates the Hyper Muteki Gashat to be compatible with Ex-Aid's Maximum Mighty X Gashat for him to transform into Muteki Gamer as a countermeasure against Cronus and his unwitting pawns, such as a blackmailed Brave and a revived Lazer Turbo.

Using the beta test game-based Proto Mighty Action X (プロトマイティアクションX Puroto Maiti Akushon Ekkusu) Gashat allows Kuroto to become Genm, a dark version of Ex-Aid who is stronger than him due to using a Proto Gashat which has unlimited powers, but also a side effect of harming the user's body from prolonged use. His chibi-like first form, Action Gamer Level 1 (アクションゲーマーレベル1 Akushion Gēmā Reberu Wan), can generate chocolate block-like platforms. Pulling the Gamer Driver's lever upgrades Genm to his sleeker primary form, Action Gamer Level 2 (アクションゲーマーレベル2 Akushion Gēmā Reberu Tsū). Genm's Gashacon Weapon in these and other recent forms is the Gashacon Bugvisor (ガシャコンバグヴァイザー Gashakon Baguvaizā), which has three modes: gamepad, beam gun, and chainsaw. The Gashacon Bugvisor can absorb a defeated Bugster's data and trap them within it. When activating Proto Mighty Action X, a Game Area is created which generates several Energy Items with unique power-ups in random chocolate block-like containers. Before his identity as Genm was revealed, Kuroto utilized a voice scrambler whenever he spoke and was only referred to as "Black Ex-Aid" (黒いエグゼイド Kuroi Eguzeido) by the other Riders. At one point, Kamen Rider Ghost mistook Ex-Aid for Genm due to their similar appearances.

Personality
To the public eye prior being exposed as the criminal mastermind, Kuroto appears to be a polite and humble man, both with a sense of sympathy and compassion. Despite this, his decisions are of questionable morality.

But behind closed doors, Kuroto is shown to be psychotic, most likely affected by over usage of his Proto Gashats. He slowly becomes deranged over time, indulging himself with a God complex, believing that survival of the fittest is the only thing that matters in battle.

He also regards his skill as being the best, taking pride in the creation of Gashats as something that only he can make. When Emu and Tsukuru creates the Mighty Brother XX and JuJu Burger Gashats respectively, Kuroto lashes out attempting to retrieve it to destroy them, displaying this form of behavior to the most extreme when Emu attempted to use the Maximum Mighty X Gashat in it's incomplete form, even going as far as calling both Mighty Brothers XX and Maximum Mighty X "bootleg games". Despite this, he uses the data he collected from fighting Emu who used this Gashat to complete the Gashat Gear Dual for Parado, and the Gashat Gear Dual β which is currently in the hands of Hiiro Kagami and Taiga Hanaya. This practical psychosis-level of pride of his is made apperent when he was a child as of the present.

His malignant narcissism is also taken to the extreme when he attempts to kill a patient to obtain data on death needed to complete a Gashat he was developing before using data on his own death to complete it. Despite his instability, Kuroto appears to have some form of self-control after constant usage of the Dangerous Zombie Gashat. However, his obssession with immortality through the aforementioned Gashat made him even more unhinged.

Kuroto also views those who are no longer in the scope of his plans to be disposable as he murders Kiriya Kujo and Motors once he saw that they were no longer useful in his plans. This has seemingly led to Parado severing ties with Kuroto as the death of Motors was not from playing the game, but from Kuroto indulging in his god complex as the "Game Master" and thus being used as bait.

His delusions would become his fatal flaw, as Parado takes advantage of this when he murders Kuroto after his defeat by Emu and claimed Kamen Rider Chronicle for his own purpose. The same fatal flaw is also present in Kamen Sentai Gorider, and not only he rubs it in to the deceased Riders his desire to resurrect himself, but he also inadvertently attracted the attention of the real Kenzaki, not knowing that the presence of a Joker Undead can destroy his game world.

After his resurrection, Kuroto's insanity is still intact, with a vindictive streak; hellbent in making Parado pay for his treachery. The only person he holds dearly to ensure he never loses his humanity is his mother Sakurako Dan, who was a host of Asuna Karino/Poppy Pipopapo. As a result, Kuroto regains traces of his sanity, despite he continues to boast himself as the "New" Kuroto Dan.

In spite of his apparent viciousness and insanity, as well as others' perceptions of him, Kuroto's actions did have purpose as the purpose of Kamen Rider Chronicle was to bring back every human who succumbed to the Bugster Virus by defeating all of the Bugsters, especially his own mother whom he infected. Through this, Kuroto, while antagonistic, had good intentions, albeit descending into insanity due to the prolonged effects of the Proto Gashats.

After his father, Masamune emerged as Kamen Rider Cronus, Kuroto realizes that his actions was part of his father's ploy to claim the Kamen Rider Chronicle Gashat. Kuroto himself is visibly horrified at his father murdering Lovelica, and would also develop a hatred towards his father for taking the products that Kuroto himself created.