Inves

This article is about a race of monsters in Kamen Rider Gaim.

The Inves (インベス, Inbesu) are a race of monsters who act as the secondary antagonists, led by the Over Lord Inves, the main antagonists in the 2013-2014 Kamen Rider Series, Kamen Rider Gaim.

The Inves are strange monsters that are thought to only exist within the newly popular Inves Games, which involves Lockseeds. They are eventually revealed to be actual monstrous animals that can travel to and from an alternate dimension known as the Helheim Forest to wreak havoc on Zawame. The standard variant of Inves is known as a Elementary Inves, a form humans are familiar with as the forms the Inves take while in a Inves Game.

However, the Inves can also take on a stronger form, which is then called a Advanced Inves, and only a Kamen Rider has the power to put a Advanced Inves down. An Inves' evolution into its Advanced state is triggered by eating a mature Lockseed.

When the Inves in its Advanced state consumes another mature Lockseed, be it the one that summoned them or a completely different Lockseed, such as when the Shika Inves ate Gaim's Ichigo Lockseed, they will evolve into higher form called a Strengthened Form (強化体, Kyōka-tai). If an Elementary Inves consumes a multitude of Lockseeds, than it is capable of bypassing its Advanced form and evolve straight into its Strengthened Form.

The Inves also carry within their bodies a virus. If an Inves can break the skin of a human being in an attack, the victims will have the plants from Helheim sprout from their wounds, causing intense pain, and likely mutating them into Inves. The Inves seem to be aware of the virus, as well as how to control it, such as when the Inves first started to attack people, no one was affected. However, the Inves only seem to affect people and inanimate objects when they are in need of immature Lockseeds to feed on. 

There are also Inves created from humans that ate the mysterious fruits and are labeled by the Yggdrasill Corporation as Category H Inves. Yggdrasill considers such Inves to be nothing more than corpses animated and controlled by the forest's instinct. Although a Category H Inves may be able to retain some semblance of their human form, they are little more than mindless creatures acting the basic instinct to feed. For some reason, these Category H Inves do not infect people with the pathogen that causes Helheim's fruits to grow from their wounds.

An ordinary Inves are ruled by an Over Lord Inves, a highly intelligent Inves that is far more superior than humans, and are the masterminds behind the outbreak and rulers of the Helheim Forest. Unlike an ordinary Inves, the Over Lord Inves does have a human-like level of intellect, allowing them to speak, albeit in a strange language. However, they soon learn the Japanese language.

History

An indeterminable amount of time ago, the Helheim Forest appeared to the old civilization, ruled by Rosyuo. Influenced by the mysterious Forest, Rosyuo attempted to change his civilization into a society ruled by survival of the fittest, which resulted in the destruction of his civilization save the few strong enough to adapt. Ultimately horrified by what his actions had caused, Rosyuo was left as King of a ruined world, left with a people who lived only to feed off of the Helheim fruits. Though through Helheim he had achieved the all-powerful Forbidden Fruit, it was useless to Rosyuo, who had only wished to be reunited with his deceased wife.

Now a part of the Helheim Forest itself, the Inves species was brought to Earth when it became the newest target of the mysterious entity. Seeking to push humanity to evolve, the Helheim Forest began slowly tearing into Earth's dimensional fabric, creating minor holes, which eventually became known as "Cracks", to allow the Inves to invade the new world. The largest concentration of Inves invasions were located in a small rural town in Japan.

Discovering the Helheim invasions and convinced of an inevitable impending doom to humanity, the Yggdrasill Corporation established Zawame City in Japan, turning the small rural town into a bustling Metropolis made to act as testing grounds to study the Inves invasions. As a result of youth culture in Zawame, street dancing became a quickly growing hobby, which ultimately resulted in turf wars between Zawame's teenagers. Seeing these youths as potential lab rats, the Yggdrasill Corporation organized the Inves Games as a means of field testing the mysterious Lockseeds developed from Helheim's fruits, as well as studying the Inves summoned to do battle through the Inves games. With Yggdrasill distributing Lockseeds by way of secret deals, Zawame's citizens were able to purchase Lockseeds and seemingly use the Inves for battles over territory against other street dancers.

After Kouta becoming Man of the Beginning, he send all of the Inves to a distant planet named Planet of Helheim, making peaceful lives without harm human lives in any way.

Later history

Megahex

Through data absorbed from Kouta Kazuraba as Man of the Beginning, ZZZ Megahex created a force of Mecha Inves, mechanical recreations of the Elementary Inves. They are all destroyed alongside the Mecha Roidmudes by Kamen Riders Drive and Gaim with help from the other Armored Riders and Roidmude generals. ^{[Kamen Rider × Kamen Rider Drive & Gaim: Movie War Full Throttle]}

Super Hero Taisen GP

In an alternate timeline created by Shocker's History Modifying Machine enacting an assassination of the Double Riders by Kamen Rider 3 in 1973, at least one Over Lord Inves, Demushu, was among the many monsters that served the evil organization which ruled the world in this timeline. During the final battle against the Kamen Riders, Demushu was destroyed by the unbrainwashed former Shocker Rider, Gaim. ^{[Super Hero Taisen GP: Kamen Rider 3]}

Riders' Souls!

Kaito Kumon was brought back by Frey as an opponent in order for the current Kamen Riders to unlock Kamen Rider Gaim's Ghost Eyecon, a feat which was achieved by Kamen Rider Ghost who used it to assume Gaim Damashii and destroy Lord Baron again. ^{[Kamen Rider Ghost: Legendary! Riders' Souls!]}

Chou Super Hero Taisen

An iteration of Redyue was among the Shocker army of the Game World led by Shocker Leader III, the boss of the Chou Shocker Taisen bonus stage. This army was ultimately wiped out by a combined force of Kamen Riders and Sentai Rangers. ^{[Kamen Rider × Super Sentai: Chou Super Hero Taisen]}

Advanced Inves

Green Inves

• Byakko Inves (first human turned Inves)
• Seiryu Inves
  • Strengthened Seiryu Inves
• Hekija Inves (first seen human turned Inves)

Blue Inves

• Shika Inves
  • Evolved Shika Inves
• Kamikiri Inves

Red Inves

• Komori Inves
  • Komori Inves (Mutant) (human turned Inves)
• Inoshishi Inves (Strengthened Inoshishi Inves)
• Lion Inves
  • Armored Evolution Lion Inves
• Yagi Inves

Over Lord Inves

Major Over Lord Inves

• Red: Demushu, Lord Baron (human turned Inves)
• Green: Redyue
• White: Rosyuo
• Blue: Shamubishe

Minor Over Lord Inves

• Green: Dyudyuonshu, Shinmugurun
• White: Grinsha, Tyrant (human turned Inves)

Notes

• The Inves are similar to the Mirror Monsters from Kamen Rider Ryuki in that they are more animal-life compared to the usually human-level intelligent kaijin in the Kamen Rider Series and are summoned by characters to face off against each other as well as taking a backseat to the conflicts between the Kamen Riders of their shows. In the case of the Inves, their status as monster of the week is even further subverted. 
• Demushu and Redyue's title as the Over Lord Inves is similar to the Over Lord from Kamen Rider Agito. Both are an intelligent and super being, and the main antagonists of their respective series.
  • However, the Over Lord Inves is more similar to the El Lords. Both are also a type of monster that can fluently speak and they are the leader of different types of the monsters. For example, Demushu is the leader of Red Inves, and the El of Water is the leader of aquatic-type Lords.
    • Also, both Over Lord Inves and El Lords have their own superior, which is Rosyuo and Over Lord of Darkness, respectively.
• The way how Over Lord Inves speak in their language is similar to the Gurongi in Kamen Rider Kuuga.
• There are three different types of Inves that feature Chinese (Green), Japanese (Blue), and Western (Red) designs. Each type of Inves design also comes from a different designer.
  • Chinese (Green): Akihiro Yamada
  • Japanese (Blue): Tamotsu Shinohara
  • Western (Red): Niθ
• Coincidentally, the three types if Inves match up with three of the four main Rider's color scheme and warrior theme: Gaim (Blue, Japanese), Ryugen (Green, Chinese), and Baron (Red, Western).
  • These also seem to be the types of Inves in each of their respective armies in the Sengoku Rider War.
  • The same can be said for the Over Lords and their corresponding Rider.
    • Coincidentally, Rosyuo, the white Over Lord King, also match Zangetsu or Zangetsu Shin's color scheme.
    • Kamen Rider Gaim is the only Rider with no Over Lord counterpart so far in the series, until the appearance of his Over Lord counterpart, Lapis.
• The name Inves comes from an abbreviation of the term "Invasive Species".
• The Green Inves all resemble jade statues.

Appearances

External links

• TV Asahi's page on the Inves