No problem, I just wanted to make sure you had like, the best Saber experience ever and that meant having the most complete Desast experience you could. Which is why I wanted to make sure you could view Desast Walk as you went through the story as intended.

Well, I have more to say about his one.

The song playing in the big fight, “Will Save Us”, was written by the director specifically because he thought the scene needed a sad song playing in the background, resulting in this being composed. Though as to why it’s sung by Mei’s actress - maybe neither Ren or Desast’s actors can sing?

https://youtube.com/watch?v=RwTpPPUUmD0

This is also the last episode to be written by Takuro Fukuda, in the rare instance of a Toku show having a different writer do the finale (with Metalder, B-Fighter Megaranger and Wizard being the others I can think of). In this case, it’s because the producer saw how well received the V-Cinema for Ghost was, and told him to focus all his energies on the one for Saber, to try and make it even better. Given the reactions on Twitter, I’d say it was worth it.

A very powerful and tragic episode. It's actually impressive how the writers made the viewer sympathize with a kaijin without a human form, without giving him much extra attention or even giving a tragic backstory. I would even say, making the lack of backstory his tragedy. It's also an important growing up moment for Ren's character and a demonstration of how he can end up if he keeps fighting for no reason. Mei's song only enhances the tragedy of Desast's last fight, and when you listen to it, tears immediately come to your eyes.
The main plot, pushed into the background, is also very good and dramatic. Starting with the scenes at the North Base, so contrast with the fun in the last episode. Ending with thousands of people caught in the book who could not be saved. Well, and a duel with the gained strength of Kharibder in order to comply with the norms of an action show.
This episode once again casts doubt on whether Saber is really the most lightweight show of the Reiwa era. It also makes you feel that the finale is near, and with it the farewell to all the beloved characters of the show.
https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/saber/saber43p.png
Fun fact to defuse the drama a bit. Since the show did not show how Ren takes Kyomu after the battle, and this character has a lot of haters, I came across streams where the audience thought that he just left the magic sword of the void lying around in an empty warehouse. And only in this frame they realized that they were mistaken. Alright guys, even Ren isn't that reckless!

Fanfiction is cool!

The unlikely master and pupil relationship Ren and Desast had was one thing I liked as the show went on.

Fish Sandwich also watched Kamen Rider Saber Episode 43

An understandable reaction to a Kamihoriuchi episode! But uh, yeah, obviously this one is real good. Pairing this director with Fukuda seems to result in stuff like this a whole lot, and I'm all over the symmetry of them being the same team that introduced Kenzan to begin with. Oh, how obnoxious we all thought that kid was! The show as a whole had maybe come a long way since episode 6, but together with Desast, Ren in particular had managed to turn himself completely around, and it's just great to see.

Like, I'm not even sure what real insight I could offer about this episode, because it landed so well for people already I'd probably just be saying things everyone knows already.

Funnily enough, though, one of the most memorable things in here for me is actually just Rintarou's little conversation with Luna. It's a scene that comes to mind a lot when I think of how much I love that dude, and the adorable light tone of it sticks out in an episode that's otherwise juggling both a very poignant story with Desast and majorly dramatic overarching Plot threads. Ryouga's trouble expressing gratitude is great too, but something about Rintarou being his usual not-suspicious self makes for a perfect bit of levity.

Apparently Kamihoriuchi just thought Asuka Kawazu had a particularly pretty and clear voice, which I don't think he was wrong about. I really appreciate the extra effort to just make a whole song for this one episode, by the way? There have been a few moments in Kamihoriuchi's Saber episodes (Tassel's death last episode, for example) where it seemed to me that he clearly had this very specific vision for how he wanted a scene to play out, and would use stock music to allow the editing and everything to fit *exactly* the right way, but the music itself would end up sticking out as sort of "wrong" to me, even though it's a totally valid way to go about that. Here though, we've got an original composition from Shuuhei Naruse, which fits Kamen Rider without a doubt, and while it's still very different from Saber's usual musical style, the result sticks out in a good way instead of a bad one for me. It really does add a ton to the scene that you probably couldn't quite get with the usual BGM or just silence.

Oh, and just for the record, this episode is also the one before the crossover special originally aired, if that's of any real relevance, given how little the exact placement matters. It was very polite of Storious to delay his apocalyptic plans for a week to give everyone time for goofy spinoff adventures!

So I'm just going to steal my own quote from nigh on 2 years ago now

And then qualify them a little. Because I'm using the word "should" a lot in that post, which I think it me speaking about the Kamen Rider genre conventions these two inhabit. Ren is the cocky rival, and Dezast is the "I don't care about your goals, I only care about a good fight", who we've seen before a bunch of times. And yet, without making either of them really have a massive arc, or even one single inciting event besides "meeting each other", it's shifted them, not really away from those initial one-note characterisations, but just fleshed them out, added additional flavours like red ginger, and quietly given them room to work off each other. These two have never really been the stars, or even close to it, so having a full episode devoted to Dezast's tragic death and Ren carrying on his will and lessons, it's a little like Gaim randomly deciding the Oren/Jonouchi plot needs a whole episode and Mai to sing a tragic song about them. And, it honest to god works. It's brilliantly done.

Also, Will Save Us is really good? Very haunting, lots of power in the vocals, and I think it works having something unique for the fight because of how little Ren and Dezast have to do with the rest of the SOL or Megid gang at this point. This isn't another point of Storious' apocalyptic tantrum, or Touma winning over Ren and Dezast to be part of his squad, this is just between the two of them.

Neat! I'm looking forward to... Trio of Deep Sin? Is that the one?

I mean, Ren doesn't love swords like Daishinji loves swords, but he wouldn't just leave a powerful magic sword in a random warehouse! C'mon, people!

It's a hard plotline to dislike!

I like the implication, between this episode and Episode 2, that Rintaro has one extensively practiced speech for meeting new people, and it is incredibly weird and briefly counterproductive. (Dude! Stop telling people you aren't suspicious! It's very suspicious!) It's nice that the weirder edges of these characters don't all vanish in the crucibles of their character arcs.

Yeah, it's a strong episode for meeting Ren and Desast where they live, rather than shoehorning them into Rintaro or Kento's arcs -- the lesson learned here is to stop measuring yourself against other people, and their successes, and just concentrate on the things that make your life complete. It doesn't matter if it's small, or personal, so long as it makes you happy. Nice to have an arc like this, that doesn't depend on sketching out a personal manifesto.

I guess it can be one at a time but changing as it goes with time, including Desast's change like Storious discarding him. Desast tries to corrupt Ren as someone with similarities, so it'd be kinda a "toxic" friend type (someone being rather "amicable" doesn't necessarily mean doing good to them... kinda like Woz to Sougo), but later he'd value him more to the point that he gets mad at Touma for "negatively" affecting Ren - of which Touma's words also got through Desast here.

Now here we got Ogami being irritable to Mei again, instantly assuming the worst of her when Luna escapes. This one's seem more obvious to me in his squabbles, so it really is that Ogami kept holding a little grudge to Mei for unwittingly neglecting Sora before. Luna can show concern towards people who got in misfortune like Mei before, but she seems to be rather aloof too to walk away again, from Rintaro and bluntly stating that he's creepy (not unjustified, just a remark). And I didn't get that vibe from Rintaro here unlike his debut.

So Ren's end arc is about be yourself type, to stop comparing himself to others in positive way for Kento or negative way for Touma. This is perhaps subtle when comparing himself to others will hold him back by figuring out how to be strong like those 2, and thus he should fight his own way? And that he seems to regress back into purely battle hungry compared to his growth before of not all of that anymore before by refusing to fight Desast. Regardless, Ren displays his 'cool' battle capabilities by matching Desast untransformed (but with weapons) for some time.

Desast here intends on dying but make his last moments a dignified one which he succeeds in getting through Ren, with Ren also helping to do so by giving full fight to him. By this Desast is turning into Ren's version of Kento's Hayato.

From previous talk, though Reika became comparatively better, would say she's still a jerk here, regardless if what she did is meant for laughs. It's still an expected, but violent reaction for her to attempt slashing Mei off Ryoga. I kinda think that Ryoga may be more approachable than Reika for him at least the one started making attempts to get more open... which got exploited by Mei. For both too, them working together with the main cast involve them being control freaks who must have anything they say obeyed, but not vice-versa, that'd still display some superiority complex towards the 'traitors' of the guild, and just cause infighting in said team. Though the Shindai siblings are still among the best fighters as shown here, kinda like that Sabela's scent was her weakness at one point to get her trackable.

Other than him actually trying it, I'd also think that after defeating Desast, Ren is no longer dismissive towards Desast where him rejecting his suggestion is not done out of shooing Desast away, but out of just the dislike of the red ginger, but admitting it sincerely to Desast of thinking it's not for him. Albeit Ren's taste was the right one, this can actually counteract Desast's dialogue of Ren being fine by himself, that, Ren is fine to not follow that suggestion from others like Desast himself.

Even Desast corrupting Ren... it's more just getting him to be happy with his development and desires? Ren's a guy who was taught that strength was all that matters, and then couldn't achieve the same strength as the people around him. He kept wondering what his flaw was that was holding him back from similar success, but the flaw was thinking he was flawed. He'd never be happy as long as he compared himself to others, and that's all Desast was trying to get him to realize.

This was one of my favorite episodes of the season and I really enjoyed how much heart they put into Desast?s final battle. I also will forever resent the show for making me emotionally connect with Ren. That is an irresponsible use of the show?s most unsympathetic douchebag.

Also, gotta love that song. I am 100% down with anything that uses Nier?s musical aesthetic.