Saber is one of the most qualified I Really Loved This Show recommendations of all time for me. A genuinely special experience, marked by sporadic bouts of anger and disappointment. In the aftermath, it's all worth it. But if someone hasn't started that journey yet? Ehhh...

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The thing about Saber I've realized watching Die go through it is that a given viewer's enjoyment of it, hilariously enough, probably hinges a ton on how much faith they're willing to put into it. If you decide after a few episodes it's not worth your time, and drop it outright, it'll only ever be some noisy and mediocre series to you. If you stick it out, believing there's a chance things will get better, you'll eventually find they do. And if you're as recklessly optimistic going in as I was, you'll be met with an immediately enjoyable show that only seems to become more and more so with each episode.

Every time I read Die say something about how formless so many elements of the show feel until context is provided later on that makes it all meaningful, I'm just reminded all over again how insane my connection to Saber is. Die's experience is probably rather typical of most viewers, I'd imagine. It's only reasonable to question the way some of these things are structured. But for whatever reasons, I was there from day one, already having a great time, and feeling more than generous enough to excitedly imagine what all those "Somehows" that would make a given element of the narrative important might turn out to be. I never doubted that these things were being done with purpose, which made it that much more exciting when everything did start tying together so beautifully. That's probably not the typical experience with this series, at all. But that's my story with Kamen Rider Saber -- a story of faith rewarded.

Honestly, I'm not even sure what I should be writing here? Between that and everything I said about the show in that old post for 48, and, well, everything I ever say about Saber, my broad opinions on the overall series are pretty covered at this point. It's a show that stands out as special to me within a franchise of shows that are special to me, and as such I have no idea how to condense those feelings. Did I love the story and themes? Did I love the characters? Did I love the action and the aesthetics? Well, how long do you want this post to be? I'll leave the answer to those questions as a very obvious "yes" for now, and probably take another crack at this when the thread as a whole wraps up, but needless to say, following Saber for a year was an experience I'll cherish forever. Ironic a thing as this is to say about the one starring a writer, I don't think I've ever found words that do justice to just how much I do care about this series.

I basically already wrote everything I wanted to say about this show in posts dedicated to the last two episodes. So just to reiterate, Saber is my favorite rider show and I'm really glad you enjoyed it. Let the path be thorny, but this is what helps to better remember and appreciate the journey. And also I note that after the end of the series, Saber never ceases to amaze. There is still a lot of interesting things ahead!

Which is great! It's awesome to put yourself so utterly in the hands of creators, and have it all work out better than you'd dreamed. That's a rare experience, and you're right to both treasure it and share it.

For me? If I can paraphrase Kamijo -- a character that still doesn't work for me, even in retrospect -- when my resolve failed, I still had hope. I didn't know it was all going to work out, but I always hoped it would. I've never been able to quit a Kamen Rider show, and I doubt I ever will. I always wonder what's around the corner: Does the show fix its flaws, change its focus, clarify its vision, live up to its goals? If there's even a spark of a better show in the one that's not working for me, I gotta give them a chance. I may not like it to start, and it may let me down in ways I have to call out, but I will always root for these shows to get better. When it happens? They'll have my sword.

It's certainly a more interesting show to talk about, for its pricklier parts. And yeah! We still have a week of ancillary content to go over, starting with today's Sword of Logos episodes!

On the topic of that ancillary content, here's a revised and expanded schedule for the next few days:

03/18: Sword of Logos
03/19: Anime
03/20: TTFC Episode 3
03/22: Final Stage
03/23: Trio of Deep Sin
03/24: Sabela & Durandal

Looking forward to seeing how weird Saber can get with its stage show!

Interested in if you'll watch what exists of Outsiders now? Having watched Saber you now have context for everything that currently exists in and has been promised for it

Yeah, but not right away. Finishing Saber, then catching up on three months of Geats, then Revice, then (probably) Outsiders.

So here Kento is shown to be also doing his part of talking down civilians, similar to Touma further taking promises seriously to convince Takuto to fulfill it. I guess this'd strengthen the part of him being more of a fundamentally good person, instead of just a redeemed bad guy tagging along with the heroes (though there's still already an extensive part of him being at odds with the heroes), or that the earlier part of him was just him being 'heroic' due to going along with the main character (e.g. Micchy in Gaim) - thus the part of him being hellbent on revenge against Calibur was a genuine being caught up in emotions rather than his inherent dark side taking over. Ofc, with the problem of the promise being monster attacks, Kentouma both serve as the "security guards" for the childhood friends meeting up here.

So regarding Saber part, it's shown that someone like Sophia also can loosen up a little to join in the cast relaxing, which is good for her. Other than Kentouma, the focus here also seems to be done on Ryoga for some reason, who, initiates a duel with Rintaro, which makes sense as previously Ryoga was the evil counterpart of Rintaro, with both having trouble with socializing, but Ryoga is fanatically loyal to SoL's cause without a shred of conscience at that time. Thus like how Rintaro initiates a duel with Touma back then to convey it, now Ryoga repeats that with Rintaro. With now Ryoga seemingly fully opening up to the others, the 'traitors', more than Reika who's still only at best explaining Ryoga is while staying hostile to anyone not him. I wonder why for this part you think Reika is awful here as since Ryoga came, being deadly jealous of others approaching him is also a consistet part of her.

Regarding Revice, I only wonder how'd you feel regarding your view about families in KR when you get through it, especially that you watched Geats first which have (reverts into) more typical KR families. Honestly, I'd think that the Vice humor part is jarring here, like the fart jokes? It doesn't represent Revice at all. Regarding Rintaro, I guess it's good that his dork part is still consistent here with him making an awkward 'confession' with Mei due to misunderstandings, which ofc he meant actual official family instead of just a group with actual familial feelings. But the general consensus of Rintaro is that he's just there, for some of the audiences (also one of the secondaries that feel overshadowed by tertiary, Kento). I'm not into these crossovers but at the end it seems that the Saber part has something moving forward with SoL solving the Master Logos problem with it being turned into a council of four, of which for some reason only Ryoga got appointed as one of its members without Reika. Ren reacts more amicably to the group with his journey, though the focus is still on his interactions with Kento.

You're still going to watch Pretty Den-O after Saber though, right?

She's always been protective of her brother, but this is ramping things up into a more irritating jealousy angle that... I mean, it's problematic, I think we can all agree. Even if you end up viewing it as a sibling's devotion, or an idolization, it's still super weird that this grown woman is infuriated by her brother maybe-flirting with Mei. It's not that funny, and it unnecessarily harms Reika's character.

After Revice, since Revice is starting up (currently!) April 13th, and I got non-Kamen Rider stuff for at least the last week of this month. Pretty Den-O for sure will happen later this year. I have not forgotten! We'll cover the post-Revice roadmap in more detail as Revice wraps up.

For me, Saber is a show that I tend to associate with Black RX and Drive: three shows that I thought started off really weak but that eventually found their voice and turned into something really fantastic by the end. Between the heroes and villains it probably had more characters than it really knew what to do with most of the time, but I think it generally did a good job of doing justice by the majority of them.

I will always look back fondly on the time when Touma, Mei, and Yuri were the main active characters while everyone else just hung out in a library getting gaslit by Reika. I loved the whole storyline around the Primitive Dragon books and how that was ultimately resolved. I appreciate Kento for cutting past several episodes of misunderstandings by just openly explaining his plans and motivations. I respect the show for finding a way to take its worst character and give him one of the most emotional fight scenes in the entire series. There's a lot to credit this show with, but these are probably the elements that stuck out to me the most.