No offense, but doesn't the word choices "that's what this story is about" sound painting this as objective? Like it seems as if you're pushing your prefered narrative, like wanting to get something like Ex-Aid of "characters constantly being hostile, fighting, and at odds with each other" thus anything is acceptable to get it and it'd have no faults or criticisms (like against those who acknowledge the character's beliefs or characterization, but still feel that they're too much of an asshole in their reaction to this) as long as this happens - and yeah, fanatical belief in system/organization is also one of the roots behind being an asshole (the self-righteous type).

Though for my personal thoughts, Rintaro is someone professional, but he's also someone nice for that (IMO a breath of fresh air); thus he'd be more open minded before, like how he's accepting on Touma's methods when he tries to mentor him before, instead of like, insisting that he's a newbie that doesn't know anything and forcing him to obey and do things their way. By having both of these I'd think he can be conflicted at first, at this early stage instead of immediately fully leaning on the other way.

I only got my own point of view, so everything I say here can be easily (and correctly) written off as subjective. Any analysis of art is subjective!

But this isn't a story where anyone can just go I've Made A Huge Mistake. It's a story where we're exploring why these characters are choosing things like duty over friendship, so I don't know if it's worthwhile to single any particular character(s) out as not doing enough with the information presented, when this story is built around characters make poor decisions with the information presented.

Glad to hear you enjoyed this episode! It's a nice cap off to the two-parter and I especially enjoyed it as our starting two episodes for our new arc of Saber.

I know some people groaned at Yuri technically misinforming Touma of how exactly things worked with the human-hybrid Megid and how it could've been easily solved. But Yuri is one of those dude's who will be extremely literal and vague about a point because he assumes that people would have guessed from those few words.

The argument and discussion between Yuri and Touma too was definitely one of my favorites. Touma is a very emotional guy, more recently to his detriment (given how he acted on his feelings during the whole SoL betrayal and look where that got him). But despite that setback he still keeps hold of what makes him, him. And that allows him to get through to Yuri in some fashion, and it's also just a nice way to sort of reorient the story's direction from a larger stakes war that had been going on prior to low stakes battles where the individuals are more important than the goals.

Still, Touma has a much more solid way to save people turned into Megid now, though his plan (and realization via a toy toaster) was pretty solid all things considered. It also ended in a nice stylish dual wielding fight where Touma gets to wield two Seiken at once again. Touma dual wielding is cool, and I'm glad that Yuri as Saikou allows more opportunities for that.

Speaking of Saikou! We basically get his full debut out of the way these episodes. The sword itself is cool, but the most interesting aspect is the Shadow feature. Which funnily enough gets a special filter for the suit only for that to be completely forgotten about the literal next episode. Though even then Shadow's properties of nothing being able to hit it still ends up coming into play even with the lack of a filter.

But yeah, solid end to a two parter and I absolutely adored your story. It's fun to see you sort of try and get into the minds of the characters to pick at. And you choosing Daishinji as the main viewpoint character this time was pleasantly surprising.

Thanks! I think Daishinji's gigantic heart and crippling shyness is a really fascinating concept for a Kamen Rider, and it's fun to figure out how he'd internally navigate this unacceptable dissolution of his friends/coworkers.

Also, I'm glad you liked this episode, too. I thought this was an all-the-way good episode, even if I could not care less about the Book Club just rolling everything back to Square One and flinging book monsters at their goals until something positive happens.

I'm really enjoying Saber taking the story slow and leaving in more room for the characters to interact, I especially like this episode with its clash of ideals, as you said in your post, it's between Touma's "wanting to save the people unwillingly hosting the Megid" and Yuri's "wanting to destroy the Megid entirely as that's his job", even if technically it's a misunderstanding and they both mostly want the same thing, it's mostly a minor thing in this episode overall, but I like it.

I don't have many dislikes about the episode, besides still not really caring about Yuki, she's fine but I don't particularly feel any distress over her potentially getting destroyed. Aside from that, i do kind of wish we got to see the Sword of Logos more, the cast is my favorite part of the show, so even though I enjoy the plot, I would still like to see some of the Sword of Logos members a bit more, but that's a minor and subjective complaint.

Still, besides that, I really enjoyed this episode. It's a fun ending to this two-parter, it doesn't exactly do any major twists or have many major story advancements, but it's a story that really focuses on what Touma wants to accomplish through being a Kamen Rider, and it gives me a better grasp on his character which I wasn't really feeling before.

Not much to say about the episode personally, so I’ll share some random things about it.

A few people at the time of airing thought Rintaro not believing Touma when he said that the Megido was created from a human was ludicrous. Because “a demon that’s always been born from books in the past came from a human this time” is so much more plausible.

Kyle Takano (the guy playing Legiel) said the Yeti was his favourite monster of the series, even taking a photo with it (he also took a photo of himself and Zoous’s actor, face about three feet apart).

And then, there’s the return of the “sword that restores unrestorable monsters, a gimmick that would’ve been useful 8 years ago.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...4/IMG_4652.JPG

Fish Sandwich also watched Kamen Rider Saber Episode 18

Despite enjoying the episode a ton anyway, after first watching it, I was pretty hung up on the whole reveal at the end that the episode's central dilemma only ever existed in Touma's head. I guess I thought it retroactively undermined the stakes or something, but ever since then, I've realized I actually think it's a perfect cap for this story, which makes me love the episode that much more.

The reason this stretch of the show ended up making Touma finally become a character I loved ahead of guys like Rintarou is because, the way I see it, this whole storyline is specifically digging into what being Saber means to him. Now that it isn't just a fun fantasy to live out with cool coworkers, it's really testing just how much saving people means to Touma, and how far he'll go to do it. So on top of loving that we've reduced the scale down to a single person to be saved, emphasizing how individual lives matter, I actually love even more that all the effort he puts in here turns out to be pointless with Yuri around. Because it's like, if he'll go to lengths that extreme, with that much determination, even when he could easily be doing less... imagine what this guy might be capable of when the chips are truly down.

So yeah, no argument from here that this was a very well done two-parter, of course. It's cool to see Saber being so awesome and heroic, and it's cool how his emotionally vulnerable and empathetic approach to fighting evil starts to win over a more stoic hero so old-school he's literally a millennium old. The odd couple dynamic with Touma and Yuri really works wonders for this show.

So here Mei would have no qualms criticizing Rintaro for making stubborn decision against Touma, even if Rintaro's the one she falls in love with, she's not clouded by it here which is good, though that makes her accidentally hurt Touma. Mei's quite lucky that she got an editor who is principled by focusing on bringing happiness on the people who read the books, though... there are multiple genre of books and there are multiple feelings and emotions various type of stories can give, like giving fear for tenseful suspense, sadness for something tragic, etc.

I agree that this is probably something that can be overlooked, including in real life, that saving the world doesn't necessarily mean saving the population on it. The cases I've found however, is that the reverse that some people think saving the world would necessarily mean caring for the population inside, of which can be used to paint like, villains who fight other villains that threaten the world, as good guys for saving the world, even when the reason they do it is because they won't have places to live otherwise. And as said here, individual lives' struggle is something that is really important in heroism, which also can be overlooked by some audiences to deem characters who simply do their job in fighting monsters and putting themselves at risk as 'true heroes' ignoring for example, their blatant negative traits of their disregard.

I'd think that Yuri seems standoffish not due to being wrapped up in their duty though, Yuri is just extremely odd including in his perspective on life due to his lack of understanding of human world which leads to this (like Philip?)... not Touma which Yuri calls naive (though perhaps some can blindly agree to Touma being naive... even if it's Yuri who didn't understand human world).

The misunderstanding is also on Yuri's behalf, Yuri has no intention on killing humans at the first place, but he didn't understand why Touma would think the humans can be killed when he destroys the Megid head-on, and that Touma interprets Yuri answering to Touma wanting to save Yuki by striking her as mercy killing her. Of which actually Megids work like Dopants from W that destroying it would free the humans, so Touma's victory actually also had him creating unnecessary difficulty, though Touma realizes this and is upset over this misunderstanding at the end. I still like that Touma's problem-solving is still touched upon here in how he seizes his chance to strike the book. Rintaro IMO is more in-character here in how he deals with this situation, he's conflicted thus he'd mediate by denying anything bad about SoL, but also trying to talk his way with Touma about stopping his path, which'd be why Reika needs to convince Rintaro more at the end.

Hmm.. so that seems to be where your arguments from Gai came from, thinking that he genuinely had a goal of human improvement... I'd say, his human supremacist claim is the cover of his crimes, I've said that Horobi never lives up to his claims of saving Humagears, but Gai is even worse for that as he just consistently hypocritically contradicting it, like him thinking humans deserve Ark's judgment, and also how he had cold and data-focused approach even more than Humagears due to his profit-driven approach, and as Rider he won't improve/evolve but acting as a parasite stealing from people around him, it's also revealed later his true view of humanity is using them as tools, he doesn't actually care about them, all his actions are only for himself and his greed.

I wonder if you'd have an example or ideas to make victim of the week stories like this worth following (for what this threads deem, example is Shouko from Den-O), as I feel that, to display heroism particularly from the likes of Touma here, it shouldn't only involve taking care of your own circles (e.g. comrades in Sword of Logos) alone. A̶c̶t̶u̶a̶l̶l̶y̶,̶ ̶t̶a̶k̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶c̶a̶r̶e̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶p̶e̶o̶p̶l̶e̶ ̶o̶n̶e̶'̶d̶ ̶l̶e̶s̶s̶ ̶e̶x̶p̶e̶c̶t̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶b̶e̶ ̶c̶a̶r̶e̶d̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶m̶o̶r̶e̶ ̶i̶m̶p̶o̶r̶t̶a̶n̶t̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶I̶M̶O̶.̶

It's the downside of these classic Monster Of The Fortnight stories, though, that it's harder to make the mega-arc stuff feel prominent and addressed. Writing-wise, these shows can either gives us a fleshed-out monster plot with personal stakes and a defined metaphorical struggle for the hero, OR they can give us a gigantic cast grappling with massive stakes and longform developments in the status quo. There're only so many minutes in an episode, so the SoL has to get backgrounded for a couple weeks in order to tell a story about Touma and Yuri trying to save Yuki.

I mean, that description of Rintaro's incredulity is sort of willfully missing the point of what's happening in the episode? Rintaro's scared that his friend has gone off the same deep end Calibur did, and here's Touma a) accusing the Sword of Logos of undefined treachery, b) accumulating power that he won't surrender, c) battling other swordsmen, and now d) protecting Megid lives over human lives. Touma not only isn't explaining the situation well, but Rintaro is watching the exact same shit Kamijo did play out all over again with one of his best friends. In an episode all about how communication is impossible without trust, there's nothing else Rintaro could've done but doubt Touma.

The most amazing thing about this show's cast is that you can pair off any two of them, and something fascinating is going to happen. Yuri absolutely continues that trend!

I think that quote is more about hoping that stories enrich people's lives, making them happy and fulfilled in that way, even if the genre is mystery or drama or Spooky Monster Superhero Action. I don't think Yuki is literally saying that all stories have to make people, like, smile and laugh in order to be worth telling.

Yes, it's really cool and unusual that instead of going from smallest to largest, Saber started off saving an entire city block, and now dedicates two whole episodes to saving one person. Also, today's story is great.

Thanks! And, yeah, it's incredibly Saber to slowly reduce the scope of its battles as the series progresses. At this rate, I wouldn't be surprised if the series finale was Touma trying to portion out the appropriate amounts of peanut butter and jelly for a sandwich.

I enjoyed it for no other reason than I thought it was humorous. The way Touma's all like, "yeah, you're right, I could've just used you to do that", followed by his sudden revelation and incredulous expression. Great comedic timing from Naito there that totally sold the scene for me! And as you mentioned, while it rendered the endeavor pointless, it didn't lessen Touma's determination to do the right thing and even helped Yuri to understand the philosophy of modern heroism by making him consider the value of individual human life.

Yeah, I think something like general satisfaction is more what she meant by bringing happiness. Readers want to feel the full emotional spectrum, whether it's happiness, sadness, anger, etc. They want to feel like the stories in the books are real and meaningful, so they can learn from those experiences and apply them IRL. Like the debate between Touma and Bacht about whether suffering is a justified part of living. The worst stories are those that make people feel apathetic, offended, bored and like they wasted their time.

Well, honestly, I don't exactly believe in Gai's claims of human improvement either, hence why I quote-unquoted "heroic", as his idea of that is just as pretentious and self-validating as everything else he does. Although his belief that humanity are deserving of Ark's retribution can be seen as forcing them to confront their malice so they can become better, something that Gai eventually does as well after seeing the error of his ways. The only real thing is his love of Hiden Intelligence and Thouzer, but sadly that got twisted by his narcissism, inferiority complex towards Korenosuke and Aruto and a childhood of 1000% expectation, which collectively motivated him to become the one true president by any means necessary.

The whole "Yuri just didn't tell Touma because he assumed they were on the same wavelength already" is also a neat parallel of what's going on with the SOL - much like how Touma doesn't realise what he's doing is basically Calibur 2 (but witl less attempted worldicide so far), or at the very least he's doing a really bad job of explaining it, Yuri just doesn't realise Touma's worry isn't because of some code of ethics, or glory-hound nature. Fundamentally, both sides don't realise they're working to the same ends, and can't quite understand why because they're don't have the whole situation, and because they don't understand what makes the other tick.

Also, it's very funny.

KAMEN RIDER SABER EPISODE 19 - “FIRE AND LIGHT, SWORDS INTERTWINED”

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/saber/saber19a.png

Sort of let this one percolate for a bit, hoping I’d feel inspired, but… not so much?

It’s a solid, if unexceptional episode. Entertaining, if unmemorable. We’re still circling our major plot points – Book Club’s like More Monsters Never Hurt, Sword of Logos is confused over how best to deal with Touma, and Yuri is still feeling his way around a world that he’s about 60% clear on while doing some light theft of personal property. Nothing is bad, but everything’s just… more of the same?

Like, the stuff with Shingo. He gets almost exactly as much characterization as Yuki got last time, which is barely enough to qualify as a sentient human being. He’s got a name, and an interest, and then he’s some victim for Touma to save. Shingo isn’t an active participant in this story, beyond being someone that Touma can feel guilty about not saving yet. There’s no story there, you know? Touma might as well be saving his own miniature castle from a Book Club scheme, for all that the specificity of Shingo’s character matters to the proceedings. There’s some fun fights, and it’s all miles better than the random Megid attacks of the first dozen episodes, but it’s still just Touma trying to save a random victim before the Book Club or the Sword of Logos interfere.

The best part of the episode, though, comes off of that interference. Daishinji (what, did you think I meant Storious?!) is still trying to understand what Touma’s up to, and if he’s already lost to the same lust for power that the SoL assumes corrupted Kamijo. But Daishinji isn’t the type to get the truth by having a discussion, because words are just another way for someone to obfuscate their intentions. The best way for Daishinji to see if Touma’s still to be trusted is, of course, having a duel with him.

I love that, for a bunch of reasons. The main one is that it just looks badass, especially compared to the chaotic nature of the other fights in this episode. Where those are all about throwing Touma off-balance and keeping him from attacking cleanly, this one’s just superheroes trading awesome moves, with no distraction. More than that, though, I loved it for how true it is to Daishinji’s character. He’s not comfortable hashing out a difficult emotional situation and reading someone’s motives through intense debate, but he knows when a swordsman is duplicitous because their moves are a lie; the fight is a confession, and only Daishinji can hear it.

It’s by far the strongest part of an episode that never really bored me or upset me, but hit its marks with such straightforward efficiency that I feel like I’ve already forgotten what else happened. It’s not bad, but it’s like… did you enjoy the last episode? This was more of that. It’s cool if you liked both this one and that one. I liked this one and that one! But this one kind of felt like it was spinning its wheels on the mega-arc (Daishinji finale aside), and still hasn’t found a compelling enough story it wants to tell for its guest-stars on the MotW front.

Hopefully the second part of this story finds some fresh ideas!

—

YOUNGER THAN AMERICA

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/saber/saber19b.png

Kaho adjusted the ring light, and pressed the RECORD button on her console.

“Hey, guys! Kaho here, with another comic review! We’re talking about Sword Man #1 this week, and I hope you’re ready for it!” She held up the comic book to her camera, its garish yellow background highlighting the purple and gold superhero.

“It’s a decent American superhero comic, but… like, am I the only one who thinks it’s a cash grab from that Kamen Rider Saber urban legend? Folks online are talking about some sword-wielding superhero, and here comes a new publisher with a guy called Sword Man? Like: SWORD MAN. That’s it. That’s what they bothered to call this guy.” She shook her head, and placed the comic down out of frame.

“Putting aside how lazy the name is, and how rushed the production seems, there’s really not a lot here. It’s some obvious ‘American Superhero’ tropes, without much love for the genre. As you can, I’m a BIT of an American superhero fan.” She gestured to the shelf behind her, slightly obscured in the room’s darkness: rows of Marvel superhero action figures, scattered DC statues, and a framed promotional poster for the Image Comics’ superhero Invincible, signed by the creators. “This comic reads like it wasn’t an homage, or even a parody. It reads like it was created by someone who was told that American superheroes *existed*, and just came up with a hero from there. No love, just mimicry.”

Kaho leaned in closer to the camera, her eyes wide from anger. “And, speaking of mimicry, could this publisher not find a different artist? This guy draws like Rob Liefeld is still the height of superhero art, rather than something that was played out before I was born. It’s all distorted anatomy and gritty poses, which is laughable in a world that has Cory Walker, Ryan Ottley, and so many others. It doesn’t have to be like this, publishers! Try harder!”

She leaned back in her chair, and exhaled. With a laugh, she started back up. “Okay, so, yeah! Not a fan of this one. Those of you out there looking for a homegrown take on the American superhero model, just save yourself some time and check out translations of the real deal. You’re sure to enjoy it more. That’s it for this review! Come back next time, where we’ll take a look at the hot new romance comic, First Love Hero! Thanks for watching!”

Funnily enough I have the same feelings with this episode, and admittedly... I kind of like it? I'll explain what I mean later on, but for now I'll let you know you're not alone in this episode very much being kind of there aside from the Daishinji vs. Touma part.

There's something just very ingenious about using our new setup for a classic 1 vs. 1 duel between two swordsmen. Daishinji very much went above and beyond in how cool he was and this episode is very much one of the ones that cemented him as one of my favorites. It's also like I mentioned briefly when talking about Episode 16. How Daishinji and Ogami are the ones who are clearly trying to think more rationally about everything. And here we see Daishinji trying to seek answers even if Touma's not in a position to answer them.

I do also like the touch of Daishinji attacking the King Megid and actually hearing the muffled cries of Shingo because of his enhanced hearing. It's such a nice little touch.

As for the story. HA! Okay, I love you riffing on Sword X Man. It's such a funnily drawn comic, one of which actually got sample pages shown off to the public via the production blog. Normally I'd share those... but I've got an image or two I need to save space for so...

I enjoyed the subtle Donbrothers reference! Simple story, but got the point across.

That being said I'm not done.

===Zero Presents: Desast Walk===

So at this point in Saber, our very fun Megid known as Desast began to post every now and again on Twitter between episodes. While it's sporadic the further we get in, I figured I'd give you the true Saber experience by giving you Desast Walk every time we reach an appropriate point. So here you go, Desast Walk, with Google Translate on Twitter translations (you'll understand why in a second):

Desast Walk #1:

http://www.tokunation.com/forums/att...1&d=1675394275

"Hi humans.

I'm dessert He's a genie born from a book. Are you pretty cool?

Now then, it looks like it will still take some time for the Wind Swordsman, so I guess I'll wander around this world as I please.

If you've arrived, do whatever you want."

Oh hey, it's the episode/arc that solidified my love for Daishinji, hell yeah.

I have much of the same thoughts as you did regarding this episode, my favorite part of it was Daishinji actually going off of what Yuri said about the Sword of Logos and getting Touma's perspective on what he's done, also, it's just nice to see him again after two episodes of mostly Yuri, Touma, and Mei.

However, like you said, the MOTW's victim just doesn't really get much, they have one defining character trait and just don't do much. I'm fine if the MOTW is just some random monster inhabiting someone we don't know, but this show tries to give it a sense of urgency, and it's like, whether or not Touma knew who the Megid was, he'd still try to save the person trapped inside, but the show feels the need to give him an interaction with that character as motivation.

It's not that big of a deal, but going from Zero-One where the MOTW would basically be the focus of every episode, and the Humagear becoming it usually having a flaw of some sort, such as the sushi Humagear not making sushi to a high enough quality in its owner's eyes. It's minor stuff but it builds character, and the show wants to get us attached to these characters but won't give us enough screen time or any motivation for us to feel for these characters. It's not that big of a deal, I just don't really care about any of these people stuck within a Megid.

Besides that, it's a perfectly fine episode, and besides Shingo's lackluster development, I quite liked it.

(Also, yay for the Donbros reference in the story.)

I like that while guys like Ren and Rintaro are scared that Touma's becoming another Kamijo, the two guys that knew Kamijo best are like Maybe That Whole Situation Was A Little On Us. There's a sense of them, Daishinji and Ogami, being a little scared at history repeating itself, and opting to try a little compassion this time around. Like, not giving Touma the benefit of the doubt, exactly, but trying to get more involved with Touma's decision-making; being present a little more than they probably were with Kamijo or Kento's dad.

And thanks for the Desast update! I'm glad he was staying active on his socials when he's not actively trying to murder a swordsman. Mei would be proud!

He's very fun in this! I like how he treats the duel as heartfelt conversation between friends.

The episode definitely assumes that a beautifully-shot sequence of someone being inspired by Touma is going to carry the emotional part of that plotline, and it's sort of asking a lot of one dialogue-less scene. Shingo, once again, doesn't get to be active in this story: he's approached by Storious, but then loses all his agency after that. There was a chance to tell a different kind of story with a young fan of Touma's, but there's very little substance there.

Aaaaaaaaa, Desast's walk. It's both in a way my favorite storytelling from Saber and... kinda the most unforgivable? Because I really do think following along with Desast's twitter adventures improves the Saber experience by leaps and bounds with it's interesting insight into it's corner of the world and my favorite wolf beetle skull monster man, but... how are you supposed to do that if you weren't watching the show in real time?

It's the same problem of the Swordsman Chronicles providing great characterization in missable side content... but worse since at least those were, yknow, actual webisodes you can just add to your watch order. Twitter is like, the most ephemeral way this side of the story could have been communicated, without someone already in the know helping share the tweets at the appropriate points anyone watching the show after the fact would likely not even know Desast's Walk existed.

So, like, lucky you're doing this thread and have people ready to post his tweets when relevant ;)

Oh, and on the subject of translations: here's a twitter thread with translations for every tweet (that aren't just google translate.) Obviously Die shouldn't visit that link yet, since it continues through further show events, but for reference for everyone else. And here's the translation of that first tweet from that thread:

"Hello, humans.
I'm Desast. I'm a demon born from a book. Pretty cool, huh?

Well, it looks like the Wind Swordsman is going to take some time, so I guess I'll just wander around the world at my leisure.

If you want to come along, be my guest."

(incidentally, when you were enamored early on with the idea of desast just chilling on earth and interacting with humans- i guess saber's twitter was enamored with it too?? if i had a nickel for every time you predicted a piece of saber side content...)

I always liked Daishinji enough, but something about him never exactly clicked with me, so I'm glad you lot are exploring him, because it's bringing him a lot more into focus. Someone so commit to his craft of swordsmanship, to the point it's where he communicates and reads others, but is still a calm hero (a dork, but a hero) and not some kind of blood knight... yeah, I get why people would be really into that!

The parts with Touma trying to reconnect with his former colleagues / the SOL trying to decide if Touma really has become Calibur 2 (wonder where Kurayamai has gotten to in the meantime) has the easier connection here, considering the pre-existing emotional bonds, and while I don't think the MOTW plot is bad, it's doing nothing really unique to Saber. I do appreciate how it's a child, though - I have an easier time imagining Touma connecting with children through his role as a children's writer than I do any recent Rider back to Emu?

I half-mentioned it earlier, but I'm very lucky to both dig into this show long after everything's been translated, and amongst an enthusiastic fanbase that's making sure I don't overlook anything. It's, as always, incredibly difficult to be a North American fan of Kamen Rider, where you need to keep up with TV episodes, theatrical films, streaming mini-series, pack-in DVDs, stage shows, anime shorts... and now Twitter posts. Sometimes that's stuff that won't appear in English until months after its relevant, if at all. But I like that there always seems to be at least one generous fan out there in the world, eventually putting it all together for us. Thanks for being a part of that!

Desast is immediately likeable, as a bizarre sword-fighting goofball who loves a tense battle and doesn't seem to care too much about things like Plans or Victory. He's like a pitbull that just wants to play around, you know? I'm not surprised the show opted to have him bumble around town and have funny interactions. He's like the suit mascot version of Megatron at Universal Studios: clearly a villain, but so entertaining about it, and currently so unintersted in it, that you're thrilled he's around.

It's really nice that the show has avoided making Daishinji a grim, standoffish psycho who wants to fight everyone he meets -- mostly because we've got Desast, who is a way more fun version of that concept. But it also gives us these really neat Daishinji concepts, where Ogami's like We Should Talk To Touma and Daishinji's like Yep We Should Definitely Duel Him. Like, this group of characters is so idiosyncratic, it's been a blast seeing them each approach a situation with a slightly bonkers solution.

I won?t talk much about the plot yet, due to the fact that this is again a two-part story. I will only note that a small plot with a fan of Touma, who also appreciated the amazing miniature in his bookstore, seems to me very appropriate. But your story is very interesting. It's great that you took on the lore of X-Swordsman, because this is a very vast field for fantasy.

It really amazes me that Touma is a children's writer, because, judging by the rare passages in the show, his most successful book is about reflection due to amnesia. That is, it does not seem to me that this is a topic that is close or interesting to most preschoolers who come to his store. Although, given that Kamen Rider is a children's show, it must be admitted that Japanese children have strange tastes.

Thanks! I'm interested in Sword Man -slash- X-Swordsman -slash- Sword X Man for how it's another culture taking American superhero tropes and sort of... analyzing them? Recontextualizing them? Regurgitating them? I think it's fun to see how one culture's tropes and art get processed with a completely different cultural background. That's fun. I'm excited to see where this show goes with that exploration.

I always enjoyed the bonus entertainment of waiting for the next Super Hero Time to see if there'd be a new installment of Desast's Walk, in addition to my regular dose of Saber and Zenkaiger. First thing Desast does after getting his freedom is start a Twitter blog to chronicle his miscellaneous adventures outside of his battles with the Swordsmen. Not exactly what any of us could've expected, but in-character for sure. Dude knows how cool he is and wants his story to be heard!

Yeah, it's an unusual gap the show never quite bridges - Touma definitly comes across as someone who writes storybooks for young children, judging by his shop, his attitude, and the fact he isn't on Twittet getting involved in the latest drama. But his actual books seem aimed at adults, given what we see with Mei and the snippets of writings. Maybe he does both? I wouldn't put it past him!

I definitely took it as him doing both. The novel seems aimed at children -- the cover is a group of children looking at a Wonder World-esque vista; it's got prominent placement in a kids' bookshop; and I think Touma's specifically said it was about his childhood, or at least what he remembers of it -- while the magazine writing he's doing is aimed at adults. It wouldn't surprise me if a pre-SoL Touma reoriented his gaps in memory as a thrilling adventure for children, and it also wouldn't surprise me if a slightly older, no-longer-a-prodigy Touma was more interested in crafting stories for adults.

So Yuri's the type who is secretive and thus will erase the Megid incident memories from other people like Yuki. Saber is a kind of show where people like Touma rather easily wins over the people around him (though there's some bumps right now but only Ren outright dislikes him, consistently, and it's viewed as wrong by his SoL colleagues; Ogami takes an open-minded approach to think that Touma may know more than them at this point, despite that he's something new in SoL), of which perhaps can feel similar to Takeru in Ghost and have Touma being viewed as fawned too much (exaggeration), but this'd mean that Yuri's decision to erase memories isn't questioned (and yeah, the reason to do that is usually 'for their own happiness')? It's a decision that is heavily debated, in other series such as Ultraman Nexus.

I'd say it's kinda expected as Shingo is just the victim of the week and this is the attempt to flesh him out a bit, though I'd say it fleshes out Touma too outside of wanting to do good, though this feels like an 'info-dump' regarding Touma as this interest in diorama perhaps will be only referenced once. But I wonder if you'd think there's a better way to execute this kind of stuff. Still though, I'd say to highlight Touma's heroism better, including in his claims of protecting the people living in the world, he gotta take care of random victims, instead of only his circles (consisting of characters the audience knows and cares), as he gotta be all-encompassing.

And for Daishinji being more comfortable in fighting as a swordsman, it really shows too in how Slash counters everything Saber throws at him, even when Saber uses stronger forms. I've seen stories of people getting to know other's inner self by fighting before, but, also including this, I wonder if that'd actually have some merits or lessons that can be taken (perhaps in other performances outside of fighting, which can be used in duel-based shows that can be deemed silly instead), or just the show's excuse to create more fight scenes. It's also something that has a conclusion that can seem to be only forced or dictated (ironic, compared to Touma's insistence of ending the story in his own way), as usually it ends with the tester claiming "you've shown me your resolve" or something, which isn't really clear what it means, perhaps typically , but even then some audiences (including in powerscaling) can always assume that anyone's fight are always going all out, where those who lose because of them holding back/hesitating can be just deemed as weak instead.

I guess I brought it up cuz I often see quote-unquoted "heroic" when describing characters who actually genuinely well-intentioned, but the quoted-unquoted "heroic" is given due to using extreme and evil means to achieve it (but the goal is still genuine and they do live up to it, but shows that good intentions doesn't necessarily make one good person). So I thought it'd be different for Gai's case where his claim of human supremacy is just a front for his dirty work in the company, that he'd not have "heroic" goal following how audience usually use that 2 term for (though it's used as they don't know the term anti-villain).

It does make me wonder exactly what kind of stories Touma produces for adults, though -- as unfortunately there just doesn't exist much of a market for light fantasy stories (as opposed to 'grimmer' takes) in adult novels. Or maybe he lives in the beautiful alternate universe where it's much more mainstream...

Alternatively, he's just really bad at packaging his erotic detective novels.

Since this is a series partially founded on Narratively Convenient Amnesia... no, I don't think Touma's going to feel particularly busted up about Yuri "protecting" people by removing their memories.

I don't ever really want to get into what I'd specifically do differently with a plot, since then you're not exactly engaging with the work as is. But I think in general, I'd like to see a plot where the victim has some ability to affect their predicament; whether that's them choosing power and needing to be rescued from themself, or the hero needing to understand why the villain is targeting them, it just needs to be something where the victim makes a choice at some point.

Cut to Episode 47, and Yuki's like These Stories Touma Writes Are So Unpopular That We're All Going To Lose Our Jobs.

Honestly, though, I think Touma is probably writing evocative, metaphorical fantasy tales that have a small but loyal audience. He doesn't seem like he's about to have a hit on his hands any time soon.

That bookstore's going to get shut down REAL quick, then. Reika was right! TOUMA'S A VILLAIN!

KAMEN RIDER SABER EPISODE 20 - “DOWN WITH THE STRONGHOLD, BY THE WILL OF THE SWORD”

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/saber/saber20a.png

Thoroughly fun episode, with one glaring and increasingly aggravating flaw.

It’s Reika, because, like, have you watched these episodes? While everyone else is dealing in fascinating ambiguity and compromised morality, here’s Reika with the most one-note Malevolent And Duplicitous Boss character I’ve ever seen. Every appearance is only a scene-change edit away from her cackling maniacally as she turns friends against each other. Her home base is dimly-lit for no reason other than increasing a sense of unease. She’s the absolute worst motivation for a group of morally-upright swordsmen I can think of, short of Calibur coming back to issue marching orders. For this part of the series to work best, there needs to be some narrative cover for the SoL to doubt Touma’s emotional appeals; these guys have to be wary of an accusation that the SoL is corrupt. And yet! At every turn, Reika is showing up fresh from, like, poisoning apples to give to teenage princesses, or baking German children in her gingerbread house. Her laconic menace makes the whole Just Following Orders vibe of half the cast feel willfully blind, and that disappointingly unbalances the heart of this story.

(Also, what makes it worse for me is that she’s so evil-seeming that she’s probably not evil, which just makes her a terrible boss, instead of an ineffective villain. What higher-up in the Sword of Logos is like This Shadowy Creep Is The Right Person To Maintain Morale?! It’s the show spending too much energy in making the audience think Reika’s evil, only to probably twist it that she’s NOT evil, instead of just playing her character straight and keeping the focus on the friction in the cast.)

Other than that, I thought this episode was finally firing on all cylinders. The humor was great (Mei doing Yuri’s Henshin sequence for him is maybe a series highlight), the drama was arresting (Rintaro tried really hard this episode to make things work!), the action was phenomenal (that four-way mid-epsiode brawl!), and the MotW plot required some (minor) character insight and problem-solving. It’s hard to find fault with the non-Reika parts of this episode!

I especially enjoyed that Rintaro moment, even if it was unfortunately brief. I like that Rintaro found out Touma was telling the truth, and was immediately like COMMON GROUND HOORAY. It’s a scene where both characters think they’ve found a way to connect with an estranged friend, but instantly find out how tenuous that bridge is. Touma’s like Megids Bad But Traitor Worse, which is a colossally stupid thing to say to a good friend who has previously drawn a red line at criticizing the SoL; meanwhile, Rintaro shuts down any discussion of traitors, which shows Touma that the SoL believing him on one thing doesn’t mean they trust him again. It’s a nicely nuanced scene of these two trying to navigate their own misgivings, and finding out that they haven’t done it quite yet.

Then Reika shows up to be infuriatingly suspicious and distrustful, and… well, we’ve been over that already.

I really wish this show could figure out a more interesting way to play Reika’s whole Assistant Lord of Darkness/Assistant To The Lord Of Darkness schtick, or reveal that she’s just a shitty boss, or just vanish her to Sophia’s hostage closet. Just: something. Because every dimly-lit scene of her unconvincingly telling the SoL to ignore how messed up everything has gotten, it just sucks away my enthusiasm for this show. Everything else is great! Fix the Reika stuff!

—

IF YOU HATE YOUR FRIENDS YOU’RE NOT ALONE

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/saber/saber20b.png

This was stupid.

Ren was tired of all of it. He was tired of everyone treating him like a baby, when he was the strongest one in the guild. He was tired of Rintaro and the others falling for Touma’s lies, which Ren could see through in a heartbeat. He was tired of people forgetting that Kento was dead, and just moving on like he was never around to begin with.

The roof was cold. It was boring. It was Kento’s favorite place, though, so Ren could tough it out. (He could tough out anything.) Kento had told him once that Touma was really tough, and Ren didn’t understand what Kento meant. But he tried to be friends with Touma, because if Kento said Touma was strong, he probably was. Kento was pretty smart about that kind of thing.

Ren missed Kento a lot. He tried not to show it to the other swordsmen in the guild, and he was certain he was doing a great job keeping things under wraps. But he thought about Kento, all the time. He didn’t understand why Kento would think Touma was his friend, with how Touma was clearly just trying to gain more power. Everyone else was dumb about trusting Touma, but Kento wasn’t dumb like the rest. He was tricked. Touma tricked him.

It was all Touma’s fault. Ren could see that now, even if everyone else was still talking about Touma making a mistake, or Touma being tricked by someone else. But that was stupid. Ren could see now that Touma was just waiting to turn on them. Ren was almost tricked, too. He thought that Touma might be a good guy, and could sort of see what Kento was talking about – Touma kept getting the coolest Wonder Ride books, and the best powers. But then Ren wised up, and saw through the lies Touma was spinning about traitors and the Sword of Logos being a problem and Kamijo being maybe right about things, and tried to stop Touma before he tricked anyone else.

It didn’t work.

Ren was tired of trying to fix everything himself. Kento was great at that, of course, but it was so hard for Ren. He kept having the other swordsmen telling him to calm down, or take his time. They didn’t have time! They needed to stop Touma. They needed to make things right for Kento.

There was a voice behind him. “Saber still has the Sword of Thunders in his possession.”

It was that lady Reika. Their new boss. Everyone else thought she was creepy, but she seemed alright to Ren. She was the only one besides him who seemed serious about stopping Touma, at least.

She was right, which made him feel stupid. He hated feeling stupid. But Touma did still have Kento’s sword, which wasn’t right. He didn’t deserve to hold Kento’s sword, not after everything he’d done since Kento died. It should be Ren’s sword, after all. He was Kento’s best friend, not some liar like Touma. He needed to stop trying to convince the other swordsmen about what they had to do, and just go do it himself. Like Kento would.

Ren turned to face Reika, steeled himself, and shouted, “You don’t need to remind me!”

He was going to get back what belonged to him.

Yeah this episode definitely fires off a lot better in many aspects. The entire Mei gets Yuri to henshin sequence followed up by the entire spiraling out of control brawl that is Legeiel vs. Touma/Yuri vs. Ren vs. Desast. One of my favorite parts though is Touma despite being very, very injured, managing to pull a Daishinji to deal with one of Storious' attacks. There's also something very endearing/amusing about him barely holding himself up as the explosion occurs behind him.

As for Reika. A lot of people will tell you that this is like, peak Reika. Personally I feel like Reika's alright overall. But I agree that it can get rather grating.

As for the story, nice insight on Ren's mindset, other than that I've got nothing else.

===Zero Presents: Desast Walk===

So in an effort to make things easier to understand, I'm using the link r4bbitdragon provided for the translations for my Desast Walk segments now. I am however keeping the part I absolutely needed to share with everyone, "I 'm Dessert" is staying.

Desast Walk #2:

http://www.tokunation.com/forums/att...1&d=1675487301

http://www.tokunation.com/forums/att...1&d=1675487300


"Hello, humans.

I'm Dessert.

It's good to be high up, isn't it?

The smells, the breeze, and all sorts of other things come flowing in.

It's so much more fun than being in a small book.

It would be even more fun if I could play with strong guys."

It's a thrilling moment, and a nice way of showing how much Touma still respects his friends, and how he's (as Daishinji might put it) listening to them, even while they're feuding.

She's just everywhere in this episode, and a little of her goes an awfully long way. The more she shows up to cattily throw shade on Touma and unconvincingly feign at diplomacy and altruism, the more I'm like Lady You Are Proving Touma's Point Right Now. Stay at the Southern Base! Don't taunt your victim! Don't play with your food!

Yes, the battle of 4 was the most memorable for me. Also, Sophia and Dezast returned in this episode, it was nice to see them again. But still, in general, even though this is the end of the story with Shingo, the episode is mostly intermediate.

Fish Sandwich also watched Kamen Rider Saber Episode 19
Fish Sandwich also watched Kamen Rider Saber Episode 20

https://i.imgur.com/cmGULIh.jpg

By my standards, I wasn't all that glowing in my praise of this two-parter at the time, but it, and that climax in particular, has really stuck with me ever since.

Touma's speech in 20, I think it's similar to what I recall being said in these threads about the speech Tsukasa gives prior to Complete Form's debut in Decade, in how it sort of transcends the actual story it's placed in with regards to how it informs the protagonist's character. Like, I'm not sure if I'll ever really be reevaluating every last aspect of these ones and declaring them some hidden masterpiece of the whole series -- it's a two-parter that feels very much like Fukuda and Ishida taking a stab at pretty much the same thing Mouri and Morota just did the prior two weeks -- but I don't know, that formula was gold, and the different creative voices give the stories a different enough feel, so you never know.

Again, this is the Fukuda version of this story, and while all of these guys wrote huge, important chunks of Ghost, I feel like it's not a coincidence that Ghost's main writer is the one who gives Touma the big spiel about how understanding the pain others feel is what motivates him to keep fighting on. I also know for a fact that it was Ishida's idea to have it specifically be Touma out of the suit delivering those lines, which is a typically smart decision from him. I'm harping on about this one scene, I know, but -- it's a really good scene. Apparently Touma's actor Shuuichirou Naitou ended up being particularly fond of it too, so even the guy who literally played Saber thought of this as a definitive Saber moment.

The episodes around that, too, are absolutely still rock solid, of course, even if I'm not calling as much attention to the other things going on here. I don't think I need to explain to anyone that Slash is cool, right? I am a little surprised to see Die having some harsh words to say about Reika, though! She's kind of avoided any mention from me in this thread so far, but I really did love her whole vibe right away. It comes off less like outright malevolence to me, and more just like someone who has complete and utter contempt for these barely subordinate subordinates who won't just get with the program already. Like a manager who just really wishes she didn't have to baby these people so much. I'm sure those teenage princesses and German children were some kind of threat to world peace, Die! That Master Logos guy probably said so, so it must be true! Probably!

In all seriousness, though, I think Southern Base's obvious, literal shadiness generally walks the fine line between "make the plot easy to understand for small children" and "have ~some~ level of proper ambiguity" well enough. I really think the key is consider a lot of those things AS being mostly for the audience's benefit. Maybe the other Riders just see the dim lighting as the organization trying to save on the power bill or something, you know? (Wait, did I say exactly the same thing about ZECT back during Kabuto...? Maybe I'm not helping my own case here!)

I think, everything is much easier. If at the North Pole there is a polar day that lasts half a year, then at the same time at the South Pole there is a polar night and therefore it should be dark. I think that's what they tried to convey, because the show is still for children, and such an interesting fact is often written about in children's encyclopedias. Well, the fact that this at the same time clearly shows how the Sword of Logos plunged into darkness is only an additional, deeper subtext.

It was very nice to see Desast again, anyway! Sophia... I never really had any particular feelings about her, and the loss of stability that her absence provided has helped make the sure a lot more dramatically interesting. I'm not that anxious for her return?

Which I'd be okay with, if the show didn't seem to juice every scene where she's just a terrible boss with an unspoken OR IS SHE SOMETHING WORSE, and I'm like... I sort of don't care anymore. There was a window where I was excited about the possibility of Reika being evil, but it closed. There was another window where I was interested in the possibility of Reika being just a cruel supervisor, but that window closed, too. Now I'm just frustrated by Reika's blank expressions and inability to be even slightly convincing about her possibly-legitimate altruistic motivations. She's just Rintaro's whole I'm Not Suspicious introductory joke, but played for about forty times as long. Things can wear out their welcome!

I think the problem here is not so much the script as the acting. The performer of the role herself believes that she began to play convincingly only from the 40th episode of the show, and she is very ashamed of everything that was before that.

Ha ha, OH GOD. Yeah, I can sort of see it. It's got that Ren thing of just being the most obvious way to play a scene, and never finding enough nuance to make that performance worth revisiting every episode. You'd think the performer would try and add some sympathy to Reika's demands, a whole I Don't Like It Either But It's Our Job thing maybe. But Reika's every scene is like she has a metaphorical gun to the SoL's heads, and it's making it way too easy for some of them to grow suspicious.

I guess what I'm most aggravated at with the Reika storyline is that it's removing a lot of the ambiguity of the situation; the sense that Touma might be wrong about this. The best part of this Touma Vs SoL plot was when Touma was acting off of instinct, and his friends just couldn't make that leap with him. Now, it's so much more blunt, and it doesn't feel like it demands as much faith from Touma's friends.