KAMEN RIDER SABER EPISODE 7 - “THE SWORD OF THE KING, LIES IN AVALON”

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/saber/saber07a.png

I’ll say this for Episode 7, it sure helped me solidify what in the writing of this show isn’t working for me: Cause-and-effect, or the lack thereof. The two plots in this episode are a textbook example of this show doing the work to guide a viewer emotionally through a character’s arc over several episodes, versus doing weird plot stuff where explanations come either right before or right after said weird plot stuff.

The best plot here is Rintaro’s step back from the abyss, even if I still managed to have a bunch of problems with it. (Mainly, he just goes in the High Gravity Room to get stronger, then gets strong enough to beat the guy who beat him last episode. It’s not exactly a rollercoaster of a character arc, you guys.) We’ve spent weeks with Rintaro as the stalwart, dependable knight, so seeing him lose his shit and withdraw into a potentially-fatal training regimen, before finding his emotional center just in time to save Mei? That’s playing with our expectations, and challenging our assumptions. It’s just basic drama, but our investment in Rintaro’s previously-established psychological well-being means we can have a rousing finale that feels like a consequence of Rintaro’s struggles. It’s Writing 101, but it’s still effective enough to be considered a success.

Less successful is this show’s insane approach to its mythology and mega-arc, where clues are generally non-existent, and crucial developments happen concurrently with their introduction. We’d only heard the word Avalon uttered once or twice before this, so every bit of exposition that Touma gives in regards to the forms of entry, challenges they’ll face, and potential prize for victory is difficult to care about. It’s all just random facts, untethered from character motivation, continuity, etc. It’s just PLOT, and plot divorced from character is boring.

(Even Touma’s big moment at the end felt undercooked and unconvincing. He’s shouting I NEED THIS POWER TO SAVE THE WORLD and it’s like, what power? What in the hell are you even asking for? And why is there no other way you can help the world? Why all of this, right now, in this way?)

It’s nice of this show to put everything it does right and everything it does wrong in the same goddamn episode, since it saves me time in trying to explain it. Rintaro doesn’t have the best plot (his story is basically Git Gud, thanks for that), but at least it’s grounded in our previous knowledge of Rintaro’s character, as well as a motivated actor who brought recognizble emotions to his part. On the other hand, we’ve got Touma screaming in an all-white room before fighting a CGI fire monster in the Toku Caves. The first of those has an emotional presence I can react to, and the second one is just characters pinballing through whatever weird development gets thrown up on a whiteboard in a writers room somewhere.

I hope I don’t need to spell out which of those versions of Kamen Rider Saber we see more of in the future?

—

SKY BLUE, BAD NEWS

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/saber/saber07b.png

At least it was a visually impressive way to go. The view from up here was really something else.

Not that Mei was especially thrilled to be flung into the clouds by a tiger man, though. She didn’t have a fear of heights, but she did have a fear of plummeting thousands of feet to her messy death. It felt reasonable to her, all things considered. And ‘considering’ was very much what she was doing right this second, as she started her final approach to the ground.

She considered Touma. She didn’t really want to blame him for her death – it felt tacky, and he’d probably say something very sweet and memorable at her funeral anyway – but if that infuriating, badly-dressed beanpole could’ve managed to hit a single deadline in his life, she might not’ve been abducted to a storybook world and manhandled by mythological monster men. This wasn’t his best day as her friend.

She considered Rintaro. She probably should’ve stayed with him, after his beating in the forest. He was a good boy, and he just looked wrong as a grim swordsman. (It was a much better look on Kento, she briefly acknowledged.) She was sad that Rintaro would probably blame himself for her death, what with the tiger man being his nemesis now. That was a bummer. Well, hopefully Rintaro would have greater success avenging her than his master. She hoped it’d cheer him up, eventually.

She considered her friends. It was odd to her that she thought of them as a group exclusively, but that's just how they all were. One big group of friends, that she’d never see again. She wondered what Ogami and that green ninja kid would tell Touma, and what Touma would tell her friends. “Hey, Mei’s not going to be able to make it to the concert tonight, she was hurled into the sky of a storybook world by a tiger man, do not count on her Venmoing you for her tickets.” Probably not. Probably something about a car accident, maybe. It was going to be a closed casket for sure, so any lie would work.

Pretty close to the ground, now. It wouldn’t be long.

She considered Instagram, last of all. She’d never quite mastered the platform like she knew she could – a breakfast last July had a ton of likes, but she was never able to find a consistent aesthetic; maybe OOTD? – but it had been there for her whenever she needed it. Not much in her life was stable, but Insta was her rock. She owed it ev–

“Sorry to keep you waiting.”

She was in Rintaro’s arms now, she realized. Not the ground, but the arms of that sweet dumb boy, in his bright blue armor. He was himself again, as good as new. She could hardly believe it. She couldn’t see his face behind the helmet, but she knew he was smiling sheepishly, ready to deflect any praise with an Aw Shucks I’m Just Doing My Job Protecting Homo Sapiens sputter. He’d saved her, and she’d never forget it.

She had a chance to do things right, do things better. Rintaro had given her a second chance, and she knew exactly what she was going to do with it.

Unboxing videos. Definitely time to pivot to unboxing videos.

So in this episode we get a neat power-up for Touma, King of Arthur. If you're a fan of Arthurian Lore um... yeah I can assume you'd be rather disappointed by how the entirety of Avalon was handled even further than just how it was dealt with originally. This is mostly my experience with a friend who basically dislikes how Avalon/King of Arthur was handled, even though I'm admittedly fine with how it was handled tbh.

Me personally, Avalon/King of Arthur can work with what we have in the show, it's just it's crammed between all these debuts of either Riders or Forms. Because as you can see, we're still going very insane with Saber's toyline. And we're at the point where I can tell you that Saber's toyline I think has the most toys a Rider toyline has in Q1 (someone please correct me on this but I don't think I'm wrong)? Because just like, count every single individual Wonder Ride Book that doesn't come with a Seiken, the Seiken themselves, any Book that comes with an extra thing. It's a lot at this point and we're still getting more.

Seriously Bandai, for Saber and Revice I will always question what the hell you all were thinking.

Anyway let's talk about my favorite water lion Rider, Rintaro! It's a very simple training arc (one which I extend in my own story throughout the course of 6 Chapters after humiliating defeat, with a quick Zooous rematch inbetween) in which Rintaro manages to overcome the anger he feels and direct that into his Wonder Combo form!

And oh man is Rintaro's Wonder Combo probably the worst one if I'm being absolutely honest! There's an odd bulkiness to it that I just... do not like at all and it probably has to do with how big the lion head is. Again it's cool, and needs not explanation. But the way the lion head is popped out doesn't help do the form any favors.

Also we get a really cute Rintaro and Mei moment out of it, in which I think I and mostly everyone else watching started to root for the two as a ship.

As for the story, you know I was curious as to when you'd sort of start digging into the characters but I suppose this and the last episode are what did it for you. There's something fun about trying to get into a characters head when they're in a position like Mei was in this episode, and writing out what you think they're thinking is always a fun exercise.

You got me to audibly laugh at the very last line, so congratulations. That being said, yeah unboxing videos definitely seem to be where it's at.

Fish Sandwich also watched Kamen Rider Saber Episode 7

Hey guys Hidenori Ishida is directing his first episode of Saber I wonder if there'll be--

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

--yeah, something is on fire. That checks out.


Hey, not fair Die! This one was a Keiichi Hasegawa script! He's the Saber writer people like, I think!

But uh yeah, the Avalon plotline in here is weird. Gloriously weird, in my opinion, of course. Like, I honestly think there's something beautiful in the insane way early Saber stuff like this plays out, but like, I can't put it into words very well. At least not off the top of my head. Maybe Kamen Rider Saber just isn't a show that can be fully enjoyed by an ordinary Homo sapiens, maybe Ishida's gorgeous visuals just elevate the material that much for me. It's hard to blame you for feeling the way you do about an episode like this, Die, but at the same time, I feel like you are underestimating the show's storytelling. It's definitely doing the things you're asking for too, it's just... I mean, good luck trying to untangle that from the things that genuinely aren't without the benefit of hindsight. (I still have no idea what the heck that monster Touma is fighting at the end is supposed to be??? I guess "a trial" is good enough???)

I really didn't like how they handled the two major plots of this episode. First, the Rintaro plot, I like the idea of Rintaro feeling the need to get stronger to the point of endangering his well-being, but I really dislike how all his training is just glossed over and not shown to us. We're told that this room is dangerous, but we never see why, and the only scene we get of the room itself is Rintaro having a flashback to his master, which I like, but I'd appreciate more substance to the plot.

The shows main issue for me is mainly its breakneck pacing, for a show with 47 episodes (and one special 48th episode), you'd think that the writers would let the show rest a bit more, but instead the show likes to just rush things through, there's a reason that the principle of 'show, don't tell' exists.

But aside from that, onto my issues with the second/main plot of this episode, the search for Avalon I don't dislike it as much as the Rintaro stuff, but I still don't exactly like it. I don't exactly have a problem with its pacing, but I dislike the execution. The "rift between worlds" thing is okay, but once Touma enters Avalon itself is where my issues start, I just really don't like the clich? of "you have to not want the power to get it" and I'd have preferred if it was just Touma entering, getting the Wonder Ride Book and then doing the trial. Instead of there being some strange person telling him some cryptic advice to be able to get the book.

As I already said, the search for Avalon plot is only a minor gripe for me, and I probably wouldn't have written as much as I did on it, if it weren't for me already disliking the Rintaro plot in this episode, And even though, I've written a lot about my dislikes of this episode, I still consider it at least okay, and it's not like it would make me drop the series, I just really didn't like how the writers handled those two plots.

Aw, I rather liked it. It's got two different horse heads for shoulders! That's neat! No notes!

I mean, if this were debate class (or I was getting paid for it) I feel like I could mount a credible defense for Saber's storytelling here, even if I didn't 100% believe what I was saying. There's a dreamlike quality to everything Touma goes through that's perfectly appropriate for a series set in the realms of fable and parable. To deconstruct it logically almost misses the point; it's supposed to be illogical. Rules are arbitrary, because overcoming an obstacle and learning more about yourself is the end goal. The battle isn't with Calibur, or the Book Club -- the battle is against how storytelling creates boundaries that only better stories can surpass, and the victory is in realizing that our stories are up to us. I'll Decide How This Story Ends, as I remember a Kamen Rider saying once or twice.

...buuuuuut there's still the larger problem of this episode's levels being WAY off. Touma's intensity here is set for Act 3's The Apocalypse Is Nigh, not Act 1's We Need To Figure Out What The Villains Are Up To. Him screaming at a hooded figure feels wildly out of proportion with a personal setback that only occured last week. They don't even know what Calibur's actually up to! I think you got some breathing room, guy!

Ha ha, yeah, the High Gravity Room is sort of sparse. Slash really sells it as a room that is even more dangerous than any training room you've ever seen, and the set itself looks like Rintaro is levelling up entirely due to the power of interpretive dance (and some falling over). It's a sequence that bit off way more than it could chew, and that's discounting the bigger problem of there being no intriguing twist to Rintaro's recovery. Not the best follow-through on this one, no.

I mean... the heads for shoulders is cool but I don't think Peter Fantasista's is a horse head? I think that head/face is supposed to resemble something else?

I just don't like how awkwardly bulky the Lion Head makes it look in shots is all.

That being said I always appreciate it whenever they bring out the waterworks for Rintaro. Always a fun time to see splashes of water suddenly go off behind him and stuff.

Oh, you're right: Peter Fantasia is a fairy, so it's... like, fairy wings? I guess? That's a shame. I now have one note!

A case of Be Careful Of What You Wish For? IIRC it's said here that more Riders are needed for more conflict if Rintaro is a nice secondary. Then now you got it, in Ren (not only the same name as Knight, but same first 2 letters in his surname too!). Ren is the asshole type who is a social darwinist (.. like Kaito) who is narrow-minded to think only battle abilities are important despite Touma solving problems with his imagination and knowledge, and pettily picks fight with Touma due to his simping for Kento, but he's the bratty, immature, and childish type. Though at least he's quite strong to defeat Desast. Seems that, including you here, to make an asshole character (who can be deemed as cool, rational, and tough) disliked, they gotta be the immature type like Ren. Many people seem to want to make their media more 'mature' including inserting gore, swearing, etc, but immaturity would make even asshole characters like that hated too, unlike the 'cool' assholes like many secondary Riders.

Touma seems to be a competent type of protagonist despite being a newcomer to the SoL, including how he utilizes Daishinji's poor social skills, being a bad liar, to accomplish his goal of looking after books (actually also manipulative here? nothing bad though, just witty), but there can be still those who deem Touma as naive due to his opening dialogue of being baffled why many factions are warring over books instead of using it to make people happy? The Zoooous stuff, it's meant for Rintaro, to show that while usually composed, Rintaro can lose himself to his emotions, now being outright angered and breaking down after knowing his master's killer, probably a setup for Rintaro's future arc.

That'd be probably an admirable quality - for audiences to watch, but not a redeeming quality (Ren's not a villain, thus I'd more say his redeeming quality is him doing good with SoL's work).

There can be those, but I don't know 'em. I don't recall anyone in this thread tagging Touma with any amount of naivete. He's, especially compared to the last few Riders this series has had, pretty well-centered and observant? Like, I think it's okay for him to be confused as to why two different groups of magical warriors are going to war over superpowered books? That's an okay ask! In general, he's been pretty much unimpeachable in this series when it comes to sophistication, problem-solving, and emotional empathy. He hasn't really been tricked or manipulated, that I've seen.

So fun fact, aside from the pre-established Saber/Espada books, the Ridebooks used to access Avalon are all SG books classified as “Douwa” (old story), along with a similarly classified ToysRUs exclusive (in case you forgot they never closed in Japan), which like Zero-One’s, is a giraffe item.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=USpr-qI1VgU

And here’s my attempt at translating the three jingles. (It was the first of my ever fluctuating favourite jingle with the Swordriver, but I won’t bore this thread with my other brief candidates beyond the eventual winner)

Old Story Rider! One Old Tale! The ancient tale gives more power to the sword!

Ancient teachings are not gathered here, a sword enough for one book! Old Story Rider! Two Old Tales! At last, the ancient tales are full-fledged with more power!

The old teachings are here, it’s time to learn the sword! Old Story Rider! Three Old Tales! The sword you can learn from the lessons of ancient tales is now here!

And now, a list of the featured books and their descriptions (since the SG books don’t have electronics, all but the first hail from Saber’s website, which incidentally, is the only way you can see what it would look like if Saber or Blades used them)

The Giraffe’s Repayment: A gift of gratitude created by a giraffe with a lot of heart...

Fashionable Mr. Jizou: A colorful Jizo road that is one of the best-dressed in the world...

Bakusou Rabbit and Turtle: A record of the prideful competition between a rabbit and a turtle...

Moon Princess Kaguyan: A beautiful princess shining on a moonlit night that emerged from a certain bamboo...

Issun (One sun) Samurai: Riding on a certain bowl, now wandering down the river…

Sarukani (Monkey-Crab) Wars: Friends gather under the zoea to challenge a certain devil's hand...

Okay, not all of these are Douwa books. Three of them are “San Tarou” (Three Taros) books, which may have some familiar motifs.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=quJMD1uumCQ

Three Taros Rider! One Taro! The legend of Taro increases the power of the sword!

The swords of the Taros intersect into one! Three Taros Rider! Two Taros! The legend of Taro gains even more power to destroy evil!

When the three Taros gather together, the swords of Taros destroy evil! Three Taros Rider! Three Taros! The brave sword with the power of three Taros is now here!

Great Shogun Momoichiro: A shogun who challenges a certain demon gathers friends. Ei-ei-o!

Great Swordsman Urashima Jiro: A swordsman carried by a certain turtle at a deep sea feast goes wasshoi-shoi!

Great Yokozuna Kinzaburo: The yokozuna screams "dokkoisho" when a certain bear falls in the ring!

(Translator’s note: Taro=favourite son, Ichiro=first son, Jiro=second son, Saburo=third son)

Calibur’s books are also identified by the website, but don’t have toys or descriptions, just images of the titles pulled from a reference book.

Mermaid Legend
Where’s the Chameleon
Honey Make Bee
Snake Toguron
Armadirolling
Pachi Pachi Yama

And now that Calibur has debuted his transformation sequence (which certainly has nothing to do with Kurayami toys hitting shelves), I’ll mention that each Rider has their own literary gimmick. Calibur’s in particular is translation. Aside from his transformation jingle “Get going under conquer than get keen” being a homophone for “Gekkou Ankoku Zangeki” (Moonlight Darkness Slash), when a non-Jaaku Dragon book is scanned against it, it affixes “Jaaku” (corrupt/evil) onto its name. (Though ones that didn’t have DX toys in Q1 are simply “Jaaku Monster”, “Jaaku Animal” or “Jaaku Story”, depending on their category)

https://youtube.com/watch?v=FNs5Yje5aqI

And as for Legend Rider books, rather than going with something like “Jaaku Kuuga”, or reading Ex-Aid as “Genm”, they instead have every book Jaaku Read as their monster faction (Kuuga becomes Grongi, Zi-O becomes Another Rider, Zero-One becomes Magia and so on)

https://youtube.com/watch?v=JtWYF9fdY7g