KAMEN RIDER SABER EPISODE 2 - “THE SWORDSMAN OF WATER, AND HIS BLUE LION”

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/saber/saber02a.png

I like Rintaro.

That was almost the entirety of my post about this episode, because that’s sort of all there is to it? There’s a little bit of exposition about the Sword of Logos, and some boilerplate-ass This Masked Villain Betrayed Us mystery about Calibur, but I can’t really care a lot about that right now. (I honestly never care about these types of mysteries? I am always more interested in the ramifications of a resolved mystery than I am in speculating about an ongoing one. It’s just not what I’m here for.) The only thing of any substance in this episode is the introduction of Rintaro, and his interactions with Touma and Mei.

I’m pretty happy with how they swerved away from the semi-obligatory The Secondary Is A Gigantic Humorless Asshole Who Wants To Fight The Primary, regardless of how much I’d eventually come to embrace your Geizez or Fuwas or Hiiros or Makotos. It’s nice that Rintaro’s difference from Touma isn’t in how dour or cruel he is, but in how little ego he has. Touma’s a writer, and that requires a belief in your ability to create something on your own. There’s isolation in writing, which leads to a faith in your own instincts and point of view. (On the flipside, it also leads to an almost fatal dose of Imposter Syndrome, but we’ll see if that gets dealt with down the line.) Touma’s central trait isn’t the strength of his heroism, but the amount of faith he has in himself.

With Rintaro, there’s humility in his nobility. He comes into the episode with a quiet politeness, the perfect compliment to Touma and Mei’s constant mugging. (I like them both, but this was very much a Wacky episode for our bookstore cast.) He’s trying to gently explain that Touma is in over his head, and gets adorably flustered when his logic is rebuffed by an emotional decision. Rintaro’s reaction isn’t to berate or threaten Touma, but to assume that he’s just explaining himself badly. A deteriorating situation isn’t a cause for blame, but a need for reexamination and conversation.

I really like that? I like the sense that Rintaro is used to working within an organization, and has a basic grasp on interpersonal skills. That’s a huge step up from our normal Loose Cannons and their troubling tendencies to escalate minor disagreements into death-duels. Rintaro comes off level-headed and egoless this episode, and I found that choice from the production team to be fascinating. He’s just some guy, trying to do his job well, and willing to reexamine his biases and assumptions when they prove to be incorrect or unhelpful. That’s actually really cool?

The problem is, it doesn’t really leave this episode with much else to say or do, beyond showing off bikes and form changes. Those are cool, but they’re only worth watching when they’re in service to an actual story. Here, it’s just two Megids trying to destroy a neighborhood, but without even the child-saving stakes of last episode’s plot. This is barely a step up, narratively, from the Henshin Lesson toy marketing videos we usually get at the beginning of a series. Great for tie-in sales of WonderRide books, maybe not so awesome if you’d like to invest in a story.

But: Rintaro! I’m a fan of him, and the weird normcore energy his polite swordsman brings to Team Saber.

(Not a fan of the theme song, unfortunately.)

—

BORN ON A TRAIN

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/saber/saber02b.png

She shouldn’t care so much about a toy at a bookshop. She kept telling herself that, as though the thousandth time would make sense of her obsession.

Well, not “obsession”, surely. That was overstating her interest. Yes, “interest”. Nothing weird about an interest. Interests were normal. Curiosity was healthy. There’s nothing to beat yourself up over, just because your happiness seems to fixate on the toy train at a childrens’ bookshop.

She was too old to make such frequent trips to a bookshop that catered to the overactive imaginations of grade-school children. She was 12 years old now, and too mature and sophisticated to still find delight in a tiny locomotive; too grown-up (she noted with pride) to be delighted at a toy for children.

But it had figured so prominently in her day-to-day the last few years, and she could never explain why. A studious girl by nature, to the surprise of her parents, she never cared much for stories and toys and all the rest of the childish affectations her parents hoped would sway her from more serious pursuits. They wanted her to be happy, and eventually realized that her happiness was based in science, in math, in facts. She was a happy girl, if not an especially whimsical one.

It was on one of her parents’ many early excursions to broaden their daughter’s horizons that they’d taken her to a tiny bookshop, tucked away in a repurposed cottage. It was another failure, of course. Piles of books featuring princesses, knights, monsters and more: all discarded with disinterest. She’d humored her parents – they meant well, she reminded herself – and waited until they’d taken her hints that this was to be another fruitless trip. (She’d always tried to be patient with them, and their occasional lack of comprehension.)

It was on the way out that she’d noticed the train.

Something about it… she couldn’t describe why it stuck in her brain so forcefully. She was never at a loss for words; she’d frequently note that her reading was at a collegiate level, and she needn’t be condescended to by adults. But the tiny toy train in that tiny bookshop… it was maddening, her inability to explain its significance.

And it WAS significant. There was no denying that. She’d made daily trips to the bookshop on her way home from school – surreptitiously, of course. The last thing she needed was her parents thinking she’d gone off on some fanciful adventure, ready to lose all logic in favor of superstition. This was… she didn’t know WHAT this was, sadly. So she’d keep going back to view the train, until it eventually made sense to her.

It didn’t help that the shop was owned by such a hapless clown.

She’d known he was a novelist, from the display in his shop. (A minor effort; some clever imagery, but a shocking amount of overwrought symbolism.) He was an enthusiastic proprietor, if far too pushy. He’d greet her every afternoon, try to engage her in some storytelling or games or whatever he thought a child might respond to, and then he’d sulk briefly as she made it clear to him that she wasn’t a child, but a young woman. (She’d wished she hadn’t needed to come to the shop in her school uniform, but it was the most expedient route. She wasn’t obsessed.) She wasn’t there for his company or his shop’s offerings. She was there for that frustratingly opaque train. What was it about that stupid thing?

“Welcome back!”

The shopkeeper’s voice distracted her from what she was sure was the point where the secret would be finally unlocked. She’d nearly had it, surely.

“Yes, hello,” she said curtly, ready to retrain her focus on the train.

“Isn’t it a neat train? It’s one of my favorites, too.”

Neat. ‘Neat’. Absurd. The man was supposedly a writer? But, sure, it was neat, cool, fun, what have you. But it… what WAS it? She needed to understand why she felt… whatever it was she felt.

Her reverie prompted him to continue.

“I’ve always liked thinking about trains. They seem like they can only go in a couple directions – forwards and backwards – but that’s so boring, isn’t it? So much more fun to think about what it’d be like if they could anywhere: if they flew, if they twisted around, if they could go to places we only ever dreamed about. More fun to consider the tracks as only a suggestion about where our journeys might go, don’t you think? Where would you want this train to take you?”

She’d gotten so distracted by his question that she’d forgotten her own curiosity for his. A train that could go anywhere? What did that even mean? Where would she want to go? And why?

Her silence prompted him again. He reached out his hand. “Hi, I’m Touma.”

She reached back with her own. “I’m Hana.”

Rintaro is such a fun character purely for the reasons you mentioned. It's been a while since we've had such a normal and nice secondary that it was a nice breath of fresh air. There's something so endearing about him trying to help Touma as much as he can.

That being said, do you like toys? Bandai wants you to like toys as you'll come to realize. When I said pacing I didn't mean plot beats only, I meant the toys as well as we debut a rider, two bikes, and a new form this time. The toys for Saber and Revice are screwy in the weirdest ways but we'll get to that later.

That being said given I recall seeing your comments on OOO's OP I should've assumed you wouldn't like ALMIGHTY though I consider it the best Reiwa OP.

As for your story this time... you've got a good knack for surprise reveals. I was not expecting that ending. Overall a nice quaint story about a toy train on a really cool diorama. That diorama in Touma's shop is so cool to just stare at whenever it appears.

... so I definitely DID say that I was too mean to Saber when I watched it, with the implication that I shouldn't really be too judgy of things looking back that I feel I viewed through a slightly-too-mean lens; but BOY I think you're gonna want to work on a few variations of these two lines because you're gonna need them

It's almost exhausting, the second half of this episode. I like Rintaro a lot, and his chemistry with Touma is appealing, but the entire back half feels like a Rider checklist: bikes, form change, finishers, collectibles. It's all done with so little elegance, too, like the CG biking sequences and forgettable adversaries are all the specificity this story needed. I disagree!

I just need it to have more oomph, I guess. It's very mid-tempo, almost laconic. I need some heavier music for my superhero show!

Thanks! I'm still not at a point where I feel like thinking too much about the inner lives of our cast, so it's another tangent about nonsense. I liked trying to work with a more melancholy tone, though. Fun time writing this one.

Thank you for the warning! I guess I'm a little less glad that I don't care about these collectibles than I was before, though. I was all jazzed about saving money (compared to the Sting Dystopia that hit my bank account during Zero-One), but now I've got a large amount of toy commercials to look forward to... for toys I don't want. Hooray?

FISH!!! I've missed you! I'm so glad to see you again!

My man, the "No Ordinary Homo Sapiens!" Yeah, Rintaro is a fun, both for how different he is to the run of stand-offish secondaries we'd been having since... Beast? Mach? Maybe latter-era Spectre or Banjou? He's calm, patient, and dedicated to the peace... but then you run into "Star Trek TNG problem" - if your characters aren't having conflict with each other, you need something more to hook into the show's world. And the Megido... They're really not it at this point in the show. They're the bare minimum "Make a monster and have it attack people" with no real sign of a grander plan, or even a short-scale plan, or even individual personalities! I think it doesn't help that they're restricted to their CGI-looking room, thank you Covid restrictions.

As for aesthetic stuff - Blades! He's alright. Nagare is a nice modification of the Rekka design, gives him a handguard, and the suit is not as nice as Brave Dragon, but probably less overdesigned. Black undersut, lion chestpiece, easy.

While I agree there should've been more story in this episode from pure spectacle perspective this episode deliver in spades. Sure the CGI and Green Screen isn't great I can say they went all out with it so the technology here feels properly utlized. Plus frankly this episode has the most amount of biking I've seen in years and sometimes for me at least that all I need.

Blades is probably one of the few instances I'm not a big fan of Saber's aesthetic. Most of him is fine (though I find the head a bit bland), but it's the big lion head on his chest. It just looks a bit too awkward and stiff and not as fun as it should be -- Gaoking he is not! I've no issue with the general concept, though -- especially as a later suit makes the idea work MUCH better

It's a fun twist on the expected formula - Rintaro's debut scene is him playing into the audience's expectations by declaring that he's not suspicious, and then immediately subverting them by being a normal dude - but it's got nowhere to go, dramatically. I enjoyed the gag of it this time, but it's pretty clear you're immediately going to need a bigger cast (hello, Espada?) if your secondary is a helpful guy who dislikes conflict with his coworkers.

I really liked Gatriker, for whatever that's worth. I like that the calm, helpful Blades has this giant trike with multiple gatling guns. Hilarious!

It's a little cumbersome, but I don't mind it a whole lot. He's a blue sword lion guy! No notes!

Ah, Rintaro. One of my favorite homo sapiens on this entire cast. He is a great character and makes a really good counterpoint to both Touma and Mei. I still find it a little odd that he's Kamen Rider Blades, though. The name makes sense, but it still feels too close to Blade. It also feels a bit bland since most of the other Riders on Saber are named after specific kinds of swords and this dude is just rocking a really generic name for part of a sword.

The villains, on the other hand, are not off to a great start. It definitely hurts that we don't get to know their names or motivations for ages. They just hang out in their greenscreen base and act obnoxiously cryptic. I definitely remember finding that part of the show to be really weak.

One of the main things I remember about the show's beginning is that there was a bit of hype around the fact that Toei was using the Unreal Engine for CGI. The big fight scene with the bikes does look pretty neat, but if you suspect that the show isn't going to have the budget for this kind of spectacle every episode then you're probably making a safe bet.

Finally, I do love how the first two episodes both end with a new guy showing up at the bookstore riding a CGI thing. Saber likes to repeat itself sometimes and it usually does so in very silly ways.

I do not like this theme song at all. I kept waiting for it to hit the up tempo part and it never happened. It's especially bad when the show tries to use it as an insert song during major fight scenes, where the lack of energy is even more apparent.

He also only has ONE SWORD. His name is PLURAL SWORDS. I can't tell you how much that has always bugged me!

Rintaro is perhaps the most unusual secondary rider of all, precisely because of how usual person he is. And as for the Grasshopper and the Ant Queen... I won't spoil it, but I've seen your Saber`s watch list and it will still give you a chance to remember these Megids. Also your story is beautiful.

"boring good guy" is the stock criticism/outright insult to put this kind of character down anywhere. For Kuuga part, yeah I know about seemingly different reactions towards similar type of characters, especially for other example, Gentaro which seems that nobody hates (similar to characters like Kuroto) and had his kindness admired instead of being put down. Seems that characters who have gigantic ego and can back it all up is commonly seen as charming, with Tendou as an example too... probably the ones who are acknowledged as badass are the unpleasant braggart ones, unlike the ones who don't, even if it's like Touma who so far can perform great feats.

I'd think it's not a mystery in this case, it's not something that is a relic in the past that doesn't exist anymore. Sword of Logos, and by extension Sophia (the girl in robe), are smaller cast introduction in this episode with this focusing on Rintaro first, but it's part of the present cast, the rest of the cast like Touma and Mei would be more integrated to it as more Sword of Logos member are introduced and they're involved in Megid (the MOTW name) war.

The thing is yeah, The Secondary Is A Gigantic Humorless Asshole Who Wants To Fight The Primary is also quite semi-obligatory for KR franchise, but it's not acknowledged as much of the "protagonist being goody two shoes". Which I find quite double standard-y. But perhaps it'd be risky for series quality (or harder to write) to create "wholesome" dynamic, and thus can seem to make the series conflict-free (at least what it seems for now between these 2). This is not the first time though, Hibiki and OOO also did this with the secondary getting along from start. I gotta see in the future though, from what I know, Saber isn't that well-received at least outside here, but dunno if Rintarouma's relationship is one of the reasons or actually a series advantage. This perhaps can further give Sentai vibes in Saber (cmiiw) for the companionship.

So this series feature a mentor to guide the MC fighting, and this time they use the secondary Rider, instead of other figures like Edith in Ghost (Tassel gives similar vibe to him IMO). When dealing with the Megid, Rintaro has immense knowledge in it (so yeah, as a person he's intelligent), so he can try to mentor Touma just fine. Just that Rintaro on the situation outside of monster detonating, he has absurd social tact, though it's what used as the main entertainment for him. He just seems to live on different world from the current civilization (literally too, likely), like insisting to call humans with its scientific name, riding on a lion to follow a rule of no shoes in the house (Mei +1), and of course, his smile (Mei +2). What makes him seem suspicious is his problematic social tact.

I'd say it's not merely emotion regarding Touma. Here Rintaro tries to mentor Touma, but turns out that Touma has his own path in fighting. Because of Touma's knowledge of stories as bookstore keeper and also child storyteller, like him telling the solution of killing the glowing ant. Knowledge is power indeed. Or is this a talk meant to show one of the advantages of emotion, making you get creative (as in passion) to Rintaro's rigidity? The part of Saber riding through the vines remind me of something else in a 'merchandise-based series'. Otherwise, yeah the name Blades also bugs me. Like, it's too similar sounding to another franchise in Blade (with Saber already kinda a synonym); it'd be better to use the speculated "Blaze".

In regards to Blades' design, I totally get what they're going for with the Lion head. Honestly you don't need a reason for like an animal head as the center chest piece.

http://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/o...94/860/bc1.jpg

But with Blades... given how like forms work and stuff later on, it ends up becoming more of a hindrance than a defining feature at points.

Also I kinda find it funny how we were getting everyone's names during like the pre-show era and people thought that Blades' name was Blaze because why would he be named Blades? That'd be silly. But also Blaze doesn't fit with his theme or one of the name themes that goes on in Saber.

Aw, thanks! It was a fun one to write.

And, yeah, I like how basic Rintaro is. He seems like he'd be the guy everyone liked working with, but when you hung out with any other coworker you'd be like What Is Rintaro's Deal. I think we've all worked with someone like that?

I think, to me, the mystery is less in how Calibur betrayed the Sword of Logos (although I'm sure that has some wrinkles we have not been privy to), but that Calibur is a masked villain in a group of unmasked villains, which means there's something about his identity that the show doesn't want us to know yet. But, honestly, I'm not terribly invested in either mystery.

I bought a Titan-class Predaking! I do not need to be convinced that a lion's head for a chestplate is a good idea! Full agreement!

Ha ha, yeah, that's my second-favorite pre-show Tokunation Saber anecdote, when folks were like It's Obviously "Blaze", and then they got furious when he was a water guy, doesn't Toei even know what Blaze means, etc etc. Incredibly funny nerd drama.

(My favorite pre-show Tokunation Saber anecdote was when some guy showed up, claiming insider knowledge about the main suit and the Henshin device, leading to a couple weeks of badly-drawn sketches and amateur Shotaros trying to debunk it all... until it turned out this brand-new member was 100% right, and we all got a sneak preview of exactly what the gimmicks and drivers and suits would be. Literally the only time in the history of the internet where someone dropped out of the sky claiming insider knowledge who actually had it. What a time to be alive!)

Fish Sandwich also watched Kamen Rider Saber Episode 2

Once again, I don't think this is necessarily any sort of all-time great episode of Kamen Rider. You can even see in my initial post about it that I inevitably went for the Kuuga comparison I always immediately jump to with second episodes of Rider shows, and didn't think it lived up to that (admittedly high) standard. I think Die's pretty on the mark here about how it's sort of a dramatically inert story in part due to that otherwise enjoyably fresh lack of interpersonal conflict.

But once again, I don't consider any of that to be a huge sin in of itself. There's a ton I enjoy about this one, the overall experience of watching it was incredibly fun, and while it doesn't do the job with the same gripping tight construction of the all-time greats, it does more than accomplish the usual goal of establishing a lot about the world, characters, and just the overall style of the series going forward. Rintarou is an immediately lovable character, and it really can't be overstated just how much he flips the usual secondary Rider tropes on their head. It's not just that he's nice; cooperation and camaraderie is everything to this man. It's the exact polar opposite of the typical grumpy loners often associated with the position. As far away from someone like Fuwa as you can possibly get. I definitely view Saber as something of a curveball Rider show, and Blades' introduction feels almost like a conscious declaration of that intent on the part of the staff.

Plus, you know, Blades is also the blue water guy, so I like him just on that front too. The lion head on the chest is, as ever, supremely fashionable, and the shape of the mane gives a very clear example to point to of something you can see in quite a few places on the suit designs in this show -- the overlapping flat layers are apparently invoking pages of a book, which is quite neat. I see it pointed out occasionally that Saber's designs don't seem to push the book theme to the forefront that much, but it seems like it was just much more subtle about that part than the swords jutting from everyone's helmets.

Anyways, yeah, I definitely have a really great time with this episode. One thing that makes it even more enjoyable on a rewatch (and this is true of quite a bit of early Saber) is that there are a lot of little moments of foreshadowing and stuff that will make you appreciate how cohesive the show actually was in retrospect... but of course, that's all in retrospect, so for Die's sake, I'm going to avoid getting into any of that. I guess something to say in the moment, random as this is, is how much I particularly like that moment where Rintarou gets confused about why Touma is shooting at the ground with Dragon Jakkun? It begins something of a running thing about Touma that I love, where he fights using his understanding of the stories that give him power, and contrasting it upfront that way with a trained swordsman failing to have that same level of intuition makes that concept much clearer through contrast.

This is a truly great moment. The beginning of it is fairly standard - the primary Rider sees the path to victory that the other Rider doesn't, leading to the other Rider's horrified reaction and expectation of imminent, avoidable defeat. But the twist afterwards, where Rintaro becomes both contrite in his underestimation of Touma's abilities, and like, a big ol' cheerleader for Touma's monster detonation.. pretty great! Not as quintessential and iconic as Rintaro's whole Oh I'm Not Explaining "This Book Is Too Dangerous" Well, Let Me Try Again thing from his introduction, but still pretty unique to this series.

Rintarou cheerleading Touma is so cute -- just how quick he turns as well. He's so fascinated by his world expanding!

Bonne Lecture!

Whether a bookseller like you, or a creative like Androzani, Weedle, En-chan and I, many of us can relate to Touma and that's what makes him such an easily likable protagonist. Outside of combat, he still has to tackle normal problems like meeting deadlines and writer's block. I feel like I owe credit to Kamen Rider Saber for motivating me to return to the fanfic scene after a hiatus of about 3 years. This show is all about the power of stories to inspire others and nobody embodies that belief more than Touma.

His philosophy about keeping promises could be founded in this, one that I also share. I have little tolerance for people who throw around promises like spare change without the will to follow through on them. Words have power and like any weapon, it's important to wield them wisely and with honor. While Touma does make a dangerous amount of big promises that I would probably feel uncomfortable with, he definitely risks his life to see them through. Fukuda managed to write yet another protagonist after Takeru whose heroism really shined for me. Easily my favorite Reiwa protagonist so far!

Yeah, that was my take on it. Some people thought Touma's instant mastery was too sudden, but considering his profession, his experience choreographing epic fight scenes of his own, I think it makes sense that he'd be able to apply theory to practice with a little heroic willpower.

The CGI seems to be a point of contention among fans, praised by some while criticized by others. Personally, I'm with the former. That scene with Saber fighting rocks was the part of the trailer that really got me excited to see the show and experience the cool fantasy world.

Mei is my favorite Reiwa female lead so far as well! Not only is she cute and full of vigor, but she's dedicated to helping the Sword Of Logos however she can and proving that a "normal homosapien" can stand equal alongside the experienced Swordsmen, not through might but rather through her strong intuition and deductive skills that comes with being an editor.

Maybe Touma should tell Shoutarou, Mondo and White Woz about this place. Do they stock Windscale hats?

I remember how you once said there were two kinds of fan, the Decades who pass through stories and the Diends who take stories with them. I think maybe you've started to move towards the latter. For your first story, I can't find fault with the prose and I think you definitely have the talent. You should consider uploading your collection of one-and-dones to a reputed site like fanfiction.net or AO3.

Revi for me, but Saber is a solid second. I used to think Brave Dragon was overdesigned, but I gradually grew to love it for its own merits. The dragon looks kind of derpy with its tongue sticking out, but in an adorable kind of way that reminds me of Go-Onger's Engines. My only main complaint is how the Wonder Ride Books stand out too much on the Seiken SworDriver, unlike the Progrise Keys that were neatly stored inside the Zero One Driver.

Me! I loved Ghost and I was among the few who were sincerely excited to see Fukuda's name on the Saber staff. Nevertheless, welcome back Fish, I'm glad I have another person to help me preach the qualities of this underrated show.

For sure, Rintarou the Eclair Man is my favorite Reiwa Secondary Rider so far! Like, even without the superficially edgy coolness that brooding antihero types have, Rintarou isn't some pushover to be taken lightly. His politeness and affability arguably makes him look more impressive, since he lets his skill and discipline as a Swordsman speak for itself. He's like a competent version of Tachibana in that way, with how he strives to be a good example and sempai to Touma. It's not surprising that Mei is so impressed by him.

The second episode is usually where they turn up the action, probably since it's usually where they dump basic premise exposition as well. This second episode is no exception and while the stakes are mostly mentioned rather than seen, I have to talk about how awesome this fight scene was. My favorite fight scene of 2020! Saber and Blades riding their bikes through an apocalyptic city and fighting giant ants was like something out of a video game cutscene and it was an awesome debut for Jackun To Domamenoki (Toei changed the names to get around copyright), which is actually the one of only two times Saber ever uses it, similar to Drive Type Speed Shift Spike.

Maybe it'll grow on you like Warera Omou Yueni Warera Ari did? Unsurprisingly based on the pattern of my opinions in this post, ALMIGHTY is my favorite Reiwa OP so far!

Yeah, there's a clear difference between Touma's and Rintarou's fighting styles. While Rintarou has trained his whole life to become a Swordsman, Touma loves books and he uses his creativity and knowledge to compensate for his general lack of field experience. We have Touma as the master of the pen and Rintarou as the master of the sword and I think that makes them a good team, since they can learn a lot from each other. They both do things by the book, but in different ways.

Blaze doesn't make sense for a water-elemental Rider though and breaks the convention of sword-based naming. If we read Blades in Japanese phonetics (Bureizu), it actually sounds closer to Brave (Bureibu) than Blade (Bureido).

EDIT: I'm also rewatching along with this thread, as I love Saber.

Heya, what subs are y'all using? I want to watch along too, but I'm uncertain which to download.

I recommend FlameSubs.

Thanks for the shout-out!

I would recommend FlameSubs as well

His little debate with himself over whether indulging in decadent desserts was an abdication of his duty or an embrace of his education was delightful.

I'll honestly never love CG on a Kamen Rider show. Even done well (which... rarely!), it detracts from the tactile joys of suit actors and wirework and exploding quarries and all the rest of toku's hallmarks. I think what's been in the first couple episodes was fine, by the standards of the franchise that brought us Captain Ghost, but I'd always rather have another fight on a stairway outside the Toei lot.

Thanks! I'm not sure I'd post anything outside of TokuNation (and an eventual backup/migration at KamenRiderDie.com), but it's nice to hear these shorts are okay so far. I don't... I really don't see myself becoming a fiction writer, honestly. This is, to use the Decade/Diend comparison, more of a form change than an identity change. Putting on someone else's suit for a battle, but going back to the normal suit afterwards.

Yeah, I'm using the FlameSubs batch off of the cat site. There're probably some bits of ancillary content that were subbed by someone else (TV-Nihon, probably), but the main episodes are all FlameSubs for me.

I would argue it fits the motif well though. The Swordriver's buckle is (aside from being a scabbard) essentially just a bookshelf, and the shelf itself isn't the thing that's supposed to stand out in that setup.

Saber, another show I haven't seen, though which I've heard quite a lot about. Saber is a weird show for me, I've watched the first episode at least 5 times, but this is the first time I've ever watched the second episode. The series has just never hooked me, and the first episode doesn't really do much for me, I can't say I love it or hate it, after I watch it, I just can't seem to bring up any sort of feelings for it. I'm not sure what it is about it, but it's stopped me from ever watching the rest of the series, though now, I'll finally (attempt to) do that.

On to Saber itself, the pacing is extremely quick, the episodes of the show just fly by, there's quite a bit of exposition, but even with that the episodes seem quite fast, which I suppose could be considered good or bad depending on your perspective. On the suits, I do quite enjoy the Saber suit, I love the color scheme and the flames are cool, but I do agree that the headsword(?) thing definitely brings it down. Also, I do like Rintaro's suit, though that might mostly be because I like the color blue.

The plot of Saber has been good so far, I guess? It's not like I have much to say on it from only two episodes, but it hasn't done anything wrong really, and I'd be remiss to not mention the strange usage of what I assume is Unreal Engine footage? I'm assuming it won't last, but it was very strange to see it, especially in Kamen Rider. Aside from that, I don't have much to say yet, the show hasn't done much for me, but I've heard that it gets better in the second half, but I guess I'll have to wait and see for myself on that. Also, Rintaro is pretty cool:).

I think that's fair! As much as I like certain elements of the show so far -- the cast, mainly, maybe exclusively -- I find myself sliding right off the totality of it. It's like it exists in a perfect equilibrium between the stuff I find enjoyable and the stuff I find undercooked. Like some of the early Ghost stuff, it never quite feels like the show figured out the best way to say what it's thinking.

KAMEN RIDER SABER EPISODE 3 - “A FATHER, AND A SWORDSMAN”

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/saber/saber03a.png

It is incredibly bold of a show that I’m not entirely convinced knows how to tell the story it’s trying to tell, to end its second episode with the question Who Is This Mysterious Boy On A Flying Carpet and open its third episode with the answer Shut Up It’s Time To Learn About Buster.

Incredibly bold!!!

This one’s the first two-parter in the series, so it gets a little bit of slack for not exactly tying its many threads together as elegantly as I’d like, but… wow, it’s a messy one. We’ve only just met Kento (I think that’s his name? There are a lot of introductions in this episode!), gotten a hint of his role in Touma’s Narratively-Convenient Amnesia, before he’s basically gone from this episode entirely. It’s so weird that he’s a member of the Sword of Logos, is hanging out at their North Pole base, but doesn’t go with the rest of the team when there’s a monster to detonate and a boy to save. I guess it’s some COVID restriction on how many actors/suits they could use at once? But the episode never even bothers to explain why he showed up at the bookshop, said Hi, and then went back to his job. Kento was just, like, checking in? I guess? It’s such a random element of the narrative, with so much weight coming off the cliffhanger, to then be nothing more than some light exposition and hints toward the greater mystery.

Or it could just be that Buster’s debut is too awesome for any other cast member to matter?

Like Touma, I love the tropes that Buster is playing around with. There’s an iconic feeling to this manly swordsman who’s also a superhero dad. Kamen Rider as a franchise barely acknowledges moms (give or take a memorable Build HBV and some physical abuse in Geats), but it sure as shit loves to talk about dads and sons. If you’re running a show about the primal power of storytelling and how it both constructs our childhood and deconstructs our adulthood, you gotta have Kamen Rider Dad in there somewhere.

And Buster’s, just, like: yeah. Yeah, it would be awesome as a kid to have your dad be a Kamen Rider with a big-ass sword who takes you to monster detonations like it’s a trip to the store. But as an adult, Buster just feels like a guy who’d be crushed under the weight of too many responsibilities, if he wasn’t so resilient. Like his turtle inspiration, he’s built to carry an insane amount of weight on his back, in a way that makes him almost long for the contradictions of Warrior Dad. He’s a dedicated soldier in a war against the apocalypse, but he’s also a devoted father who thinks his kid’s awesome. Like Rintaro, he’s just really wholesome and cool?

The thing that elevates the story is that, like many adults, he finds the flightiness of young men in tokusatsu series to be an endless frustration, so he immediately dislikes Touma’s fascination with the narrative power of his life. He doesn’t have the bandwidth to think about the thematic relevance of his duties; he’s got too many duties. For a Saber that’s all about the power of storytelling, and a Blades that’s all about the impossibility of living up to the stories that taught us, here’s a Buster to show us what it’s like when indulging in fiction can cost you everything.

It makes for a fun storyline in a now-typical Saber episode: weirdly paced, confusingly arranged (just some random new other guy at the North Pole???), but filled with a bunch of people I want to get to know better. It’s… man, we’re getting to a place where I wish this cast was in a show that knew how to utilize them. Hopefully the second part of this story will create something special!

—

NOTHING IS FORGOT

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/saber/saber03b.png

Another long day at a job he could barely describe, to support a family he barely saw.

Kouhei wasn’t sure why it’d all ended up like this. By all accounts, his life was idyllic. Steady work during an economy-cratering pandemic. A home whose mortgage was trickling away with security. A loving marriage with a supportive spouse. Hell, even his commute was only ever a minor inconvenience. He was doing fine, and the rest of his life looked like it’d be just as fine.

Was it some mid-life crisis, ten years early? He’d only just turned 30 a few months back – he didn’t feel the restlessness that would provide him with a lease on a sports car, a haircut better suited to a teenager, and impending divorce papers. He didn’t want something else. He loved his family. He just wasn’t sure he was what they needed.

He wasn’t sure what they DID need, but he had grown to resent the man he’d become. His dedication to stability had wrung out the dreams of youth, replaced them with a monotony and complacency that would’ve rolled the eyes of his younger self. He’d wanted adventure, but now he only had routine.

Kouhei would eventually get home, and greet his family, and have dinner, and hear them talk about their days, always wondering if his family longed for a different man at the dining table. Someone with something exciting to share, rather than which drinks were sold out of the vending machine that day. (It was Fanta Grape today.) He tried to muster up enthusiasm, tried to create a sense of self-acceptance that would keep them from worrying, but he never knew if he’d succeeded, or if they just didn’t care.

On the rare occasions where he had time after dinner, when the night’s office work – emails from overseas vendors, last-minute problems from underlings – could be pushed off until the morning, he tried to spend time with his son Yohei.

Tonight was another night where his son would look to his father for a playmate, and his father would feel like a fraud. Kouhei’s infrequent visits with his son felt more and more like visiting another family, full of references he didn’t understand and stories he’d missed out on. He longed for some way to make his son feel loved, feel seen, but the days were conspiring against him.

As he’d felt himself sinking into another night of depression and self-loathing, he’d caught sight of an object at his feet.

It was a tiny plastic book, all in white. It looked… Hmm. It looked like one of Yohei’s toys, from one of those superhero shows he’d sometimes see in the living room as he passed by. Some bit of plastic, like the cars and robots and gemstones from that Sentai show Yohei liked.

It was funny that he’d remember it, considering the amount of detail from Yohei’s life that regularly eluded him. He chuckled to himself, amused by this reminder of his own youth and the many plastic weapons he’d coveted as a child. He’d longed to be a mighty warrior for justice, a valued teammate, and here he was as a man: the barely-mentioned parent, absent from the heroic narrative.

He gripped the plastic book tightly.

Those shows… they’d given him so many lessons, if he’d bothered to recall them. Stories of teamwork and support and sacrifice; all the things his son was learning without him there. But maybe… maybe this could be a starting point for a new story. This tiny toy book from some superhero show… maybe it’d be a way to talk to his son about his interests, to be a character in his story, to find some connection.

This was going to work. This was how he’d find the version of himself he thought was gone for good. The version that was vibrant, was engaged, was–

There was a bright flash, and Kouhei was gone.

So this is the episode where Kamen Rider Scrub makes his debut...

Dad Bod Captain Marvelous.

Wait, you're watching Geats?! Fully expected that to be a watch thread next year! Or you've just picked up some very specific information about the show?


Either way, I guess my thing here is just talking about how much I like Saber suits so here I go again! Buster is AWESOME. It's a lot like Dangerous Zombie in that it's a pretty safe suit; it still has many of the 'weirder' conventions of the series, but reigned in with a simpler colour scheme and more obvious 'cool' elements that makes it appealing even to people who don't like the series aesthetic as a whole. It's awesome in general to see bulkier suits like this in Rider, and the massive Cloud Strife-ass buster sword for which he's named is SUCH a cool focal point. Just a really solid suit!

I am/was watching Geats, yes! (I'm on a break with it until I finish Saber, 'cause I can't really juggle two shows at once, mentally.)

The Watch Threads were originally just a thing to get me current; I was inevitably going to catch up, and that point arrives with Revice this spring. Any post-Revice shows... we'll see? There'll be a slowdown -- I want to spend the second half of the year reformatting all of the posts TokuNation broke, and then putting them on my own site for safe-keeping -- but I'm interested in spending a few years (!) covering all the Heisei shows I never wrote up, and trying out some other franchises. I can see there being a Rewatches Geats Etc series of threads, but I'll probably give them some distance first. Geats would be... god, maybe 2026? At the earliest?

Long story short, yeah, I watched that lady slap her kid on Geats. I guess this is what happens when you're a Kamen Rider with living parents?

It's by far my favorite of the suits I've seen through toy designs. I like the grey/brown/orange color scheme, all the Land stuff: rocks and mud and lava. I like the forward-facing headsword, where it's like a saw. And I love his little turtle shell backpack!

Episode 03
I just realized that I completely forgot to talk about Saber's opening, in my opinion, I'd say it's good, it doesn't crack my top 10 openings, but it's enjoyable, even if it's slow. On the episode itself, I like it, mainly due to Ryo, I quite like his character, especially how much he cares for his son (and Kamen Riders with children are pretty rare). We also learn that some sort of event happened 15 years ago, presumably what we saw at the start of the first episode, that caused Touma to lose his memory.

Aside from that, I don't have much else to say on this episode, I like Ryo and his suit, as well as Kento, who didn't really get to do much. But, this episode still follows the pattern of me not having much to say on Saber, even more for this episode considering it's a two-parter, but like the other episodes, it's enjoyable, it just doesn't do much for me.

Again, I find Saber's pacing hilarious because it's like "Hello, this here is Kento... anyway here's this cool dude named Buster who had no foreshadowing in Episode 2!"

Also about pacing, this was an episode I remember stirring up a lot of contention. Because at the climax of the episode we get 2 full transformation sequences (3 if you count Rintaro and Touma's separately) alongside 3 full form change sequences. And while I do think Covid sorta factored into them basically taking screen time by using these sequences... again I hope you like toys. Bandai wants you to like toys. But yeah, like 5 full transformation/form change sequences in the span of 6 minutes? Kinda overkill.

Now that aside, let's talk about the new hotness in town, Kamen Rider Buster. So rarely do we get a Rider Series where it's like, here is a dad, he is alive, he is good, and he is a Kamen Rider. Ogami's very much a first when it comes to Dad Riders I feel (unless I'm forgetting someone?) and he's very much a welcome addition to everything.

Okay I know I threw pacing aside, but I kinda like how we just suddenly got Ogami? This part of the show is very much saying, here is Touma, he's the new guy at work and is slowly but surely meeting all of his co-workers. And that just sorta fits in with how it's paced and how literally everyone is just crawling out of the woodwork. First he reunites with Kento, who also works for the same magic book organization that Rintaro does, and also he gets to meet the coolest Rider ever like not even five minutes later? Yeah sounds like an ordinary day at work when you're the new guy.

But anyway back to Buster. There's just a good beefiness to the suit, and the way the turtle motif shines through on the upper armor is very nice. It's really hard to make me like very mute suits (I dislike suits like Build Hazard for a reason) so you have to make up for it in different ways. And I feel as though Buster manages to provide enough cool details within the suit itself and how it's designed to where it looks good even if it's grey.

But yeah, really, just a nice little introduction episodes for Buster in general. Not much to truly say here other than, yes, I love Buster.

As for the story this time, given the cover image I had a feeling I knew what you'd be writing about. That being said... the contents of the story were very gripping to me, just the way Kouhei acts and thinks about himself, the slow spiral into a sort of depressive episode and then that small sense of wonder and hope at seeing the little toy on the book only to end up going poof... well done.

If there's a thing I hate about Kamen Rider first acts, it's Gathering Data storylines, where monsters get blown up, but it's all good for the villains because they're getting so much valuable data.

If there're two things I hate about Kamen Rider first acts, it's Narratively-Convenient Amnesia, where some crucial detail has been scrubbed from the hero's mind, waiting until some later cliffhanger to finally reveal itself. I have about zero patience for most mysteries on these shows; I have negative patience for Narratively-Convenient Amnesia. Do not care about Touma's formative but forgotten trauma, especially when Kento (probably) already knows what it is!

I actually didn't mind this? I liked that Touma tried pulling off a new form change and messing it up, but I loved that Rintaro was like Can I Borrow That And Use It Better and Touma was like Sure Thing Pal. Ex-Aid based entire arcs around Riders beating the shit out of each other for collectibles! This was a nice twist on that expectation.

I got that feeling, and I like it, but I don't feel like the show commits fully enough to the idea of Touma being some brand new cog in a very old machine. Like, what is the process here for how any of this works? The episode more or less opens with Rintaro and Touma fighting the exact same book monster as Touma defeated in the first episode, but why those two? What exactly is the organizational structure of the Sword of Logos, besides a woman who descends staircases professionally? There's a lot to like about a guy who accidentally becomes a Knight of the Round Table, but I don't feel like the show is as focused on that concept as it maybe should be.

Thanks! I'm hoping that Team Saber can figure out some way to get that guy home to his kid! I guess we'll find out tomorrow!

Oh here's the funny thing, I was pretty meh on it in terms of reaction tbh. I just remember people really complaining about it. But yeah there's just something fun about like... our Riders working together, like just immediately and bouncing off each other. Also just like, again, Touma and Rintaro make a nice field team duo and it's a refreshing change of pace from like the usual Primary and Secondary Dynamic we usually get.

We can only hope! Thankfully we won't have to wait too long!

It feels a little nitpicky to me, but I can see people reacting that way. I think... I mean, this show is making some bizarre choices, and if you can't quite pin down what it's doing that isn't clicking with you There's Too Many Form Changes is sort of the lowest hanging fruit. It's like saying Geats Is Just Kabuto -- the show's taking some chances, and it's easier to pigeonhole it unfairly than it is to try and understand it.

(I get real mad about the Keiwa Is Kagami 2.0 people! They are very different! They have very different places in their respective narratives!!!)

Anyway, yeah, I like how easy the teamwork is for our Riders. This isn't Zero-One or Ex-Aid (or Geats), where part of the thematic framework is in trying to examine terms like Friendship or Cooperation. It's a show about how we process storytelling: how it gives us strength or locks us into roles. It doesn't benefit from Blades and Saber being assholes to each other.

Me and one other person here are Buster Fans.

*Disappears again*

I thought most people were Buster fans? I don't really have a sense of the Saber fandom, but Buster seemed like a fairly popular character. Is that not the case?

He is. But I'm not exactly in the best of places right now.

So, I'll probably drop by in an uncoordinated fashion.

Good day.