That from the Ghost Special Stage Show. It also the one which gave us an actual Nega Den-O suit.

https://i.ibb.co/rb6hKPN/Negastageshow.jpg

KAMEN RIDER SABER: FINAL STAGE

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/...finalstage.png

Regardless of the quality of the entire Final Stage for Saber (good, not great), the idea to take the old Kamen Rider Lupin suit from Drive and reuse it as Kamen Rider Tassel? Genius. Absolutely brilliant. I wish I could buy that suit as a figure right this second. The lack of a headsword alone would make it one of my favorite Saber suits, but the color scheme and overall flamboyance puts it in first place for me. I’d say Hat's Off To The Designer, but, I like the hat the best! Don’t take it off!

Otherwise, this was a good stage show, which inched towards greatness without ever quite getting there.

Like, the story of Dark World and people’s evil dreams needing a world to exist in… that’s a really clever concept? There’s a value to darkness, to letting yourself examine and analyze your darker impulses, rather than just ignoring them. That’s something inside everyone, especially during difficult times. The danger is in losing perspective to those darker impulses, and feeling like they’re all that exists, or ever will exist. Kudos for making that a villain for Saber and the gang to overcome… is what I’d be saying if this wasn’t just another apocalyptic plot that never really emotionally or intellectually challenged our heroes. It’s all just random stuff Tassel Dark says to justify an apocalypse, and random stuff Touma pushes back against in a grandiose speech about Stories. There’s the kernel of an interesting foe – how does Touma reconcile his hopes for positive storytelling with the necessary catharsis that can only come about when dark stories are allowed to be told – but the actual on-stage presence is all bland villainy and a million suits.

Well, there’re also fun callbacks and new team-ups, which is about where this show got me back on its side. Saber and Storious! Blades and Zooous! Sabela and Sophia and I don’t remember who else! It’s very fun to see the resurrected(-ish) Book Club team up with their former foes to take down Asmodeus et al., and it’s exactly the sort of crowd-pleasing storytelling that makes this show work. I just want to be entertained with a thoughtful narrative; if I can’t get it via compelling metaphors, I’ll take it through character work and fan service.

At the end of the day, this was another Kamen Rider stage show. They probably sold a bunch of glow sticks and made a ton of children happy, so I’m not going to say it was unsuccessful. I had an okay time, even if I found the first third a little dull. (Really perked up when that Kamen Rider Tassel suit debuted.) I just… I feel like there was a really clever idea buried in all of the combat, and it never really got a chance to be explored. I expected more from Saber’s Final Stage, I guess.

I don't have too many deep thoughts on the Saber Stage Show, but it has been a wellspring of ideas when it comes to aspects of my Saber crossover.

Ultimate Bahamut is a really cool design. Basically turning Emotional Dragon all black with gold is really cool. Also him dual wielding the Xross Saber and Kaenken Rekka is cool.

There's also Kamen Rider Tassel! Farewell Kamen Rider Lupin, you will be missed! But you made a pretty cool kitbash in the end so I can't feel too bad. Also I really want them to release Tassel Dark's book, those jingles are too great to just be stageshow exclusive.

Not much to really say about this stageshow but I do love that the Book Club once regaining their senses are like "Yeah we're just helping the heroes".

Also fun fact. There were a total of three Desast Walks that happened with this Final Stage.

So excuse the next few posts but I do kind of want to keep these separate in a sense.

Desast Walk EX01:

"Hello, humans.

I'm Desast.

Long time no see!

I've been through a lot, but I'm back now.

But this city smells sweet and black, decadent and luscious.

It's called Takoyaki?

That's not bad."

Desast Walk EX02:

"Hello, humans.

I'm Desast.

I knew ramen needed red ginger!

The people in this town know better than Ren.

I'd like to stay here a little longer, but next week is my last day.

I don't have a choice.

I'm off to Tokyo."

Desast Walk EX03:

"Hi humans.

I'm dessert

Do you know deep-fried red pickled ginger?

The world is so wide that there is such a delicious thing.

My trip ends tomorrow, but thanks to you, it was fun.

Good luck to the end."

Note: No actual good translations for this so have a good old google translate for this last one.

Thanks so much for those bonus Desast Walks! I'm glad he and Ren could have fun for the last time ever, since Desast never returned in any other series or specials. What a beautiful and final farewell!

Great fun show. Cool teams, interesting use of fairy tales and we finally got the evil Tassel. Also the final fight between him and Touma when they take Xcross from each other is very good, even with the limitations of the stage production.
It's also funny that since the position of the secondary rider in Saber was very tight and was claimed by Rintaro, Kento and Yuri, this show decided to confuse everything even more and let Storius play this role. And seeing them with Touma on the same side was really cool.
And as the main defender of the position "Shindai is not incest!" I have to comment on Reiki's desire to marry her brother.Despite the obviousness of this statement, I still note that it rather speaks of the immaturity of the character, because this can often be heard from children. Plus, she was in the role of Cinderella.
But most of all I liked Ultimate Bahamut. A stunningly beautiful costume, while not looking too catchy or ridiculous, as is often the case with similar forms. Not when I didn?t particularly dwell on the riders? armor, but I would gladly see this armor again.
Trio of the Deep Sin ahead, if I'm not mistaken?

I'd have to go watch it again to better elaborate on it, but naturally, I enjoyed this show a lot. I think it was like... maybe, well-rounded, or something, but uh, honestly, my memories of it are currently dominated by a year of Three Musketeers comparisons paying off with a pun only Aruto (or me) could think was funny. The image of Saber, Blades, and Espada wearing those costumes over their costumes is insanely endearing to me. It looks like the three of them are chilling at a ren fair or something, which seems pretty on-brand for these characters. You just know the version of Saber that had time for wacky episodic plots would've used that premise at some point. Or I don't know, maybe I'm just pitching some fan-fiction of my own right now. :p

Yep! Trio of Deep Sin later tonight.

As for Ultimate Bahamut, I'm a fan. It's solid stage-show suit!

The mid-show digression into the heroes being subsumed by classic tales was pretty cute, especially our trio of swordsmen doing an All For One And One For All bit as they fended off an army of monsters. It was a nicely goofy interlude!

KAMEN RIDER SABER: TRIO OF DEEP SIN

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

“And I miss Tara and Melissa, Allen and John
And you'll never have friends like you did when you were young
But our bodies were pulled away and swept out to the sea
And I'd call and say hi if I thought you'd remember me
‘cause some things are worth leaving old memories for”
-The Elected, “Greetings in Braille”

All memories are loss.

It’s the nature of memory as a past tense. It’s something that happened, but is now over; a feeling tied to a moment that can’t be touched. It’s weightless but ever-present. We say “haunted by memory” because memories are like ghosts: the aftermath of decisions and actions, loves and their lacking. We go through life accumulating memories, and eventually, the weight of them becomes another obstacle to overcome, a foe to be bested. What happened to the people we were, and the people we knew? What would we have done differently? What do we regret? What do we miss?

Your early 30s is when you inevitably feel it. Your life has started, hopefully. Education and apprenticeship is over, and you’re free to make your own choices. The tight-knit friendships of your youth are exposed as proximity, and steadily peeled away through inattention or circumstance. Best friends become friends become acquaintances become social media reminders of birthdays. It’s no one’s fault. Everyone’s stories are separating, and becoming more complex; the cast of characters getting their own spin-offs, and new supporting casts to go along with them. You get focused on your goals and accompanying milestones: romance, children, career, etc. The parts of your life that were occupied by one group get occupied by another, and the earlier memories start to change shape. What was an in-joke now becomes a solitary secret; a code no one you know now can interpret.

There’s a sorrow to that, the growing up of it all. Time slips away; eight years pass in the blink of an eye. You turn around, and you realize that the people you once talked to every day are the people you haven’t heard from in years. The happier times come up as a marker of distance, of disconnection. Depression kicks in at weird times. There’s a place you want to go, but it’s unreachable. There’s a feeling you remember like yesterday, but so long ago it’s like a story someone told you. It’s hard to have perspective. The memories… it’s all bittersweet. It’s all what isn’t, and the way it’ll never be again. The absence becomes all you can see.

But memories are about things you can’t ever lose.

The time you don’t have with someone doesn’t change the time you did have with them. The loss is only a reminder of what you had, and the value of it. A memory is proof of a thing, not the lack of it. To lash out at the world for what you can only hold in memory is to miss the joy that the memory can bring you. The friendships that change and fade are still friendships you had, friends you made. Resenting the present for not being the past is just a way of denying yourself a future.

It’s not always easy to see those memories as a source of strength. It’s easier, perhaps, to see them as a source of pain, or of sadness. But the hard work of being an adult means finding a way to push forward from a growing lifetime of memories, and find strength in both the good and the bad. Our memories are a story we tell ourselves, and we get to decide how that story makes us feel, and the part it plays in the people we are today.

We get to decide how that story ends.

Man this post hurts me in a special way. One of my biggest fears is losing my friends, and it makes me sad to think how they'll drift out of my life. I spend a lot of time worry about falling behind my peers due to my wombo combo of mental disabilities/disorders. I feel like my friends will outgrow me, and leave me behind for being childish/irresponsible.

Also I don't have a great memory for events, so it can be hard to recollect and reminisce. It makes my life feel empty sometimes.

All of this is to say, Deep is kind of a sad person, who struggle a lot to live a fulfilling life, and or set up the things that'll make my life better.

Edit: Also toei give me more Buster/Slash/Calibur content please.

The point of Trio Of Deep Sin as a movie, though, is that... like, it is okay if things change as you grow up; more than that, they ARE going to change. When they change, it's important to be grateful for how things were before, and not give into sadness or anger that they've changed. If you allow for change to happen, you can find new friends, new experiences. If you cling to a past that was never going to stay, you're just robbing yourself of all the other things in the world.

It's okay to be sad about this stuff. (Trio of Deep Sin is an enormously, gloriously sad movie.) It's okay to mourn a little, even. But losing yourself to those emotions is never going to help you. Friendships aren't ever gone, even if friends move on. You're still the same person that was befriended and befriended others, and you owe it to the world to find happiness.

Well uh... damn.

Yeah that's all I've got.

okay but what did you think of ryoga's facial hair

As a mustache man myself, I think he pulls it off rather well.

A film that is considered by many to be the best rider film and just a great film overall, outside of the tokusatsu genre. I'm not even sure if it should count as a tokusatsu, given that the first battle takes place at the 40th minute of the movie, and the protagonist only transforms at all 10 minutes before the end. Cinematography, interesting work with the camera, no obsession with toys - all this is in this great film.
I would also like to note that the trio of riders play roles here, which in fact represent different stages of one life: a son, a lover and a father. The antagonists are also good and cause understanding and sympathy (although Rintaro's father's motives turned out to be crumpled).
It is also worth noting how delightfully beautiful the film becomes at the very end, when the four main characters already sing Bittersweet. Fukuda said that this part is called the Quartet of Deep Love because the previous title no longer fit the story. I'll even post a video here so that those who wish can remember how wonderful it is:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVRlq5MyCwY
And going back to Ryoga's mustache, Fukuda wanted Touma to have a beard, but Shuichiro Naito was too busy with other projects to grow it.And don't be sad, Shindai special will be more fun.

I deliberately never wrote a post about this movie.

It wasn't because it was some extraneous spinoff I didn't feel like making the time for, the way a lot of the other things in that boat are. I was extremely excited for this film, and extremely glad to have watched it. But actually talking about it feels almost vulgar to me?

I'm glad Die didn't actually write anything *about* the movie, in a literal sense, either, because I think his post really gets at the beauty of the story it tells. Trio of Deep Sin is almost shockingly abstract as a work of art, and because of that, I prefer to let everyone have their own little personal relationship with it. It's a movie that'll likely leave with a mess of feelings and things to think about, and what those are will be different for everyone. It's a movie as much about what you end up putting into it as it is what you take out of it.

It's maybe hard to describe the difference when you can say much the same about any piece of media, but that's Trio of Deep Sin to me, as much as I feel like describing it. It isn't one movie -- there are as many different versions of it as there are people who have seen it. Or at least, that's my take on it!

Has its ups and downs.

Oh hey, same! (fistbump) Yeah, I agree it looks good on Ryouga.

Congrats on your 2400th post!

I remember when people thought this was the title for an upcoming sequel where Mei would finally become a Swordsman. Toei are such trolls! :lol

Huh, you know, I never actually talked about Trio of Deep Sin either, simply that I enjoyed it, but I've yet to explain why. Maybe cause the tone is so different and mature to what people typically expect from Saber, I think it's difficult to really talk about it. Like, it's cool that we get to see Touma as a father, Rintarou as a son, Kento as a fiance, Daishinji as a mid-late 40s (Eternally 24) year-old man and Yuri as Yuri, but the movie has a lot of deep and heavy subtext and lets the actions of the characters speak a lot for themselves. I'm definitely glad that both Saber fans and non-fans alike are generally able to appreciate it.

It's interesting to think that 2022 gave us Kamen Rider Black Sun, a heavily-promoted international release aimed at adults that I found almost relentlessly banal and off-putting, and Trio Of Deep Sin, a movie that was completely off my radar that managed to be a thoughtful, nuanced portrayal of how memory becomes its own character in a story as we get older.

I really love that Saber opted to make its first V-Cin into a contemplative, character-focused adult drama. It's mature in the way stuff like Amazons and Black Sun never were to me: conflicted about adulthood, desperate to connect emotionally, and melancholy about its superheroics. It's... yeah, it's just a good movie, full stop.

There're so many parts of the movie I could call out for criticism or praise, but it's not how I felt when I finished watching it. The thing about Rintaro's dad, which I could probably spend at least a paragraph being apoplectic about, I didn't really leave the film with an interest in litigating failures or whatever. I liked its tone, and its gentleness, and its anger, and its need to put that anger somewhere, and its revelation that putting the anger anywhere leaves no room for sincerity and joy. The details... I don't really care? I don't really care.

Oh, I haven't watched Black Sun yet since I'm saving it for after I watch Black, so it's sad to hear you didn't like it. I thought Amazons was okay, the first season a lot more than the second. How does it compare?

I only got three episodes in on Black Sun, so maybe it gets fantastic, but what I watched was another show like Amazons that was distrustful of heroism and obsessed with violence. It's another show that mistakes miserablism for insight, and I just find that so dull. But maybe I'll love it when I've seen the whole thing! I definitely thought it was less compelling as a piece of adult-focused entertainment than Trio Of Deep Sin, though.

Amazons... I thought the first season was solid, the second season was almost incomprehensible, and the movie was one of the worst Kamen Rider things I've ever watched. Literally ruined a Christmas for me.

Ouch, that sounds troubling. I love a show like Build, where the setting gets progressively darker but the hero never succumbs to cynicism and always finds a way to bounce back and protect love and peace, or how in Amazons, Haruka wants to live as a human without eating anyone. I don't like the idea of a show that gets darker without having anything worthwhile to say about it. Violence is cool and all, but I'd rather that be secondary to the story and morals.

It's actually the second movie I've seen that does this kind of thing. And at first I was also upset that there would be no sequel, but I definitely did not remain disappointed.
Regarding the Black Sun, no spoilers, but only with context. "Amazons" is a story where the protagonist tries to do the right thing in a very cruel world. "Black Sun" is a story where the main characters have good intentions, but realize these goals in a wrong and cruel way. Also, it's two shows in one.
In general, I would call "Black Sun", "Amazons", and "First" with "Next" (even though Inoue's films are much less bloodthirsty), more teenage than adults. Intoxication with violence, cynicism, hopelessness - all this is very typical of puberty. And as a result, stories are more primitive than most of their children's counterparts. I wouldn't call them bad though.

Black Sun is I think a series that's interesting to release internationally because it's one that's dealing with very specific things that happened in Japan's history regarding crimes of the government towards minorities. I'd compare it to Shin Godzilla in how it's a very profoundly angry piece of media that comes from a very genuine place of criticism towards the Japanese government for failing to protect the citizens it exists to protect (whether through incompetence or direct malice). It's one of my favourite pieces of Kamen Rider media easily and one that goes above and beyond what I ever expected of the genre and in fact this franchise given where else it's gone in recent years.

It is also very offputting to begin with and I myself didn't come around to it until about episode 7, where I really started to understand what it was saying and the value in how it was saying it


edit: oh, right, thread topic! Trio of Sin is also pretty good! As someone who didn't come away enjoying Saber I did thoroughly enjoy this movie specifically. Just a solid little outing and continues the previous 2 years' trend of v-cins actually being good now! I like how different it is from pretty much any other Toku show I've seen

Yeah, I mean... I liked what Black Sun was trying to say about how governments use racism and nativism to get a blank check from a citizenry that is looking for a scapegoat, but a) I could not find a way in character-wise to what was happening, and b) it kinda has that problem Kamen Rider always has when it wants to talk about racism via kaijin where the kaijin are legitimately a threat to humanity. I can sorta forgive the second (it makes the metaphor messier, but not unworkable), but the first is why it's in my Watch List on Amazon for the last however many months without making any progress. Someday, though! I will finish it someday.

Little late for this, but on the topic of memory, Saber is one of those shows that my memory of the bad just seems less comparable to the good every time I reflect on it. I was looking at my old posts for it, and while I found my past self was picking on points of the series I'd come around on since, or at the least decided weren't so big a deal. Do I remember how weird the Lords of Wise being brought back for the finale were? I mean, yeah, but none of that really matters when you have Primitive Dragon reuniting to save Touma's ending like he saved him, or Mei basically saving the world by making a forum post (Seriously, I know "Mei should be a Kamen Rider" is a common take, but I think that's a far stronger use of her both thematically and for the narrative. There's more to being a hero than blowing stuff up!)

And Trio of Deep Sin, I think, follows up on that year or so of thinking back to Saber and thinking "You know what? Actually not bad." It's a very deliberate movie, one that manages to avoid the Build/01 pitfall of making the series ending feel pointless while still contributing something meaningful to the growth of the characters and how they interact with the world. Do I understand what happened at the end, with new Falchion? God no. But that doesn't really matter, because I get what it's saying.

Also Arabiana Knight looks sick, made Kento a character worth paying attention to 10/10 storytelling merchandise division.

There is a reason for this. Usually it's pretty bad and at first Black Sun looked like more of the same, but I promise it's not the same thoughtlessness that most superhero stories doing this kind of thing fall into

Kento like What Is The Apotheosis Of My Character Arc That Could Finally Generate A Power-Up, and here's a woman he loves who is screaming her aggrieved history at Kento's guilty conscience, but he has to find some way to internalize that guilt and shame enough to save both his friends and the woman who hates him, and he's like Nailed It.

I'm glad to hear it! It definitely felt like it was falling into that trap in the first few episodes.

So basically my takeaway from this is that I should probably get around to finally watching this movie at some point.

Okay, my verdict for Saber.

I liked it overall and probably it helped that I never watched Ghost from start to finish only watching clips of Onari being a goof so the skepticism toward the staff wasn't as strong for me. One thing I think Saber did better compared to Zero-one was that while Zero-one goofed off with the whole Zaia ceo arc Saber just pitted everything against Touma after Kento is taken out putting him in a position where he must rebuild everything as the hero. So there was growth where he powered up and one by one united the fencers of SOL along the way. Also loved how Saint Seiya it felt when Master Logos started going maniacal antagonist. The one subplot with Ren and Desast being the unlikely pupil and master was fun too.

In short the sudden fall of Kento at the end of what I view as the first arc and the second arc starting with Touma being the underdog was a great way for him to grow and rebuild making the story progression fun. And the ending theme is GOAT.

Thanks Die, I think I'm just a bit gloomy since my BFF returned to the UK on Wednesday.

KAMEN RIDER SABER SPIN-OFF: SABELA AND DURANDAL

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

Without previously wanting to wade into the discourse around how various writers and directors portray the relationship between Reika and Ryoga, it’s maybe worth pointing out that when I saw the promotional imagery for this special – months before I watched Saber and had any context for these characters – I assumed Sabela and Durandal were a romantic couple that was finally tying the knot in a piece of post-show storytelling.

All of that is to say that this show 100% knows how it’s portraying these two characters, and yet I really admired how seriously they took this slightly dumb story about Reika getting married to someone who is not her brother, and turned it into a respectful exploration of Reika and Ryoga that tries to reframe their relationship into something healthy and normal… before kind of basically making them a couple at the end, I guess, sort of, if you want to read it that way.

Like, Ryoga raised his sister, and it kind of permanently messed up their dynamic. She saw him as an idealized man, and he saw her as a precious, fragile innocent. Their adult lives are just deeper and weirder versions of that relationship, and it’s keeping the two of them in a toxic orbit. Ryoga’s kind of an overbearing asshole, because he’s trying to be a father and coworker, rather than a brother. Reika’s a jealous psycho, because her whole world was always her brother, and any threat to that status quo is a threat to her emotional stability. They don’t relate to each other as people, but as totems to protect and control.

So, yeah, a movie where the two of them have to reexamine the ways they each dehumanize the other, and how that collectively inhibits Reika’s personal growth? Big fan of that! Rui as a character is nothing to talk about. (Him immediately copping to Ryoga’s accusation was hysterical, like he saw how many minutes were left in the story and thought against prolonging the mystery into another scene.) The overall plot doesn’t really make any sense. (I don’t know why the wedding ruse was necessary, or why Rui needed Reika’s sword.) But the emphasis on trying to rework a less-than-ideal childhood for Reika into something supportive without being stifling? I like that choice!

And then the end is Reika being recognized as a woman by her brother, at which point they partner up as equals and also go out shopping together and… and I start to wonder if maybe Reika and Ryoga did get married in this, like I assumed a few months ago? There wasn’t even an officiant at Rui and Reika’s ceremony (or any guests!), so maybe the Shindais figured What The Hell and just decided it for themselves?

It’s.. this is a movie that knowingly plays with a certain iconography – Durandal pulling a wedding dress-clad Reika by the arm as the quarry explodes around them – in order to both subvert it and adhere to it, and that bothers me more than if they’d’ve picked either lane. It’s like they’re laughing at the audience, and then going You Guys Got A Point Though. I thought this movie was 85% smart and heartfelt, but then 15% gross and juvenile. I was on this movie’s side, and then it felt like they had to get one more dumb wink in at the audience.

Weird installment, this one. Mostly clever, with a whole bunch of funny cameos (Ren! Ogami! Sora! Mrs Ogami! MAGINE, UNEXPECTEDLY!), that manages to somehow both live up and live down to whatever you thought of these two characters. Tough bullseye to hit, but this team worked hard to hit it. Kudos?

I don't have much to say about this special other than I enjoyed it for the most part.

It gave us two important things.

Durendal utilizing Kaiji as an actual sword for a decent period of time.

And Amanojaku. Like... I did not expect us to get a new Megid, and a new big book Megid at that, this long after Saber ended? And he somehow came at the right time because his existence basically allows me to fill a hole I was fairly iffy about in my story now that I know he exists.

It's the little things really.

What a thoughtful gift they gave you for this wedding-themed piece of entertainment: something new.

I don't find the scene near the end where Reika & Ryoga are shopping as anything of sorts like romance or marriage.

Rather I see the scene as Reika finally getting indulge & get something normal for once outside of her duties as a swordswomen. And getting to share it with her brother who argubably is even more sheltered than she is.

I mostly found this one a bit pointless and also passing an extremely low bar. Like, wow, accepting your one female rider can make her own choices and be her own person? That’s crazy! Kinda… feels like that’s the very least that should have been in the show, and now you’ve done it it just feels really redundant.

Like, when it happened with Kanon in Specter X Blades it felt right because in Ghost she was both a background character and a child; so her becoming a Rider feels like her growing into her own in a natural way. This just feels patronising, almost?

What was it with TTFC and younger sisters marrying undesirable matches last year? (Though this one is less kinky)

Talking of Zenkaiger, as a nod to Angela’s love of Magine, the latter’s VA appears here as the servant that finds herself being gushed over.

Also Amanojaku. At two points that year, I’d coincidentally used it as the basis for a monster in two different fics (though both of them are different from each other, and hew more closer to the mythical version, which has the power to bring out people’s darker impulses)

Yes, like many things in Saber, this special is open to interpretation. For me, this is like the final stage of Reika growing up and stopping the idealization of her brother. First, it was she who dealt the decisive blow to the sage, then the moment came when she not only contradicts Ryoga twice, which never happened in the series, but also directly declares that she wants to be equal with him. Also here is the development of Ryoga, for he finally understands that he should not dispose of his sister's life. Yes, and in a good way he should not be in charge at all, because he has no leader. In a word, for such a short film, the scriptwriters put a lot of context into it.
Also, a lot has been done in terms of context. Ren, Ogami with his family, Magine, Reika changed more outfits than in the entire show. And it?s also worth noting how well they picked up her children?s version:
https://i.ibb.co/8r9mBNS/Young-Reika.png
https://i.ibb.co/VBnYjHN/Angela-Mei-Wedding-2.jpg
Of course, it's very tempting that Rui appears out of nowhere, coming from an important Sword Logos family that somehow missed all the events of the main show. I think if he even flashed or mentioned earlier, it would have worked much better for the lore of the series. For example, one could make him the blacksmith of the South Base or the unfortunate Espada mentioned earlier. This would give more weight to the character and explain his desire for the sword.
All in all, it was a good farewell to my favorite show. However, it is perceived more as a see you soon, because there are many more stories to tell with the lore and characters of Saber.

I'm mostly just happy Angela Mei got to meet her daughter('s voice actor) again.

Beyond that, this isn't a special that left any particular impact or blew away my expectations or anything like that, but of course I was happy to have a new Saber thing pretty much out of nowhere.

:thumb:

Saber is one of my favorite Rider shows for sure, but if there's anything I was left a little bitter about, of course it had to be Reika. But it's cause I love Saber so much that I'm grateful for any new Saber content. Finding out this special would be written by Kaneko definitely made me a little more hopeful that it wouldn't be totally awful.

So yeah, as Mesnick and I have been subtly talking about, this spin-off is arguably where Reika becomes something resembling a sympathetic character. Like, the marriage interview, where Rui tells her he can see through her feign and she starts to open up to him, I'm pretty sure that's the first normal conversation Reika's ever had with a human being other than Ryouga. I like how Ryouga acknowledges that his presence has inadvertently made Reika dependent on him to an unhealthy level and he tries to be the responsible big brother by letting her go for her own good.

It also has a nice moral about marriage, how it's a truly wonderful thing that can make a lot of people happy, but how it's also unwise to rush in to it or to do it for anyone else's sake. Reika wanted to marry Rui for Ryouga's sake, but then they talked and she wanted to marry Rui for herself. Too bad Rui turned out to be evil, but it wasn't a total loss, as that experience made the Shindais' bond stronger while hopefully making Reika less of an abusive sadist. I want to give her a chance.

At least Rui is only a regular amount of evil, whereas Doetamu is a total creep.