Yeah, the "movie" is short and to the point, but it works well enough. Also has some nice pieces of foreshadowing in it, and Bach feels solidly explored in his short time in it. Not much more to say.

That is actually not where it gets good. It's still in the "I like this, but..." period of the show. That said, I really like this episode, especially with how Rintaro's secluded nature as a swordsman mixes with him, revealing more about his backstory. It really cements his place in the setting in a great way.

For when I started really getting to that pure enjoyment part, very, very end of arc 1, aka, when they pull things together again.

I also actually enjoyed this episode; I've said numerous times that the main thing I love about Saber is its cast, and it's used to great effect in this episode. I've heard people say that Saber gets better after its first arc, and considering all of the 'rising action' going on, I'd assume we're getting close to when most people agree that Saber improves, and considering how much I enjoyed this episode, I'd probably agree.

There are still some things that weren't that great to me personally, there was a lot of transformations in this episode, and while a lot of them were off-screen, it still felt like a bit of padding, though this isn't something entirely unique to this episode. Also, they seem to have this cliffhanger making you think Rintaro might die, even though it's extremely unlikely for that to happen, and it just doesn't leave as much of an impact.

Besides those things, this episode was honestly pretty good, which isn't something I could state about many of the previous Saber episodes so far.

Fish Sandwich also watched Kamen Rider Saber Episode 11

Judging by how short my post from the time is, apparently I actually did not have many notes on this one. And like, I don't here either? Still a great episode, still really love Kento, agree with pretty much everything Die said, except that Saber obviously "got good" right from episode 1. :p (The point Die is referring to is more like When Saber Gets REAL Good from my perspective.)

So uh, in lieu of anything to say about the story, I'm going to go ahead and talk a bit more suit design, because I'm skimping over that in this thread way too much.

Calibur is a pretty cool dude. Jaaku Dragon is such a perfect Evil Saber, with pretty much the same armor layout, with the head on the shoulder on all that. The reveal that Calibur literally IS Saber, but a bad guy now just kinda makes it fit that much more. But then you've got Jaou Dragon, which I've always gathered is the more popular of his suits? I could go either way myself, but it's not hard to see why someone would think that, with how cool it looks. It also has one of my absolute favorite tricks of any suit in the series, where his entire torso armor literally IS the book, opening up from the center with all five dragons popping up out of it. The whole pop-up book design means the Wonder Ride Book doesn't technically have the usual picture of the Rider on the inside, and yet, it still kinda does? Just a really impressive suit.

And while that's definitely the bigger talking point for most people, I actually want to take a second to shout out Dragon Bremen's appearance too. I honestly have a huge soft spot for all of Saber's sort of W style two book forms, for a lot of reasons. I like how they fill out Brave Dragon's plain left side without getting rid of the aysmetry, I like how creative the fight scenes tend to get when Touma gets to play with these stories, and I'm also extremely fond of how nearly all of those books truly "belong" to other Riders. It's this really efficient way to distribute everything where I don't have to be bemoaning it when Saber doesn't use his basic form changes more than once or twice, because he isn't carrying that entire collection around the way most main Riders are.

Conflict will always be present as long as any living being exists, of which yeah.... the solution is technically reduce the population to nothing but this unjustly takes away their rights to live, and even when they're only caught in the crossfire between the aim to purge the conflict instigators. And honestly, if you're keeping living beings' population, there's no permanent, effective, 100% morally justified solution ever. I'd also say that for someone seemingly shallow and obsessed with social climbing (including social media), perhaps also in similar vein to Akiko, Mei's sweet here to run after some random kid, while also staying by his side to encourage him by talking about Kamen Riders.

And that is also something present in Ghost, its final form Mugen Damashii. As a Phoenix... Falchion can't truly die and for now Saber has to re-seal him in the Book of Ruin.

It's a cute comment, but we all know that Rintaro's secret internet shame is actually searches like Best Local Eclair Stores and Dessert Photos (SafeSearch ON).

That's fair! For me, this was such a confident shift into tense and captivating plotting, all drawn from character relationships and established history, that it felt like the show found a higher gear.

I mean, I'm okay with it because it's more about Kento's mental state than Rintaro's physical health. I don't assume most viewers thought this was going to be the death of the best character on the show. Like, it's not even Christmas. We all know Takahashi's deal by now!

I just really like this episode for how it gets at Kento's unsustainable psychology. Kento's someone who was trapped in one story - a great swordsman betrays his guild and leaves his son - who longed to rewrite it. He was going to make it a story about redemption, where an abandoned boy became a great swordsman, defeated his father, and brought honor back. Kento's the one who was always going to Fix This. That's his driving goal and moral center.

But then he finds out that Calibur isn't his dad, which changes the story. What would defeating Daichi even mean? Where's his father? Is he dead? Should Kento be trying to save him? Whatever moral clarity and peace of mind Kento's dedication and self-sacrifice had given him is now gone, and all that's left is the rage of a child who's trying to make sense of a complex world.

I am okay with this show landing more of this story's climax on Kento!

After only one episode, I definitely prefer Jakku Dragon. Some of that is a personal bias I bring with me to all of these shows, where the cleaner suits win more of my love. I don't generally love upgrade suits more than I love base suits. Beyond that, Good Dragon Guy fighting Bad Dragon Guy in similar suits is just more visually interesting to me? Once Calibur switches out some of his suit layout, I kinda tune out.

First suit, best suit; that's sort of my preference in Kamen Rider.

I always like that, thematically. These metaphorical fights aren't ones you can ever really win, so it's better to stop Falchion for now and hope he doesn't break out again.

Oh, I was saving this one for later in my rewatch. I'll put a Wonder Ride Bookmark on this page and get back to you in a few days. It's a promise!

Rintarou's and Kento's dynamic often gets overlooked by the typical Primary/Secondary dynamic of Touma and Rintarou and the best friend dynamic of Touma and Kento. But it's important to remember that out of the three, Rintarou and Kento have known each other the longest. Rintarou has a tragic backstory with the loss of his parents at an early age, but instead of brooding, he found new family in SOL and a desire to protect them. That's pretty cool! Even during his brief pursuit of revenge against Zooous, he quickly got his head together and swore upon the Suiseiken Nagare to protect the people he loved. That's Kento's conflict now, between avenging his traitorous father, or prioritizing the people who care about his welfare and are getting themselves severely injured to bail him out of poorly chosen battles.

Where there's smoke, there's fire. The mysterious abductor's method was pretty discreet, choosing the moment where nobody could afford to focus on anything except Calibur and the elemental pillars. But of course, Sophia's absence from Northern Base is a major problem in the long term, since there are things only she can do and I think maybe that's something that some people might take for granted. Sophia also showed bravery by putting herself in danger twice to try and help, despite not being a Swordsman.

I'm one of the people who prefer Jaou Dragon. I appreciate the symmetry of the suit, the commitment to the pop-up design and how it looks like Jaaku's cold silver mask was removed to show the hot passion beneath. The special Wonder Ride Book solves the aesthetic problem I had with the normal books. Jaou Dragon with its five intimidating golden dragons looks like something that demands to be on full display and jumping out at you, in contrast to the 2D abstract images we've had before. I love how the Engrish jingle screams Evil, without any concern for making sense. Make Might A Just, hell yeah!

He's a good boy! I wasn't sure how long this show could keep Rintaro from losing his sweetness and generosity, but I'm glad that it hasn't happened yet.

I enjoy Jaou Dragon for its shift in aesthetic storytelling. Calibur's role as a villain before was exactly as Jaaku Dragon's design told you: the dark knight; the rogue counterpart to the heroes working against them for his own means. But now he's got what he wants and he's in a much more active role, he's switched from dark knight to dark emperor; this overwhelming commanding presence that bests all before him. It's especially impressive to me that it gets off such different vibes when they're in fact the exact same suit from below the torso in order to work in an action figure gimmick. Just good visual storytelling!

I think I prefer Jakku Dragon? Even aside from it being "Saber, but the bad Saber", something about Jaou's design just doesn't click with me? I think it's the colour scheme, mixed with looking more like a Knight? Hard to say.

That's kinda part of the trick I love about Jaou though -- it puts so much weight up top that it definitely looks immediately bulkier and more menacing, but in terms of silhouette, detail, the overall layout... it's just as clean and readable as Calibur's base form, if not cleaner? Even the color scheme feels simpler and more unified, with the gold armor meshing nicely with the accent lines that were already there.

I don't know, Jaaku is generally the one I'd pick too, if forced to choose a favorite, but it's just too hard to deny the appeal of Jaou. There's just no losing with the suits in this show! They're all too good!

EDIT: wait a sec....

I only just now realized, after like two years, that Jaou's visor is literally the fire coming out of the dragon's mouth. Holy crap that's awesome.