I did like that a lot too! Really great way to showcase his youth compared to the other Riders. Ren has a lot of good groundwork going for him as a character; they just need to start capitalizing on it going forward.

Mei as Ikazuchi wielder will be mind blowing.

I meant, it's one of the three main swordrivers, you would think it wouldn't be given to ANOTHER "homo sapiens"

im thinking it is mei because she's at the ending credits with the main 3 and espada at the ending is very female like suit. i think it was written she was going to be espada but im guessing because of toy sales they wanted a male character to be the first espada and have mei become espada in the second arc.

I wish people would stop saying that Mei is going to become Espada, when the show has done NOTHING to hint at it. She’s been set up as a support network and that’s it. Being in the ED means nothing. Plenty of characters that never became heroes appear in Super Sentai EDs because they're part of the main cast. I don’t get why Toku fandom has these ideas that every supporting character should transform into a hero at some point, instead of allowing the concept of a supporting cast to exist. Because I’ve seen this all the time in TokuTwitter and it annoys me there.

It depends on the show.

In something like OOO or 555 or Drive, you've got Kamen Rider as 'the' hero set apart from all others. Even when secondaries join the fray it's in that same kind of, set aside occupied 'special' slot. Kamen Rider is still the hero.

But then in other series like Ex-Aid and Build and Zero-One, not only do you have a lot of Riders but pretty much the entire main cast are Riders. There, Kamen Riders tend to just be what the cast are; Build, Cross-Z, Grease and Rogue are just the squad. Saber, of course, is pretty similar.

So it does kind of stand out in those cases where you have the one, singular character of those casts and groups who isn't a rider. ... and who suspiciously tends to be the only woman.

Personally I'd be more amused if we keep going harder on the "oh, crap, did they just kill that guy?" scenes only to have them in the bed unconscious next week. Like if we see Buster get completely atomized in an explosion, then next episode he's lying in the bed with a couple bandages.

If this were a few years ago I'd have said simultaneously dying and staying in bed sounds like a dream :lol

I honestly would not mind if Mei suddenly gets the sword, but very unlikely at the same time, it would fit with the ending dance at least.

I haven’t looked at upcoming magazine scans, are there any shots of Espada not standing up straight? That’d be a major clue.

maybe Mei will be tutored under that souther girl and whipped into shape, turning her hyper energy into focused sword wielder.