Kamen Rider Saber: A Postmodern RPG

Maybe! I think it could've stood to be a little clearer, if that was the case.

Saber could've been at the forefront of the isekai wave, if they only hadn't been such cowards!

I advise you to get used to it. Saber leaves many things to the viewers to notice/think for themselves.

Got it! I'll be sure to read between the lines, as it were.

This is random, but here's a thing I like about Touma, I like that he's already an author at the start of the series. He's achieved his dream already, and is taking steps to continue doing that. It's good to see characters that are at a comfortable point in their lives etc.

Help! I was hit by a magical book and now I'm the Rekka-wielding hero of another world!

Also, while I'm here, may as well talk about the aesthetics of the driver. While the books are a little clunky, I like how much like Zi-O, they complement the theme of the show pretty easily, and [stuff I won't mention because spoilers]. The Swordriver itself, I really like the concept of, with the driver being the scabbard to hold the sword. Also, Rekka as a weapon is really nice looking, benefits from not needing to handle the gimmick item itself I feel.

It's a pleasant change of pace from the recent aimless heroes, that's for sure. I like how Touma is looking to start a new chapter, as it were, where his previous success as a novelist is just a single facet of a much more complex individual. He doesn't want his story to be just one genre, is I guess what I like about his character.

It's not ever going to be my favorite Driver (not enough English), but I do think it's a solidly tactile bit of merchandise. My favorite part is that the Henshin sequence is excessively verbose. Goddamn belt has an entire sonnet it needs to recite before a monster can start getting detonated! So apropos!

I don't know if I've ever mentioned this in one of your threads before, Die, but uh... I think I'm actually an executive at Toei? I know that's an absurd claim, and ordinarily, I wouldn't believe it myself, but ever since Kamen Rider Saber aired, it's been much harder to believe that it exists based on decisions made by anyone that ISN'T me. Like, for starters, who else but Fish Sandwich would've been out there clamoring to give the producer and writers of Ghost another shot at a Rider show? Right away, things were suspicious, and although I have no direct memory of working on the series, that nagging feeling that this was all being done solely to appease my personal tastes only become more palpable as time went on.

This is all a very elaborate way of saying I completely adore Saber.

And you know, I say variations about that regarding pretty much everything Rider-related, so hopefully I can make you better understand the true weight of that statement as we go along in this thread. I've kind of fallen into taking a break from posting on the forum lately, but like, I've got a responsibility to make sure I show up for this one, so here I am.

First of all, one reason Saber is special to me -- it's another show I can do this for:

Fish Sandwich also watched Kamen Rider Saber Episode 1

As with Zi-O, I made it a point back when the show was airing to actively dig into it in writing each week. After all, it's the one *about* the writer, so I mean, like probably a lot of us that choose to spend our time participating in discussions like this, I think I immediately connected with that on some level.

Really, I connected with a lot of things pretty quickly. I remember not thinking much of the very first reveals and stuff, but as soon as the staff was announced, it sort of hit me that, uh, actually, I thought a whole lot of it! "High-fantasy storybook swordsman Kamen Rider by the guy who wrote Ghost" is pretty much my ultimate dream show, and I got hyped real fast after realizing that.

I mean, just for starters, you have no idea how much I love Brave Dragon as a suit design. Please allow me to regurgitate this snippet from when I picked it (alongside Zero-Two) as my favorite suit of 2020, where I put it in context of another suit I loved for the opposite reasons:

The complexity was a very conscious choice, which I know from reading the website every week (another facet of my attachment to the show I'll maybe get more into later), but my love for the suit goes even beyond how it mixes that absurd amount of detail with surprisingly strong readability. My absolute favorite thing about Brave Dragon? It's Brave Dragon, of course! Specifically, whoever came up with the idea to make the eyes that shape. Your typical cool dragon has narrow, aggressive looking eyes, but (perhaps just to fit more detail in there), Brave Dragon has these adorable proper round eyes that make it look a lot friendlier than your Dragredders and your Wizardragons. It's seriously charming, and I can't help but think of the whole design with the dragon wrapped around Touma as basically just a hug now, which only made me adore the design even more. Needless to say, I am also a huge fan of the Sword Crowns, but I'm not sure there's much point in going into detail about that when I've yet to even convey the obvious coolness of beetle horns to Die.

Where was I again? Oh yeah, the first episode! Long story short, I had pretty similar sentiments to Die on an analytical level, but I didn't even remotely give a s*** emotionally speaking, which is always going to be more important to me. It's like, sure, Saber's premiere has problems, but why is that a problem? (<- thoughts like this reveal a lot about how I approach media.) I'll refer you to my post from the time for further elaboration, but needless to say, I was totally enamored with the series from the word go, and it only got better from here. Looking forward to talking about all that more as you make your way through the series, Die.

Welcome back, buddy. It wouldn't be a show by the Ghost team that is already slightly frustrating me without you along for the ride.

I do like the body of the Brave Dragon suit, no doubt. It gives up the symmetry of the Zero-One suits for something that's... it's like the spine of a book, you know? Front cover on one side, back cover on the other side, spine straight up the middle. It's balanced, but not symmetrical. That's a fun design choice.

*Appears*

Ah, Kamen Rider Saber. Where the pen is mightier than the sword.

*Leaves*