This new guy's DEFINITELY going to be the sea/ocean element. Wonder how they're differentiate sea/ocean and water.

I heard some speculation it's going to be magnetism or something because sea creatures use echolocation/sonar. There's even a sonar symbol thing on the chest.

AAAAAAAAAAHH okay !! Now I understand what was bugging me since yesterday and the shark theme.

When Reika first appeared, her name in auto translator, like the twitter one, kept on being translated "Kamishiro" and not "Shindai".

And "Kamishiro" reminded me of my fav character in Yugioh Zexal : Kamishiro Ryoga.
And you know what ? Kamishiro Ryoga as a duelist had a nickname : Shark. and he played a deck mostly built on Sharks and Ocean themed cards.

Now guess what is the name of our new guy Kamen Rider Durendal ? exactly :
Shindai Ryoga.
and he is the big brother of Reika.

Shindai Reika : 神代 玲花
Shindai Ryoga : 神代 凌牙
Kamishiro Ryoga : 神代 凌牙

Someone at Toei is a fan of Yugioh Zexal it seems ^^

EDIT : now that I think about it, Dezast is voiced by Uchiyama Koki, who voiced the second Deuteragonist of Yugioh Zexal : Tenjo Kaito

wouldn't that be a tritagonist if he's a "second deuteragonist"

without entering the details Yugioh Zexal was always weird with that.
Yugioh often has the protag + the (best) friend rival + the edgy rival.
But Zexal was a bit more complicated about the trio. With some plot twists and all that shaked who was the deuteragonist and tritagonist. Shark and Kaito were pretty much equal (to me).


I wonder why they chose that yugioh reference for a rider though. It must have been thought from almost the start since Reika appeared early.

Im also surprised they chose the name Durandal for him because there is nothing that ties the Durandal myth with the Sea/Ocean or a trident ?

Because Durandal is a type of sword? I mean it looks close enough to his sword.

https://www.medievalfactory.com/1884...--DURANDAL.jpg

Durandal isn't a type of sword like you would say "Rapier" or "Long sword" (not that I know at least ?).
That's the name of a legendary sword, just like Excalibur (Durandal being the second most famous sword where I'm from, just behind it).

Hence my surprise a bit. It's a bit more meaningful than just naming your rider "Kamen Rider Thrust" or "Kamen Rider Fencer".
And the Durandal/Roland legend doesn't really have something to do with the ocean. That's why I'm wondering.

In later works in the Matter of France (which is just a collection of a bunch of Medieval France legends and myths) Durandal was said to have been owned by Hector of Troy who is popularly a spear user, so some works inspired by this try to connect these two ideas in some way. I guess in this Durandal is a swordsman who uses a trident (three pronged spear). That's cool. I don't know what the ocean/wildlife has to do with Durandal, if anything but I'm game.

Right, so Durandal's WRB is called Ocean History, and is an animal book. This makes me wonder as to what the heck his Seiken's element is, as the Nagare is already the sword of water.

His catchphrase seems to be "Your time is up!" and the next episode is titled: "It's time, the swordsman takes action!"or something like that.

He could be a time-based rider, which kinda sounds OP. However, he can still be a water swordsman, still since there's not really a rule that there can't be two similar elements, just so he can parallel with Rintarou.

Much like Sabela whose outward motif is bugs yet is a smoke swordswoman, Durandal's motif are oceanic creatures, but his element probably wouldn't be water.

I'm so confused why on earth they would make an oceanic animal based Rider and not have any connection to water. At least you could say Sabela's bug theme had a connection to smoke because of beekeeping or some other super loose connection like that.

Alright, I absolutely love this design, seriously, Saber's Riders have had some rally great designs and I'm all for it. For the name Durandal, I get it sort of, since popular legends depict Durandal (the sword) as being made from Durandana (Hektor's spear), and since it's a trident, it sort of fits the bill.

For his element, I'm not too sure, some people here are speculating a time or magnet theme, but for me, I'm somewhat leaning towards ice, since that's an element I'm surprised they haven't implemented yet.

So that leaves the guy with the corrupted King Of Arthur (Who might be Mordred?) as our main antagonist, possibly Master Logos, or one of the other Meggido or Desast, whatever he's doing.

Ice is not too far from water. Plus, Blades' new form is named Ice Beast Senki.

I mean, between the references to time and the WRB's Title being Ocean History, I think it might be time.

Trying to make sense of the books and themes was our first mistake.

Honestly I'm just glad the Animal Wonder Ride Books are getting more representation and almost have as many as the God Beast Books now.

Cause like, before Sabela and Durandal we only had the three that were for our three main Riders. So now we have five!

Which isn't too bad since we have 6 God Beast Books so things sorta even out on their end now.

You know what, you right. This just means we're getting Cronus 2.0 in Saber. And me not realizing ice is basically water, just shows how attached to Bionicle I probably am.

Agreed. Lions aren't aquatic, there's no lightning in Aladdin, and when the Swordsman of Sound uses Hansel & Gretel as his main book even though he also has Band of Bremen which is way more sound-related, I think it's pretty clear the books aren't connected to the seiken's elements except by coincidence.

Anyway it's neat that both these siblings use books that are based on collections of animals instead of just a single species.

Ninjago also has those two seperately on the same team.

To be fair on Alangina, Genies/Djinn are often linked to Lightning and fire, so that one does make sense. Your point still stands, of course - Slash is particularly jarring because of Bremen, but Genbu’s element is water, and Lions and water have no relation whatsoever.

My mind keeps going to Singapore's Merlion fountain statue which is the closest I got to a lion having relations with water.

Thank you. I will henceforth adopt that as my headcanon XP

It seems that the relation between lion and water is more accurately from this; in the old times Egypt and Middle Eastern areas thought of lions as sign of rain cause lions headed north during rainy season(Also Egypt's goddess of rain has a head of a lion so maybe that derives from this thought as well). This idea later carried on to the Roman Empire and specifically their architecture which is probably why they have water fountains and faucets in lion shapes. That said the merlion stuff and this all probably factors into what resulted in the default motif for Blades.

This brings back some fond childhood memories.

Saikyo no chikara

Plot twist: Desast is up to his usual slice of life Twitter moments and takes Ren along to see the trees.

Well...Damn.
This is turning into Gaim pretty fast.

I... Wouldn't actually mind that. Dezast helps Ren up on the trees and teaches him about true strength and how it's from within. I mean, he's already weirdly wise and poetic in the twitter posts.



...And then he slaps an Alter Ride book in his stomach.

Nah, I doubt Saber's going to get anywhere close to that amount of dark and edgy. Remember that this is from the writer behind Ghost and that show despite having some dark moments had a greater emphasis on the magic of friendship and the idea that justice means something different for each person. Henshinzero has been predicting Ren turning Megid for a while now and Desast has foreshadowed it, so I figured it might happen eventually.

If Kento is going to betray Ren's trust and seal Hayate, he'll need to obtain a new power to maintain his "strength is justice" philosophy. There's no incentive keeping him loyal to SOL anymore. However, while Ren is too unobservant to identify the evil behind all the lies, he has a concept of what is good, so I don't expect him to become a villain like Storious. He's being manipulated by bad people to do bad things. Some things he did on his own like almost killing Mei which was probably him at his worst, but not everything bad he did is entirely his fault. Like Primitive, maybe Ren just needs someone to talk to him and try understanding his sadness.

The problem with Ren is that there is no actual reason given for his childishness or his mindset that 'strength is justice'. Rintaro's reason for loyalty to the Guild is given, as well as Kento's newfound hellbent attitude on sealing all the sacred swords. Ren is just Ren for the sake of being Ren. All style, no substance. Which is a shame as it makes him feel even more of a living toy shill (which he is but I think my point is made).

That's something that bothers me as well.

Especially after Touma had an arc few episodes ago VS Daishinji and Ogami to awaken some kind of powers with his sword and to find the real meaning of what being a swordsman is.

And then there's 8yo Ren... and nobody seems to call his status into question.

New reveals have leaked.

The final Seiken: Tokikoku Kenkai Toki, the sword used by Durandal.

https://mobile.twitter.com/Ben778788...64942560722946

And Kamen Rider Blades Ice Mane Beast Senki, which supposedly has the power to summon previous Blades users.

https://mobile.twitter.com/Ben778788...63709527658497

I find myself wondering if Desast might switch sides at some point, especially if one of the villains makes themselves into something Desast might consider a worthy adversary...

So time it is for Durandal. And Ice Lion Senki looks awesome, particularly the helmet.

So it's looking more and more likely that Durandal is time based... which explains why he can go up against Elemental next week.

Also man I love Ice Lion Senki

Apparently, someone misread the name of Durandal’s sword. It’s actually the Jikukoken Kaji

Eh. Both mean something along the lines of time.

Yup. Definitely Time element for the last one.
Now I want a "Pause" sound effect for the reference :'D

Also, I just figured out how the sword transforms. The short answer is, it doesn't. You just take the blade out and plug it back in upside down.

Blades final form looks incredible, very excited to see it in action