I half-mentioned it earlier, but I'm very lucky to both dig into this show long after everything's been translated, and amongst an enthusiastic fanbase that's making sure I don't overlook anything. It's, as always, incredibly difficult to be a North American fan of Kamen Rider, where you need to keep up with TV episodes, theatrical films, streaming mini-series, pack-in DVDs, stage shows, anime shorts... and now Twitter posts. Sometimes that's stuff that won't appear in English until months after its relevant, if at all. But I like that there always seems to be at least one generous fan out there in the world, eventually putting it all together for us. Thanks for being a part of that!

Desast is immediately likeable, as a bizarre sword-fighting goofball who loves a tense battle and doesn't seem to care too much about things like Plans or Victory. He's like a pitbull that just wants to play around, you know? I'm not surprised the show opted to have him bumble around town and have funny interactions. He's like the suit mascot version of Megatron at Universal Studios: clearly a villain, but so entertaining about it, and currently so unintersted in it, that you're thrilled he's around.

It's really nice that the show has avoided making Daishinji a grim, standoffish psycho who wants to fight everyone he meets -- mostly because we've got Desast, who is a way more fun version of that concept. But it also gives us these really neat Daishinji concepts, where Ogami's like We Should Talk To Touma and Daishinji's like Yep We Should Definitely Duel Him. Like, this group of characters is so idiosyncratic, it's been a blast seeing them each approach a situation with a slightly bonkers solution.

I won?t talk much about the plot yet, due to the fact that this is again a two-part story. I will only note that a small plot with a fan of Touma, who also appreciated the amazing miniature in his bookstore, seems to me very appropriate. But your story is very interesting. It's great that you took on the lore of X-Swordsman, because this is a very vast field for fantasy.

It really amazes me that Touma is a children's writer, because, judging by the rare passages in the show, his most successful book is about reflection due to amnesia. That is, it does not seem to me that this is a topic that is close or interesting to most preschoolers who come to his store. Although, given that Kamen Rider is a children's show, it must be admitted that Japanese children have strange tastes.

Thanks! I'm interested in Sword Man -slash- X-Swordsman -slash- Sword X Man for how it's another culture taking American superhero tropes and sort of... analyzing them? Recontextualizing them? Regurgitating them? I think it's fun to see how one culture's tropes and art get processed with a completely different cultural background. That's fun. I'm excited to see where this show goes with that exploration.

I always enjoyed the bonus entertainment of waiting for the next Super Hero Time to see if there'd be a new installment of Desast's Walk, in addition to my regular dose of Saber and Zenkaiger. First thing Desast does after getting his freedom is start a Twitter blog to chronicle his miscellaneous adventures outside of his battles with the Swordsmen. Not exactly what any of us could've expected, but in-character for sure. Dude knows how cool he is and wants his story to be heard!

Yeah, it's an unusual gap the show never quite bridges - Touma definitly comes across as someone who writes storybooks for young children, judging by his shop, his attitude, and the fact he isn't on Twittet getting involved in the latest drama. But his actual books seem aimed at adults, given what we see with Mei and the snippets of writings. Maybe he does both? I wouldn't put it past him!

I definitely took it as him doing both. The novel seems aimed at children -- the cover is a group of children looking at a Wonder World-esque vista; it's got prominent placement in a kids' bookshop; and I think Touma's specifically said it was about his childhood, or at least what he remembers of it -- while the magazine writing he's doing is aimed at adults. It wouldn't surprise me if a pre-SoL Touma reoriented his gaps in memory as a thrilling adventure for children, and it also wouldn't surprise me if a slightly older, no-longer-a-prodigy Touma was more interested in crafting stories for adults.

So Yuri's the type who is secretive and thus will erase the Megid incident memories from other people like Yuki. Saber is a kind of show where people like Touma rather easily wins over the people around him (though there's some bumps right now but only Ren outright dislikes him, consistently, and it's viewed as wrong by his SoL colleagues; Ogami takes an open-minded approach to think that Touma may know more than them at this point, despite that he's something new in SoL), of which perhaps can feel similar to Takeru in Ghost and have Touma being viewed as fawned too much (exaggeration), but this'd mean that Yuri's decision to erase memories isn't questioned (and yeah, the reason to do that is usually 'for their own happiness')? It's a decision that is heavily debated, in other series such as Ultraman Nexus.

I'd say it's kinda expected as Shingo is just the victim of the week and this is the attempt to flesh him out a bit, though I'd say it fleshes out Touma too outside of wanting to do good, though this feels like an 'info-dump' regarding Touma as this interest in diorama perhaps will be only referenced once. But I wonder if you'd think there's a better way to execute this kind of stuff. Still though, I'd say to highlight Touma's heroism better, including in his claims of protecting the people living in the world, he gotta take care of random victims, instead of only his circles (consisting of characters the audience knows and cares), as he gotta be all-encompassing.

And for Daishinji being more comfortable in fighting as a swordsman, it really shows too in how Slash counters everything Saber throws at him, even when Saber uses stronger forms. I've seen stories of people getting to know other's inner self by fighting before, but, also including this, I wonder if that'd actually have some merits or lessons that can be taken (perhaps in other performances outside of fighting, which can be used in duel-based shows that can be deemed silly instead), or just the show's excuse to create more fight scenes. It's also something that has a conclusion that can seem to be only forced or dictated (ironic, compared to Touma's insistence of ending the story in his own way), as usually it ends with the tester claiming "you've shown me your resolve" or something, which isn't really clear what it means, perhaps typically , but even then some audiences (including in powerscaling) can always assume that anyone's fight are always going all out, where those who lose because of them holding back/hesitating can be just deemed as weak instead.

I guess I brought it up cuz I often see quote-unquoted "heroic" when describing characters who actually genuinely well-intentioned, but the quoted-unquoted "heroic" is given due to using extreme and evil means to achieve it (but the goal is still genuine and they do live up to it, but shows that good intentions doesn't necessarily make one good person). So I thought it'd be different for Gai's case where his claim of human supremacy is just a front for his dirty work in the company, that he'd not have "heroic" goal following how audience usually use that 2 term for (though it's used as they don't know the term anti-villain).

It does make me wonder exactly what kind of stories Touma produces for adults, though -- as unfortunately there just doesn't exist much of a market for light fantasy stories (as opposed to 'grimmer' takes) in adult novels. Or maybe he lives in the beautiful alternate universe where it's much more mainstream...

Alternatively, he's just really bad at packaging his erotic detective novels.