Primitive Dragon... man. Putting aside that Saber's suits unfortunately don't hit for me in general... while it did add some drama to why everyone still at Southern Base could have a reason not to trust Touma, my reaction to it was caught up in a wave of...

So, it's like when Emboar was Fire/Fighting, again. There's nothing wrong with Fire/Fighting, its actually a pretty cool typing, and Emboar in isolation is a cool pokemon! Nothing against Emboar itself! But getting it over and over again, back to back... at a certain point it became, aw geez, is this gonna happen every time now?

Which is where I ended up with the Kamen Rider berserk arc, now that it reoccurs so frequently. There's definitely cool storytelling potential in that arc, but is that arc right for every story? ...Well! Guess you'll see what you think of how it fits into this one.

...I do think the grabbing hand gimmick on the book itself is pretty fun though. if only they didn't leave the back of the hand hollow...

Oh and cute detail in this edition of Desast's walk with him mentioning all the secondary SoL trio's elements- wind, sound and earth.

Here, we get two debuts. The first is Keisuke Sohma, better known as Genta Umemori from Samurai Sentai Shinkenger (the guy Diend robbed of his robot squid). Here he does the voice of the Master and the guard who lures Touma to the forbidden book. That isn’t a coincidence or a budget saving measure. But needless to say, I will probably have a relevant actor joke meme down the line.

But our major debut this time is Primitive Dragon, which unusually, doesn’t get any of its three announcements played. And it was supposed to come out as a toy the week after this, but ended up being so delayed that the toy meant to trigger the sound being hacked in this video was out the next week.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=SKfFKvOAUiM

The great dragon from ancient times takes hold of the book’s power…

Grasp it! This new power!

I wanna get the force!

I have to say that though someone pointed out it was stock music, I did like the ost for the form’s debut fight. Sadly, this and the next one are the only two of Saber’s TV forms (not counting the Wonder Rider forms) I don’t own the books for, but that hasn’t stopped me from looking out for one.

And now, we close off with Primitive Dragon’s induction into the Berserker Form club.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...6/IMG_5782.JPG

Hmm, I recall a lot of people were calling it that when we were all trying to decipher them in the news and rumors thread. However, a quick web search of Ridermoji only turns up a little usage within the Western community, including content as recent as my post that you just quoted and excerpts from En-chan's crossover fic. I guess it could be one of those factoids, where somebody said it and everybody else followed. Thanks for putting me straight though.

Touma speaks so much truth here. I think this also shows how much Touma and Mei trust each other both professionally and as friends. Touma has the courage to show Mei all of his worst works (at least not NSFW stuff like he thinks Daishinji's writing) and Mei is great for how she approaches them with an open mind to try and make it in to a success for Touma, the publisher and the readers. People totally shouldn't underestimate the kind of bond these two have to make that work the way they do.

I have to disagree with you here about Metal Cluster Hopper. I thought its debut was seriously intimidating and memorable for how mercilessly it bested its opponents without moving a muscle and how it's not only a debut for a new form, but our first experience of the malicious Ark itself. One of the few moments of excitement and suspense in the otherwise dreadfully dull Job Competition arc.

I think the hollowness is symbolically appropriate. It's a book that's all rage and pain instead of intelligible prose, which is why Touma struggles as a writer to tame that power.

Furthermore, this is only the second actor to appear from Shinkenger. Karahashi Mitsuru, known by KR fans as Kaido, Musashi and Hayato, was also Shinkenger's coolest most bad*ss character, Juuzou.

Ever since watching the DX review for this, now I hear it as, "I want to get divorced.", which can be a joke headcanon for why Primitive Dragon is so mad. :lol

Oh Primitive Dragon! Possibly one of the best berserk forms in the entire franchise. And this is his first appearance. The very case when you see not a character, but a creature. I'll go so far as to say that this is my favorite arc (or internal mini-arc, considering exactly when it happens). Looking forward to your opinion on the development of the Bone Dragon story.
Regarding the fanfic: to be honest, I was surprised by its subject, given that the review is almost entirely devoted to the Primitive Dragon. But I liked this surprise. Hopefully Daishinji's fanfiction will surface in the future.

I really think it's... a myth. That is, we did not have berserk forms between OOO and Build, there was no berserk in Zi-O, and in the new era we got two in a row. I just can't call what happened in Revice a berserk arc, even if it's officially called that. So it seems to me that just about every other trope I've seen is used in these shows more often as berserk arc.

A fine way of justifying it within show, its just that the specific plastic molding pattern of supports that shows takes me out of it by feeling too artificial. And the cluster of holes is kinda freaky to look at :P but to each their own.

Absolutely agree. I love it when a big power-up comes with an associated downside. There's so much good drama to wring out of the need to use the new powers and the risk of losing control to them. My favorite, both aesthetically and in terms of plot relevance, is Blade's King Form, but any time that a major upgrade is more frightening to use than exciting, I'm a happy viewer.

I'll save my thoughts on the Primitive Dragon arc till the end, because I don't want to accidentally spoil anything, but I agree that it's a highlight of Saber for a lot of reasons. The suit itself also might be my favourite of Touma's? Icy Blue, obviously angry, very PuToTyra as has already been said, I'm not 100% on what would beat it.

Ren is a good guy, but yeah he's the one not clear-cut good and the morally grey one, he's anti-heroic. He performs the but has unheroic traits in how he's a bratty social darwinist who fights primarily to show off his power instead of protecting, and had no qualms creating infighting between the group for that like Touma.

It's true that it really displays Touma's heroism, but I'd say, the heroic part of Touma there is him being hellbent to help someone he doesn't really know in the Imoto sisters, and his vow to keep his promise. The determination part is something that only a means to the end, just like other assets that can be a help in doing good like power or intelligence. Villains can be the one who is determined too to reach their goals no matter what, like the extremely persistent ones who won't go down no matter what (similar to Touma dragging his ass to battlefield).

So it seems that Ren only appreciates power in certain people, like himself and perhaps Kento. Touma collecting power like this wouldn't like, make him side with the powerful Touma (well saying this as first time viewer), as he consistently had a bone to pick with Touma. There's more of the Primitive Dragon, but can't say that obviously. There's a different experience for the viewer to view empathetic hero becoming animalistic in rage, but, it's not Touma going off the deep end like Aruto before, it's the power doing its job by influencing the wielder - so perhaps there's nothing wrong with Touma as a person at this point, though obviously this can be something exploited by Reika to turn the swordsmen against each other, instead of how perhaps someone clear-headed will try to get Touma to explain more about Megid.

Being reckless to charge into action to help someone is a trait possessed by many of the main Riders to display how heroic they're. While it's true, gotta say that being reckless isn't a mandatory requirement to be heroic - nothing wrong to stop for a while to think twice. I think there's a difference between Touma and Kamijo that, it seems that due to how they're going on different path as Saber (albeit Kamijo became Calibur), Kamijo.... didn't actually collect power at least as Saber before? Like he was seen only using its base form. Similar to Riku (Yuusuke's predecessor) as Kuuga. It's not having power that corrupts him, but he didn't have power yet got tainted by his pursuit of power (which means, not having it yet). Touma seemingly had already gotten more powerful as Saber in his new forms, but so far he's still steadfast in saving people. Daishinji of all people should be the one who tries to inspect the gimmick.

Daishinji thinks going to Master Logos is a terrible idea while Touma and Yuri thinks it's great, but I'd think it's worth trying too, as it's unknown if this is a case of more reasonable superior compared to the prickly assistant, thus Master Logos, in the best case scenario, can be the one to convince Reika to stop her shit-stirring. Though Reika had noticed the trespassers when they acted on the plan. Storious seemingly has his own agenda and can put him at odds with Legeiel and Zooous, doesn't mean redemption though.

Fish Sandwich also watched Kamen Rider Saber Episode 23

I really really really like Primitive Dragon. From the second I saw the suit, it was the Saber design I've been most often tempted to say is my singular most favorite, even though it'd be foolish of me to limit myself to one choice like that. (I really can't even pick just between Touma's suits.) I was excited for this episode ahead of time as a result, and it didn't disappoint. Which I guess I don't need to go into much detail with, because it seems like a whole lot of other people like Primitive Dragon as well. Just as good for me, because I'm so excited about this stretch of the show I feel like if I try and go into it right now, I'll end up spoiling something or another for Die without realizing. I'll say this much for now: the design of the Primitive Dragon book is actually even more genius than I thought it was in that old post.

Outside of that one thing (that one very, very cool thing I'd love to talk about more), this is still a really fun episode, to a level where it's a bit of a bummer I can't help but reduce it to an "and also other things happened". It's the first episode since the initial two directed by Takayuki Shibasaki, the whole infiltration setup is neat, plenty of great character work with the Riders as usual... there's plenty to talk about here, it's just, man, it's so hard to compete with the impression that bone dragon Saber leaves.