Man, for me it was the other part, Ren/Desast vs Sabela. It's fun to see Desast try and give this goofy kid some space, and then have to bail him out so he doesn't get murdered. That, and Desast being able to track Sabela's smoke movements because he can smell her? Very fun set of combatants!

Thanks! I'm just trying to right an egregious wrong from this series. It blows my mind that we had Yuri hanging out on the Tassel set for two episodes without him providing the introduction. Cancel this show!

I guess I appreciate Saber trying to do something to make Ren more relatable and, in fairness, making him the show's equivalent of Punch Hopper feels about right. If I'm being honest, pairing him up with Desast really does help the character a lot. I still like to rag on him for my own amusement, though.

I mean, it still took the show twenty-six episodes to make Ren a compelling character, so I think it's okay to rag on him?

Oh yes, now we are cooking. After Desast kept teasing it for ages, he's finally got that team up with our local toxic ninja he's been vying for! You gotta bet happy for the guy. Rintaro's arc was what kept me watching the show for awhile as it was airing, but this duo is officially worth the Price of Admission for me, and are still my main incentive to do a Saber rewatch, even though I think the show is largely a mess!

Also, as someone who watched Kabuto after Saber, I do like the compare and contrast between the two duos. I get the obvious comparison, they both reject the protagonist-centric spotlight of the narrative through their partnership, but while the Hellbros instantly knew what they were about, which was being a garbage crab bucket that'd keep pulling each other down to wallow in hell, Ren and Desast are still aiming for... Something, together. Maybe they haven't figured it out yet. We'll just have to see!

#Desast'sWalk vs #Kenzan'sWalk is still so ridiculous to me, by the way. Desast's twitter bit was so popular for them that they /choreographed and filmed an entirely new fight scene/ purely as part of it. And then included a version with sound on the bluray! Bluray twitter content... fantastic.

Oh, for sure. Each pair is reacting to the themes of the main narrative, and the themes of Kabuto and Saber are very very different. Yaguruma and Kageyama are helping the show explore individual achievement and validation in a world that wants to codify and rank those things; they're dealing with a world where Tendou exits. For Saber -- and I don't 100% know where this Ren/Desast thing is going -- I see it more being about a belief that doesn't have anywhere to live, a sense of hope that doesn't have an end result. These two aren't the hilarious nihilists of Kabuto, but they definitely have a similarly wayward, violent charm to them.

Not much to say here, so here’s a few memes.

First off, we reveal that the whole plot was kicked off by the two characters whose actors were in Shinkenger.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...8/IMG_8619.PNG

And then, there’s the comic I promised related to Reika’s newfound hesitance to mindlessly follow orders.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...1/IMG_1727.JPG

Yes, this is the beginning of Ren's official partnership with Dezast. And also the beginning of at least some development for the character of Ren, who until then had only been in the background and interfered with other, more likeable heroes. The fight with Sabella was great too.
As for Touma and Kento's line, I like that they are still friends, even though circumstances and their own judgments make them go against each other. We can also see how Kento's confidence in the imminent apocalypse is gradually cracking, which only his self-sacrifice can prevent. In the doomsday visions, Mei was dying and Rintaro was losing to Zuus. However, it seems that these inconsistencies are still not enough to convince him.
Master Logos is good because he is an obvious villain. Also, as you correctly noted earlier, he is at the final stage of his plan and therefore can afford to be unrestrained. And this is not the expressiveness of Dan Kuroto, who stopped pretending. This is the baloney of a scoundrel, confident that he has already won and only minor formalities remain. Of course, the audience and even the characters of the show understand that he is greatly mistaken, but the Master Logos himself does not know this.
I liked the fanfiction.

Fish Sandwich also watched Kamen Rider Saber Episode 33

https://i.imgur.com/Lxpws7c.jpg

I was really into the scenes with Touma and Kento in this one, if that's any surprise to anybody. Them talking under that tree is yet another scene I immediately think of as defining why I love Saber.

The direction the show took Kento in by making him Calibur, it was always so impressive to me how it did that without ever trying to make him a villain, and more than that, how we see with scenes like this that he's barely even an antagonistic force right now. The person Kento has always been the best at getting in the way of is himself, you know? That's what makes that conversation so immensely compelling to me. It's these two dear friends who still love each other deeply despite being unable to reconcile their differences, and that's where the drama comes from. It breaks my heart when Touma can't help but bluntly ask his friend to come back to him, with a desperation in his voice suggesting he knows that's exactly the wrong thing to say right now. They're both hurting deeply, and they don't know how to make it stop. That's such a neat angle to me, as a way to tell a superhero story. Where most shows might make a strained friendship a cautionary tale about the danger of giving in to hatred, Saber chooses to portray a suffering that can only come from unwavering, unconditional love, and explore how the characters navigate that instead.

There are plenty of other great things in this episode worth talking about, of course, but none of them are ever going to feel as special to me -- as particular to this series -- as that.

Thanks for the memes!

Master Logos is a fun take on the Unhinged Mastermind villain-type because he thinks anyone opposing him is hilarious. Like, Touma saying that Master Logos doesn't have the right to torture all of humanity -- eternally -- for his own amusement just sounds ludicrous to Logos. Of course he does! Stop being such a weirdo about this, Touma!

It's always nice when these shows can make room for offbeat, character-driven explorations of emotional conflict. Like, just slowing things down enough for Kento to forget all of his brooding posturing and just try and connect with the world, instead of separating from it as a form of self-defense... very fun way of getting at the distance between these two dudes, rather than a hundred screaming fight scenes.

And it also... I really like how we keep getting these hints that the Sword of Darkness has its own agenda? Like, it will always show Kento some horrible thing that's about to happen -- Master Logos attacking -- but it keeps not showing the good things that might/will happen, like Touma showing up with a much-needed picnic. Kento is maybe soon going to start putting the pieces together that he ain't toting around the Sword of Prophecy; he's wielding the Sword of Darkness.

Oh, and speaking of Master Logos, this episode also has my other definitive Master Logos line, which is when he describes the world he wants to create as one where the sound of birds chirping in the morning is replaced by people's screams, and then rhetorically asks if that doesn't sound like fun. In general, I think Uchida had a really great grasp on how to get the most out of Master Logos' dialogue -- making him surprisingly eloquent in a way that just makes his blatant unhinged insanity all the more (entertainingly) despicable -- and that bit is a particularly strong example of that.