Just wanted to give a heads up aside from Zero One for obvious reasons this show was the most affected by COVID it does a lot of things to ensure actors don't have to be on set together early on plus another heads up this show is written by the same person who wrote Ghost for the first half especially the first arc, as such expect a lot of stupidity in said arc IMO this show has the opposite problem as Build/Revice and the same problem as Drive the first frew arcs of the show is the worst part of it by far it does become really good once you get to the 20ies but you have to sit through a lot of trash to get to that point

Gotcha! Stay safe!

Thanks for the heads-up!

So I forgot that this was the first episode with Kento and Ogami and Other Guy That I Won't Name Because Maybe Spoilers. That is a lot and it is very on-brand for early Saber. This part of the show has some of the same issues that the first few episodes of Zi-O had in that they just cram in so much that you're constantly being inundated with so many new characters and concepts that it can feel hard to keep up with it all. There's also a number of things that the show seems to just assume you'll understand without any relevant explanations being provided until later, which I always find annoying.

You know who's not annoying, though? Ogami. This was a character that I was really wrong about at the outset of the show. I assumed that he was going to be one of two things: either a minor, passing through Kamen Rider that would only be in a few episodes (a la Danki or Sabaki) or that the show was setting up him and his kid because he was going to tragically die during these two episodes. This wasn't too long after I made the call that Azu would only be in a couple of clipshows for Zero-One and wasn't a real character. I was not good at making predictions in 2020 (I hope that's not giving away too much about Ogami by referencing things he doesn't end up doing in this two-parter). In any case, he's a fun character, I like his relationship with his son, and his weapon is very obviously and hilariously made of lightweight, bendy foam in most shots.

I wasn't a fan, but I accept it under the light that Toei was trying to cut down on the amount of time that actors had to be unmasked around each other. I suspect that the reason why we got both ending credits and lots of stock footage sequences was just another COVID safety measure.

I'm a Buster fan. Not necessarily because of the show though.

There's a spin-off manga called "Separate Volume Kamen Rider Saber Manga: Kamen Rider Buster" telling Ogami's origin story, that manga is my favorite piece of Kamen Rider Saber fiction. I like it better than the entire show.

https://i.imgur.com/c6y1P5N.jpg

So what I'm trying to say is, you should definitely read it. I'm unsure about when though. It features characters you haven't seen yet so right now is definitely too early. It was released in bits alongside the show, so maybe you could read it like that?

I did some digging and this is how each chapter was released, after the episode of the show:

• Chapter 1 - Episode 24

• Chapter 2 - Episode 26

• Chapter 3 - Episode 29

• Chapter 4 - NA

• Chapter 5 - Episode 35

• Chapter 6 - Episode 37

Technically there's nothing stopping you from reading it all at one point though, as the manga spoils nothing, it takes place entirely before the show. Although I do remember that the manga ultimately tells you what happened with Ogami's wife but the show takes a while to do so, so you might find out about that by reading the manga before the show tells it to you. Given when the manga was released that might've been intentional though. When they finally addressed it in the show it felt like such an obvious afterthought to me that I assumed they only wrote that scene in after the manga was finished.

The absolute safe route would be reading it all after you finish watching the show I guess. But please do read it.

I guess I get what you're bringing up here, as I too feel uncomfortable with Touma making a promise that sounds too big to be fulfilled in getting Ryota's parents' back from a place too dangerous for normal humans. I do think that promise can be big-mouthed to make as not only confidence, it also feels as if you can see the future. And the danger if it goes unfulfilled... but what if it fails not due to it being purposely broken, but due to Touma's death trying to fulfill it and (what-if) Rintaro's failure aftermath? It'd still have similar outcome to those purposely breaking it. Though as usual, I'd probably think, one shouldn't only blindly cling to principles, as there are also bigger pictures one also should see.

Yeah... I like overdesigned stuff (or to be specific, those that are detailedly designed), not that I don't have limit though. I̶t̶'̶s̶ ̶p̶r̶o̶b̶a̶b̶l̶y̶ ̶w̶h̶y̶ ̶I̶ ̶l̶i̶k̶e̶ ̶K̶a̶m̶e̶n̶ ̶R̶i̶d̶e̶r̶'̶s̶ ̶s̶u̶i̶t̶s̶ ̶m̶o̶r̶e̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶g̶e̶n̶e̶r̶a̶l̶ ̶c̶o̶m̶p̶a̶r̶e̶d̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶S̶e̶n̶t̶a̶i̶'̶s̶ ̶o̶r̶ ̶U̶l̶t̶r̶a̶'̶s̶ ̶d̶e̶s̶i̶g̶n̶s̶ ̶(̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶l̶a̶t̶t̶e̶r̶,̶ ̶m̶y̶ ̶f̶a̶v̶o̶r̶i̶t̶e̶s̶ ̶w̶o̶u̶l̶d̶ ̶b̶e̶ ̶s̶o̶m̶e̶ ̶F̶u̶s̶i̶o̶n̶ ̶U̶l̶t̶r̶a̶s̶)̶.

For the brooding anti-hero types, the opposite of what you talked above, there seems to be those who insist that words don't matter as "actions speak louder than words", in how anything those type of secondaries do is swept under the rug, as long as they put themselves in danger fighting monsters. They also can be viewed as less superficial due to the view that (of which you seem also to value honesty highly) "politeness is deceptive, bluntness is honest"; being polite as Rintaro showed here also can be treated as misleading others about their true power. Other than Mei's comparison with Akiko... there's similar stuff here too with both of them being female leads who swoon over the secondary. Of which ofc, Akiko swoons over the 'edgy coolness' Terui had which is recognized as 'hard-boiled' (though not with limits as shown when Terui goes too far in his revenge).

Dunno what are your expectations here, but probably this is meant to 'subvert' expectations again? In case you'd think Kento has minor role. Probably this is sorta a 'filler'/out of place introduction, but no need overthinking in this case for Kento coming to the place and checking in, I mean as this episode establishes, Kento is Touma's childhood friend, why can't he check in to reunite with his friend? Mei seems to have... an opposite of 4th wall awareness, where here she seems to be aware that Touma and Kento are story characters, with her reacting like an audience would over a sweet Kentouma reunion. Otherwise, this series seems to not care about gender of who's made as the butt of the jokes... with poor Mei here getting all her eclairs eaten by the boys.

Gotta state it to you here, he's the 3rd introduced Rider in the series, but he's not the tertiary. And honestly this is not a spoiler tbh, as it's already revealed in the marketing materials (order of introduction in press conferences). As stated ther, he does have passionate love for his child, but I'd think he's not as wholesome as Rintaro though, as he can be gruff and condescending towards the younger ones like Touma, which he speaks ill of. He provides some of the subverted expectations you'd think about Rintaro before of brushing off their attempts to join him, though well, aside from carrying too much duties, he seems to be the strongest Rider so far by one hit killing 2 Megids.

For Saber and Blades though, while Saber does have potential before, it seems that Blades still has some edge over him, like how he uses Peter Fantasia, and as usual, Blades isn't condescending seeing Saber's failed use. But wonder what if Peter Fantasia is the first one Saber used when Blades claimed he's not ready for 2 volumes yet.

To further talk about Mei, she seems to fit over the manic pixie dream girl archetype, other than her wacky overreactions and being pushy towards Touma for the manuscript editing, here she's also pushy towards Sora, trying to liven up his life... whenever Sora likes it or not. She means well towards him but yeah, it's bad to force someone against your will even if it's what you think is good/interesting for them, as it only wears them down, and worse in her being inattentive and getting Sora trapped here. She does feel regret here, but often these type of character can have their faults overlooked, like invading personal spaces to bring someone "out of their shells" and have them deemed as 'cute' and 'romantic' instead of acknowledging it as harassment.

Yeah, I've seen your old threads being broken in wording, so you'd actually fix them. Wonder if you'd remember those old shows better (I hope, kinda). So the recent show you've watched is Geats.... (dunno until which episode) of which yeah it returns back to some of the franchise's established formula like abusive mom or non-easy teamwork.... as the show before it, Revice, should perhaps defy your written expectations here.

Didn't know you'd get actually mad about Keiwa = Kagami 2.0, as you didn't really care about the "Blade's (THE ONDUL SERIES, OK) secondary" debate between Tachibana and Hajime previously; of which yeah it similarly happened too for claiming Keiwa's the MC instead of Ace, or Michinaga's the secondary instead of Keiwa, p̶r̶o̶b̶a̶b̶l̶y̶ ̶a̶l̶s̶o̶ ̶c̶l̶a̶i̶m̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶T̶s̶u̶m̶u̶r̶i̶'̶s̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶f̶e̶m̶a̶l̶e̶ ̶l̶e̶a̶d̶ ̶o̶v̶e̶r̶ ̶N̶e̶o̶n̶.̶ There's a valid reason why they make the comparison though, albeit surface level; they're both secondaries that are paired with the cocky hypercompetent protagonist, who is also the straightforward good guy type (Rintaro seems to start the trend of the secondaries being nice lately??) that is also made a struggling loser, giving them underdog vibe to watch them grow while being sorta 'mentored' under said protagonist.

And Ogami's son is also named "Sora".

I. AM. HERE.

You have distilled everything I love about Oogami in this line. I actually want to cry because I am very emotional about how wonderful he is as a character; for me, he is the most important Heirei Rider since Hibiki - which, ah, is me really laying my cards on the table in regards to my specific emotional damage, I guess.

tl;dr he's amazing. Hands down the best character to appear in this franchise in a long time.

also: your story was beautiful. <3

As I said, Saber's first arc is wonky, but in a charming way, I'd say.

As for Rintaro and Ogami?

Love em to bits! In general, I love how little conflict there is between them here. Sure, some small gripes, but in general, they all just kinda work together.

And as messy as the first arc can be, it works well as a baseline introduction to these characters in a lower stakes environment, something I always appreciated.

As for the structure of the Swords of Logos. Yeah, Saber loves just dropping some info and then letting it simmer for a good amount of episodes before going into detail. Some dislike that style; I personally love it. There is a lot of seemingly unimportant information in early Saber that gets brought up again later and kinda recontextualises other stuff. And that made watching week to week feel very rewarding since when you looked back, you could draw out a clear path for things to develop.

Speaking of COVID safety measures, we're three episodes in already so I'd be remiss to not mention the Eyecatches which were almost most definitely added as another way to fill some kind of time. We haven't had one for a full series since Black RX back in the day.

The best we got was during Brain's specials. But now we've got them in full force for Saber.

I'll absolutely admit though that I adore the Saber Eyectaches. They're a lot more extravagant than the other ones but also still relatively simple. Plus it's kinda cool to have you see like what they consider the important books of the episode.

Yeah, much like Rintaro, it's nice to see how uncomplicated Ogami is in his debut. He's a dad! He cares about his kid! It's nice to have some stuff that's... I don't know, comfortable? I like having relationships that are clearly-defined sometimes.

I will definitely read it after the show's over! Thank you so much for the recommendation!

I mean, because the construction of the episode and its pacing are insane? Kento's introduced, the show goes to the opening credits, and the next scene is Rintaro and Touma going to fight a book monster before Buster debuts. It's really weird storytelling to not have Kento's introduction continue into the main story, and/or have any relevance on the next scene with Touma.

Thanks! Writing is fun!

And, yeah, I'm excited to learn more about Buster. Shit, I'm excited to learn more about all of these weirdo sword mans. Beyond being interesting representations of how stories create mental frameworks for how we interact with the world, they're just such a nicely disparate group of personalities. It's a fun cast!

That's nice to know! I'm looking forward to getting a deeper understanding of this book-obsessed warrior cult.

Fish Sandwich also watched Kamen Rider Saber Episode 3

Man, it's fascinating to me how you still worship that Build HBV to such a degree that it comes to mind here before Asumum in Hibiki or like, the couple of options you had from Kiva.

Anyway, yeah, Saber is still very much in its early weird messy phase with this one, which leaves my thoughts on it, going from memory at least, pretty much identical to the prior episode. Fantastic introduction to a new main character, lots of breezy fun action, surprisingly strong world-building under the hood, all packaged together in a very strange way that's almost certainly going to drag the overall experience down for people who aren't just inherently on the show's wavelength the way I am.

Buster's real great though. Most of the things I could say about him probably don't need explaining, so I'll guess I'll take this opportunity to mention suit actor trivia because why not? I haven't brought up that Saber himself is Kousuke Asai, who has become a new favorite for me in recent years thanks to his ability to emote on a level that approaches Takaiwa's heights (just watch him as Don Momotaro!), Blades is Eitoku, who I've felt similar about for even longer, and as Buster, we've got Jirou Okamoto, Kamen Rider Black himself, who is perhaps the only real choice to portray a seasoned veteran member of his organization who can dominate a scene with a touch of old-school intensity. Like, man, I wonder how hard it was for him to get inside Ogami's head! (Plus, Calibur is Kuuga's suit actor, Kenji Tominaga, making this the second year in a row a Heisei star came back to beat on the new kids as a purple bad guy.)

I went to look this up out of curiosity and, just in case there was any doubt, apparently it has been mentioned in some magazine interview or another that the ED and eyecatches were indeed a conscious decision to reduce the amount of new footage they'd need to fill out an episode. Between this and the stuff I've heard about the early story plans, it's curious to think just how many things I like in Saber only came about because of the unfortunate realities of when it was produced.