KAMEN RIDER SABER SPECIAL CHAPTER - “THE WORLD PIRATE ARRIVES, AS WORLDS COLLIDE”

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Just a nice, fun, light adventure for two-thirds of the cast and a special guest-star.

It’s hard to really delve two deeply into it (sorry), since it’s mostly here to introduce Zenkaiger concepts to Saber fans, and vice versa. The Saberketeers need a hand to defeat a Sentai menace, and I’d assume that the Zenkaiger cast is going to need (wild guess) Yuri to give them a hand with a Megid. This isn’t the time for deep metaphors or complicated character dynamics; we’re in pre-movie mode, so the mandate is clearly Keep It Light.

And on that level, it’s great! It’s a frothy goof-off adventure, the kind where Rintaro can be confused by Sentai dancing and Touma can engage in wacky physical comedy. It’s strange that it took a Sentai crossover special to pull out one of the most basic tropes for a writer in a fantasy story – Touma’s writing accidentally gets the team into a scrape – but it’s nice to see the characters run through that story finally. The whole thing is real low-pressure, with a villain whose power makes things a little more difficult for the cast without ever being too dangerous to defeat. It’s warm-up fun for the summer movie.

The big deal for it is the appearance of Twokaiser, whom I found to be… fine. Diend casts a long shadow for any interdimensional tokusatsu thief, and Twokaiser definitely doesn’t challenge for that title off of this single appearance. He’s classically dismissive about suggestions of heroism, and he exists at a baseline of Untrustworthy. He doesn’t add a ton to the group dynamic (almost all of the problem-solving comes from Touma and Kento), and his initial scenes are the best the character got for me. He did the minimum of both selling his character traits and not getting completely overshadowed by a more beloved cast (of mine, anyway), so I don’t harbor any ill will against him or anything. He was okay, for an episode.

But this episode was more than okay, it was incredibly fun. It’s not really reaching for anything profound, but it would 100% get me to go see a movie with all of these characters. Mission accomplished, I guess!

—

YOUR CONTROL

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The lax security and discipline at the Northern Base was as bad as his sister had reported. It was a battle to get things up to his standards–but like all battles, it was one Ryoga was going to win.

That’s not to say it was going to be easy.

His early efforts to create a clear hierarchy of command – with himself as the second-in-command to Sophia, obviously – had thus far been… not as completely accomplished as he’d have preferred. Ogami had laughed. Daishinji had snickered. Kento had shaken his head and chuckled. Rintaro had commended Ryoga for attempting to ingratiate himself into the current team dynamic by telling a joke, but assured him that it was unnecessary. Mei had used vulgarity, including several terms he only realized were insults after a lengthy conversation with his more worldly sister. (Ryoga asked Reika to refrain from executing Mei, at least until the required paperwork had been presented to Sophia.) Touma had, strangely, been the most agreeable; he’d told Ryoga that any further activities as a swordsman would be reported immediately.

That had lasted about two days. Now, Ryoga and Reika were forced to conduct surveillance on both their fellow guild members, and an avowed pirate who attempted to steal Sword of Logos property. None of their activities were approved or commissioned. None of this was responsible, or even logical.

It had been an adjustment for Ryoga, operating under Sophia in the Northern Base. Security was disappointingly thin, with an unaffiliated bookstore serving as a secret and unguarded entrance to their most precious treasures. Basic operational management was utterly absent; for his first staff meeting, only Reika attended, despite his use of the word Mandatory seventeen times in the preceding email. (He’d taken the phrase Under Penalty Of Imprisonment out of his initial draft, on her recommendation. He should have known she’d be too soft.) He would say it was like dealing with children, but even the children of the Southern Base would be a more effective and cohesive unit than this group.

But one went into battle with the army one had, not the army one wished one had. He was going to make this collection of misfits and traitors into a diligent and respectful army of swordsmen. He just needed to make sure this random pirate they’d trusted wasn’t going to do anything suspicious.

Once Ryoga protected the guild from Twokaiser, he was sure he’d gain their respect.

I'm so glad you used that screencap as your header for this one. It's such a perfect moment of Touma realizing he screwed the pooch and everyone reacting accordingly. The plot being "Touma screwed up because he got too carried away and wasn't paying attention" is very funny to utilize.

Also I'm pretty sure a server I'm in ended up using Touma's expression as an emote too.

But yeah, it's a pretty fun special and honestly I'm just glad it exists? I've always found the specials they try to do very fun... for the most part. Gaim and ToQger alongside Drive and Ninninger are harmlessly fun specials with some nice gags. Ghost and Zyuohger while sticking to separate episodes, made the most out of not having a special by doing having an A and B-Plot separating some of the cast into a mini-crossover.

Ex-Aid and Kyuranger were glorified cameos that felt tacked on at best.

And after that there were no more crossovers... until now! I suppose what I'm trying to say is, it just existing is what makes me like it. Also I feel like Twokaiser is definitely stronger in his own series and also with his full supporting cast surrounding him. When he's on his own... especially when it's not the Main Zenkaigers interacting with him, he's... eh, at best.

As for our story... was not expecting Ryoga of all people to get the spotlight but I do enjoy you pushing him as the serious business "I need order" kind of guy. Definitely gives off that vibe when it comes to how formal he is with Sword of Logos tradition and such.

Of all of Saber's special episodes, I've always thought of this one as the one that I didn't know existed until three minutes ago.

The Gaim one is the most crossovery one I can think of (definitely not Ex-Aid), but it's also the one where Kouta's a colossal asshole about sending his best friend to a farm upstate with some weird train kids he just met, so this episode of Saber sort of wins the Most Fun Crossover contest by clearing an incredibly low bar of actually containing two shows' worth of characters and not making me furious at the title Rider.

Yeah, I can't imagine Ryoga finds the flat management structure and individual initiative of the Northern Base to be anything other than a direct assault on his sanity.

That's the main thing everyone brings up about it, honestly -- that you didn't know about it before. Sort of a cliche, really.

That's probably on me. I've had "I didn't know there was a Kamen Rider Saber/Zenkaiger crossover special" tattooed on my face since 2011. This is easily the third most pertinent it's ever been.

About every other hero part, there are those who are redeemed villains too. And here, it's perhaps the actual start of the Shindai siblings' redemption, with Ryoga opening up a bit to say nice words here. although still limiting himself, and apparently, the show portrays Reika's open fawning for Ryoga as her loosening up, even though she'd still be hostile to others in relation to Ryoga as what she warned the cast for Ryoga's actions. Ren kinda gains development here to not merely seek strength as in to physically overpower others, but also likely in deeper meaning of strength, seen in his determination, which does mean that Touma's words do stick to him. Though Ren being worried about Kento is his most persistent trait until now. I wonder if you fell for Kento's sulking at the beginning of which it's done as a misleading that actually Kento has rejoined the main cast now.

Outside of the main Riders' bottomless empathy though, it seems that there's a thing where humans (as Touma and Rintaro see him as) would be seen as inherently not irredeemable by those kind of Riders. The franchise has an approach where if they're human (more recently), they must be able to be redeemed, but if they're monsters, or human villains discarding their humanity to turn into one, it's the only time to be ok to wail on them. Other from that, though the main Riders having this kind of empathy is almost mandatory, seems that Rintaro also tries to get Isaac to join them, I mean that, he's already established as a nice secondary Rider, but dunno if it's almost similar level of empathy a secondary has to a main Rider for occassional few (among the franchise), or Rintaro's attachment to SoL, though Rintaro insisted that Isaac is a homo sapiens too as a reason to try to get him to join.

Seems to be wrong for Touma being infuriated part here, for Isaac, it seems that he too tries to get Touma to join him, showing that even Isaac sorta has a respect for Touma, in twisted way (no, this is ain't a redeeming trait, but talking about series treatment), of which as usual, the villains think they're doing the heroes a favor by preserving their well-being (for other methods, trying to corrupt the heroes like joining them by revealing that their actions will result in their suffering), as in "saving" him 15 years ago, but obviously, they can't comprehend about people caring about others' well-being, and thus Touma is infuriated by what happened to the others at the cost of his well-being, as he'd put others' well-being above his own. The only way he'd appreciate is if they save Touma without endangering anyone else.

About Solomon not mounting new offense, that'd be something later touched on (I guess). The difference here would be the usual, villain's smirk is gone due to their pride being wounded, reduced into raging lunatic who can't speak. I didn't think that the previous one has Solomon being beaten, though Saber did have upper hand, but just escaped. And regarding Solomon, there's a superb performance done by the Shindai siblings here to have Sabela be the one who takes the Wonder Ride Books back from Solomon.

No, but I thought it was very cute, him and Touma (and Mei and Rintaro) doing a goofy production of the story of Momotaro. It's just like when they were kids, which is how you know that Kento's back for good.

Zox! <3

So, you're actually watching this a decent few episodes before it actually aired. That's fine, from the 'Special Chapter' title you can tell that they wrote this one to exist somewhat out of continuity. Funnily enough though, the Zenkaiger half of this special is numbered for that show, and does contain at least One new development that means it's definitely in continuity for Zenkai!

...I'll have more to say about the Zenkaiger half of things during the Zenkaiger portion (as it it a show I absolutely adore!,) but I just want to start by saying I /promise/ Zox doesn't normally come off as Quite this Daiki-like. It's a matter of circumstance here- partially because he's temporarily in the 'crossover annoyance from another dimension' role, partially because this, the Zenkaiger episode following, and Super Hero Senki are 3 of the only 4 times the Zenkaigers were ever written by anyone other then Zenkaiger Series Writer Junko Komura. It's one of the Saber writers, Nobuhiro Mouri who wrote these three, (although Miss Komura has a supervisor credit.) To his credit though, while the Saber half of course has the vibes of a Saber episode, he does do a pretty good job getting into Zenkai Brain for the next half!

Ah yes, episode 43.5.

For the most part, I’m going to make this thread an explanation of much of Zenkaiger’s relevant etymology.

Tozitend = derived from “Tojite” (close) and “tendo” (heaven)

Twokaizer = portmanteau of “two”, “tsukai” (exciting) and “Kaiser” (German for emperor)

Zox Goldtsuiker = Zox is derived from “zoku”, meaning “thief”, while the “tsuiker” part of his surname is a corruption of “tsuika” (extra), since he’s the Extra Hero for Zenkaiger.

Wald = the English word “World” with the first syllable elongated to sound like “waru” (bad)

And worth noting that Orihime Wald is the only female villain in Zenkaiger… and not only does she only appear in Saber, they went with a male VA for reasons I’ll share next time.

And, here’s a slightly special version of my showing off the toys and translations.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=xgn_-n4BWJ0

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

Twokaizer! Steer to port! Exciting Revolution!

Ohranger! Steer to port! Super-powerful Revolution!

Shinkenger! Steer to port! Serious Sword Revolution!

Zenkaizer! Steer to port! Full Throttle Revolution!

Sempaiger! Steer to port! Senior Revolution!

Fish Sandwich also watched Kamen Rider Saber Special Chapter

You know, I got a strange sense of deja vu as soon as I read this bit, and sure enough...

...it turns out you and I had, well, actually pretty similar opinions on this episode, despite describing it in exactly the opposite terms. (We even both italicized "incredibly"; it's pretty freaky!)

But yeah, while I guess was I was hoping it would have just a little more oomph to it in some way, I did very much enjoy getting this random low-stakes standalone episode of Saber. It's got everyone's base forms, which is always a plus, and less superficially, the thing I definitely love most about it is how much focus it gets to put on Touma being a writer for once. Just those little things like him franctically searching for something to write notes on, or proudly insisiting to Zox that all the books in *his* store are interesting, they're things I still remember from this even now.

I missed having these silly little crossovers once they were gone, so to see it back for Saber -- and to see Saber do a solid job of it, at that -- was a nice little treat.

You can probably count me in on having more to say about the Zenkaiger episode too though. People who know how I feel about Zenkaiger can probably guess what I'm most excited to talk about. :p