Kamen RIder Saber Episode 20- "The Will Of The Sword Destroys The Stronghold!"
 

A battle ensues over the blade of the fallen hero Kento, as Tetsuo learns the new secret of the Megid.

Oh boy! I can't wait for my favorite form to get absolutely trashed by two different parties.

With this image tho, it's become apparent to me that they don't really want nothing touching the suit and so insists on bringing back Crimson Dragon. Most appearances on Q2 so far has had Touma pull it out only to use a special attack.

Is there an actual reason for this? It's something related to covid and its impact on production isn't it?

Could be that the suit was expensive to make and they don’t want it getting damaged, or that it’s rather heavy, and so unwieldy for animated stunt choreography.
It could be Covid, but that wouldn’t explain it being isolated to Dragonic Knight.

I highly doubt the suit would be too expensive to make considering the amount of detail on Crimson Dragon. Either that or they're stretching out their suit budget due to the WHOPPING amount of unique suits made for each Rider.

But if the suit really is heavy (which I'm not too sure about) then I see they've learnt nothing from the whole Kiva metal leg ordeal.

You see, Crimson Dragon was the real Q1 Upgrade the entire time...

This is how I will cope.

With the expense thing, I more meant that it could be made from a different material from usual, that is either more expensive, or more fragile and prone to damage.
Just theories, of course, though.

Just hope Primitive Dragon doesn't suffer the same fate as Dragonic Knight.

Ayy! What a surprise to see that Dragonic held up! Although, this feels very final for it. Next week is Yuri's new form and most likely the form after it is Primitive.

With how jumpy Asai looks in the Primitive form, it seems they finally fixed the issue with Dragonic and we'll see the form used more often.

Also, Ren. I love Ren in this one. Love as in "look at this child go on a tantrum haha" kind.

My only main issue is that no one in SOL seems to recognize that Ren is in a broken mental state, except mayyyybe Ogami. But he only brushed that off.

I'm surprised they actually wrapped up the King Megid stuff with a two parter, didn't the rumored episode summaries suggest this would take 3 eps?

Anyhow, the episode itself was alright. Touma using Daishinji's technique to beat Storious was neat. Dezast's literal jumping into the middle of a fight with no regard for who's on who's side or what's going on was entertaining. Reika harping on Kento's death to push Ren into fighting Touma, while I'm sure is infuriating to some, is honestly most believable way she's manipulated the northern base riders so far.

Touma's list that he gave to Mei had an interesting amount of content. Specifically, something about the "Sword of Hope".


The Last Messiah
The Legendary Sword of Hope
Holy Sword Revelations Prologue
Break Knight's Castle
Last Eagle Holy Sword Team
Imitation Prison

The place where I watch the RAWs has started doing subs so I was able to watch this episode subbed early and in high quality. Yay!

Most humorous part for me was Yuri trying to walk down an ascending escalator. I thought his "How convenient! .... How inconvenient." was very relatable and a prodigious description of how escalators have caused more problems than benefits for the young and fit.

You know what else is causing more problems than benefits? Kenzan! This episode has the return of Desast who follows up on his ominous comment in Kenzan Retsuden about Ren being "one of them", happily claiming "I knew you were one of us!" which just seems to tick off Ren even more. Desast definitely has a point though. Right now, Ren's actions aren't so different from the Megids and he seems to have forgotten the true meaning of strength and justice, now just being obsessed with avenging Kento even after Kamijo's death. Touma is fighting to honor Kento and continue their crusade but Ren is filled with hatred that Reika is using to manipulate him, corrupting him just like Hayato. How will Ren react when he inadvertently becomes a traitor himself?

Mei practically punching Yuri in the gut with his Driver was absurdly hilarious.

I haven't seen much but i have seen Mei basically transforming Yuri.

I'm always a fan of third-party transformations.

The sheer whiplash of everything happening at once in this show to nothing happening at all has put me in a neck brace.

I believe they try to push the RKF Dragonic knight & wonder combo set Until the new one show up. Before this RKF launched, even dragonic knight as a new form rarely show up. I bet crimson dragons gonna faded away once the primitive dragon’s RKF come out in market.

The only flaw in my theory is “why they don’t push the king lion dai senki too?”

Interesting theory, but yeah, it doesn't really work when we factor in King Lion DaiSenki. On the bright side, RKF Dragonic Knight and King Lion DaiSenki have sold so well that they're basically carrying the RKF line, which I'm really glad about.

King Lion DaiSenki has to be the worst form I've seen in a while - at least in terms of relevancy in the narrative. At least the toy's cool, but good lord, it really has accomplished nothing in the show thus far and hasn't contributed to Rintaro's development in any capacity. It also really doesn't help that Rintaro has been sidelined, for better or for worse.

But then again, Vulcan AssaultWolf might have just set the bar too high.

I think what doesn't help is that comparing the two upgrades side by side.

Touma gained his by showing his conviction and determination in stopping Calibur.

Rintaro meanwhile was like "Daishinji give me the next upgrade" and then they loaded in his books and stuff and he just waited around until new toy was done.

I feel there's too much characters to juggle . Last week Was a good way to incorporate Slash, but him trumping touma is a bit much. Thus week
Ren and desast doesn't amount to much. They just added scenes of actors instead of putting them aside in the background. I feel like in there's no internal struggle, then there's no need for 3 villains. The 3 factions is cool with story, legend, and beast that sync up nicely to touma rintaro kento 3 books meaning and symbols, but they never reach deep to explore. The villains aren't even competing among eachother or have anything unique to add on the plate.

Looks like more southern base disposable foot soldier of swordsman and their leader the head of SOL will make an appearance soon with sophia later this month. All we know is megido and the Sol traitor both wants to write their ideal world, but there's nothing compelling about it to drive the interest like add more layers to their characters at least.

Pretty much primitives dragon can access rintaro book or anyone book. The toy allow you swap out any book . It doesn't need to be dragon. There's a pic of primitive lion, but aside from chest, the helmet is the same.

so... no one mention chichin pui pui or its just the subs that I watch who naughtily put chichin pui pui in the text?

I have no idea where you thought I was somehow referring to that form I don't think we're allowed to name yet cause spoilers.

I was literally following after the conversation of how there's a weird difference in showcasing Dragonic Knight and King Lion DaiSenki.

That was a great Easter Egg that only proved once and for all that Chinchin Pui Pui transcends time and space.

I hope Desast pointing out Ren's similarities to the villains and his anti-heroic attitude would allow the show to give him some character development.

Slim chance, but I can still hope.

Chinchin pui pui isn’t a Wizard or Shunpei reference, guys...
It’s a stock magic phrase in Japan, like, say, Abra Kadabra.

I think you mean Alkazam, not Abra Kadabra.

Those are both stock magic phrases, unless you think they're talking about pokemon.

I meant that Shunpei's incantation was translated as Alkazam.

By one or two subbing groups, sure. But Alakazam is a no more accurate translation than Abra Kadabra is. They’re all just stock magic words.

So what you're saying is the translations are just hocus pocus?

And that's how you know it's Aruto!

Well, since we now know that humans can turn into Megids, if any SoL member seems at a high risk for that it's probably him. Or it might even be revealed that all the Megid generals were former humans, and were like him in some way - loved to fight, believed strength is justice, wanted revenge, or something else - before becoming monsters.

I love you a little bit for that.

Could also be that he is actually a Megid but somehow has been chosen to be a Swordsman. It would at least explain his more aggressive nature.

So this Touma got fucked by so many people at once I question if this was porn. Now that I got to say that dumb joke.

HOW THIS SHOW IS HANDLING REIKA IS COMPLETE SHIT!!!! Why? Because they are literally not trying to hide the fact she is bad. Is it wrong to ask for her to appear friendly and good willed so it be easier to convince the other swordsmen that she is in the right? Like holy hell they even have the Southern Branch Base with no lights on all the time.

Is it wrong to ask for this show to put in effort? At least Buster and Slash are doing something.

You can really tell a Fukuda episode apart from other writers by how much of a cartoon character Mei becomes. It's really jarring seeing her act fairly normal when someone else is in charge only for her to go full Looney Tunes when Fukuda is doing the script. Interesting, but not a fan.

I've really been getting into the show lately and overall this was a good episode. I loved the four-way fight between Touma, Ren, Desast, and Generic Boy Band Member #2. You could feel the desperation in Touma as he tried to fend off enemies on all sides and it made for a great, tense action scene.

Less fond of the scene between Touma and Rintaro, where Rintaro finally seems to be coming around and Touma immediately launches into the "there's a traitor in Sword of Logos" thing when he should know that's going to immediately shut down any change of heart.

The IRL explanation is that the kids have to know who the bad guy is. Gai was somewhat like this, too during Q1. He assists the heroes, yet you can call he's the bad guy.

Plus, I don't know if it's just how Angela Mei is acting, but it seems more like she's just tired and annoyed than she is actually conniving and evil. This whole war has been going on for more than ten years now, so it wouldn't be at all suspicious to the other swordsmen that she acts like this. Plus, in my opinion, she makes some compelling enough arguments to get emotionally unstable folks like Rintaro and Ren riled up. I think it's done well that it's Ogami and Daishinji whom are somewhat distrustful of her, going so far as to go out scheme behind her as well.

I hope that isn't the reason because then they must think kids are not bright. They made her wear all black, seem cold and uncaring. Let alone the always dark southern branch base. Like this wouldn't be so bad if Sophie wasn't always dressed in white with a more welcoming appearance. Literally both of them are so close to having a hiant neon sign pointing at them to tell you which is good and bad.

Now I am hoping that Reika and Sophie are the same person just split (by a sword maybe) just so it would make sense why they are so opposite of each other.

I don’t think you should really be expecting a lot of subtlety in a show ran by the guy who did the farting Jim Carrey alien episodes of Ultraman Max.

Ah, yes, because Sid and Ryoma totally didn't have shiftily written all over them. Don't pretend like this is a unique thing to this show.

And them not hiding that Reika is evil doesn't mean it's bad writing. That would be if they'd try to make us shocked she was. No, the show even lets Touma shout it out. They're using her shiftiness to drive drama up, which is a totally valid way of doing this, especially since the swordsman trusting her makes sense.

At least they had a personality.

Man, watching Ren's actor struggle to act pissed off in that scene with Reika was rough. Of all of the swordsmen, Eiji Togashi is by far the weakest actor and this episode only brought that to light.

I kinda loved the fight where everyone and their brother was targeting Saber. It could have been a confusing mess, but the fight choreography and cinematography was on top of its game here and made each character's motivation and allegiance very clear. That was just about the only highlight of this episode.

- As already mentioned in this thread, I just hate how Mei is written by Fukuda. He's so close to writing competent female leads, but he always winds up making them comic relief.

- I hated how this got dragged out to two episodes. And man, the Megiddo host was such an afterthought in this two-parter that we didn't even get an epilogue scene to wrap up his arc at the end of the episode.

Kamen Rider Saber has been in danger of collapsing under its own weight from the very beginning, and after a few decent episodes where the status quo got shaken up, we're right back into murky waters. Just like how the ZAIA challenge got old immediately last year, this arc is already running out of steam. There are so many moving parts in this story right now, and yet I still don't feel that connected to the main cast.

We're almost halfway through this show and, unless we get a Kamen Rider Blade level retooling, I am worried this show will be remembered as one of the weakest in the entire franchise. We are 20 episodes in, and it just refuses to come together.