Kamen Rider Saber Episode 33- "The Future Can Still Change!" Discussion
 

Master Logos calls for the gathering of all Rider Swords.

I'll wait for the subs to come out. The live viewing was interrupted many a times and my wi-fi was screwing over as well, heh.

But Ren having a go at Sabela along with Dezast was really nice, though.

The preview for 34 indicates that Yuri and Bacht were friends at some point.

The thought never even crossed my mind since Yuri wasn't properly introduced until the second quarter, but that actually makes so much sense.

Subs are out! We have two new pieces of information for this episode.
One, Ren was actually a swordsman of the Southern Base! Sucks that it took this long for this info, but I guess this kinda explains his screwy attitude? He's been trained there and the other two swordsmen there are not really quite stable people as well.

Two, Sophia is basically a bootleg Luna. I mean, I always thought that Sophia may have some relations to Luna, one point in the show thinking she was Luna, but I didn't expect it to be like this. Also, seems like Storious is making his own Sophia as well.


Ren finally joins up with Dezast and I'm frankly excited to see where this goes. I like their interaction so far and I do hope Ren gets a round two against Sabela sometime soon. I feel like he's a perfect match against her, being a swordsman of wind after all.

Kento still refuses to join Touma but he's getting there. Guess that comes next week. I like Kento, man. He's cool. I did he was in Jaou Dragon to match up with Touma's Elemental Primitive against Logos, or Touma in Brave Dragon just so we could get a nice pairing, but it was neat to see Calibur and Saber partnered up together just like back then. I'm still 50/50 whether I want to see him use Espada again or stay as Calibur since both would be narratively strong for him.

Kento using Espada again means he gets reach that sword's full potential and sets himself as his own swordsman. Separate from his father's legacy, and also maybe a chance to see Yuri pick up Kurayami as well, cuz dual wielding riders are cool to see. OR Kento keeps Kurayami, resetting the sword's role as an allied sword and cleansing his father's name. And also becomes a nice pair up to Touma's Saber like what we see here.

Speaking of Touma, seems like the Primitive book was the cause of Touma's visions last week and this week's opening of a portal to Luna. Not sure if I'd be happy with Touma gaining abilities just like that, but ok. Wonder if the set leak I saw back then was supposed to be a return of Primitive Dragon.

Yuri "dies" next week! Oh no! Interesting to see he has history with Bacht, would be nice backstory for the two. I was almost bummed Yuri was gonna die on the same week his SHF goes up for pre-order, but he's with Slash and Buster against Solomon sometime later, so not too worried about his immortality.

I am 90% sure that if Luna is saved she takes Ikazuchi if anything Mei is becoming bootleg Sophia

Unlikely. Magazine scans already have Luna getting freed and she stays as a child.

If Saber excels at nothing else, it does an excellent job of establishing great character dynamics.

Normally with a "rival" character like Kento, you would expect them to be hostile and aggressive towards our lead, even if they're currently allied against a common enemy. But here, the dynamic between these two is so unique because of the history between these characters and the mutual respect and admiration they have for one another. They're clearly capable of sitting down and talking with one another peacefully without it escalating into an unnecessary fight. It's honestly a very refreshing dynamic to see in Rider.


On the other hand, I never would have guessed I'd be this excited for Ren and Dezast to team up but it totally works to have someone as hot-headed as Ren pair up with someone as cool and collected as Dezast, and they have some really great chemistry. It also makes sense with both of them being somewhat wildcards currently who value strength and have Blood Knight tendencies.

But I think Fish will be able to verbalize my thoughts better than I can so I'll leave it to him lol

Lol, same

I really like how open the characters are towards each other. Most other Riders would handwave compliments or love/admiration by insulting the person or backtracking on their statement. It's nice to see most of the cast in Saber not doing that.

I've heard on other toku boards that Saber's doing horribly in terms of sales, and the show in particular isn't loved on Japanese forums. It kinds hurts seeing such a good show get shafted by fans. I hope next season does better.

I'm not sure I ever really got across how much I loved Kento back in the first act of the show? I mean, I probably said some nice things about him here or there, but I don't think I ever really dug too deep into the way the show was building his personality. Like, back when he had three different losing fights against Jaou Dragon in a row, for example. That was something that's very easy and very fun to joke about, because of how redundant it felt to have three straight weeks of tuning into Saber to watch Espada get smacked around, but I honestly think that was perfect for Kento.

Kento's whole thing is that no matter how hard he tries, or how much the people in his life reach out to him, he's prone to falling into these patterns of self-destructive behavior. He suffers from a nasty combo of constant crippling feelings of guilt paired with an inability to open up to others about his feelings. Then, on top of that, he also has a very firm belief that his loved ones shouldn't be made to suffer dealing with problems he views as his sole responsibility. It's like every aspect of who Kento is enables all these negative elements, and ultimately, he was totally consumed by it. Of course he'd keep hopelessly throwing himself at Calibur like that, because he simply can't make himself stop. He placed this impossibly huge burden on himself, and despite Touma's efforts to shoulder that with him, Kento was crushed under that weight in the end.

Except it wasn't the end, now was it?

Kento then came back as Calibur, and despite the way his new sword's powers have driven him to further extremes, it's been obvious Touma sees this as a second chance. He's seen where heading down a path like this has led Kento once, and he refuses to let that happen again, even if he's uncertain of what he can do differently this time around.

All of this preamble is to say, I thought this episode was extremely true to these two characters, and Hiroki Uchida is already more than welcome as part of the writing team.

I've said variations of this countless times, and I'll say it again -- I utterly adore how... let's go with "earnest" this week? Yeah, that's good. I adore how earnest these people are towards one another. It is such a wonderful thing to have a Kamen Rider show where the hero's best friend can be a guy literally powered by darkness, and their mutually exclusive goals still don't prevent them from sitting down for a nice picnic. Everything about the scenes with Touma and Kento together in this episode is so emotionally raw and touching and heartbreaking and I ate it all up the way Kento was eating that food. The way Touma just breaks down after a while and begs Kento to come back to him, especially, was fantastic. Just, the utter lack of animosity between these two, and how much more tragic that makes their inability to reach an understanding. In so many ways, that bond and those common goals are still there, something further emphasized by having a Saber/Calibur team-up against Master Logos here. I'm realizing more and more how important a theme trust is in Saber, and the way it explores that continues to fascinate me.

(I do really wish that had been Brave Dragon in that fight though, to be honest.)

And then there's also a whole subplot with Ren this week, too! I think my energy is pretty used up from gushing about Touma and Kento, but naturally, I found a lot to love in everything else that was happening. It's been a while since we've got to see Yuri's absent-minded curiosity about the modern world, so seeing that back was a great way to balance out the tone, especially when it ends up connecting back to Rintarou's own early habit of being fascinated by mundane things that are new to him, which is how you know Uchida has been studying up properly to write this show. Desast and Ren's buddy cop adventures themselves also sound quite promising. I enjoyed the drastic contrast in Reika's personality depending on who she's talking to as well, which can even be taken to sort of imply there's always been that other side to her we just weren't seeing early on? You know, little bonus depth for Sabela in an already jam-packed episode? It was nice. It was similarly neat seeing Rintarou's dialogue during their fight acknowledging her being the immediate source of all the internal conflict the heroes have spent month after month digging their way out of.

To be honest for me this episode is one of the best episode in Saber,man i just love Touma and Kento dynamic so much than Touma and Rintaro,honestly i kinda hope that Kento is the second rider lol.

So Sophia is a bootleg luna and Storius who last week stole a book from nothern base attempted to make his own Sophia?
That it's interesting! And is Kento's father reason betray the guild is because he being provoked by Logos??
So many questions after watching this episode

Its gonna sounds weird, but, with all these good episodes lately, I kinda miss a filler episode. Hoo boi, I need to take a breath before we start to jump into another mystery. This episode, despite it have a calm moment like touma kento picnic for a sec or yuri rintaro antics, its still, too much stuff happening in a single episode.

And also, please remind me since when desast leave the megido. I don't remember he have a conflict with em, why did he released in the first time. All I can remember is when Storius create another desast-kind of megido, zoous and legiel protest that "it will be another desast".


-i think there's a lot of grammatical error. But this is my best xD

Dezast is a wildcard and not really controllable by the Megid. Evidenced by Dezast telling Rintarou and Mei early in the series what the Megid were up to. Calibur Daichi originally owned the Dezast Alter Ride book, which was I can assume was sealed by SOL or was given to him by Storious, he released him to basically do his bidding.

Ah yes, Oomori Hill, my favorite filming location in all of Toku!

That bowl noodle. A staple indicator of a rider going Kageyama. :lolol

I think one thing I've realized, is this the first time we've had Kento have a direct vision in the heat of the moment and not one of his "reminiscing" one's?

Because it made me realize something about Kurayami. I think the visions require direct skin contact?

I only say this because while Kamijo was still a bad guy, the dude was rather well off compared to Kento's constant barrage of visions. And well... I think it finally makes sense as to why he only wore a singular damn glove on his dominant hand.

Hmm, that does make sense.

And also probably why he was transformed often? I mean, the Megid know who he is.

at least this episode makes the earlier episodes make more sense Logos instigated the conflict

Good episode. I especially liked the Kenzan v. Sabela v. Deszast fight. I still don't get what the latter's purpose is, especially since he only show up about once every four episodes, but that was a really good sequence. I'm almost curious to see what the show's going to do with Ren now and it says a lot that the show managed to make me even mildly interested in him.

Also, something that occurred to me when I watched the movie today: do you guys remember when this show used to have ultimate attacks with stuff like cartoon pigs and buff Tinkerbell? That feels like a completely different show now.

Wait, didn't Mitchy....I mean Kento seal Ren's swords? I could have sworn Ren lost his ability to henshin and that's why he was all moody.

Well his sword splits into two pieces. Kento only sealed one half of the sword and we see that never uses the other half in either transformation or battle this episode. This is even confirmed on the official website

Nope. Kento managed to seal only one. Touma stepped in and stopped Kento from stealing both of them.

One of Ren's swords allows him to henshin, while the other concentrates his wind powers -- the latter was the one Kento managed to seal, which is why his fighting in this episode has a lot less of his usual style and powers (which is a nice touch!)

I'm late, once again, because I lost power while watching the episode, and I didn't get power again until I was ready to sleep.

I originally didn't have much to say about this episode, but seeing people point out something I wasn't thinking much about makes me really appreciate this one, so thanks everyone for pointing this out!

Anyway, looks like Reika will have some development going forward, which is great, and Ren might get some kind of new form or something, probably something like Lord Baron from Gaim, or Valkyrie's Jackal form from Zero-One, which I'm looking forward to. Kind of hope Ren comes back, and I like how Kento has a reason he's trying to shun Touma, though he'll eventually come around seeing how many times the future gets changed. I have a theory, but I'll save that for another time.

Next week: Falchion returns! (I'll watch the movie this weekend since it's short)

Why the heck would only sealing the non-transforming sword make any difference in how Kenzan fights? I mean, I can definitely see it's usage restricted in terms of gimmickry but it's still a piece of metal right?

It's basically just a regular sword now, I don't see why Ren has to be stuck with only using one sword now instead of his usual dual-wielding shtick.

I suppose it just a way to tell the audience that Kenzan is now handicapped in compairson to before. Tokusatsu is a very visual medium after all.