[Fish Sandwich]

今回はまさに「サイコウ」でしたね～

First of all, just to be clear, Takurou Fukuda is not three different people, so whether it's praise or complaints, I'd appreciate if they were directed towards the actual writer for this episode, Keiichi Hasegawa.

In my case, it is going to be nothing but praise. This is easily the best episode of Saber yet, and a dang good episode of Kamen Rider all around. That's my own personal biased opinion, of course -- one of this episode's biggest victories for me was how much it made me realize seeing the Riders in conflict genuinely upsets me after 15 episodes of camaraderie -- but I legitimately think the writing here was nearly airtight in both how it made the internal conflict work, and the angle the story is taking with it.

They covered their tracks very solidly with the character motivations by playing off of established traits. Touma values promises, and thus refuses to dishonor both his words to Kento, as well as the implied words he likely would've said to the dying Kamijou given the chance. Ren is explicitly the one who escalates the confrontation into physical violence, because he's all about violence. Rintarou is heartbroken at the thought his new friend would speak ill of the family he loves. Daishinji and Ogami are the designated veterans of the current pool of Riders, and as such are both slightly more level-headed and hesitant to join in on the fighting, yet also more liable to trust the word of the organization they've been working with for far longer than they've been working with Touma. They're also probably not trying to actively murder him the way Ren seems to be, nor are they taking it personally like Rintarou is.

It's way too considered and smartly set up to dismiss as cheap writing, as far as I'm concerned. I think it would only look that way if you're only considering Touma's perspective, and the whole thing that I find so clever about this development is how it actively involves the fact that these are individuals with their own viewpoints and principles. I am wildly excited to see where this goes from here. It's a great new direction for a series that seems to be making faith an overarching theme.

But that's honestly not even the biggest thing in the episode that impressed me, which is just how slow it is. There's only one fight scene in this episode, and it doesn't start until the 15 minute mark. In an episode of Saber! There's a very healthy amount of time spent following the characters around in mundane scenarios, and letting them just breathe and talk and relax for once in a while, and I loved every second of that. I hope to see more of it, at least here or there, because it's something Saber could definitely use a bit more of. The big betrayal climax couldn't have happened with anywhere near the clarity and believability it did without that time wisely spent setting it up, and that alone demonstrates how important those smaller scenes can be.

So again, easily the best episode yet. Plus, and this is the really important thing, we've had Brave Dragon show up in three episodes in a row after Dragonic Knight's debut. That's nuts!

Also they went out of their way to have Touma be alone in those shots of the ED with the big books and stuff and not even the upbeat jam could stop that from being depressing.