[Sh Ranger]

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Originally Posted by DreadBringer

Yeah, technically there's Mei in it as a Rider..... Angela Mei and Mei Hanakawa.

Imagine fighting in the DGP to grant the desire of Mei as Rider, only to get this result.

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

KAMEN RIDER SABER EPISODE 42 - ?SO IT BEGINS, THE BEAUTIFUL FINALE?

Very strong episode for Desast, maybe less strong episode for the rest of the cast.

Hey, nice rhyme. However, I think this was a strong episode for most of the characters.

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

Everyone else? it?s okay? We?re setting up an endgame that?s somewhere between 41 episodes and two thousand years in the making, so there?s going to be a little bit of ramping up. Tassel?s death is the major plot development for Storious?s slow-motion armageddon, and it lands as well as it can. There?s real pathos to Tassel?s sense of guilt ? his dream of a better future for mankind ended up getting all of his friends killed ? but it?s left behind by Storious in the next scene. The whole point is that it doesn?t bother Storious that he killed his friend, because he?s seen this all play out millennia ago. There?s an awareness of how far Storious has fallen from a more idealistic self, but he?s ready for all of this to end, and there?s no turning back. It?s a sad end for Tassel, but the episode sort of doesn?t really have anyone to mourn him, or any time to linger on it?

This episode made a lot of people feel bad for ever suspecting Tassel as the villainous Calibur. He's genuinely as kind and amicable as he appears and yet he's suffered on his own for such a long time. For those first 1000 years, he didn't even have Yuri. It's so tragic how desperately he tries to appeal to his last living oldest best friend, that even after getting fatally stabbed by him, he just apologizes for everything and blames himself for introducing Storious to the power that drove him to such deep despair. It's a surprisingly powerful and emotional scene for two characters we've never seen interact before.

It's also an omen that the show is about to get serious, as the man who opened the show and greeted us with Bonne Lecture to lighten the mood is suddenly gone, heralded by the encroachment of Wonder World on the human world, the sky turning Red like Ganma World used to be and Fukuda's return to the show to write the final arc, after several episodes written by secondaries.

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

The most fascinating part of all this for me is that Desast kind of isn?t wrong about his outlook? He frames it in a self-defeating way ? living without friends or purpose ? but this is a dude who fought to live, full stop. He wasn?t guaranteed anything, and almost no one would?ve cared if he died. But he fought to build himself as close to a life as he understood, and then he fought to defend it from Storious. He?s someone like Ren who doesn?t even understand how much of a credo they constructed from just punching in every day, rather than dressing it up in speeches and slogans. There?s beauty in living a life, even if you don?t know what it?s for. Not every story needs to explain itself, you know?

I'd also like to talk about the interaction between Saber and Desast, since this is the first time outside Saber x Ghost where we actually get to see them fight both physically and verbally, with Saber retracting his previous cold statement about Desast not having real emotions and now fully acknowledging that his sadness, anger, excitement and will to live is as real as it gets.

As Storious reveals here, Desast was created on a whim as basically a "concept character", the sum of three unrelated stories carelessly mashed together, a character with no place in the narrative, discarded and left to do whatever he wants. But Saber argues for Desast's right to live, that even an artificial life granted as an afterthought is still a miraculous life and Storious is wrong to call that life worthless.

While Desast denies wanting friendship and meaning, to hide his vulnerability, he truly wants to feel alive and find a place to belong in the world. Somewhere along the way, without realizing, he found his own place in the narrative, in Saber's battles, Ren's pursuit of true strength and the world he loves too much to give up when there's so much left to experience. Storious decided to bring the end of everything, but Desast who wants to live can no longer stop his own story from ending. However, he can decide how his story ends and he can turn the page for a story that will succeed him.

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

THE WORST HAS YET TO COME

Rintarou/Mei is still my favorite in this show, but Daishinji/Sophia is seriously cute as well!