[DreamSword]

I've now watched up through episode 34 of Saber, and thus have finished its second arc.

The short version of my opinion is that I felt the first arc was better.

This arc was the polar opposite of the one that came before it in alot of ways. The pacing is way slower, which to some might be seen as the biggest positive, but to me it was more of a detriment.

Arc 1's' pacing meant that the show was always steadily moving towards some goal or idea, whereas arc 2's' pacing has the show come to a grinding halt, which made the thing feel like a total drag alot of times. Sure, arc 1 had certain episodes that probably would've benefit from being made into a 2-parter, but I felt like arc 1 had alot of episode pairs that could've(and should've) easily just been oneoff. Like the discovering of separating a person and a Megid. "You never asked!" just made me roll my eyes.

And when it comes to characters, sure, arc 1 didn't give most characters a whole lot, but the attention was alot more equally spread overall. When it comes to arc 2, certain characters either get shafted(Ren gets next to nothing in comparison to everyone else), or the way in which they're handled really rubs me the wrong way. I know this won't be a popular take, but I felt next to nothing when it came to Rintaro's' arc here.

Arguably, the biggest disappointment for me when it came to this arc was how it handled the oath of friendship that happened in arc 1 between Touma, Rintaro, and Kento. While it's not direct, the events that transpire in arc 2 essentially mean that the oath was next to nothing in the eyes of Rintaro and Kento. Especially Rintaro. The contrived ways in which the plot has Touma and Rintaro never properly talking and especially Rintaro attacking Touma on sight really wore on me. This was a situation wherein I couldn't stand the plot suddenly taking the stance of the three's' friendship needing to earned, because it already was back in arc 1!

At first, the way Saber began had me very interested in where it was going, and now I'm almost totally out of it. I don't think the show itself is out and out horrible, and arc 2 did have some solid moments and character stuff that I did enjoy(mostly from Yuri), but man, my drive towards this show has lowered by alot, and I feel like this last third of the show is really gonna make it or break it for me. And that's not even counting post-show stuff.