[MaskedRiderAsakura]

For me, I'll always say one of my biggest problems with Ghost was that they rushed through the initial conflict between Takeru and Makoto, and by extension, the "99 days" time limit as a whole.

If any Rider vs Rider conflict should have been a little bit more drawn out, it was that, because it's one where miscommunication and secrecy actually isn't at the forefront of it all. Makoto still had his issue with being trapped in the Ganma world, which added in more tension. But really the reason they fought against each other was because they both needed the same things in order to serve different, but similar goals. And in a nice inversion of what would we expect from these character dynamics, the aloof Secondary Rider has a slightly less selfish goal than our idealistic, all-loving hero. And there was definitely enough there to make it an ongoing conflict throughout at least the first half of the show.

But it got resolved far too quickly and it became clear the show didn't really know how to pad itself out for another 30+ episodes. Outside of Alain's character arc, everything from that point on up until maybe the last 5 episodes of the series felt like filler. Sure, maybe important plot-related stuff happened in that time besides that but I don't feel like the stakes ever truly raised during that time period. The plot had already reset Takeru's time limit so he has the same goal as before. And now the genuinely interesting conflict between Takeru and Makoto was replaced with....basically nothing. I loved the stuff with Alain in that middle portion, but while it was great character development, it ultimately didn't move the plot enough for me, especially since Necrom kinda stopped doing stuff at that point in the story beyond being another Rider for fight scenes.

All of this is to say that I think that Saber does this a lot better because it feels like there's an actual progression to this story. We had the initial plot with the Sword of Logos vs Calibur and the Megid. And it's deceptively simplistic because it seems like there's a clear good vs evil conflict going on here, which is why the first couple of episodes are the Riders all buddied up and fighting like a Sentai team. But then as we conclude that plot thread, we're given more information that not only throws the status quo completely out of whack, but also fundamentally changes our established character relationships and the mystery surrounding this organization has been carrying us at least into the 20s.

I think inversing the Rider formula a bit has worked in this show's favor. I don't think it's as good as Gaim, Build or Zero-One at creating an ongoing plot thread that keeps the viewer invested, but I definitely CAN say that the show's been doing a competent enough job at not totally stalling in place.