[Fish Sandwich]

...When did Saber get this good?

Like, I mean, I knew this was a Kamihoriuchi episode, and I expected something better than usual because of that, but I figured that'd just be me praising some pretty visuals and maybe making another dumb 神回 pun, you know? This episode goes so far beyond that, and it's blowing my mind a little, even as someone very used to being on board with Saber.

And of course, the visuals are REALLY good. When you talk about giving berserker Kamen Rider powerups a big impact, you're going to be talking about Kamihoriuchi, but having him work with Primitive Dragon only makes it all the more apparent how different it is from something like Hazard Form in Build. Touma's nightmare at the very start is a wonderfully directed scene; it might as well be Kamihoriuchi signing his name on the episode.

It's genuinely a bit unnerving, with that initial pan out from Saber's hand, revealing in turn each of the Riders who have fallen by it, but it's the subsequent pained screams from Primitive Dragon that truly made it for me. We're not dealing with some emotionless human weapon, or the personification of malice itself -- this is a wild animal lashing out in rage at everything around it because it's long forgotten any other way to express its profound sorrow, and that is an interesting story concept right there! Immediately, without much in the way of real dialogue, it's easy to understand Touma's concern about losing control, which drives a fair bit of the episode, while subtly planting the seeds to get the viewer looking as Primitive Dragon as something more complex than it seems like, which is clearly driving the next several episodes.

All of that is only the first couple minutes of this episode, and it really never lets up from that point.

I'll mention here that Sabela is indeed pretty freakin' cool, because I'll forget to later if I don't now. Again, Reika is an interesting character with a great performance behind her, and I like that the episode went out of its way to make her awesome evil instead of just evil. It straight up revels in how bad she is in such a fun way. And unlike Primitive Dragon, she gets a cool new music track that I'm pretty sure is actually from the show's composer! (The way it kinda fades up to cut to Rintarou and Mei especially is straight out of countless Gaim scenes.)

The suit itself only kinda does it for me? I like everything it's going for with the classy soulless career lady vibe (check out that collar!), and I even think the weird angle for the head-sword is like, is chic the right word? It just fits the rest of the design's language to me, and it matches how she holds the sword when transforming like it's supposed to, so all that's good. And actually, looking at it closer, I just noticed there's a neat sort of Kabuto thing going on where an entire insect is going up her whole torso... you know what, I think I'll let Sabela rattle around in my brain for a while before making any big judgements. Kinda seems like a suit I'll grow more fond of with time and/or seeing it do lots of cool things in the show.

Anyway, getting back to the meat of the episode, I obviously adored Rintarou's side of the plot. It's a perfect blending of what Kamihoriuchi is amazing at, which is really letting the emotions of the characters carry the scenes, and something I loved about Fukuda's writing on Ghost, which is how great he can be about creating engaging, meaningful dramatic conflict between characters who are both fundamentally good people. There's such a humanity to those scenes. Landing Touma and Rintarou's big conversation on the beat of them being so unable to stay mad at each other they start shouting compliments was so incredible I can barely begin to describe how much I loved it. This cast is so awesome, you guys.

And this episode is, too! It's got a million things going on, as ever, but the show has found a groove where it can make it all easy enough to digest, and keep the story tense and exciting while it's at it. I mean, having all the stuff it already does, and then ending it on f***ing Kento coming back as Calibur for the cliffhanger is basically showing off. I'm sure there will still be at least a rough patch or two going forward, but man, Saber has been knocking it out of the park these last few weeks.