[Fish Sandwich]

You know, I praised the episode for having Saikou pointedly move his head to subtly convey Yuri's thoughts, and it's just now occurring to me that there's also something technically wrong about that scene, which is that Saikou Shadow isn't supposed to emote like that.

I mean, it's obviously a simple conceit for the sake of the drama, and I'm not actually saying it's a problem (because it's the opposite of that) – I mostly just want to use this as an excuse to mention one more thing I find cool about X Swordman, which is how no matter what form Saikou is in, his consciousness is always supposed to be located wherever the gold mask is. This is even evident in this very episode, where Saikou looks at Touma and Mei with his arm to ask them if they're alright after he saves them. It's a neat way to keep some of the unique weirdness of Saikou's body language around even though X Swordman's default mode makes him into a "normal" Rider.