[Fish Sandwich]

Saber!!!

This show spoils me yet again! Here I was, all ready to ramble on about the direction, and again, the writing is the thing I ended up being most impressed by. I definitely understand now why Hasegawa is the one handling these scripts. Of all the writers that have worked on Saber, he's maybe the one that has the best grip on how to structure a story. Mouri seems like he's very flexible on all the different shows he's worked on, Fukuda loves his wacky comedy yet can also put tons of emotion into his characters, and I have a feeling I'll be hailing Uchida as some kind of super genius if he gets a main writer gig one day, but Hasegawa? Dude did the series composition for Ultraman Nexus, one of the most intricately plotted tokusatsu shows I've ever seen. I think he has a real talent for looking at a story almost like a puzzle, and finding the places all the individual pieces need to fit to create a single cohesive image.

(An example that springs to mind of something that displays this on an episodic level is episodes 35/36 of Drive, a tense thriller of a two-parter where the entire plot effortlessly expands out of the striking simplicity of a man holding the title character at gunpoint in the first scene.)

This is obviously a very helpful skill to have when it comes to writing Saber, a series with more pieces to sort out than usual. All these Riders means stories feeling bloated and/or rushed is a very real concern, and yet Hasegawa has it completely under control here.

Just about every combination of characters you could ask for is getting covered. We started this final showdown with everyone together, things are on track to end with the main trio standing tall against the end of the world, and everything in-between has been wonderfully varied. I thought it was a bummer that Ren didn't get to hang out with Kento last week right up until he did. I also thought it was a bummer that we didn't get the classic veteran duo of Slash and Buster, and hey, guess who comes to Ogami's aid this week, even despite his own grievous wounds? The trick here that I really love is that there's nothing arbitrary about how the characters are being shuffled around. Kento gets to hang out with Touma first because they're also an established pairing. You know the newfound strength Ren displays isn't about impressing Daishinji, so you'll better understand that it's not about impressing Kento anymore either. Daishinji gets that moment to himself with his beloved Suzune. Ogami needs help from Daishinji, but he gets to be the stubborn and stalwart Rider we love him for being beforehand telling Rintarou he's got things covered by himself. Rintarou is behind Reika and Ryouga so that he gets the tiniest little moment with them on his way to Touma. Reika and Ryouga are the only ones not switching things up because the only characters they've ever needed are each other. And then on the flipside of all this, Saikou and Calibur were doing cool things together immediately, but now Yuri is playing that solitary guiding role he often does using his healing powers to help all the other Riders who are beat to heck from all the fighting.

Again, it all feels really thoughtful in how it's put together, and the emotions of all these scenes are great, to boot. The visceral desperation of both the Daishinji/Ogami scenes and the Reika/Ryouga ones was amazing. There's a real chemistry to both of those duos that comes across, and this great balance between them winning those battles, and it also being like "call you call that a win though?" (Major props for having Reika land the killing blow by the way! I'm super glad I didn't have to find out how upset I'd be if that had happened the other way around!)

Of course, this is all without even mentioning the main hero yet. Or well, I guess Touma would prefer it if I just said everyone was the main hero, and with how much love all of these characters have gotten right up to the end, it's not that absurd a claim to make. Still though, Touma's humble proclamation that's he just a novelist is a great moment that leads into yet another great scene of Touma heroically expressing platitudes while failing to stand up straight. I only joke because I unironically love this stuff, of course. I feel like it's been a while since Touma has given a speech with *that* posture, and it's legitimately enough of an iconic move for the guy that it was great timing to bring it back.

Really, everything about his chat with Storious is so fantastic I don't even know where to start. Again, the timing is impeccable, in terms of how it cuts back and forth between the other plot threads. I especially adored the way the music builds from "I'm just a novelist" for nearly three whole minutes all the way up to Slash firing off that finishing blow, for example. The content of the the conversation itself is also great on a lot of levels. It confirms what I was assuming about Storious last time, building strong parallels between him and Touma in exactly the way I like for my heroes and villains. They're completely different, and yet undeniably similar, and all of those things are playing into the show's central themes, which are themselves perfectly tying together all the predestination stuff that's been hinted at with the broader notions of storytelling that are meant to be core to the show. It is truly a plot fit for the Rider who is a swordsman and a novelist. Touma is both a hero fighting against the fate of the world, and a writer standing up for the inspirational value of his craft. Beautiful.

Like, seriously, this thing is REALLY coming together you guys! And then you've got Mei's whole thing here! Her scenes are awesome too! There's like a serious, major influence she's having on the conclusion, and that's great! I'm... it's like I'm proud of her, I think, for having evolved to this point from someone who, at the outset, could have ended up as nothing more than a simple comic relief character who genuinely would've just stood politely around during the final act.

It's an episode that lets you feel the growth everyone has had, and that's also heavily apparent in the performances, as well. My guy Hidenori Ishida is the one directing these last episodes of Saber (because this show definitely just likes me), and getting the most out of his actors is something he's always focused on, from what I understand. Which would mean that when he's dealing with a cast who have already spent so long in these roles, you get some incredible results. As much as I lovingly mock his repetitive stance during heroic speeches, Shuuichirou Naitou delivers a lot of his lines here with a level of conviction I didn't think he had in him early on. Asuka Kawazu has similarly found a lot of nuance for Mei over time. I'm still shocked how much Mayuu Yokota feels like she's just always been Luna. Angela Mei is such a treasure it's no wonder Mouri specifically wrote that Zenkaiger episode so Reika got to hang out with Magine. Robin Furuya's whole direction for Storious has won me over completely at this point, so good on Ishida for apparently inspiring it in the first place by telling him the whole show's ending hinges on his performance.

...I don't know, I could go on like this for days. I think most of my posts about Saber by this point ended simply when I got tired rather than when I felt I had expressed everything I wanted to say. I haven't even touched on all the usual gorgeous Ishida visuals! I went on that whole rant about Hasegawa and structure and didn't even mention how the Xross Saber fight scene is like a microcosm of that with how it has Touma going through every sword before landing at good ol' Rekka in the end! But hey, that's always been a huge part of the fun of Saber for me. It's a show where I always feel like there's yet more layers to unpack and little touches to appreciate.