[Enchilada645]

Ah yes, Ren... as my friend affectionately (and probably derogatorily) referred to him as Green Bean for the entirety of Saber's run...

Ren makes a terrible first impression, Kenzan looks really cool though and I appreciate that our next non Swordriver Sword has a separate function to make it look cool. The fact that you can do two blades, one blade, or even shuriken? Pretty cool for a wind themed Ninja Rider. Anyway yeah, with Ren you either love him or hate him in his first outing.

And then you'll either continue to hate him or actually warm up to him eventually. Just the mileage will vary and I'm curious as to where it ends up with you!

I personally think the highlight for this episode (aside from Desast, because obviously) was the Rintaro vs. Zooous fight. It's an interesting sort of opposite to everything. Touma and Daishinji get somewhere in finding clues to Avalon, Kenzan beats Desast, Espada deals with a Piranha Megid... and then you've got Rintaro as the odd one out who just completely flops entirely. Like, the single most stunning scene I recall in the first 6 episodes of Saber is the one where you see Zooous just pick up the sword, hand it to a dazed Blades and pat him on the cheek while telling him to cry to mommy. Just... the damn disrespect in that scene is phenomenal. It makes the post credits scene where everyone's gathered with their findings/victories hit harder when you just see a defeated Rintaro lumber in.

Speaking of Rintaro further! That short story... I was not expecting you to do an internal thought sort of story with his just... rage at that singular moment. But it was very nice to see how you interpreted Rintaro's emotional state in that moment, very nice.