[DreadBringer]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

KAMEN RIDER SABER EPISODE 10 - “SWORDS UNITED, UNDER A SHARED BELIEF”

That’s not to say that the emotional component isn’t here as well, it’s just… I don’t know, I found it sweet, but it sort of lost me at the end. I really enjoyed how much Touma and Rintaro are willing to highlight Kento’s moodiness and evasiveness, especially as they use it to offer up their support. Kento’s story to this point is that if anyone learned his horrible secret, they’d never be his friends again. And that’s honestly a fair thing for him to think, since he’s mostly been surrounded by Teammates and Co-Workers thus far. With Touma (and, to a lesser extent, Rintaro), he’s actually got someone to support him outside the structure of the Sword of Logos. He’s got a friend who will shoulder some of that emotional burden, and he never thought to ask for that. Touma’s method of looping their stories in together gives Kento the resolve to challenge Calibur, and win.

Man yeah, that's the difference between the audience, who already knows character's traits, and the people inside who interacted with them. Dramatic irony or internal reveal is a stuff in stories, but as someone who'd have evasiveness like Kento, I'd think if only I got audience-like knowledge of the people, I'd know to accept or avoid support - in this case, I'd immediately confide to Touma as I'd know he's a goody two shoes thus he'd do best to support me, and also Rintaro as he's nice though he got problems in socializing. Other than that, there's also Mei who tries to get Kento to open up, and as usual, being pushy about it, though she also claims they're friends. For her though, kinda doubt here if Mei'd only open to listening because Kento is hot in her eyes, or because she's genuinely like that, if I'm in Kento's place I'd doubt opening up with Mei too...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

But then we get Kento finding out that Calibur (get ready for my shocked face) isn’t Kento’s dad, but Daichi, the previous Saber. This would normally be a good thing – Kento’s dad isn’t Calibur, the big enemy everyone’s trying to defeat! – but Daichi immediately goes Oh No Your Dad Totally Betrayed Everyone, so it’s a bit of a wash. (It also leads Kento to think Daichi maybe killed his dad, so we’ll see how bad this gets!) Added to that big reveal is the further dissipation of Touma’s Narratively Convenient Amnesia, as he finally puts together that the boy from his Two Guys, A Girl, And A Trauma Place memory is Kento, which is not at all new information for the audience. This is where I kind of lost my enthusiasm for this episode.

Actually now I do wonder what actually happened behind the supposedly noble Daichi being the one who uses Calibur, and also fights the 3 main Riders without issue, and apparently the twist is really, about Kento's dad being a traitor still, as claimed by Daichi. I wasn't invested for Calibur stuff at all in the beginning, but this actually gave me a bit more interest about it, like why Daichi ended up like this.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

The Touma reveal is triply bad storytelling. First, and worst, it’s information the viewer has had for a while. Making the climax of your episode the hero learning information that is old news? Not great! Secondly, it’s Touma learning it at the least manageable time to do so, which is why Touma punting on interrogating Kento a few episodes back was such a groan-worthy move. The hero piecing together his past when it’s most problematic for the team is just such a stupid cliche. It’s lazy storytelling, and I’d hoped this show would be smarter than this.

About this being old information to the audience, I wonder if they actually know that the boy in the flashback was Kento, or this is actually a confirmation to them. Or that Kento being introduced as Touma's childhood friend already indirectly explained this to them (I knew this from basic Saber information... also got spoiled a bit).

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Originally Posted by Sh Ranger

Agreed. Recruiting the notorious Swordsman Killer to SOL would be like recruiting a taxidermist to the veterinarian clinic. It's a terrible idea!

This is why I disagree with the thinking of heroes as the strong and cool ones.