[AkibaSilver]

I'm going to chime in and second Rintaro and Mei being the stand-out members of the cast right now. Sure, Touma is our hero, the saver of the day, the protagonist/cheerleader to this group of swordsmen he met like 3 weeks ago, but solid, dependable, straight-forward-but-still-kinda-weird Rintaro and overly-energetic but responsible Mei... it's almost a shame their dynamic with each other is better than it is with Touma, but he has his own little thing going on with Kento, so I guess it's only fair the two "relatively" more stable characters get to pair off.

And I haven't had much to say about the Swordsmen specials, mainly because, while they're nice to fill in details around the edges of these early few episodes (and Saber really needs that breathing space at this stage), I struggle to remember the details of them. But that's not really a critique, they serve perfectly fine, great even, and while they're not Zi-O .5 episodes, maybe what we got is just as good.

Oh, and on the topic of Mei becoming a swordsman, it's on idea I'm not super enthused by. I think it's a reaction to recent shows deciding everyone has to be a Rider to matter, as if you can only contribute by personally detonating monsters. And I get it, but I feel Mei's role in the story is different? It's not a position I can defend well, especially when the SOL really needs some EDI stuff ("We've seen older Kenzan as a woman! You can't rely on that one token, Sophia!"), but idk.