[Kamen Rider Die]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Switchblade

Parts of this episode bothered me. I think that it might have worked a little bit better to break up the team if they had waited maybe more than one week from the bit where everyone commits to being friends and allies forever. Or maybe if Reika was trying to be at least a little subtle about gaslighting all of the non-Touma Riders. Ultimately, though, it's hard to care because splitting the cast into Touma/Mei/Yuri and Literally Everyone Else is a decision that leads to some of Saber's best episodes to date for reasons I will talk about in a few days.

It's hard to get too mad at Saber having Kamijo's warning come to fruition almost as soon as he said it to Touma, since, like, that's this show! At this point, finding fault with a storyline that gets rushed out the door as soon as its introduced is like getting mad that they all use swords. It's just the aesthetic of the series.

But, yes, it all happens incredibly fast, and with virtually no real effort on Reika's part. I think that's sort of the point, though...

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Originally Posted by Enchilada645

While the Swordsmen have a camaraderie with Touma, at the end of the day he's a newbie and if a high ranking official from their work tells them something is suspicious? Who are they going to trust immediately?

...because, yeah, these people don't really know each other, and they've placed different amounts of trust in the Sword of Logos. For Rintaro, it's practically his identity, so Touma saying I Suspect Foul Play is like telling Rintaro that his dad is a villain. For Ogami and Daishinji, they've just spent 15 years cleaning up after the last Saber who decided that the Sword of Logos is the enemy, and here's this kid who should've never gotten a sword in the first place, racking up all this power, unaccountable to the safeguards they respect. For Ren, when your opening move is to suggest that Kento's murderer was maybe just misunderstood, you have already lost the argument. There are all these guys with reasons to mistrust Touma instead of the institution they've dedicated their lives to, and that's not even counting Touma's, uh, fiery nature.

But for Touma, he doesn't... there's nothing in the Sword of Logos for him but his friends, and Kento, and he's okay interrogating the organization if he thinks it'll keep his friends safe. He's doing this for them, and he's not sure why they can't see that.

It's such a fun episode for digging into how we value organizations over people, and why we do that.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nokination

There were some minor problems I had with the episode; I didn't really care about how many side things they had going on. Like the New Year's thing which I'm pretty sure is just there so that the audience can get a feel for the relationship of the Sword of Logos before the supposed betrayal, but if you've already watched 15 episodes of Saber, a movie, and 4 specials, then this just feels like an unnecessary addition. Though, as I said, these things are pretty minor, all things considered.

Yeah, it's mostly there for a little humor before everything blows up, and to gild the lily a bit, by having farther for everyone to fall. I like seeing these goofs hang out, and do their weird individual schtick (Rintaro acting like a human encyclopedia, Mei trying to nope out of cleaning) for the last time in a little while.