[Kamen Rider Die]

KAMEN RIDER SABER EPISODE 20 - “DOWN WITH THE STRONGHOLD, BY THE WILL OF THE SWORD”



Thoroughly fun episode, with one glaring and increasingly aggravating flaw.

It’s Reika, because, like, have you watched these episodes? While everyone else is dealing in fascinating ambiguity and compromised morality, here’s Reika with the most one-note Malevolent And Duplicitous Boss character I’ve ever seen. Every appearance is only a scene-change edit away from her cackling maniacally as she turns friends against each other. Her home base is dimly-lit for no reason other than increasing a sense of unease. She’s the absolute worst motivation for a group of morally-upright swordsmen I can think of, short of Calibur coming back to issue marching orders. For this part of the series to work best, there needs to be some narrative cover for the SoL to doubt Touma’s emotional appeals; these guys have to be wary of an accusation that the SoL is corrupt. And yet! At every turn, Reika is showing up fresh from, like, poisoning apples to give to teenage princesses, or baking German children in her gingerbread house. Her laconic menace makes the whole Just Following Orders vibe of half the cast feel willfully blind, and that disappointingly unbalances the heart of this story.

(Also, what makes it worse for me is that she’s so evil-seeming that she’s probably not evil, which just makes her a terrible boss, instead of an ineffective villain. What higher-up in the Sword of Logos is like This Shadowy Creep Is The Right Person To Maintain Morale?! It’s the show spending too much energy in making the audience think Reika’s evil, only to probably twist it that she’s NOT evil, instead of just playing her character straight and keeping the focus on the friction in the cast.)

Other than that, I thought this episode was finally firing on all cylinders. The humor was great (Mei doing Yuri’s Henshin sequence for him is maybe a series highlight), the drama was arresting (Rintaro tried really hard this episode to make things work!), the action was phenomenal (that four-way mid-epsiode brawl!), and the MotW plot required some (minor) character insight and problem-solving. It’s hard to find fault with the non-Reika parts of this episode!

I especially enjoyed that Rintaro moment, even if it was unfortunately brief. I like that Rintaro found out Touma was telling the truth, and was immediately like COMMON GROUND HOORAY. It’s a scene where both characters think they’ve found a way to connect with an estranged friend, but instantly find out how tenuous that bridge is. Touma’s like Megids Bad But Traitor Worse, which is a colossally stupid thing to say to a good friend who has previously drawn a red line at criticizing the SoL; meanwhile, Rintaro shuts down any discussion of traitors, which shows Touma that the SoL believing him on one thing doesn’t mean they trust him again. It’s a nicely nuanced scene of these two trying to navigate their own misgivings, and finding out that they haven’t done it quite yet.

Then Reika shows up to be infuriatingly suspicious and distrustful, and… well, we’ve been over that already.

I really wish this show could figure out a more interesting way to play Reika’s whole Assistant Lord of Darkness/Assistant To The Lord Of Darkness schtick, or reveal that she’s just a shitty boss, or just vanish her to Sophia’s hostage closet. Just: something. Because every dimly-lit scene of her unconvincingly telling the SoL to ignore how messed up everything has gotten, it just sucks away my enthusiasm for this show. Everything else is great! Fix the Reika stuff!

—

IF YOU HATE YOUR FRIENDS YOU’RE NOT ALONE



This was stupid.

Ren was tired of all of it. He was tired of everyone treating him like a baby, when he was the strongest one in the guild. He was tired of Rintaro and the others falling for Touma’s lies, which Ren could see through in a heartbeat. He was tired of people forgetting that Kento was dead, and just moving on like he was never around to begin with.

The roof was cold. It was boring. It was Kento’s favorite place, though, so Ren could tough it out. (He could tough out anything.) Kento had told him once that Touma was really tough, and Ren didn’t understand what Kento meant. But he tried to be friends with Touma, because if Kento said Touma was strong, he probably was. Kento was pretty smart about that kind of thing.

Ren missed Kento a lot. He tried not to show it to the other swordsmen in the guild, and he was certain he was doing a great job keeping things under wraps. But he thought about Kento, all the time. He didn’t understand why Kento would think Touma was his friend, with how Touma was clearly just trying to gain more power. Everyone else was dumb about trusting Touma, but Kento wasn’t dumb like the rest. He was tricked. Touma tricked him.

It was all Touma’s fault. Ren could see that now, even if everyone else was still talking about Touma making a mistake, or Touma being tricked by someone else. But that was stupid. Ren could see now that Touma was just waiting to turn on them. Ren was almost tricked, too. He thought that Touma might be a good guy, and could sort of see what Kento was talking about – Touma kept getting the coolest Wonder Ride books, and the best powers. But then Ren wised up, and saw through the lies Touma was spinning about traitors and the Sword of Logos being a problem and Kamijo being maybe right about things, and tried to stop Touma before he tricked anyone else.

It didn’t work.

Ren was tired of trying to fix everything himself. Kento was great at that, of course, but it was so hard for Ren. He kept having the other swordsmen telling him to calm down, or take his time. They didn’t have time! They needed to stop Touma. They needed to make things right for Kento.

There was a voice behind him. “Saber still has the Sword of Thunders in his possession.”

It was that lady Reika. Their new boss. Everyone else thought she was creepy, but she seemed alright to Ren. She was the only one besides him who seemed serious about stopping Touma, at least.

She was right, which made him feel stupid. He hated feeling stupid. But Touma did still have Kento’s sword, which wasn’t right. He didn’t deserve to hold Kento’s sword, not after everything he’d done since Kento died. It should be Ren’s sword, after all. He was Kento’s best friend, not some liar like Touma. He needed to stop trying to convince the other swordsmen about what they had to do, and just go do it himself. Like Kento would.

Ren turned to face Reika, steeled himself, and shouted, “You don’t need to remind me!”

He was going to get back what belonged to him.