[Fish Sandwich]

Fish Sandwich also watched Kamen Rider Saber Episode 19
Fish Sandwich also watched Kamen Rider Saber Episode 20



By my standards, I wasn't all that glowing in my praise of this two-parter at the time, but it, and that climax in particular, has really stuck with me ever since.

Touma's speech in 20, I think it's similar to what I recall being said in these threads about the speech Tsukasa gives prior to Complete Form's debut in Decade, in how it sort of transcends the actual story it's placed in with regards to how it informs the protagonist's character. Like, I'm not sure if I'll ever really be reevaluating every last aspect of these ones and declaring them some hidden masterpiece of the whole series -- it's a two-parter that feels very much like Fukuda and Ishida taking a stab at pretty much the same thing Mouri and Morota just did the prior two weeks -- but I don't know, that formula was gold, and the different creative voices give the stories a different enough feel, so you never know.

Again, this is the Fukuda version of this story, and while all of these guys wrote huge, important chunks of Ghost, I feel like it's not a coincidence that Ghost's main writer is the one who gives Touma the big spiel about how understanding the pain others feel is what motivates him to keep fighting on. I also know for a fact that it was Ishida's idea to have it specifically be Touma out of the suit delivering those lines, which is a typically smart decision from him. I'm harping on about this one scene, I know, but -- it's a really good scene. Apparently Touma's actor Shuuichirou Naitou ended up being particularly fond of it too, so even the guy who literally played Saber thought of this as a definitive Saber moment.

The episodes around that, too, are absolutely still rock solid, of course, even if I'm not calling as much attention to the other things going on here. I don't think I need to explain to anyone that Slash is cool, right? I am a little surprised to see Die having some harsh words to say about Reika, though! She's kind of avoided any mention from me in this thread so far, but I really did love her whole vibe right away. It comes off less like outright malevolence to me, and more just like someone who has complete and utter contempt for these barely subordinate subordinates who won't just get with the program already. Like a manager who just really wishes she didn't have to baby these people so much. I'm sure those teenage princesses and German children were some kind of threat to world peace, Die! That Master Logos guy probably said so, so it must be true! Probably!

In all seriousness, though, I think Southern Base's obvious, literal shadiness generally walks the fine line between "make the plot easy to understand for small children" and "have ~some~ level of proper ambiguity" well enough. I really think the key is consider a lot of those things AS being mostly for the audience's benefit. Maybe the other Riders just see the dim lighting as the organization trying to save on the power bill or something, you know? (Wait, did I say exactly the same thing about ZECT back during Kabuto...? Maybe I'm not helping my own case here!)