[Kamen Rider Die]

KAMEN RIDER SABER EPISODE 21 - “SHINE SPLENDIDLY, IN FULL COLORS”



X-Swordman! Pretty great suit, and a pretty great debut. Look at the comic book panel layouts! Look at the Saber-text (whatever it’s called) sound effects! Gorgeous.

I assume that’s the thing that most people are going to care about from this episode, and I can’t really blame them. The suit design itself, like if Roy Lichtenstein worked for Toei, is one that I was in love with before I even saw Saber, before I even knew what his character was all about. It’s garish in the best possible ways, with them Ben Day dots from old-school comic book coloring adding even more colorful nonsense to a suit that almost literally embodies colorful nonsense.

Beyond the aesthetic delights of a suit that makes Slash look like Shadow, there’s the way in which it debuts: I sort of love that this episode has Tassel appear in a plotline that intersects with the main narrative? (I also just like the Old Buddy comedy of Tassel and Yuri. It’s really well done.) It’s Yuri opting to step off the sidelines, where Tassel lives, and join the fight for justice alongside Touma. You need to have Yuri in the Avalon/Wonder World set for at least a little bit in the same episode where he becomes a swordsman once again.

It’s all part of this episode’s broad statement about Touma’s true power, which is his empathy and conviction. The SoL and Reika are scared of him because of how much power he’s accumulated through swords and books, but this episode – and Touma’s recruitment of Daishinji – proves that all of that extra crap was only serving to obscure Touma’s actual power, which is his dedication to helping people, no matter what.

(That said… this is a very half-and-half episode, which is hilariously apropos for the episode that introduces the Charybdis half of Scylla and Charybdis. The Daishinji fight and the appearance of X-Swordman are tonally and dramatically different, and it really feels like each one should’ve been their own episode.)

The Daishinji fight, which best expresses Touma’s strength of character exceeding his collectibles and power-ups, that was my favorite part of the episode. I’m never going to be too mad at a finale where an awesome suit debuts to detonate a monster in a quarry, but the heart of this episode was Touma figuring out (accidentally!) how to sway reluctant swordsmen to fight for his cause. It was never going to be sowing doubt about the SoL leadership, or begging for help, or saying the word Promise a lot, or even trying to rekindle feelings of friendship. The thing that was going to convince someone like Daishinji was force of will, and amount of dedication. Daishinji’s suffered, and lost, and lived to fight again. He’s lost his sword for years, but stood by the SoL until he could swing his sword in battle. He needed to see if Touma could fight with that same spirit, that same fire. He got his answer this episode, in the best Touma fight to date.

It’s a couple good plots in this maybe-overstuffed episode that had me enjoying myself a bit more than recently. Touma’s fighting style of screaming a lot about his motivations gave him a newly-returned ally, and Yuri’s debut as a comic book superhero was a visual feast. Good episode!

—

THE DAY I LOSE MY MIND



He wasn’t sure if he was going mad or not.

It was a situation he’d never experienced before. His life to this point had been normal, but in a good way: school, work, love, family. His life was unexceptional, but not unhappy. He’d never had an unexplained illness, or an emotional episode. He was happy with his simple life.

Things were a lot less simple now.

He’d begun seeing the floating world a few weeks ago. At first, he’d pointed it out to his wife as a peculiarity: was this marketing for some new movie, or the launch of some new appliance? Her reaction was puzzlement, which he’d thought was a joke. He’d pointed to the bizarrely colorful tableau that hung in the sky, its airborne whales and copious amounts of dragons. Her puzzlement turned to concern when she realized he wasn’t joking, and his amazement turned to alarm when he realized she wasn’t joking.

They’d talked about it at home, later that day. His wife suggested that stress might be causing a hallucination, but that diagnosis only added to his fear. He wasn’t stressed, whatever his wife might think. Work was routine, but enjoyable enough. Their finances were stable. His friends were a constant presence in his life, but never demanding. His life was good, up until now.

But this vision he’d seen, and kept seeing… it unnerved him. He’d stopped mentioning it to his wife, in hopes that ignoring it would make it less present in his daily life. It hadn’t worked. He saw it constantly, and his wife could tell he was hiding it from her. She’d catch his gaze lingering a little too long out the window, and ask if he was still seeing the fantasy world. He’d make up some lie, the first ones he’d ever told her, to try and allay her fears. She wasn’t convinced, and he wasn’t less afraid.

It was strange, to fear your own perception. He didn’t know why his brain was making him see something that wasn’t there. He didn’t understand what message his subconscious might be trying to send him, or if (god forbid) he’d become a danger to the people around him. He went about his routine, and tried to concoct a shell that looked like the man he used to be. Inside, he longed for the last few weeks of terror to make some sense, to clarify this insanity.

He was walking home from work when he received his clarity at last. As the smirking man with the long length of hair came around the corner and pressed a small white cube to his chest, he understood the truth of his situation. It was a comfort, briefly.

He screamed in agony, and realized he was damned.