[Fish Sandwich]

Fish Sandwich also watched Kamen Rider Saber Episode 42

You know, I really do love what a humanizing touch it is to have Sophia being embarrassingly bad at cooking, and I think I love that detail even more now, because it just clicked for me after like a year and a half that they almost certainly put that scene in this episode specifically to contrast with Desast, another artificial creation of some evil mastermind who has had significantly less luck finding a life for himself beyond a purpose a villain no longer needs him in.

It probably goes without saying that I was as invested in what was going on with Desast as everyone was (is Desast actually the single most popular Saber character?), so instead I'll talk a bit about Storious, because this is the episode where his new direction immediately starting clicking for me. That scene with Storious killing Tassel is some fantastic emotion on the latter's end, of course, but what surprised me about it the most was how the show actually allows Storious to react to it. How, very intentionally, he even drops the cheesy extra evil voice during their conversation, right up until he drives that sword through his former friend.

Later on, speaking to Touma, Storious describes Tassel's death as being "not particularly beautiful", without further elaboration, but given everything we've learned about our new big bad lately, I feel there's a very clear implication there -- Storious is upset that Tassel made him go off script.

Everything Storious is doing right now, it's all about having people playing the exact roles they've been assigned in this ongoing tragedy he's put himself in charge of enacting. In of itself, that's the beginning of a thematic specificity to his motivations I was hoping for after last episode, so that's already pretty great. (I can't begin to tell you how much I love him calling Touma "my hero".) But on top of that, we get a tantalizing hint of so much more depth to Storious with how shaken he clearly is for a moment as Tassel appeals to the man he once was, even in his very last moments. It's a death that isn't "beautiful", I think, because Storious envisioned a gloriously hopeless scene where the ultimate villain remorselessly strikes down one of mankind's greatest protectors, who would no doubt be defiant to the end, foolishly fighting back to no avail, or at least hurling some condemnations at the villain with his final breaths. But instead, Tassel tries only to get through to him as a friend, and if Storious was able to stand that, what he most certainly can't abide by is that there was even a single moment there where those pleas were almost working. It's why I like the detail of him dropping the silly voice, too; it implies that's merely a conscious affectation Storious has adopted believing it makes him more convincing in his role, and he's starting to break character.

It's a huge blemish on Storious' perfect narrative, but in my eyes, it's a scene that does a whole lot to make the story of Kamen Rider Saber that much better.