[DreadBringer]

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

KAMEN RIDER SABER EPISODE 45 - “THE TEN SWORDSMEN, WITH THE WORLD ON THE BRINK”

Oh, sure, we can spend a few episodes on the collateral damage of personal growth and the redemptive renewal of friendships, but let’s not forget what pays the bills around these parts: a squadron of swordsmen attacking a villain’s towering fortress!

If last episode was The Calm Before The Storm, this episode is STORMS ARE AWESOME. Every single Kamen Rider gets a thrilling action sequence, and the entire cast fights from bell to bell. There’s a little bit of non-action in a riveting Storious subplot and a melancholy Mei subplot, but those only amount to the show catching its breath between bravura combat sequences.

Zooous and Legeiel makes another appearence here apparently as a spirit who tries to talk some sense to Storious. Storious is now revealed here that he's the one who already had ulterior motives even back in the past, compared to anyone else, though actually there's a trigger why he got that motivation, he's the "truth revealed" part of villain origin. While actually Zooous and Legeiel were established as good people before being corrupted and here they seemingly act that way towards him, but that is the reason why they're exposed as fakes here created by Luna. The fake isn't because they used to be good but because they aren't corrupted here? From what the audience talked, didn't expect here for Luna to try making a confrontation. Also it's something nice for Mei to be concerned of a random woman who she didn't know was Luna at the end.

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

It’s… it’s almost hard to talk about it, since its merits are all in the fighting? Every fight scene gets a button of character development to it – Kamijo (who has grown out his hair in the afterlife) and Hayato appear to give Sophia a hand, reuniting that group of friends; Ren uses Desast’s book to finish off a foe, giving Desast one last posthumous victory; the Shindai Siblings simultaneously call out their identical motivation; Daishinji probably dies – but the meat of this episode is the guild acting like a goddamn guild. This is the reason for their existence: to war against villains like Storious. This is them literally going to work for an entire episode.

Yeah, here Sophia fights as the next Calibur. A really contrasting one where she's a woman in white with , embodiment of lightness like Yuri, but she became a dark-themed Kamen Rider, though she's the only one who is always straight up good as Calibur unlike the previous users, but she's doing that only for brief time here - like usual that non-Reika type of female got to be KR for only one occassions (even major characters like Poppy or Tsukuyomi before). And regarding the spirit of previous villains turned allies, those are likely not metaphorically, but them actually being there and assisting the swords(wo)men, also including Desast helping Ren here. The Shindai siblings are better off isolated like that, to only work with each other as they only value each other (though Ryoga may be making more effort for others), while others (even Ren) actually take not of each other's condition like Buster holding off by himself or Rintaro arriving to Touma's place.

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

Obviously, it wouldn’t have the same impact without being the culmination of so many character arcs (Ren speedrunning to the last boss and telling Kento not to hold him back!), but the success or failure of this episode was really down to how well the stunt team did. And, y’know, they did great! There’s a wonderful logic to every fight, where the teamwork of each set of heroes leverages the strategy of different styles, different elements. It’s got that movie climax thing of feeling like there’s thought given into how X and Y can stop Z, rather than just spamming attacks or wiping the floor because of some random power-up. The Slash/Kenzan fight is one of my all-time favorites, franchise-wide, and not even because I like those two guys. (They’re good characters, but they ain’t my faves.) It’s because it weds fantastic camerawork to inventive attacks, and it all feels in continuity with how those characters think and behave.

This part shows Ren's change to become a better person by actually being concerned about another guild member not named Kento, Daishinji here. M̶a̶n̶,̶ ̶s̶o̶m̶e̶o̶n̶e̶ ̶w̶i̶t̶h̶ ̶"̶S̶h̶i̶n̶j̶i̶"̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶i̶r̶ ̶n̶a̶m̶e̶ ̶s̶e̶e̶m̶s̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶b̶e̶ ̶b̶o̶u̶n̶d̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶b̶e̶ ̶p̶a̶i̶r̶e̶d̶ ̶u̶p̶ ̶w̶i̶t̶h̶ ̶"̶R̶e̶n̶ ̶A̶.̶"̶. The SoL doesn't seem to hold grudges to the ones who strayed from them, except Shindai siblings, so here it's Ren opening up to others, though he still tells off Kento to not hold him back (wonder if that's just banter as it's Kento we're talking about).

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Originally Posted by Sh Ranger

A person whose mistakes and wrongdoings go unpunished is a person who'll continue to be a problem for others until they do. Unfortunately, Reika never gets called out for her destructive behavior, not even by her disciplined brother Ryouga. Schadenfreude can be a source of comedy, but usually it's selective as it depends on the viewers feeling like the target is an acceptable punching bag. I mean, does anybody actually think Sophia, Touma and Mei deserved to be treated this way? I certainly don't.

Unfortunately, Ryoga is the similar kind of aloof jerk who only cares about fanatically following SoL's missions (still sort of for now too), other people being victimized by his sister is none of his concerns. Medias often deliberately not call out these kind of actions so that they can keep continue doing that as a source of comedy for audience (and not losing profits for the producers) - also bringing this up can get that person accused as having "no sense of humor". I thought other source of comedy is selective too like the goofy ones can come off as cringe instead of funny (the Sophia one isn't comedy though). Many of the audiences measure character sympathy by how entertaining or interesting they're, those who deserve to suffer are those who fail to entertain them or being too lame (being a loser, though there's a limit or that they can be liked due to their misfortunes).

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Originally Posted by Sh Ranger

I have to side with Androzani on this one. Maybe you can argue from a symbolic perspective, but from a logical perspective, it just doesn't make any sense in the story. Like, how does Luna become an adult? A kid can't just decide to become an adult, not even a 25+ year-old kid. I think it's especially ridiculous for this to happen in the fifth last episode of the show. I was way too used to Okamoto's portrayal of Luna at this point, so this new actress wasn't going to make me care about her portrayal in less than five episodes.

She's not a normal human anyway, as she suspected herself. I'd rather that a non-human species to not be complained off regarding how normal humans work, but for someone like her, should be viewed similarly to, outright Kamen Riders or Megid themselves, in "logic".