[Fish Sandwich]

Fish Sandwich also watched Kamen Rider Saber Episode 48

If you remember how I said I was never the biggest fan of Dragonic Knight's debut episode because I couldn't help but compare it to the equivalent point of Ghost, I have similar sentiments about this epilogue for Saber. It's a solid enough episode I wanted to be much better, but the standards I'm holding to are also maybe unfair.

With Ghost, it's like, that show essentially had three final episodes all in a row, and each one of them completes part of the whole. You can't have any one without the other two in my mind. But with Saber, you know, Hasegawa just wrote an epic four-part conclusion that already tied everything up as much as you could want. This show's version of Takeru telling Ayumu (and the audience) he'll always be with him happened last time, when Touma told the audience (literally the audience) thank you. After that finale, I don't even know what I could ask out of Saber to better encapsulate its themes than they already have.

So putting all that aside, and trying to look at it on its own merits, this episode is... I don't know, actually, it still always feels weirdly off to me? The obvious thing to point to is how Revice is integrated, but the whole energy of this thing feels wrong for Saber, and it makes it hard for me to feel comfy while watching it. And as someone who's seen Revice, it doesn't feel right for that show's vibe either, which is admittedly much more understandable.

It's strange -- there's way too much to like about this episode for it to feel right just dumping on it. There's plenty of strong character work and solid thematic stuff at its core, with smart decisions like framing most of the weight on Kento, the guy who logically would take that extra bit of time to find a direction for himself in a world at peace. And even if it can be considered the root of a lot of the issues here, I appreciate the sort of community-minded spirit of Saber to bring back TV crossovers with both Sentai and the next Rider show.

It's just, it always feels like a bit less than the sum of its parts to me, this one. Definitely not my favorite episode either, definitely still a decent enough note to go out on, but part of me is always going to wonder about what it would've been like if it were more than just decent.