[DreadBringer]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

KAMEN RIDER SABER EPISODE 48 - “BONUS ISSUE – A NEW PAGE, HAS BEEN TURNED”

The Saber part, where the eternal friendship of Touma and Kento imparts a lesson about how friendships can weather change and adversity – even grow because of them – is incredibly sweet. It’s this show letting you know that your favorite Saber characters will be out there living their lives, even if you’re not around to see them. It’s also asking you to focus on the good times over the last year, rather than feel bad that they’re ending. Leave it to Saber to take a baton-passing crossover episode and still manage to say something heartfelt about both friendship and storytelling. It’s letting an audience know that stories are constantly starting and stopping, so it’s better to be excited by change than afraid of it. Because we’re not just talking about this story ending, we’re also talking about the next story starting. Namely, Kamen Rider Revice.

So here Kento is shown to be also doing his part of talking down civilians, similar to Touma further taking promises seriously to convince Takuto to fulfill it. I guess this'd strengthen the part of him being more of a fundamentally good person, instead of just a redeemed bad guy tagging along with the heroes (though there's still already an extensive part of him being at odds with the heroes), or that the earlier part of him was just him being 'heroic' due to going along with the main character (e.g. Micchy in Gaim) - thus the part of him being hellbent on revenge against Calibur was a genuine being caught up in emotions rather than his inherent dark side taking over. Ofc, with the problem of the promise being monster attacks, Kentouma both serve as the "security guards" for the childhood friends meeting up here.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

It’s a hard thing, to try and serve two tonally different masters here. Saber is a sweet, earnest show, filled with a rich, diverse cast of nuanced performers. (And Reika, who’s insanely awful this episode.) Revice, on the other hand, seems to lean very very hard into obnoxious comedy and constant antagonism. These are… not two things that can exist simultaneously in a story. It’s fine for one series to pivot into another, but it’s tonally dissonant to have Vice mugging for the camera and farting his way through a hard sell to watch his new show, all while Touma and the gang are charting out the next phases of their lives. Like, this is an episode where an egalitarian deconstruction of a morally-bankrupt cult sits alongside an invisible ghost taunting Yuri and everyone reacting to devil flatulence. It’s… you can’t really do both? And I don’t know if the disrespectful hard sell is the best foot forward for the new year of Kamen Rider?

So regarding Saber part, it's shown that someone like Sophia also can loosen up a little to join in the cast relaxing, which is good for her. Other than Kentouma, the focus here also seems to be done on Ryoga for some reason, who, initiates a duel with Rintaro, which makes sense as previously Ryoga was the evil counterpart of Rintaro, with both having trouble with socializing, but Ryoga is fanatically loyal to SoL's cause without a shred of conscience at that time. Thus like how Rintaro initiates a duel with Touma back then to convey it, now Ryoga repeats that with Rintaro. With now Ryoga seemingly fully opening up to the others, the 'traitors', more than Reika who's still only at best explaining Ryoga is while staying hostile to anyone not him. I wonder why for this part you think Reika is awful here as since Ryoga came, being deadly jealous of others approaching him is also a consistet part of her.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

Like, I’m trying not to judge Kamen Rider Revice off of this. In their world, in their context, maybe it all works. Maybe Saber should’ve made this less about their cast and more about promoting Revice. Maybe Revi should’ve been in the Promise Park battle and used less of Vice’s… contributions. I don’t know. I can’t say if Revice works or doesn’t work as a concept, because I haven’t watched the show yet. All I can say was that they were the worst part of this episode, which is a bummer for a viewer who was looking forward to discovering a whole new Kamen Rider series.

But Saber! Still so good and so smart, even if the effort of fitting in the Revice cast tore at the seams; at the little things it usually got right. (Namely, Reika being a lunatic, and Rintaro being way too wacky in his romantic comedy stylings. I am normally rooting for both those characters! But not this time!) Last episode is the clear winner in terms of wrapping up this show’s narrative, but this was a nice coda about how endings are bittersweet but necessary. Not my favorite episode, but a decent enough note to go out on.

Regarding Revice, I only wonder how'd you feel regarding your view about families in KR when you get through it, especially that you watched Geats first which have (reverts into) more typical KR families. Honestly, I'd think that the Vice humor part is jarring here, like the fart jokes? It doesn't represent Revice at all. Regarding Rintaro, I guess it's good that his dork part is still consistent here with him making an awkward 'confession' with Mei due to misunderstandings, which ofc he meant actual official family instead of just a group with actual familial feelings. But the general consensus of Rintaro is that he's just there, for some of the audiences (also one of the secondaries that feel overshadowed by tertiary, Kento). I'm not into these crossovers but at the end it seems that the Saber part has something moving forward with SoL solving the Master Logos problem with it being turned into a council of four, of which for some reason only Ryoga got appointed as one of its members without Reika. Ren reacts more amicably to the group with his journey, though the focus is still on his interactions with Kento.