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Kamen Rider Saber Episode 30- "Even When Bonds Are Torn Apart" Discussion
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04-11-2021, 06:22 PM
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Fish Sandwich
The Immortal King Tasty
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: Every diner you've ever been to.
Posts: 3,833
Okay, so I know I just got done praising the show for not having Rintarou inconsolably lashing out at everyone, but uh, hey... I sure did love this episode full of Rintarou inconsolably lashing out at everyone!
It's all in the delivery, I swear.
Like, right away, this episode is blessed with the presence of Hidenori Ishida as the director, and these kinds of emotionally raw stories dealing with deeply conflicted characters are his
jam
. This week isn't loaded with tons of particularly fancy camera moves or anything of that sort for me to call attention to (though I refuse to not mention the top-notch editing when Blades gets kicked into that tree), but every scene is still shot to maximize the pathos, and the performances everybody turns in are top notch. Naturally, I want to specifically single out Takaya Yamaguchi for praise, because they are giving Rintarou material requiring a level of intensity often reserved for the main hero, and he's rising to that challenge of making it all seem natural and believable.
The other thing doing that is Fukuda's script, getting away with making me into a hypocrite because of something that IS consistent with what I've previously said, which is how perfectly specific the way Saber calibrates its characters always is. Sure, Rintarou is lashing out here, but he's never
only
lashing out. For every heated remark he throws at Touma, there are also lines reminding us of the mutual admiration and trust between them. We see him running off on his own, but we also see him putting himself below others. We see him refusing to listen to his friends, and we see, in no uncertain terms, that it's because the person Rintarou trusts the least right now... is himself.
There's dimension to it, put simply. What would ordinarily run the risk of making this sort of drama aggravating is the sense that it's a way for a story to cheaply generate conflict among the heroes, but everyone here is totally understanding of what Rintarou is going through. He's having a frankly extraordinary streak of bad days right now, and the stress is getting to him, because at the end of the day, Rintarou is an ordinary
homo-sapien
, and can only handle so much s*** going down in his life at one time. He's being unreasonable here, but it's also entirely reasonable that he would be.
It's a story not about making Rintarou out to be a jerk, but about emphasizing his vulnerability, and it does that really well. This sort of thing can be a tricky balance to hit right, but Saber's scripts have a firm grasp on where their focus needs to be to make it all work.
If I had a complaint, it'd be that this episode violates one of my unofficial arbitrary rules of Rider, which is that when you have two or more separate fight scenes in an episode involving the same Riders, you should
really
use different forms in each one? It's basically always a gift-wrapped opportunity to keep more suits in the rotation without needing much explanation, and here especially, I think seeing Brave Dragon and Lion Senki again would've helped sell the vibe that scene has of finally getting to see a dynamic duo back in action after a long time apart. You know, even coming at it from the angle that the scene needs to emphasize Touma's growth in Rintarou's eyes, it could either be perfect punctuation for Saber to pull out his overpowered new toy only as it becomes apparent Blades can't keep up, OR it could be even
more
perfect to not have him use Elemental Dragon in that scene at all, thus making it extra clear the kind of strength the show is talking about is internal -- a matter of Touma's stalwart conviction versus Rintarou's constant unease.
I don't wanna harp on that point too much though; I'm mostly just spoiled by how good the show was about getting Brave Dragon in there for a while. It's maybe the only thing I didn't like about the action scenes this time, too. It's great to see the show getting back around to the monsters, and it ties back into the early chunk of the second arc so nicely.
I loved seeing Rintarou be shocked at, essentially, the extent of the character development Touma underwent without around (I'm pretty sure he even does that exact move he copied from Slash again here, which is an amazing touch), after previously only catching glimpses of it from a distance as he wandered in the background of the story. It was a brilliant idea to blend that together with Rintarou's current plotline by having him hopelessly trying to force himself to reach that same endpoint of a glowy sword in the span of an afternoon. It's good drama for Rintarou, while also inviting you to look back at that stretch of Touma's journey and consider just how much he actually went through, which is awesome. This episode is so cool it makes older ones
retroactively
cooler as well.
I also love how the monster this time essentially has the powers of a Super Sentai baddie, going around turning people into jewelry, one because it's hilarious how Saber keeps walking into these comparisons even now, and two, because it explicitly puts those powers through a unique Rider lens, with the heroes being genuinely fearful of the consequences of just blowing up the monster. Like, it's an actual serious complication for the story! That's great! I'm not sure how much that relevance that aspect of the plot will truly end up having with everything else going on (there was kinda already a reason they didn't want to just blow up the monster, admittedly), but it's a concept I find super neat.
So yeah, very much satisfied with this episode. We haven't magically returned to happy upbeat Saber territory now that Rintarou is back, but the gradual journey back to something resembling stability is proving fascinating in its own right.
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Last edited by Fish Sandwich; 02-16-2023 at
05:15 PM
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