Kamen Rider Saber, Episodes 32-33
Episode 32: My Thoughts, Crystallized
Unlike 30 and 31, these two episodes aren't exactly packaged as a two-parter. In fact, had this episode happened a bit earlier in the show, I would probably call this something like a 'mid-season' episode or something. Though I dunno, maybe I just like Kamen Rider Blades more than I realized?
Anyway, Master Logos and Storius are basically buddies at this point, and they decide to properly mount an assault on Northern Base. Master Logos apparently has a magic arrow that he launches halfway across the globe, disabling the magical barrier that has been protecting Northern Base all this while. And to that I say okay? We get a very cool sequence of the Shindai siblings showing up and fighting against the remaining swordsmen that can still transform. Meanwhile, Storious and Zooius (who gets a fancy new black-and-red repainted suit) sneak into another part of Northern Base while using the Shindai siblings as a distraction.
The cast split up and fight the threats. We get a very cool double-henshin between Sabela and Durendal as they walk down the stairs on either side of Northern Base, and they face off against Saber and Saikou. Meanwhile, super-Zooius just beats up poor Ogami before he gets a chance to transform, and faces off against Rintarou. All the while, Storius slinks around to steal stuff. I do like the little bit of Touma arguing with the Shindai siblings, who are basically fanatics who will never believe that Master Logos is anything but justice. Eventually the battle devolves into just Durendal facing off against Saber and Saikou, and the entirety of their side of the battle is basically just Touma figuring out how Durendal's time powers work.
And... and maybe it's because I've watched/read at least three different time powers in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, so I'm a bit underwhelmed? Durendal's Kaiji Erasure thing is sort of like a Za Warudo imitation. But it's not even about the time-stopping powers, which is still pretty cool; it's the fact that Touma sort of just gets the power to overcome it and 'see' into the stopped time for... no adequate reason? Okay, sure. It makes for a fight that's different, at least, extending beyond the honestly repetitive clash-clash-clash-giant-CGI-attack. The fight is paced reasonably well, and we get something interesting on Durendal -- Master Logos recalls the siblings back, but Durendal gives into his bloodlust and almost kills Yuuri before he gets teleported back to Southern Base.
The rest of the fights sort of trade enemies. Buster holds off Zooius but eventually gets pummeled off-screen, while Rintarou goes off to rescue Sophia, Mei and Dashinji from Sabela. Sabela also stole the books and the sealed swords -- this is all something that happens offscreen, and I didn't realize until writing this review that she did that. Anyway, all this builds up to Rintarou facing off against super-Zooius, and it sort of acts as an epilogue to his character arc over the past couple of episodes, where he gives an inspiring speech about how his power and pride as a swordsman is to protect people who are dear to him. Rintarou's speech transforms the magical book powering Northern Base into yet another power-up, but this one is a cool one! Tategami Hyoujuu Senki (Blizzard Beasts Chronicles) is all white and he's got a massive Super Saiyan 3 mane of hair... which I found utterly ridiculous at first, but actually ends up being pretty cool in motion.
The rest of the action scene basically shows off the new form, with Rintarou going through the four sub-forms -- the 'mane' transforms into wings at one point and into a shark underwater, and... it's a huge CGI sequence that I felt was reasonably all right? It's better than all the other huge CGI-background scenes, anyway. It's still rather noticeable, but the suit actors move through the snowy setting relatively quickly. Zooius gets killed with CGI ice, so that's two of the Megiddo boys down. Zooius gets to at least get a final line before blowing up, unlike poor Legiel. Rintarou gets a brief moment of "I have avenged my master" sequence, before the episode draws into a close.
Interestingly, it seems we're setting up for a Reika defection, because when she went around stealing Buster's sword, she sees Zooius walking around and clearly is starting to slowly think that Master Logos might actually be hiding things from them. I hope she, too, gets a character arc of her own. We get a brief bit of Reika trying to discuss this with her much more fanatical brother in 33, so yeah, this seems to be where we're headed. Interesting!
Overall, episode 32 is a pretty action-heavy episode. It does kind of build up on the Rintarou/Zooius rivalry explored in the previous two episodes, and since we're slowly thinning out the characters by killing off the Megiddo and essentially reducing Ogami and Daishinji into non-transforming supporting characters, I guess we're getting that buildup to the finale.
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Episode 33: Still, the Future Can Change
So after the relatively Megiddo-centric past couple of episodes, this one is more tied to the swordsman drama. Yuuri gives a bit of a long speech about his good friend Tassel/Viktor, who is currently regenerating his body after Master Logos beat him up a couple episodes back. I frankly feel like they could've (and should've) done more with Tassel, considering how much he appears in the show but really haven't done anything.
This episode, interestingly, is partially a Ren-centric one. Ren is probably the secondary character most shunted to the side, because unlike practically everyone else, he doesn't even get a proper episode during the whole 'Touma wins everyone over to his side' part of the show. He's currently eating ramen while fending off attacks from Desast, who just follows him around like a more malicious version of Momotaros.
Touma and buddies go off to recruit not just Ren, but also Kento. And after the rest of the supporting cast gets waylaid by hijinks, Touma and Kento sit under a tree and just talk. It's apparently a significant tree to their shared childhood friendship, which we finally explore a bit more -- it's honestly something I am not really invested in at this point; but it's nice to get some clarification nonetheless. Typical of these sort of flashbacks, there's a fight before the huge tragedy that caused Luna to be sucked into the magical vortex. And there's a reason why Touma really holds promises in high regard because there was a promise he made with Luna as a kid.
We also get the utterly random bombshell that Sophia is an artificial lifeform that Master Logos created based on Luna. Which isn't really followed up in this episode, honestly kind of comes out of nowhere, and all I have to say to that is a big huge shrug. I mean, sure, why not.
We then get a bunch of fight scenes! Master Logos shows up in front of Touma and Kento, and Touma finally recognizes him as that weirdo that helped him out forever ago before the Primitive Dragon arc, and he gives his motive rant. And... and I'm not expecting something particularly profound, but Master Logos's reason is honestly pretty generic. He wants to recreate the world to have fun torturing people and shit. Quoting him, "I will replace the songs of birds in the morning with human screams". Okay, you lunatic. We get Saber and Calibur teaming up to fight Logos, who spouts ominous stuff about how Luna was 'sacrificed' by Kento's dad. Logos also pulls out Buster's stolen sword out and dual-wields it to fight our boys. And we get a brief scene where the portal to the Wonder-World is opened and we see poor Luna still trapped there yelling for Touma.
Meanwhile, Sabela goes off to get ren's sword, and we get the two of them fighting under the Tokusatsu Bridge. Rather predictably, Sabela beats Ren handily. Desast jumps in to help out, but because Sabela can transform into a massive fog-pest form, she actually is holding her own and manages to push Ren and Desast back until Rintarou shows up and transforms into his brand-new blizzard form to drive Sabela away. Poor Ren gets even more confused to see Rintarou protect him, and slinks away, talking about how he's going to 'get stronger' and defeat Desast with his own hands. It's kind of interesting. I guess they're building Ren up to be an unstable potential antagonist in the future?
Touma and Kento almost make up, but Kento's darkest future is apparently one where Touma dies, and he refuses to work with Touma in order to prevent this future. Meanwhile, Logos is pulling out the 'Book of Destruction' in response to seeing Luna, and... I dunno. There are so many plot device books (I think Storious finds one at the end of 32, too)! Overall, this one was a bit messy, but I certainly welcome the focus on Kento and Ren, who have kind of been neglected over the past batch of episodes.
Random Notes:
- The weird Quincy-esque arrow of light that Master Logos used at the beginning of episode 32 is probably the most egregiously weird CGI I've seen in this show for a while. There are other moments during the Blades/Zooius battle, but those move quickly and are in motion. We have a couple of rather close shots to the magic arrow.
- We get small moments with some characters reacting to their little portrait drawings in an over-the-top way, and... and I don't get it? It's not like the drawings are bad at all. They're cute and well-drawn!
- They don't really do much with either of them, but Sabela still has one of the best-looking transformations and my favourite toy gimmick voice lines, while Durendal has the coolest suit and King Crimson powers.
- Seriously, though, we basically get a single line from poor Daishinji about how 'she took them all!' It's odd that we don't get to see this scene, or even more of a comment afterwards by Daishinji since he really loves swords and stuff. We did see Sabela pillaging Buster's sword, though.
- Mei and Daishinji have a very adorable clapping moment after Rintarou's transformation into his Tategami form. Mei is so enthusiastic, while Daishinji seems so absent-minded.
- Is "Long Get" a pun on "long cat"? I am almost tempted to just call it the Long Get form.
- ...didn't Ren get his sword sealed by Kento during the clip show episode? Did I miss something? Or am I just mis-remembering things?
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