Kamen Rider Saber E04-06 Review: Buff Tinkerbell

Kamen Rider Saber, Episodes 4-6

I've been pretty quiet about this series, but I've been... enjoying it? It's just that it's kind of a difficult series to review week to week, and I wasn't necessarily the biggest fan of the first two episodes, which made jumping back in a bit harder. I think for the most part they did try to do a bit too much in the first couple of episodes while simultaneously also giving us very little, so what we got was a bunch of half-baked first-impressions that aren't enough for me to really form opinions on. That said, the series is clearly going for a simpler, more Sentai-esque, more Fourze-esque vibe. It doesn't quite reach the absolute boundless over-the-top joy that made Fourze quite so memorable, though I can appreciate the effort of just trying to be positive for the kids. I really don't have a whole ton to talk about these few episodes, so without further ado...

Episode 4: I Opened The Book, Therefore...

A bit of a neat follow-up to episode 3. Buster/Ogami is still the focus of this episode, and I do like just how much he's worried about his kid. There's a significant theme of Touma being someone who keeps his promises and whatnot, and a good chunk of the episode is just them trying to figure out how to gain Buster's respect. Sort of. The twist is that the Hanzaki Meggido from the previous episode is actually a salamander monster from a legend about these giant salamanders being able to regenerate from any injury (they can't IRL). It's a very simple little twist, but I do enjoy the idea that Touma, Rintaro and Mei actually go and use real books to research. Ogami gets convinced to give Touma and his promises and book-love a second chance perhaps a bit too quickly, but eh. 

This episode does bring an interesting fifth named villain, although unlike the others Desast is immediately fun! He runs around only in his monster suit, and while it's a pretty basic black skull-face thing, the voice and suit acting is pretty great, and he seems to be the sort of lunatic battle-hungry villain that we haven't had for a while. Desast taunts our heroes with the Storm Eagle ride-book (who he stole from the corpse of a former Logos warrior), and we get a moment of Ogami basically staying behind to hold Desast back while Touma and Rintaro go off to save his son. It's neat, but, again, I feel like they could've done more in hyping this moment up. It's just like... Ogami gets a bit of a pep-talk from Kento and he suddenly is a believer? I get that this series feels like it really wants to downplay the inter-Rider conflict that dominates the franchise as a trend in the past half-decade's worth of shows, but still. 

Mei gets to be somewhat more involved in this episode, being voluntarily trapped by the weird books and then using a fireworks to call Touma and Rintaro, but she's kind of just there to me as a character. We get the debut of a bunch of new two-book form with Saber's Dragon Hedgehog (which has nice colours but is also kind of underwhelming) and Buster using the Jackun key (he just swaps his arm armour). Buster and Desast's little clash leading to a finisher is cool as hell, though, and Desast being a weirdo, leaves the Storm Eagle book for the heroes. 

The debut of Touma's three-book form of Dragon/Hedgehog/Peter Pan is... kind of just there. Again, I know the show has a lot of new riders and forms to run the gauntlet in these chaotic first couple of months, but even other form-heavy shows like Build, OOO or Zero-One they've always managed to at least make these forms feel somewhat special, and here it's just yet another form. Something that's undoubtedly amazing and poplar, however, is the finisher in this one. Because the Peter Fantasista part of that combo summons a literal buff and cute fairy with gigantic biceps (played by a real-life wrestler!) who goes doryaaaa in the cutest voice as she flies to lariat fools. Easily my favourite part of this episode. 

This episode doesn't quite manage to stick the landing, though. Ogami is reunited with his kid, who learns to be interested in books because who wouldn't, after seeing a buff fairy clothesline a salamander monster to death? And then Calibur, main villain dude, shows up. And... we cut away to our heroes being defeated, and then cut away to Espada showing up to teleport Calibur away. It's so sudden, so jarring and honestly kind of poorly cut that I'm not sure if there's some sort of fight scene they weren't able to shot because of pandemic restrictions or something? I dunno, feels a bit weird. 

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Episode 5: My Friend the Thunder Swordsman

This episode is another one that feels just a bit too cluttered, but, again, focusing on one specific character works pretty well. This time around it's Fukamiya Kento, who was introduced to us all the way back in episode... 2? 3? But hasn't really done anything but sort of lurk in the background and say one line or two every episode. The episode itself is pretty exposition-heavy, because we learn that Calibur is actually Kento's dad NAOYA KAIDOU Hayato, and a former Sword of Logos member and Buster's old BFF. And he betrayed them all. There are a couple of great sweet moments in this episode of Touma being an understanding friend who offers to listen but isn't pushy (Huckleberry Finn cosplay sequence aside); as well as, best of all, Ogami being a good dad-figure to everyone and alternating between dropping dad truth-bombs or making a fool out of himself with soda just to get a laugh out of the sad] Kento. 

The drama bits are good, but the rest of the episode's plot is a bit... generic? The Piranha-no-Lunch Meggido just sort of shows up and destroys things (and gets taken out by dragon-hedgehog-peter in a pretty underwhelming explosion) while we get the formal debut of Kamen Rider Espada. Calibur shows up to scan Touma's sword and then get into a bit of an ominous face-off against his kid before Buster shows up to drive him off. Then after a bit of a talky-talk sequence (which I like!), Touma and Kento use their bikes and then unleash finishers to blow up the second Piranha Meggido. Oh, also, Touma gets to show off his Storm Eagle form, which is... eh, it exists.  

This episode also formally debuts Tetsuo, who's been lurking in the background for a while with his long hair. He's the team 'blacksmith', and he's a weird introvert dude that is obsessed with swords and their maintenance and doesn't interact in the most conventional way with people. I like him. Mei and Rintaro have a weird plot where they have exactly two scenes of doing some tomfoolery around town until they run into Desast while scrolling through fake-Instagram. I like Desast, but this felt like it's randomly inserted into the episode. The episode ends with Zoous showing up all angry that Desast is being blabby-mouthed and transforming into his monstrous monster form. Okay. 

A bit of a mixed bag. On one hand, the way they handled Kento was great in this one, and Ogami is awesome, too. Touma also feels for the first time to be more 'real', so to speak, instead of a collection of generic inspirational hero quotes. But while the drama stuff is certainly more important to a show, I feel like they didn't manage to juggle the Desast or Calibur parts of this episode particularly well.

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Episode 6: Like the Wind He Arrives

Another one that debuts another new Kamen Rider, this one just has Akamichi Ren show up out of nowhere instead of lurking in the background for the past couple of episodes. Ren's another one that's sort of adversarial to Touma but not really, because it's resolved within half the episode. All it amounts ends up being just calling him a 'n00b' and having a couple of friendly arguments about strength-vs-hearts or something, which feels a lot more... I dunno. I don't mind these sort of 'shallow' conflicts, Den-O made a great job out of it with Ryutaros and Yuuto... but these just feel rushed. Even if they wanted to commit to a childish rivalry, I kinda wished that they dragged it out for the whole episode, at least? I dunno. All this leads is a rather vaguely-shoehorned "I'm going to prove you I can" competition that splits the two characters up and have them don't interact after the first three minutes of the episode. It's weird.

The cliffhanger from the previous episode apparently got resolved off-screen again, because Desast is already back in the Meggido-base, only to be deployed to fight Espada and Saber in his new "Dragon/Eagle/Three-Pigs" form. Apparently in this universe, the tale of the three pigs involves three pigs luring a piranha monster into a straw house and then for a tornado to blow the monster away. It's not quite as memorable as buff Tinkerbell, but it'll do. 

Desast and Storious (a fancy monster suit there) trick Touma, put a seal on his belt and steal the Needle Hedgehog ride-book. This leaves Touma in a funk, we get ominous hints of the realm of "Avalon" from both good guys and bad guys, and Touma and Tetsuo basically spend the majority of the episode researching. It's nice, and I'm happy to give Tetsuo some characterization and focus before the eventual reveal that, gasp, he too is a Kamen Rider... but I dunno. The Touma/Tetsuo stuff isn't that interesting (Tetsuo is fun, though), and Ren just goes 'yep okay imma help' without any real development beyond the fact that he's a hyperactive too-much-sugar-today kid. The team clearly had a lot of fun choreographing him dual-wielding swords and making shurikens out of them, though, because Kamen Rider Kenzan very quickly joins Buster as being my favourite suit to see do badass things. Anyway, Kenzan and Espada blow up the Piranha monster and punch Desast in the face with a shuriken with their respective two-book forms (Lamp/Hedgehog and Ninjaden/Three-Pigs). Meanwhile, Touma and Tetsuo sort of figure out a riddle while talking about Avalon, and this scene is so filled with vague foreshadowing that I really find it uninteresting. 

Far far more compelling as a storyline than the generic Kenzan fight, though, is Rintaro and Mei! Without this episode, I would be complaining that Rintaro is a boring flat character who basically functions as a way for literally everyone to bounce dialogue off of, but turns out he's got a huge,huge bone to pick with Zoous. It's a simple "he killed my mentor" conflict, which isn't the most original thing... but compared to some of the storylines in this series the way it's presented, and, most importantly, the pacing and the very authentic angsting from Rintaro's actor, really sell me on this conflict. Suddenly, I'm invested! I'm pretty sure they might resolve it in the next episode, but seeing Rintaro so angry, yet so helpless because he got his ass handed to him by Zoous (he literally told poor Rintaro to 'go back home and cry to mommy' while patting his face) is a pretty great conflict. 

Again... it's a pretty fun and entertaining show regardless. I'm enjoying myself as I go back and forth between this and Kuuga (it's... an interesting experience for sure) but I dunno. Maybe it's the pandemic stilting the production or something, but while this isn't a show I dislike, I feel like it does have a fair amount of pacing and storytelling hiccups that makes me not enjoy it as much s the first quarter of Zero-One. Eh. 

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Random Notes:

• I can't stress how cool it was to have Karahashi Mitsuru, a.k.a. Kaidou from Faiz, back. Faiz is a lot of things as a show, but a vast majority of the actors were pretty great there, and I am so, so pleasantly surprised and happy we're getting a returning character for a main villain. 
• I am 100% indifferent about Tassel. The actor does his best and I appreciate his commitment to the role, but I just don't think he adds enough to the story unless he's going to suddenly be, like, revealed to be a main villain or a main good guy or something? Eh.
  
• The CGI backgrounds return for episode 6, with Desast and Kenzan fighting in some generic PS2 game post-apocalyptic world. I really do get the feeling that this is a way for the showmakers to bring us more elaborate stuntwork that they can't film because of pandemic regulations. 
• The sounds for the transformation devices this year is pretty overwhelmingly obnoxious, huh? The single-book transformations are perfectly fine, but when you start to do the two-book and three-book transformations and there are multiple sentences being read, I feel the noises end up being way more chaotic and confusing.
• I guess part of it is because every segment of the transformation sequence is narrated by the same voice? Zero-One's belts are particularly fun because there are like two or three different voice actors that makes each segment of a transformation jingle sound distinct.
• The three villains Zoous, Storious and Legeiel are giving me very strong OOO and Drive vibes as far as villains go. I didn't really care for them since they were just a bunch of random nicely-dressed dudes in a weird reading room before, but giving them individual monster forms makes them so much more interesting to care about.
• I'm actually kind of whatever for the general Meggido minions, their suits are all right but doesn't have any sort of distinctive aesthetic that brings them together... but clearly this is going to be a show that focused more on the main four or five villains and so far the named villain suits look great. 
• A lot of the forms are really things I'm completely indifferent about, I'm sorry to say, other than, obviously buff lariat wrestler Tinker Bell. 
• ORE WA HUCKLEBERRY FINNNN. 
• In this review, I'll be going back and forth on whether I use the original story names (Peter Pan, Aladdin, Jack and the Beanstalk, Three Little Pigs) or the trademark-friendly ones (Peter Fantasista, Alangina, Jack-kun no Domamenoki, Kobuta San-kyoadi). 
• Buster is completely absent in 6, so I guess they do have a limited amount of actors that can show up for any given scene, huh. 
• The book-flip finisher poses are kind of obvious filler (and nowhere as interesting as the stock footage transformations) but Kenzan has a particularly great one with some traditional scroll-art thing going on.