Kamen Rider Saber Episode 11-12 Review: Fury in the Dark

Kamen Rider Saber, Episode 11: Disturbed Thunder, Spreading Dark Clouds; Episode 12: The Promise, in that Place

Episode 11:

Mmm, kind of a disjointed episode, but that's honestly how I feel about most Saber episodes. They try so hard for an episode-to-episode serialized format that everything just sort of blurs together, you know? This one starts off with Touma trying to talk to Kento about their shared past and the identity of the previous Saber as the man in Touma's backstory, but at this point we really don't know much about any of these boys that I really wished we had maybe one or two extra 'filler' episodes to make this impact really land. Episode 10 was great because it actually gave me a moment of reference for their friendship. This one also had a pretty good one, albeit between Touma and Mei talking about what they could do to help out Kento, although, again, it's pretty short.

Far more engaging, I feel, is the confrontation between the serious Rintaro and Kento, with Rintaro being absolutely angry at Kento for allowing his personal feelings to drive him; swordsmen are supposed to put the organization first and all that. Admittedly it does ring hollow for mister "I will train and gain a power-up to avenge my dead master" Rintaro, but the conflict is a pretty interesting one for this episode. There's a neat, thematic bit with Rintaro monologuing about how the organization is his family. Absolutely love how Kento shuts Rintaro down by pointing out that his undying loyalty to the organization is basically him being driven by his own personal feelings. 

Legiel unleashes a bunch of Goblin Megiddos onto the city, and they make six big books that looks like some sort of giant summoning ritual. We also get the Goblins turning random civilians into red bloodstains on the ground. When did we last see Kamen Rider monsters actually 'kill' people on-screen? I mean, it's nowhere like the brutal killings in Agito or Faiz, but still. 

We keep cutting back and forth in showing the Kamen Riders engaging with the Goblin Megiddos. Everyone shows up here. Kenzan, Saber, Buster, Slash, Desast, Zooius... but the main conflict is Sophia confronting Calibur-Daichi under the Tokusatsu bridge. Daichi talks about how he's a seeker of truth or whatever, and acts all enigmatic and evasive to Sophia and Kento's questioning. He considers Kento's dad a traitor, and claims to have killed him, but we don't learn why he's hanging out with the Meggidos. Espada and Calibur fight a bit, and Blades tries to help out because Espada's way too emotional. After a pretty brief fight, Calibur unleashes Jaou Dragon, his own super form, and beats the shit out of Espada. 

Oh yeah, while all of this is going on, Saber (with Bremen no rocku bando) summons a pile of cartoon animals to blow up a goblin. Both Saber and Kenzan's blades glow and create giant pillars of light, which is something that Legiel and Desast are apparently pleased about.

Then as Calibur's about to deliver the finishing blow, Blades jumps in the way of the attack, crackles with energy and even spits out blood. Like, okay, they're allowed to show blood in Kamen Rider again now? It's actually surprisingly dramatic. Rintaro talks about how he's got no right to be a swordsman since he's acted on his own feelings to save his own family, That's the cliffhanger, with Rintaro passing out in Kento's arms. 

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Episode 12:

Our heroes regroup in the Logos base, sort of doing a bit of a reap on everything that has transpired. Rintaro's wounded but not dead, and both Mei and Buster, though kind, kind of call Kento out on his fucking up. I'm not sure how the good guys haven't figured it out yet, but the bad guys basically talk about how they're going to make more pillars of light, each corresponding to one of the sacred swords. Most of the riders are more concerned about saving the people that are trapped, while Kento seemingly remembers that this is just 'like back then'. 

Again, we get a bit of jumping all over the place. Kento ditches his babysitter Ren pretty quickly to apologize to the bedridden Rintaro and talks about how he's going to have to be the one to defeat Calibur, for the sake of 'Luna' as well. Meanwhile all the other Kamen Riders fight more of the goblins. Saber fights Zooius and Storious. And none of the action scenes are honestly super-duper interesting. 

Kento confronts Daichi at the park where the flashbacks happened, noting that the same thing happened fifteen years ago when a portal was created by six giant books. We get Jaou Dragon Calibur facing off against the Lamp-Hedgehog-Cerberus Espada. A lot of fight scenes later, and Rintarou shows up without transforming, riding on a god damn robot lion, with bandages all over his torso and his shirt draped over his shoulders, taking on Zooius without transforming. He's kind of a dork, but this bit is actually badass. Rintaro tells Touma to fulfill the promise he made to Kento and Luna, and this bit sparks some recognition from Touma.

As Calibur fights the angry-boy Espada, we get more pillars of light emerge from the swords of Slash, Buster and Blades. And Touma gets to finally remember the prologue! Touma feels bad at Kento for 'bearing the burden' all this time as he rides his motorbike. Meanwhile, as Calibur threatens to kill Touma too, Kento finally transforms one last time for a clash... and when Touma shows up it's suddenly only night. We get a pretty long and well-acted scene of Touma meeting Kento's wounded body, and it's heavily implied that he dies here, with Kento talking to Touma about how happy that Touma still likes books and just a bit about Luna. (Oh, and Tassel shows up with the mystery Avalon man!)

Not the best-paced episode because it jumps around so much, and the conflict is pretty simple, but throughout the two episodes I really did enjoy Kento's conflict with Rintaro. It's just that I really wished they had given us a bit more with Touma's character, he feels so reactive to everything that's going on that he does have that 'default main character hero' feel. Still do think the series is paced pretty messily, but, again, I am enjoying myself. 

Random Notes:

• Yep, insert your own "Kujo Kiriya dies near Christmas" joke here. 
• Jaou Dragon's announcement is... pretty hilariously long and grammatically inaccurate English: "Jump out the book, open it and burst, the fear of the darkness. You make right a just no matter dark joke, fury in the dark. " Yep, no matter dark joke indeed. 
• I honestly would care more about the Ride-books if we get more finishers like Saber's Bremen no Rock Band, Blades' Peter Pan or Kenzan's Three-Pigs finisher. It really would add a lot to know just what part of the Cerberus that Espada actually uses, for example. 
• Sophia gives Mei a key and tells her to stay in the base, but I don't think this really ends up leading to anything?
• There's a bit of an odd scene editing where Rintarou is about to fight Zooius and Storious, the two decide to leave, Rintarou going "ah I have to save the civilians"... then after cutting away to other characters, he's somehow slashing and killing a goblin? It's weird. 
• While it doesn't actually come up to any major misunderstandings, I do like the rather realistic bit of Kento's mind jumping to "is everyone in a conspiracy to discredit my father?" when he sees Sophia and Daichi having a conversation. I do equally like that he doesn't actually get confrontational to Sophia about this after realizing that Daichi's pretty untrustworthy with anything he's saying. 
• Also a fun moment is Buster freaking out in episode 12 over Calibur being Daichi, something that the others are already 'over with' but he's somehow kept out of the loop. Don't blame yourself, Buster, lots of things get revealed in these episodes and they move pretty quickly. 
• Throughout the prologue/epilogue bits for episodes 10 and 11, we've got Tassel slowly hinting that he's going to see "him" and stuff, and finally at the end of episode 12 he shows up with the enigmatic monk-looking dude from Avalon. Okay. I don't care for Tassel as a weirdo narrator, so I do hope he's going to be more likable as a relevant character in the story.