Kamen Rider Saber Episode 9-10 Review: Guns N' Roses

Kamen Rider Saber, Episode 9: Overlap, the Swordsman's Timbre; Episode 10: Crossing Swords and Crossing Feelings

Been a while since I've reviewed Saber. Sometimes you just don't really feel like talking about a show weekly, y'know? This draft has been sitting in the blog for weeks now. Honestly, a combination of real-world stuff making my TV-watching schedule kind of out of whack for the past month, plus the general disjointed character-balancing and storytelling really made it feel like there's not much to say about these episodes while a lot happens at the same time. 

Episode 9:

Anyway, episode 9. We barely have a moment to breathe from last episode's whole "King of Arthur" super-form, and... I dunno. We just jump straight into "who is Calibur", and the fact that the show is skirting around showing Calibur's transformation so much and showing Kento and the others angsting about how to deal with Kaido Kento's dad is basically a sure-fire giveaway that Calibur is not Fukamiya Hayato. And in this episode it basically becomes blindingly -- almost insultingly -- obvious what they were trying to hint. 

We get some recap about what's going on, one of the named Megiddo bosses (they really blur together and I can't put a name to their face) unleashes the Ugly Duckling Megiddo of the week on the city, and we get a pretty generic plot on that end, with Saber, Blades and Espada fighting three of the ducklings and Calibur in a honestly generic action scene. Thankfully, Daishinji "Slash" Tetsuo probably has one of the better build-ups among this show's dozen of characters that can transform. Having been in the background as a fun little presence is certainly helpful, but I do really like it that he doesn't just literally show up and pop into the show like Kenzan. 

Touma and Calibur have some generic yelling about friends-vs-power or some stuff, their blades clash and Sophia recognizes this as 'resonance'. Calibur beats up Touma and Kento (oh, and Rintaro, too, he did jack-all in that fight) and Calibur takes a bunch of random Ride-Books from their belt. Not all of them, just some of them, the significance of which is honestly just glossed over and I would be lying if I said that I cared about which plot device moves hands, because the show clearly doesn't.

But who the heck cares, because this episode has one of the best Kamen Rider entrances with Kamen Rider Slash. Looking like the bastard love-child of Jin, Ex-Aid and Decade, we get the hilariously over the top (and yes, slightly 'cringey') transformation of Tetsuo with the unfortunately-named Hanselnuts and Gretel book. In addition to wearing a badass jacket when showing up into battle, Tetsuo as Slash gets... really excited, yelling bad Engrish like "SNACK ON THE CHOPPER!", "LOVE YOU BAYBEEE YEAH!" and "EXPLOOOOO-SION!" as he jumps around and acts all funky and stuff. It's not actually the type of character that I usually care for, but Tetsuo hams it up so much and the contrast is pretty wild to his usual introvert don't-bother-me personality. And that's a personality trait that I find charming, unlike half the good guy cast that honestly just feels one-note to me. 

Slash beats up the ducklings with his very fun "Bremen no Rock Band" book, then frees the others. Saber goes from one super-form to the next, using King of Arthur, then using a three-red-books combo. This is new, right? All the Saber forms blur together to me, I'm sorry. It's honestly just an all-red version of the Brave Dragon thing, it's not like there's anything particularly eagle-y or Journey to the West-y about his fighting style. Anyway, he drives Calibur off, the secondary characters blow up the ducklings, and Touma gets to talk a bit about getting past his writer's slump by writing about his friends. 

A black-suited lady, Reika, also shows up in this episode and acts all mysterious, observing our heroes claiming to come from the other Sword of Logos branch. She is certainly and probably going to be important going forwards, but I don't have much to say about her. If she becomes a Rider or a secret villain, though, I do appreciate the Slash-style build-up. 

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Episode 10:

The story bits for this episode felt a bit more solid, mostly because there's an actual moment here instead of just "hey, let's debut this new toy" and "hey, books are being stolen". Granted, it's pretty basic, but throughout the episode we get Touma, Rintaro and Mei trying to get Kento to open up to them and not mope about so much, but it's also executed very well in that none of Kento's friends are actually pushy and forceful in trying to get him to open up to them, respecting his space and boundaries. I like that a lot. I like that newer fiction are slowly starting to realize that forcing someone to open up before they're ready can be just as harmful as letting them wallow in their problems alone. And, again, there's really nothing much to say about that moment other than it's pretty sweet, but it sure is there. Also, Mei's just there to be the show's butt-monkey, not sure how I feel about that. Still, it's these moments that these characters desperately need for me to really care for them beyond "hey the rider suit looks cool I guess". 

The rest of the episode is pretty much the same with episode 9. The good guys want to steal back the books from the bad guys, the Duckling Megiddo rampages around a bit, and there's a lot of discussion about Calibur's motivations and why he is doing what he does. New character Reika also shows up, but she mostly is just there to hand a new book, Tri-Cerberus, to Kento. 

There's a fight between Saber, Blades and Espada against the super Ugly Duckling Meggido, then Calibur shows up, then Slash shows up, then there's some attempt at figuring out how Calibur's attack-absorbing powers work. This fight, at least, is actually relatively better choreographed -- until the moment that it boils down to just stealing shit off of Calibur until all three of the good guys can do a triple-combo transformation or whatever. Keeping the fight simple as "Slash vs the duck, everyone else vs Calibur" works so much better than five melees going on at the same time. Also, having Espada summon the genie to beat up Calibur and steal a book back is kind of funny. A triple-kick and a triple-sword-slash later, and they actually beat up Calibur. Storious shows up to bail Calibur out, but turns out that he's not Kento's dad but Kamijou Daichi, the previous Saber. 

Everyone gets confused, Calibur beats up Espada a bit, there's a bunch of mystery, and any progress Kento has on opening up to his friends gets flushed down the toilet as he broods off. Touma also realizes that he's got a flashback of playing as kids with a young Kento... wait, didn't they establish that they knew each other as kids? I thought they did, but oh well. A pretty decent episode, honestly, and I do like the focus on Kento even if it's nothing particularly revolutionary for the genre.

I do like Slash. He's probably not going to be super-duper relevant since all these non-Touma, non-Kento characters are sort of shelved aside after their spotlight two-parter (and I am very hesitant to say 'spotlight') is done if Blades and Buster are anything to go by, but I do like him. The Calibur/Kento stuff is admittedly a bit more engaging than the bizarre King Arthur stuff or the sword resonance stuff, but it's also something that I felt could've been built up a lot better. 

Random Notes:

• I get a lot of the 'yeah baby' that Slash yells out, but what does "Snack on the Chopper" mean? Or are the subtitles even accurate with that one?
• I've been very apathetic about a lot of this season's gimmick announcements and whatnot, but the voice announcement for "Bremen no ROKKU BANDO!" is easily the most delightful sound in this show hands-down.  
• Espada's suit really is coloured like the Ugly Duckling Megiddo and it did make me get a bit confused at times. 
• Calibur also gets to meet Sophia and Buster for a bit at the end of episode 9, but even with the tie-in to 9.5 nothing really comes up of it.
• Comparing this to a show like OOO or something that did it pretty well, I reeeeally don't give two shits about the collectible plot devices being stolen and returned or exchanging hands or whatever. 
• It's a simple thing, but I really do like the bursts of practical water that they use for Blades. It's such a nice break from all the very visually loud CGI flames and lightning bolts and wind slashes. 
• I'm not sure what it is about this show's action scenes that make them really not stick in my head. It's just paced very quickly and jumps away from one character to the next, but the fact that a lot of fight scenes just have like six or seven people running around; most of them being named characters, is probably a huge factor. Apparently Calibur's sword has been absorbing powers since forever, but I tune out the action scenes so much that it took me until episode 10 to realize that, oh yeah, that's a thing. 
• Two episodes of the "Kamen Rider Swordsman Chronicles" or whatever were released at this point in time, being essentially an episode 8.5 and 9.5. I really don't think either one feels particularly notable, though, just a couple of action scenes and a bit more of an exploration of Slash, Buster and Kenzan's personalities. Nothing that is really necessary or honestly notable, but it's nice that we get a bit more of them.