Kamen Rider Saber E23-24 Review: PuToTyranno

Kamen Rider Saber, Episode 23-24

Episode 23: Raging, Hand of Ruin

A pair of... interesting episodes? I guess it's about time we get another power-up, then. Anyway, after a bit of a recap on the plot of the show so far, Touma and Mei basically get the idea to talk to this mysterious 'Master Logos' and talk to him about the potential traitor in the Sword of Logos organization. At the same time, Storius also decides to infiltrate the Sword of Logos's south base to retrive some forbidden tome to complete his new hybrid Megid book. We get to see a bit of South Base, and it's like... a throne room meets a chapel? It's mostly just Reika standing in front of a cloaked Master Logos, who gives general 'we are justice' speeches. 

The problem for both Storius and Team Touma is that they need a teleportation book -- and with Touma and Daishinji both essentially expelled, they need to find a way to sneak in. We get a pretty cool scene where they meet Ryo Ogami who gives them an earful about thinking that they could convince him to betray Sword of Logos... but he leaves his Book Gate behind anyway in a pretty cool scene. 

The other elite Megid go off on a rampage. Zooius rampages and when Rintaro and Ren show up from their teleportation book, Storius just sneakily steps into the book because no one pays attention to it, apparently. Zooius fights Rintaro in his Lion Senki form, and, uh, because Ren isn't too bright he ends up attacking Yuuri when he shows up to help out.

Meanwhile, Daishinji and Touma infiltrate South Base with their own book, and we do get a couple of fun sneaky-sneak scenes on both the Touma/Daishinji front and Storius just choking random cloaked Logos goons and stuff. Storius faces off against a hooded man he identifies as Master Logos, while Touma gets essentially dragged along and separated from Daishinji when Touma meets a random young man. We don't learn who this young man is, but since they bothered to make him a prominent actor and stuff, it's basically almost certain that he's either Master Logos (since his face is hidden otherwise) or a new Rider.

Thanks to the Mysterious Man's teleportation books, Touma ends up confronting Storius as he's about to abscond with the forbidden book. Their attempt to fight ends up with a giant bone-tentacle thing bursting out of the forbidden book and rising into the sky, attracting the attention of basically everybody. Legiel jumps in with his murder-boner for Touma, but Touma ends up reading the book and the 'forbidden knowledge' or whatever possesses him, forcing him to transform without keeping his sentience into Primitive Dragon. 

The suit actor and Touma's actor have a lot of fun making Primitive Dragon feel feral and completely out of control and... it's honestly kind of a common trope. Last season had it with Metal Cluster Hopper, too. It's still pretty fun, though -- Primitive Dragon Saber beats down Legiel and Storius down handily and almost seems to kill Legiel (the next episode show he's fine) in a particularly brutal finisher. That's basically the cliffhanger of this episode...

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Episode 24: On My Father's Back, the Future He Carried

...and this episode sort of deals with the aftermath with that. South Base (or, well, just Reika) is in an uproar because someone stole the forbidden book; Team Touma is confused and Daishinji can't even begin to analyze the book without Northern Base's equipment; and Zooius is freaking out and asking if Storius even has a plan. (Oh, and Legiel survives but is generally angry)

And... I'm not sure if I missed an explanation somewhere, because Team Touma just... shows up in North Base, which is deserted? I guess everyone else now hangs out in South Base? I'm not sure why Team Touma can just freely walk around in North Base without any reprisal from the rest of Sword of Logos, but okay. I guess the identical-looking set with a gloomy filter where Reika, Ryo, Ren and Rintaro (the R squad) hang out is just South Base? I don't really know. 

Ryo gets into some conflict with Reika, who, uh, touches a bit of a nerve by essentially subtly threatening that Ryo's son "only lives in safety by the grace of the organization". You know, if there is one thing that will make Ryo betray the organization... the script isn't honestly the best, but the acting between Ryo and his kid is pretty earnest and fun, really showing Ryo's conflict on whether he believes in the organization or in Touma. But Ryo's kid basically gets him to realize that he should hang out with Touma, who never lies, and... I guess Team Touma just got themselves a strong dad with a giant sword then. It's kind of low-key, but Ryo's gotten some real neat moments over the past couple of episodes. I don't think it's handled as well as Daishinji, but it's all right. In a pretty cool scene, we get an extended fight between Ryo and Touma as Ryo basically wants to test Touma's mettle. It's pretty neat, actually, with some arguments about their philosophies, and ultimately Ryo decides to hang out with them.

Oh, and then suddenly a sandstorm or a smoke cloud or something shows up, and Reika shows up with a new sword of her own, and she steals three of the power-up books (Jackun, Saiyuu Journey and Storm Eagle). As Touma points out, it's not the first time that a smoke cloud has stolen things from right under their noses, so, uh, Reika's got the sword of smoke? Is she about to transform? I think she might be. 

Ryo talks to Rintaro and Ren about leaving the organization. Poor Rintaro, as we expect, is still deep in his "I refuse to leave my family and the organization is my family!" and we know he's pretty devoted to his cause. Ren, on the other hand, has already been having a lot of doubts and is just trying to silence his doubts by rampaging as wildly and noisily as he can, but when one by one the people he respect starts to go off to hang out with Touma? Ryo gives him a couple of nice advice telling him to think for himself what's right, and I guess we might have a Ren arc in the next set of two-parter episodes. 

Legiel, who's doped up on Alter Ride Books, is rampaging and blowing up random buildings, so we get Touma and Yuuri arriving and transforming to fight Legiel. Even Dragonic Knight and X-Swordman seem to be in trouble, but then randomly the Primitive Dragon book teleports from North Base and inserts itself in Touma's belt, transforming him into Primitive Dragon again. 

The visuals are pretty neat as Primitive Dragon Touma just very handily beats the shit out of Legiel again, but also Yuuri. Rintaro shows up, conflicted about whether he should cut down his rampaging friend, but then Primitive Dragon's claw tentacle shoots out, steals Lion Senki and then transforms into... uh... the little stickers on his chest and shoulder armour changes into the Lion Senki book? Okay? Just as Primitive Dragon is about to attack Mei, suddenly Kamen Rider Calibur shows up out of nowhere to help Saikou knock down Touma and forcing him to revert to normal. 

And... and that's the episode. 23 and 24 basically have the same conclusion, more or less, of Primitive Dragon going wild and rampaging and being pretty badass. Reminds me a lot of Metal Cluster, Fang Joker and PuToTyranno, among others... and I don't know. Compared to those, Primitive Dragon does admittedly feel kind of formulaic, especially since those three berserk forms (there's probably more, I can't think of any on top of my head) had, IMO, a better story attached to them. The Ryo stuff is pretty nice, and I think they're finally building up to answer the traitor question? It's all right, I guess. I can't say that either of these two episodes really excited me all that much, but both are pretty solid ones.