Kamen Rider Saber E27-29 Review: Dream Dragon Boy

Kamen Rider Saber, Episodes 27-29

I'm still doing these! Sort of. I'm pretty behind on the show. 

Episode 27: Sorrow, I'll Turn it Into A Smile

So... I don't know. Kento being this dark anti-hero trying to stop the world from ending is a neat little wrench to be tossed into the status quo, but the next couple of episodes has basically been pretty much made obvious. He's going to seal the blades of all the tertiary riders and we also still have the Meggido trio and Master Logos to deal with, who I assume will be the final big bad of the show. 

This episode deals with Touma trying to connect with the mysterious little boy he sees every time he transforms into Primitive Dragon, because he's 100% convinced (for no real reason other than 'he looks sad') that he can befriend this dragon. Okay? It's mostly a montage of Touma getting blasted with imaginary fire all throughout the first half of the episode. 

Legiel, meanwhile, has gotten a massive power-up, turning him into a golden form of himself. He beats up Buster and Saikou pretty handily, before Touma shows up and transforms into Dragonic Knight... and, of course, naturally gets taken over. Then Touma sort of goes into a coma and essentially gives the CGI dragon a hug because he's sad? I can't say that this doesn't come out of nowhere because Ogami's kid read that story about a lonely dragon last episode or something, but the Primitive Dragon story has honestly been kind of one-note and the conclusion is pretty lackluster. Touma gets to become yet another new form, Elemental Dragon, and he absolutely blows Legiel up. I think he's actually dead now!

We get a brief flashback before Legiel dies where he regains his sanity enough to remember when the three Meggido boys, Tassel and Master Logos the first originally arrived in the storybook land. Touma also gets a brief vision of Tassel and the little dragon boy meeting him in the vision land, and I think this is the first time Tassel's actually interacted with the main cast other than Yuri? 

I don't know. It's all right, but I really had wished that the Primitive Dragon talk-stuff was either expanded upon more or quickly resolved within a single episode or something. Dragging it out like this for a pretty muted conclusion... it could be done better. 

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Episode 28: Writing the Past, Drawing the Future

And then there's this episode. It's partially a clip show, partially a recap show. I wonder if there's something that went on in the background? It's not as terrible as anime clip shows, and I enjoy the chance to stop down and take a breather, but it also means that there's honestly barely any content in the 22 minutes. This feels like one of those .5 episodes earlier in the show, except it's stretched out to double the length that it should. We get recaps and some internal speculation about the truth about what Kamijou and Kento saw as the way to 'save the world'; Touma gives a recap about his old background with Luna; Storius and Zooius do a bad guy motivation monologue. 

Outside of the recap segments, the episode basically reaffirms that hey, Kento is very much resolute in sealing all the sacred blades. And also Master Logos is a lunatic and probably going to be the final antagonist of the show. The big event that happens here is Ren leaving Sword of Logos and getting his wind sword sealed by Kento after a brief scuffle. You gotta feel sorry for the guy, compared to how Daishinji and Ogami leaving the organization was portrayed, Ren's decision is basically slowly built up in the background... and he just does that and gets his ass kicked within fifteen seconds of meeting Kento. It's like the writers had to check Ren off the list of 'he needs to leave Logos' and 'he needs to get his sword sealed'. 

Oh, and also, Master Logos does the typical anime villain 'I want to observe the hero, that's why I've allowed him to roam free like this' spiel. This one, I don't mind so much, Logos is pretty unhinged. We also get the brief and understated debut of Shindai Ryoga, another swordsman and a future Kamen Rider, who is Logos's right-hand man and Reika's big brother. 

There's sort of a framing plot of Mei being told to get Touma to write a sequel to his novel about friendship and stuff, and he resolves to do it since he now has a bunch of friends. That's honestly kind of whatever. What else? Desast shows up and gets mentioned so the audience remembers he exists, and Mei gets to see the storybook world, so she's probably going to be the next target. 

Kind of a whatever episode. It's good that they at least tossed in enough content so that the episode isn't entirely a clip show, but it also feels honestly kind of bland all around. 

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Episode 29: At that Moment, the Swordsman Made His Move
So after more or less hanging out in the background for the past couple of episodes, Rintarou has basically been observing and wrestling with his doubts regarding the organization. There's nothing ultimately super-complex about this since the show's honestly pretty blatant at who to root for, but I actually do find Rintarou's story pretty interesting as someone who wants so badly to believe that the organization he was raised in all his life to be right. And I like the little scene at the beginning where it's Mei that basically talks to Rintarou and gets him to objectively see all the evidence. 

Rintarou also decides to 'clean up' the traitor within the organization, something that the other swordsmen pick up immediately. This causes Touma and Yuri to teleport to Southern Base with some 'way of light' in order to help out Rintarou. Meanwhile, in Southern Base, we kind of get a repeat of Shindai Ryoga's introduction, making episode 28 feel a bit more redundant, honestly.

Rintarou's investigation gets him to overhear Reika interrogating Sophia, and he decides to report it to Master Logos. Which is honestly kind of the smart thing to do... if the corruption hasn't gone all the way to the top. I honestly wished that we had just a bit more conflict, that Master Logos was actually smart in trying to manipulate Rintarou. What we got -- a card-carrying hammy villain -- was still entertaining, but I honestly wished that we had something more? Logos just rants about how he got rid of the Divine Sages, mocks Rintarou's devotion to the creed, and basically all that's missing is a huge neon sign yelling "I am a crazy main villain!"

Rintarou transforms into Blades, but gets stopped by Ryoga, who has probably one of the coolest toys ever -- his sword's blade can be detached and he switches the handle and the blade to form a trident. Obviously the actual tokusatsu suit is wielding a practical trident for stunts, but hey, I actually like Kamen Rider Durendal's form a lot. I think it's the helmet, though I've always had a thing for aquatic Rider suits. They might be the villains, but man, the Shindai siblings have two of the best-looking suits in the entire show. (And one of his jingle is 'ocean splash splash', which is funny)

The rest of the episode is basically a protracted ten-minute fight against Durendal, which is actually pretty neat! Durendal wields the time blade... and his ability allows him to... uh... teleport Rintarou around? He gets teleported with some pretty neat water effects to another part of the base while Durendal just appears in and out of him. I guess we've got some JoJo's Bizarre Adventure King Crimosn time manipulation going on? The name of the ability is 'Kaiji Erasure', and I think that's what is going on. Durendal fights with Blades a bit, and then with Saber in his fancy new Elemental Dragon form... but then Durendal holds Rintarou at sword-point, forcing Touma to hand over his belt and transformation books. 

There's actually some really great acting on Rintarou's part, as he begs and cries about how the organization he believes in is rotten, how he wants Touma to destroy the whole organization... but Touma knows Rintarou enough to know that Rintarou doesn't mean that and what they need to do is that they need to fix the organization. Durendal's nice enough to wait! Yuri uses the time to distract Durendal, and Rintarou uses Elemental Dragon (I think?) to create a huge CGI tidal wave that sweeps all the good guys back to Northern Base. Touma actually straight-up gets a trident through his back, which is surprising! Yuri heals him almost immediately, though. Oh, and while all of this is going on, Kento shows up to free Sophia, allowing her to meet up with the rest of the Team Touma group. 

And... okay, as far as episodes go, this one is all right. It's mostly great on the part of Rintarou's acting and Durendal as a badass new baddie, though -- and, as I mentioned above, I kind of hoped that Master Logos had at least tried to keep up the deception a bit more? Honestly, these episodes are kind of clunky, but 29 here might be the most solid out of the three I review today.