Kamen Rider Saber (2020)

Rollercoaster of a show.

Overall I would say that if you want to watch a Kamen Rider show, go for any other better ones. This was not one of them.

The Story. Personally, I didn't like it. The first arc of this show was extremely rushed. Every week it felt like we were getting characters that just popped up in the background and later they turned into riders and then you were presented to them, as the new character was in the background. Then it slowed a bit and became a show about Touma losing all his new friends for no reason and then sword fighting them into being friends with him. Literally, every one of his group members had a sword battle with him and most of them had it right before turning back to his side. Then there were so many plot points that were just brought up at the end with no buildup. Storious had a bunch of people kidnapped? Never saw it until it was relevant. Oh, And Ren just fussing about getting stronger was super annoying.

The acting was on par with other rider shows. I will give props to Angela Mei, who played Reika/Sabela. While I didn't really like how the writer handled her character at all, she did a great job. First, she was shown as the evil "right hand" woman to the main bad guy. Then was more of a comedy relief. She did both well.

The music was great. Almighty was a bangger. I listened to it for hrs and didn't get tired of it. The ending song was not bad either.

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Everything the show did well:
-By the end of the show every main character besides Sabella and Durandal is likeable.
-From the second quarter onward the show has consistently amazing battle choreography. The show really gives each character a really distinct and nuanced swordsmanship.
-One of the best final arcs/quarters of the franchise.
-The final main antagonist is entertaining and the reasoning behind his actions make sense.
-Really great lore and world-building.
-Slightly better acting than usual Rider shows.
-The bubbles aesthetic the show uses to portray the fantasy setting looks great.
-The show's exceeds at slice of life/human drama elements which really make you care for the cast and results in really emotional moments.
-Really great fantasy soundtrack.

Everything the show did bad:
-One of the worst first arcs/quarters in the franchise. The beginning tries to do too much for its runtime, which is made worse because the episodes has less content than an usual rider show due to having: an ending theme, stock transformations and longer recaps. This makes the show feel cluttered and it affects the action as it occasionally cuts earlier. Other aspect that makes the action worse during this arc is that the protagonist who gets most of the screentime mostly relies on bad-looking CGI magic rather than actual swordsmanship like the other riders.
On top of all of these issues said arc is incomplete due to not being able to film properly thanks to covid, so in order to get the full picture of the show, one must watch the Swordsmen Chronicles spin-off alongside the arc to enjoy the show better. Because if one doesn't watch the spin-off: Kento's actions seems dumber, one won't understand Buster and Slash relationship, why Slash wasn't being able to fight goes unexplained, Rintaro's character's inconsistent in the first arc, Rintaro would be the only one of the main quartet who doesn't have any relation to books and Rintaro actions later in the show lack weight.
The only consistent good thing in the first arc are its slice of life elements which are really well done and make pretty much every major character likeable in the beginning with the exception of Touma who's really generic and Ren who remains a jerk.
However after episode 15 the show improves drastically as it starts having better pacing, Touma starts getting an actual character and gets tons of development, Yuri who's one of the show's best characters gets introduced and Touma goes trough a training arc and learns how to use proper swordsmanship which does wonders for the choreography.
-Ren remains unlikeable until the final arc because we aren't told his backstory until then. However it felt like there wasn't any actual reason to withhold his backstory for so long.
-Sabella and Durandal remain kinda unlikeable for the whole show (which is weird considering they are really likeable in all of the show's spin-offs and specials, some of which aired during the show).
-A lot of times it feels like the cast forgets that Sophia exists which feels out of character.
-While all the main villains are entertaining, it feels like a lot of them die just when they were getting interesting.
-The monster of the week aspect in the first half is kinda hit or miss.
-Episodes 34~38 where the movie villain Falchion gets introduced into the show, return to the hectic pacing and weird editing of the first arc. (If you're worried about watching the short movie, it's just a fight and Bacht's backstory isn't actually explained, you can go into this show without watching and the show summarizes it pretty well anyway).
-It felt like the show could have further explored Ren, Yuri and Bacht backstories.
-The mix and match power mechanics are underutilized.
-Despite the final main antagonist being entetaing, having a cool fighting style and their whole rationale making sense. It's extremely difficult to take him seriously due to the actor overplaying his villain voice in the final arc.

Reasons for the show strenghts:
Producer Kazuhiro Takahashi is great at coming up with unique concepts. Main writer Fukuda is excellent at writing human drama and making you care for the characters, he's also a really great lorist. A lot of episodes are written by Keiichi Hasegawa who knows who to up the stakes and make characters likeable. The Reiwa strategy to storyboard fights continues to do wonders for the action.

Reasons for the show flaws:
The show originally had a darker, more interesting premise where Touma was vagabond who trained by himself to be a swordsman ever since he was a kid in order to save Luna, as he opposes both Sword of Logos and the megido but ultimately learns how to work alongside the organization, with a tone closer to Kamen Rider Kabuto. However due to Covid, Toei requested that shows of the super hero time segment of that year to be more light in order to cheer people up.
Covid made it so that the show couldn't have characters of the week in the beginning so to compensate the producer made Kamen Rider Kenzan, Buster and Slash appear earlier, how the show still needs to shill toys so he replaced what would have been Saber's alternate weapons with their transformation devices. This meant that the characters would be introduced earlier making the show feel bloated while also not being able to do a proper introduction since they need to add a new form for Saber the same episode they are introduced.
Since it was possible that Saber could enter a hiatus like Zero-One, the producer impromptuly came up with the character Tassel, a narrator that would do longer recaps so that people don't feel lost in the plot. Originally the v.a. who voiced the transformation device was supposed to be the narrator.
The producer shoehorned a combo mechanic and a dragon motif instead of being just books/arthurian legend like it was initially supposed to due to OOO and Agito's anniversary respectively.
The producer barely allowed main writer Fukuda to actually write episodes and he basically mostly served as the show's lorist and the writer for the Kento and Ren focus episodes. This wasn't that bad since secondary writer Hasegawa is great, but Fukuda writing more episodes could have resulted in the show feeling more unique.

Overall:
If you care more about a show being consistent then this show will probably be a 6/10, if you value acting, writing and direction overall then it would probably be a 7. This show definitely does more good than bad and after the initial bad arc improves drastically and ends up with one of the best final arcs in Kamen Rider. However having to stomach the first 15 episodes + having to watch the Swordman Chronicles alongside it is a big turn-off, especially since it's not like the show's perfect after episode 15 as it has quite a lot of nitpicks plus episodes 34~38 have a similar feel to the first arc. But at the very least it's mostly an enjoyable time, personally really like the themes and characters which is why I'm giving it an 8 and as of 2024 it's the Reiwa rider show with the best plot so far.

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