Recap: Kamen Rider Saber, Chapter 17: The Ancient Messenger, of Either Light or Shadow.

Recap: Kamen Rider Saber, Episode 17 – The Ancient Messenger, of Either Light or Shadow.

Touma is sitting on the rooftop thinking about the now-meaningless promise they had made to be friends forever. Mei finds him and takes a seat with him. She asks if he knows what he’s going to do now, but he doesn’t.

Meanwhile, the Megido3 are pleased with their progress of obtaining Alter Books. Yuki has been turned into the Yeti Megido and her freezing powers are slowly causing trouble in the city.

Touma and Mei head to the shop which Yuri has completely ransacked just so he could read the books and load up on knowledge. Yuri compliments Touma on his unfinished manuscript he’s been writing about all his friends. He’s not a fan of the comic book where the heroes felt all down on themselves instead of focusing on saving the world.

Yuri says he wants to observe the current world and asks Touma to show him around tomorrow.

Meanwhile at the South Pole, the traitors are processing the fact that they crossed swords with Touma. An enraged Ren doesn’t care, nor want to believe anything that comes out of Touma’s mouth. All he cares about his avenging his dearly beloved Kento-kun.

Reika pops in and orders them to retrieve all the toys in Touma’s possession as well as the Sword of Light. She says the world will be in danger if they don’t do it posthaste. But Rintaro insists that Touma would never use any of it for evil. Reika asks if he is sure he wouldn’t and Rintaro has the audacity to doubt Touma.

Rintaro wishes Sophia was here.

Next day, Touma and Mei bring Yuri downtown. While Mei buys them boba, Yuri notices everyone looking at him like he’s weird. Touma points out that it’s his clothes. So Yuri uses his powers to copy other people’s outfits.

Mei gets a call from the publishing house about Yuki going missing. She leaves to go back to the office, but the Yeti Megido appears.

Touma reasons that it is not a Megido since they haven’t been engulfed by a book yet.

But Yeti Megido shoots ice and snow at the peoples, including Mei. Touma henshins and blowtorches Mei and the other frozen people to melt the ice off them.

Touma tries to counter Yeti Megido’s ice with his flames. But Legeiel appears and says even if their pawn Calibur is dead, the Megido plan is still the same. He henshins and tag-teams with Yeti Megido to battle Touma. Yuri decides to henshin as well to help Touma.

Touma is able to deliver a finisher at the Yeti Megido and it ejects the book from Yuri. Touma and Mei are shocked. Legeiel explains that with enough rampaging, a new Alter Book will be created from the human-Megido.

Legeiel inserts the book back into Yuri and they leave together as Touma has to deal with two basic Megidos. Yuri swoops in to finish them off himself.

Back at the shop, Touma is upset that he almost killed his publisher. A worried Mei asks Yuri if he knows anything about what’s happened to Yuki.

Yuri explains that there was once a forbidden technology for converting humans to Megido. By inserting the book in Wonderworld-connected humans, powerful Alter Books will be created using their lifeforce. However, the creation of the book will kill the human it was made from.

Touma says he does not want any more people to suffer because of books. And to do that, he must save Yuki-san. Yuri says all he can do is to cut her down as that’s what swordsmen do. Mei is frustrated by Yuri’s nonchalance about that.

Mei’s book shows Yeti Megido rampaging downtown so she and Touma hurry over.

Mei tries to reach out to Yuki and promises they will save her. Touma henshins and battles the Megido. Touma also tries reaching out to Yuki-san and she appears, begging him to save her.

Yeti Megido continues to freeze the area. Touma tries to figure out a way to remove the book from Yuki. But not even Touma’s flames can counter the Megido’s power.

Just then, Yuri arrives and henshins. His light is able to immediately melt all the ice. He proceeds to take on the Megido and then turns the page to the next chapter allowing him to emerge as a Rider shadow. He is able to use his shadow form to truly counter the Megido. But Mei tells Touma that Yuki will be killed at this rate.

Touma tries to stop Yuri. But all he can do is shield Yuri from Yuki’s finisher.

Yuri cannot believe Touma would do that. Touma asserts that he will save Yuri. But Yuki says he cannot vibe with modern swordsmen who have that mindset.

Episode Thoughts

Maybe it’s because it feels like such a long time since the last episode, but I actually enjoyed this one. It actually felt a little like Episode 15 which I also enjoyed, relatively speaking.

I liked that this episode felt kind of heavy and dramatic. It felt like something huge did happen in the last episode and we were seeing the aftermath. Of course, Episode 16 was supposed to be some kind of huge shift. But I definitely didn’t feel it and thought it was pretty nonsensical. It negated all the emotional impact the preceding episodes made.

So despite not buying into what’s led us to this episode, I nonetheless enjoyed watching the aftermath of last episode’s nonsense. Part of it might also be the fact that the episode was mostly just Touma and Mei. The 50 other characters in this season were essentially irrelevant. So focusing just on Touma and Mei (plus Yuri) was a huge positive here.

I mentioned after last episode how I enjoyed when it was just Touma and Mei which helped at least make me care enough to want to support their side against the traitors. (And they really are traitors for no reason lol)

So having them be the focus here against Yuri’s old-time principles and their boss being turned into a monster helped to keep everything under control. And in a way that not many episodes this season have been. That is, most episodes have been all over the place. So this episode being much simpler and calmer allows everything to breathe and just play out in a way you can understand and appreciate.

I honestly wouldn’t mind if they whisked everyone else away for a few more episodes like they’ve done with Sophia. Leave the defectors to freeze in the darkness of the South Pole. Perhaps focus on just Touma, Mei and the Megido3 for now. Let Touma battle the new Wonderworld humans by himself for a little bit before dragging everyone else back into the picture.

So overall, this episode was definitely better than the last one. And it’s really the kind of episode that gives me a little bit of hope that the season can be redeemed somehow. I think this episode showed exactly how much the season has been affected by doing too much, too fast.