Tetsuo explains to the others how he has been studying if all their swords could possibly separate humans from Megidos just like Touma’s Rekka. Mei brings up the people whose Books were completed already and Touma says they should be able to find a way to save them as well.
Yuuri says their main focus now needs to be finding the SoL traitor. But Tetsuo says it won’t be easy because they haven’t been able to meet Master Logos since Reika’s begun lurking around them.
Mei suggests they go to Master Logos directly. Tetsuo initially thinks that a horrible idea, but Touma and Yuuri actually think it’s great.
Meanwhile at the Megido manse, Storious tells Legeiel and Zooous he will be infiltrating the Southern Base to retrieve a very important, forbidden Book which even he doesn’t know the contents of. But he is looking forward to find out.
At the Southern Base, Master Logos addresses his swordsmen to remind them of their duty.
Back at the book shop, Tetsuo explains that they need a Book Gate to get through the barrier and enter the Southern Base. Touma has an idea.
As does Storious. Zooous wants to take on Rintaro while Legeiel is interested in Touma. And Storious believes that will work to get him through to the SoL base.
Touma and the others meet with Ogami-san to ask them to lend them his Book Gate. He storms out, appalled by their request. But Mei sees Ogami-san has left his Book Gate there with them. They realize what he’s done.
Mei’s Book alarm goes off. Yuuri says he will handle it while Touma and Tetsuo go south. Mei wants to go with, but Yuuri drags her to the Megido sighting location.
Legeiel watches as Zooous rampages downtown. Rintaro and Ren arrive through their Book Gate which remains open long enough for Storious to walk through, no problem, which was their plan all along.
Rintaro and Ren henshin. Yuuri henshins as well as soon as he and Mei arrive. As soon as Ren sees Yuuri, he battles him.
Touma and Tetsuo, meanwhile, arrive down south and quietly make their way to Master Logos.
The alarm begins to sound and Touma and Tetsuo hide. They see Reika ordering the swordsmen to find the trespassers.
Storious, however, has no problem taking care of the swordsmen by himself when he runs into Master Logos. Master Logos deflects Storious’ attack.
Storious realizes this hooded man is the current Master Logos. But Master Logos also seems to recognize Storious as one of “The First” as well.
Storious admits he is here to retrieve a forbidden Book. And he later finds himself in a floating room where he gets his hands on it.
Tetsuo thinks they should go back, but Touma says not when they’re so close. He runs off ahead and runs into a mysterious man who leads him somewhere.
Ogami-san arrives and tells Tetsuo about a Megido having infiltrated the base. They need to leave immediately. But not with Touma off to see Master Logos.
The mysterious man opens a Book Gate. He and Touma walk through, but the man disappears.
Storious walks out of a Book Gate right where Touma is standing. He shows him the Book he’s taken, shoots at Touma and leaves through another Book Gate. Touma follows him through and demands to know what the Book is about.
Storious explains that the Forbidden Book was sealed away because it was too dangerous to humanity. Touma henshins and vows not to let him have it. Storious also henshins and they battle.
Storious decides to give the Book’s power a test run. He opens it and a strange power shoots up into the sky. When it comes back down, it forces Touma to immediately dehenshin before returning to the Book.
Touma runs to pick it up.
Legeiel arrives, eager to challenge his fierce rival Touma. He manages to send Touma flying. But with the Book in his hands, it suddenly gives Touma some sort of vision and with it its strong power.
The Book’s power wraps itself around Touma and turns into the Primitive Dragon Book.
Touma’s eyes suddenly glow purple. He opens the Book, inserts Brave Dragon and then locks the Primitive Dragon Book into his Driver.
That allows him to henshin to Primitive Dragon and unleash a taste of its immense power.
Tetsuo feels something is wrong. Rintaro, Mei and Ren follow, as does Zooous.
Legeiel is not afraid of Touma’s new power-up and charges toward him. But he is having a little trouble with it and gets overwhelmed. Storious warns Legeiel this is much more powerful than they can imagine.
Touma is able to take both Storious and Legeiel on. The others arrive and Tetsuo concludes that Touma has gone out of control.
Touma prepares a finisher. Storious says they need to retreat, but Legeiel stands his ground and gets completely wrecked. The reverberation of the attack even forces everyone else to dehenshin on the spot.
Mei arrives just as Touma dehenshins himself and collapses. She cries out his name and runs over to him.
Episode Thoughts
OoooO! This is the first time I’m actually very excited after an episode of Saber. I think this episode had a lot of great, positive things going for it. The biggest thing is that everyone was involved and the stakes were raised. Even though we still might not really know what was going on, at the very least, we can see that things are happening and beginning to move pretty quickly.
The midseason power-up that turns our main Rider temporarily evil/go berserk seems to be the norm now. And that’s alright as long as the story supports it. I think it works here thanks to that Forbidden Book. The idea of a Book being somehow forbidden or dangerous is a fascinating concept of course. In the real world, we don’t want to be burning books in 2021.
But we see that this Primitive Dragon Book certainly holds something different from the usual fairy tales. I hope there’s a big twist and meaning to the Book in the next episode(s). Especially considering Touma’s vision.
Obviously, Storious was allowed to retrieve it by the mysterious hooded man in charge. Their encounter was definitely intriguing and helped to really push this Master Logos and the SoL traitor mystery to the forefront. I think we can safely say Master Logos is a shady character so far.
I also think in getting away from the story of the traitorous deserters for a moment, the show was able to focus on other, more interesting stories. Which they were able to do here.
This also felt like the most screentime we’ve gotten for the Megido3 since the premiere. So that is very welcome. I think having more of Storious, Legeiel and Zooous actually doing stuff beyond sitting in their green-screened mansion lair or randomly battling the Riders without consequence for either side is the way to go.
#MoreMegido3Please!
It was fascinating to see that scene of Master Logos addressing the huge army. It was at first creepy since it looked like some kind of weird cult or something. But it was good to actually show that the SoL isn’t just a group of 5-6 people hanging out in a library. Before this episode, it definitely felt that way. Thanks to this scene here, we at least have established that there’s a whole bunch of swordsmen lurking about doing whatever. Lol
It also helped to see the SoL bases weren’t just one small room on a soundstage. Of course, they aren’t able to go out and film in bigger locations all the time. But having them do so here was a refreshing moment.
The moment with Ogami-san leaving the Book Gate was a nice scene.
But my favorite part of the episode though was Mei getting that spotlight again in the end calling out to Touma. And she appears to do it again next week, based on the preview. Asuka Kawazu has really done such a great job. And the emotion she expresses when she calls out to Touma here (like she did a couple of episodes ago) was really good. She got me at the end there. Mei is definitely the emotional center of the season. That is, she can handle both the slapstick hilarity and the more dramatic, emotional moments equally. And she provides that grounded balance that helps keep the show from going completely off the rails.
Overall, a truly great episode. Very exciting. I definitely enjoyed it. I pray Saber keeps this momentum going forward!
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4 thoughts on “Recap: Kamen Rider Saber, Chapter 23: Raging, Hand of Ruin.”
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Since we’re almost at halfway point, I decided to post comment for this episode, since I’m thinking about sharing my overall thought of series so far next time (spoiler… it ain’t pretty).
It’s kind of interesting that it was Mei, of all the characters, who came out the idea of infiltrating Southern Base to meet Master Logos. How convenient. While this suppose to represent how Mei has become useful and we’re suppose to like her, it just felt really flat and demonstrate how idiots and incompetent’s our heroes are, since ANYONE (aside Touma obviously) could come out with that idea.
It make me wonder why they didn’t do that before, rather than wasting time with so much nonsense; no wonder why reception of this show has been mediocre.
I also find it interesting, Storious, a leader of Megid General Trio, infiltrated/snuck in to Southern Base, because of “forget to close the door” cliché thanks to Rintaro and Ren mistake (or idiocy); how also clever indeed. I swear that half of the characters in this show has mental retardation or down syndrome for making such an idiotic and questionable decision; then again, it’s all due to having so many writers for this show, which I will discuss next time.
Despite all the rambling, there are some positive aspects. It’s nice to see that Southern Base has tons of swordsman along with mater, Master Logos. I like how Southern Base is bigger and vast compared to Northern, which is miniscule in comparison. It’s also nice to see Keisuke Souhma, who was Genta/Shinken Gold (Shinkenger) as mysterious man that Touma bumped into’ it’s been a while since he appeared in tokusatsu, and as much as I hate Genta/Shinken Gold, it’s delightful to see veteran actor.
So Storious just took the Forbidden Book eh? Granted, it appears Master Logos let him do so, but Southern Base has such a lackluster security and defense doesn’t it?
Nice to see Touma/Saber gets mid-series berserk power-up, Primitive Dragon.
Just like most of the Riders, I really like the design, where it has evil design.
Light blue color really matches him and contrast to heroic Red.
Overall, while we FINALLY got progression for overall plot, it doesn’t change the fact most of the characters has made such a questionable and idiotic decision. In fact, it seems Mei, has become more of mature character now, by making everyone stupid for some reason.
It felt so forced and it doesn’t feel like natural progression. I mentioned this before, but it feels like show is trying to get over it self and rather than creating cohesive story, which annoys me.
So apparently, Calibur is coming back for next episode.
This is going to be interesting; I hope they give proper and cohesive explanation for this.
Yes, I agree it’s still a mess. But I think I’ve gotten over it being a mess and have really lowered my expectations for it. So maybe that’s why I’m enjoying it a little more now.
Unlike with Ghost, I held out hope until the very end that they would fix their problems. But they didn’t and I was very disappointed.
I definitely do enjoy seeing the main Rider go berserk when he gets a new power up.
And plenty of mystery and intrigue in the Southern Base.
Master Logos does seem interesting.