Recap: Kamen Rider Saber, Episode 46 – Farewell, My Hero.
Touma reaches Storious who says everything up to this point and after have already been predetermined and have played out as written in the All-Knowing Book. Storious laughs that the swordsmen continue to risk their lives even knowing that fact.
Storious laughs at how beautiful the death and despair will be. Touma screams that he is no hero. He’s just a novelist. And every single person is the writer of their own story as they want to protect what they hold dear.
Tetsuo regains consciousness and stumbles toward Ogami-san to help as they are on their last legs. They henshin once more and are able to finish off the Megido. After the explosion, both Tetsuo and Ogami-san dehenshin, collapse and fall unconscious again.
The Shindai Sibs similarly use their last bursts of power to take care of their own opponent. They too collapse after its defeat, unable to even reach each other’s hand.
Luna is ready to fade away, but Mei tells her to keep looking forward and not give up. Mei tells her about almost getting erased once before. But she was able to fight through the fading. Mei asks Luna what she most wants right now and Luna says she wants to see Touma.
Mei tells Luna to hurry then. Luna gets up and stumbles toward the tower.
Mei says she too has something she must do. She grabs the Wonder Story book and hurries off.
Storious wants to tell Touma a story. He says that 2000 years ago, he was just like Touma. Happily writing beautiful stories. But then he discovered all his writings already existed in the All-Knowing Book. Storious did not appreciate finding out his creativity was already predetermined and that he was just a puppet of the Book.
Storious says there is absolutely zero creativity in humans. And that includes Touma’s writings.
All of this is just pointless nonsense and humans are nothing more than just scattered litter. Touma agrees that their lives may be small, but the world that exists in books is limitless. When people read books, they are free and happy. They can go on adventures, experience new things and even meet new friends like how Touma met Luna and Kento.
Touma says Luna loved the stories he wrote and it motivated him to continue to make her smile.
After that, Touma made even more friends. Even if his stories were predetermined by the All-Knowing Book, the fact that new people will be able to discover and enjoy those stories is what’s important. Touma says he will always write. He will always love books.
While Touma preaches to Storious, Yuuri is healing the dying swordsmen. Meanwhile, Mei is at the publishing house where she quickly begins typing.
Storious has flashbacks to people also enjoying his stories. But he screams at Touma to wake up from his fantasy and to accept that he has no ability to create new stories.
Storious henshins and vows to watch Touma die right along with the world’s destruction. Touma also henshins and proclaims that he will never give up.
The two of them battle with Touma getting strength from the thoughts of his friends also henshining. Touma insists stories are forever, but Storious says nope. They can be erased.
Storious begins the erasure of the Earth. But Touma shoots up at the big sword outside which pauses it. Luna stumbles through the tower just as Storious kicks Touma into a hole.
Episode Thoughts
Oh, thank goodness. Next week is the final episode. But we’re also getting a special on August 29. But why? 😕
Anyway, this episode was half costumed battles and half Storious and Touma screaming at each other. Very exciting for a penultimate episode. Not.
I suppose this episode would’ve been AMAZING if I actually cared about what was happening or cared about these characters. But as I’ve whined about every week this past year, I just don’t. And I didn’t even realize next week is the “Final Chapter.” I’m just not excited or hyped for it. But at the same, I’m eager to get this season over with and move on to the next one.
I’ll have plenty more opportunity to rant and whine next week after the “Final Chapter.” But for now, let’s focus on this episode. And how it again illustrates what went wrong this season.
Storious and Touma’s back and forth was actually interesting. So Storious is the way he is because of his shock that the creativity he was proud of was actually just the predetermined written scenario in the All-Knowing Book?
So Saber is a story about free will? Huh?
For Storious, that might be case. And it would’ve been a compelling theme for the season. It goes with the idea that you “write your own story.”
But that’s not what the season was about. Mostly it was about Touma trying to find a little girl who is now a grown woman. (When you read that out of context, it sounds so bonkers.)
Again with this Luna on a pedestal. It’s just really funny, to be honest. Was there potential for Luna to actually be a well-written, important character? Of course. Did the show actually make use of that potential? Absolutely not.
The fact that this endgame feels completely pulled out of nowhere with no foundation or emotional basis paired with the botched handling of the 82 different characters of the season, it’s not hard to see how this penultimate episode was so flat.
I was a bit excited when Storious got his black eyeliner and lipstick a couple of episodes ago. I thought that maybe we could at least get some fun moments in the final episodes. But no. Storious’ big reveal was the climax. Everything since then has been just as hollow as the rest of the year. I raised my expectations, but I should’ve known better. And that’s on me of course.
Touma fell into a hole. Okay? Like, I guess that must be a huge cliffhanger for many other people. But for me, I just shrug. Especially as that final moment was paired with Luna crawling up the tower. What a one-two punch of uninteresting things.
The most interesting parts of the episode were whatever Mei was writing and Yuuri using all his energy (which will result in his own death, I assume) to resurrect the dead swordsmen scattered in the caves.
Those two parts as well as the quick glance at a happy writerStorious and him sharing his stories with other Wonder people.
Otherwise, what a dud of a penultimate episode. But that’s certainly not a surprise.
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Gods, its finally coming to and end. And I’ve been trying to think of how changes I would make to ‘fix’ Saber, and the biggest issue is that there ends up being a huge hole after about episode 20-ish, but sure I’ll list the changes:
1. Yuri is the first Master Logos. Because with the next change, we need someone to plot dump, and he’s a good character who has been around long enough, and the extra depth could help him.
2. Isaac attacked and stole most of the power of Victor/Tassel Touma-ish years ago, causing Luna to incarnate as a real girl. Thus answering a couple of questions, and giving Touma/Kento/Luna bond a couple of years together as opposed to one day. (I know chucking Luna into the nether would probably help the story more, but it would cause even more problems down the line).
3. Getting rid of Ren, Ougma, Testuo and the Shindai Siblings. Rider dad would be missed, but the others just took up story time that could be used elsewhere.
4. For the First/Calibut arc, neither Rintaro nor Calibur 2 get to see the megido generals turn human, because they are going to be taking up the roles Sabela and Durandel, and the traitor arc could have been cool but the Megido3 need to be more present in it.
5. When Kento returns, he actually communicates clearly, and the conflict between him and Touma is over who is better to be lost to being Tassel’s replacement.
Those are great ideas. And so simple, yet they wanted to be so complicated.
They really just needed to tighten everything up. Too many characters causing too many plot threads that either never connect to each other or never even get resolved in a nice way.
It’s been 3 weeks since final battle against Storious started, I decided to share my thoughts on latest 3 episodes in 1 post, since unlike Zenkaiger, it’s a continuous story.
Nice to see Ren decided to grow up a pair and joined the team at last!
He had his moment previous episode, defeating one of 4 sages, thanks to training with Desasto.
As much as I didn’t like and care about Ren, that was clever.
Too bad there weren’t much build up due to bad writing.
At long last, we get to see 10 Riders Henshin Together, since usually, series with multiple Riders like Ryuki and Gaim do that for movies and special, which tends to be non-canon, due to the fact Riders die/removed during the shows run, so it was refreshing to see everyone does henshin.
Didn’t expect Sophia to transform to Calibur; it’s still awkward to hear female voice from masculine Rider. I thought Tassel was going to transform, before he kicked the bucket.
Storious FINALLY does something by transforming into Kamen Rider Storious, which I have to admit, is a pretty good design for villain Rider, where it has book motif, more so than sword and saber.
As for Storious character, I hate and don’t care about him more so than ever.
He’s a loser and probably the most pathetic excuse for villains I have ever seen, not just for Riders, but probably tokusatsu in general. There’s nothing redeeming or threatening about his character what so ever; most the time, he just stands around, fight occasionally, and just stands around.
I know he’s a villain and I’m not supposed to like him, but you need a reason why I need to be intimidated or why we need to care why he’s villainous. He has none of that.
I also find it uncomfortable that he’s a creep and perv, who looks like he wants to rape and molest Luna, who grew 10 years older for some reason. Ugh.
I feel bad for actor who plays that character, because I’m sure he’s doing his best, but it’s ruined by bad writing and directing.
I find it weird that Mei has a magical power for some reason, by starting to disappear, and writing a story that’s supposed to save everyone… what?
I’m so confused at this point, but it doesn’t matter anyway since writing sucks.
It’s too late for character to be redeemed at this point.
Speaking of bad writing, none of the last 4 episodes (5 including special later) are written by Fukuda, the HEADWRITER, but instead written by Hasegawa, who did most of the writing, and Uchida for special. To put in perspective, out of 48 (46 + 2 specials (Zenkai crossover and upcoming special), Fukuda only wrote 14, which is barely over 1/3 of the series, while Hasegawa wrote 19, who did most of leg work, which I find it ridiculous. Fukuda wrote less than he did with Ghost (22/50). which is just absurd. No wonder this show has such a lazy and sloppy writing, with little to no consistency.
Even Power Rangers in recent years has better writing and more consistent, regardless of quality.
Hard to believe next week is final episode and week after that is special (whatever that’s going to be).
I haven’t been this unexcited for final episode of Rider or any tokusatsu for long time; even Power Rangers in past decade had better build up for finale.
You know there’s something wrong with the show if Power Rangers is better. lol XD
How ironic that series about STORYbook, doesn’t have a STORY indeed.