Kamen Rider Saber Episodes 9-10: Wait, Aren't We Going WAY TOO FAST?!

Well, I have to admit to thinking whether or not I'm going to continue doing every other week reviews or what with Kamen Rider Saber. Just my thought that the show is getting so much flak after eight episodes. I wanted to give it a chance and maybe, defy netizens then maybe they are right - the show is GOING TOO FAST. Now, for episode 9 and episode 10 to what really is going on.

So, it turns out and yes, NOT surprisingly that Tetsuo Daishinji is Kamen Rider Slash. Shouldn't it be surprising? No, he was already part of the whole crew so him becoming Slash is no surprise. However, other Kamen Riders that showed up like Kamen Rider Slash and Kamen Rider Buster seem to be just come and go allies. I admit that while he has a cool debut - I'm wondering if he will be another wasted potential. So much for my excitement that was actually killed by MERELY eight episodes. His story has the Ugly Duckling involved.

What am I complaining about this time? Well, Slash turns out that he could become Hansel Bremen. Okay, what's with this? Is Bandai that desperate to sell more toys? Toy sales at the cost of good storytelling when the balance is needed between both of them? Personally, I find his debut nothing much spectacular or should've been saved for MUCH LATER. 


Meanwhile, there's also the whole talk of just who the f*** is Kamen Rider Calibur? We all assume that he could be Kento's father. A new arc is just ready to open and the introduction of Slash has hardly begun. I was thinking about how the whole introduction of Calibur is also VERY RUSHED. So, what's the whole thing? Rather than build the mysteries as it should be - we get an INSTANT REVELATION...


Calibur turns out NOT to be Kento's father BUT Daichi - the man that saved Touma years ago. Daichi is the former Kamen Rider Saber! If you ask me, this is really bad pacing. In the past, writers really loved to build up mysteries of who's who to the point it keeps you engaged. Past Toku were concerned about giving good cliffhangers or some really good mysteries to look forward to. For instance, Kamen Rider Drive was giving you some basic mysteries with the Roidemudes with the unexpected twist that Banno is a bad father to both Kiriko and her younger brother Gou. In Kamen Rider Agito - you had to really sit down and wait until more mysteries such as the hero's past are revealed. Kamen Rider Kuuga did a good job by slowly building up the plot without throwing everything at FULL FORCE.

Here, everything's getting thrown at full force. It's pretty much unlike how Kamen Rider Zero-One may have been introducing basic forms for the first few episodes or how the history of the Ark was slowly built. Zero-One had a lot of stuff going on like the Daybreak Incident which didn't feed us everything we wanted to know. We don't exactly know immediately that Gai Amatsu was the one who created the Venjix-type Ark program or there was the plot twist of Isamu's fake memories. 

Now, for some thoughts from Dryed Mangoez which I do agree:

I think Saber‘s biggest problem right now is its inability to juggle all these characters and all the different plot threads they’ve started, but have yet to expand upon. The villains are very underdeveloped. There’s no real endgame even being teased. And all we have so far is all these characters who are likeable, but are thrown into very convoluted situations that either don’t make sense or don’t illicit any strong feelings.

Yup, I agree - the show is really throwing everything at once and I wonder if the writer-producer tandem has the slightest idea on how to deal with it. Chances are we might be getting the Saber meltdown next. Just think Kamen Rider Ghost is considered the worst of the Heisei era. I could agree on that because I'm a person who's got a soft spot for Kamen Rider Kiva even if it was practically Toshiki Inoue's burnout. Right now, I even wonder what I'd want to do next if I'll drop this show like I did with Itaewon Class

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