2020-2021: Kamen Rider Saber

[PowerPhantom245]

Technically Blade changed staff too, but that show got better from it, so you didn't notice it.

As for Fukuda coming back, will he though? From my understanding, both Ghost and Saber did terribly in toy sales. I don't see why they would let someone who has had two failures in a row come back for a third. But then again, Junko failed with Zyuohger and LupvsPat and here we are with Zenkaiger...

I never said changing the staff was bad; sometime it can improve the show.
As far as Komura goes, she would have done better job with Saber than Fukuda IMO.
Komura really needs another shot at Kamen Rider though.

Saber did worse than Zero-One, but I don't think its sales were terrible. Ghost sales were weak but mostly because of Drive's sales crush previous year (and still were an improvement).
Honestly, Fukuda episodes of Saber were, for the most part, among weaker ones, so I don't mind him writing less. I do think they should have made Keiichi Hasegawa main writer if he writes most of the show anyway (and his episodes tended to be better ones), but Saber's storybeats and developments are interesting on paper.
It's a very sloppy production but nowhere near the worst tokusatsu I've seen (not sure it even lands in my top 5 bottom Rider shows, though same was true for Ghost which I had a lot of problems with but still find overhated), especially after recently rewatching most of toku shows I actually can't stand. I'm not even sure it's worse than Zenkaiger which gets way less criticism than it deserves.

So far, this year, particularly the first half (January~June) has been pretty mediocre ~ lukewarm year for tokusatsu, despite anniversary year; Saber is terrible and Zenkaiger is OK for most part; strangely, Power Rangers Dino Fury, has been the best tokusatsu this year so far.
It's still a better anniversary year than 2016 IMO.

 

[Shogun_Master]

I haven't been watching power rangers at all & I haven't tried to get into Zenkaiger. I did get weirdly addicted to Twokaiser dance morph routines, though.

I've liked Saber fine. It had an awkward beginning & the world building kind of have up, but it's been pretty focused on the story it wants to tell & I like most of the cast. Definitely think it would've been worse if the head guy wrote more of the show. Generally, a lot of Japanese film/ tv writers don't tend to have big heads about it, like you may think, though they do get defensive about appropriateness of their art (& I don't blame them. America has seemingly grossly overreacted about 5x in the last two years about movies, shows & games.) From what I gathered from the special features on Ringu, the Japanese film market had a major crash that lasted through the 80s & 90s & barely anyone in that field as a writer/ director was making any damned money. They were all mostly working poor who did it because they loved doing so until about 15-20 years ago. I've even heard of people who worked on the Pokemon anime who feel bad for copyright infringers & don't turn them in for selling unlicensed merch & what have you. So, I don't think this was a result of the guy being lazy, I think it's a result of them wanting to make a good show & him being aware that they use him for a specific reason, but he's not the best show runner. We all have said as much since before Saber started. It's not my favorite season by a long shot, but I enjoyed what I've seen this far. Can't download beyond episode 40, though, so I guess I'll have to see if Shout does a Saber DVD after Zero-One & Ryuki to see the rest.

 

[Dr Kain]

Why can't you download episode 40+?

 

[Captain Shark]

After getting to episode 43 I don't know what the hell this story is trying to be anymore. Was Logos supposed to be the real villain? Shortly after becoming Kamen Rider Solomon he dies and Megidos kinda take over again. Was it Desast? He was in a forced subplot with Kamen Rider Kenzan that felt like it was just there to eat up screen time. Side note but every rider that wasn't Saber, Blades, Buster, or Solomon I had to look up on the Kamen Rider Wiki because they never say say them in-show for some reason. Was it Charybdis? He started off as a monster of the week that.... stuck around for too long and then got dissolved by some guy. Was it that some guy/Storious? All we know is he stuck a lot of souls in books and it seemed like most of it was off screen. And where are the monsters of the week? It's like it forgot it's supposed to have new creatures every so often. Reminds me of the Doomcock rumors around Star Trek Discovery where Paramount didn't bother covering more than the allotted budget. Was it Viktor? No, he was just a good guy that dressed weird and broke the fourth wall. Him not doing that every episode indicated weird changes that messed up the series.

Saber is kind of like a reverse version of Gaim: A solid third dragged down by lackluster two thirds and not enough monsters of the week. Difference here is Gaim had the good stuff after the Kikaider crossover while Saber started good until they killed off Kamen Rider Calibur. First third was legit toku win. Say what you will about Hibiki, it at least kept its themes and monsters of the week after the production mess.

 

[Shogun_Master]

The place I normally download from hasn't been allowing the downloads to actually go through since the end of June. I've tried looking for an alternate source, but no luck. Plus, I broke my old phone & my new one is apparently only occasionally compatible with my computer (either that, or I just haven't quite figured out how to make it work) & half of what it tried to download, irregardless of what it is either won't go through, or won't move to my laptop. Not kidding. I've even been having trouble with PDFs on occasion.

 

[Dr Kain]

The place I normally download from hasn't been allowing the downloads to actually go through since the end of June. I've tried looking for an alternate source, but no luck. Plus, I broke my old phone & my new one is apparently only occasionally compatible with my computer (either that, or I just haven't quite figured out how to make it work) & half of what it tried to download, irregardless of what it is either won't go through, or won't move to my laptop. Not kidding. I've even been having trouble with PDFs on occasion.

Are they not showing up on Nyaa?

 

[Shogun_Master]

Never heard of that site until just now. But, I have no way to decrypt torrents. I was mostly getting them off of Dramacool, who just let you download mp4s directly.

 

[Shogun_Master]

So, I found an avenue to continue watching the series. One episode away from the end of Saber, now, barring those two specials that they did & looking forward to starting Revice. I do have to ask, did the last 7 episodes of the series turn anyone around on Saber, assuming you watched them?

I am looking forward to the Zenkaiger crossovers too. Those specials always seem to make the Superhero Taisen movies infinitely better, if you watch them all back to back, like they're one big movie.

 

[Kamen Rider IXA]

Some story behind Saber's production from Figure Oh 284.

The setting before the change by Corona:
Touma is a lone wolf who meets hard-headed swordsmen from various organizations in various cities, and through battles they gradually deepen their bond and eventually come together to fight a great evil.
In order to save Luna, who has disappeared into another world, Touma has been preparing himself by acquiring knowledge and practicing swordsmanship for many years.
Only Touma remembers that Luna disappeared, so he became a novelist with the idea that if he wrote a novel about it and spread the word, he could get a clue.
As he searches for Luna's whereabouts, he discovers the existence of a mysterious organization led by swordsmen, and ends up at the Sword of Logos base on his own. In the process, he gained knowledge on how to use the flaming sword Rekka and he knows a lot about swordsmanship, so he is suddenly very strong.
He is a man who has prepared everything to save Luna, because he knows everything from books.
The three who use the Seiken Swordriver are holy knights and special beings who can use three Wonder Ride Books at the same time.
The Seiken used by Buster, Kenzan, and Slash are specialized combat swords derived from the Swordrivers.

Changes by Corona:
Start off with the swordsmen not being at odds with each other.
Add Tassel to fill in scenes that cannot be filmed in Wonder World and Corona.
Add Touma's bookstore and Northern Base because road movies are impossible.

Producer Kazuhiro Takahashi:
"Anyway, there were too many characters and items to be released before the end of the year."

 

[Dr Kain]

Well that explains why Tassel was so horrid and childish in that premier episode.