The vertical blade on Kamen Rider Buster's helmet is modeled after the head of Kintaros and Den-O Axe Form, which also involves Jiro Okamoto as suit actor.
So Rintaro's predecessor as Blades is another blue-colored warrior...that turned blue-colored the last time he was on a Kamen Rider show.
The second trailer for Kamen Rider Saber x Ghost is narrated by Sayo Oharu, in-character, which is basically Toei pulling a Meme Acknowledgement of a joke that’s been ongoing in both Eastern and Western fandoms since they cast Mio Kudo in both roles.
Cast as a Mask: Mamono Megids from the second arc onwards are unwillingly transformed humans, each having an actor/voice actor pair portraying their human identities and Mamono forms respectively.
Yuki Shirai/Yeti Megid is portrayed by Hitomi Hasebe (Yuki) and voiced by Wataru Hatano (Yeti).
Shingo Kijima/Ousama Megid is portrayed by Kaito Komie (Shingo) and voiced by Kenichi Ogata (Ousama).
Mei Sudo/Neko Megid is portrayed by Asuka Kawazu (Mei) and voiced by Romi Park (Neko).
The Cast Showoff: Professional martial artists Kairu Takano (Legeiel) and Koji Saikawa (Zooous) get to showcase their skills in #15.
Contractual Purity: The show was put into question when photos were leaked of Syuichiro Naito (Touma) seemingly smoking with Ryo Aoki (Kento), vaping, playing Pachinkonote A type of arcade game that takes form of a slot machine and is often used for low-stakes gambling. , and dating a famous Vtuber named "Kasumi" amongst other things. This made many worry about the fate of the show, but fans on both sides were supportive of him and the controversy died down quickly afterwards.
Content Leak: Already common for every Kamen Rider now, but first looks began leaking around late July 2020, initially through a leaked advertisement for the DX SworDriver on the back of an issue of Japanese manga magazine Televi-Kun. In what was seen as an unexpected move, Televi-Kunannounced on Twitter that they were aware of the leaks and scans online and were looking towards criminal prosecution against those responsible, citing that this is considered copyright infringement. This wounded up causing a bit of a stir from fans, questioning the company's decision to seek legal action over leaked information that they themselves published.note Japan's copyright laws prohibit any sort of copying of someone else's works and/or distribution of it on the internet without permission, unless for personal (i.e at home) or educational purposes (i.e schools).
The episode summary and details for Chapter 34 were posted online instead of the ones for Chapter 33.
Creator's Favorite: Kairu Takano (Legeiel) has stated that the Yeti Megid is his favourite Megid in the series.
Executive Meddling: In addition to the below mentioned incident in Writing by the Seat of Your Pants, the show’s producer had Takuro Fukuda pulled from working on the show to develop the Trio of Deep Sin V-Cinema.
Airing into 2021, Saber commemorated the 50th anniversary of the Kamen Rider franchise, most notably in the Super Hero Senki, a crossover which Kikai Sentai Zenkaiger which doubles as the 45th anniversary celebration of Super Sentai.
Missing Trailer Scene: In a very odd example of the whole trailer being practically nonexistent by the time of the first episode. None of the actual scenes are used and the only concepts that remained were Wonder World and the Golem Megid.
Now, Buy the Merchandise: Chapter 7 features Touma using a slew of unidentified story Wonder Ride Books to break into Avalon, mostly assumed to be filler (especially since three of the books used are also the motifs of a certain group of bumbling Imagins.) Indeed they were, but images soon surfaced a couple weeks later showing that all of them intend to be sold as extra merch for the show.
A downplayed example with Desast; Danki Sakae takes over as his suit actor from Kazuya Okada in the second half of the series, due to Okada playing Vroon in Kikai Sentai Zenkaiger, which started production midway through Saber's run.
All of the actors portraying Touma, Rintaro and Kento's child selves were replaced for Trio of Deep Sin.
Passing the Torch: Done once again with the transition from Zero-One to Saber, the leading suit actor role has been passed from Yuya Nawata to his understudy Kosuke Asainote Previously the suit actor for Kamen Rider Vulcan and Lupin Red.
Syuichiro Naito (Touma Kamiyama) mentioned in an interview with MyNavi that he was a fan of Kamen Rider Ryuki and that Kamen Rider Knight was his favorite. He also said that he vaguely remembers liking Kamen Rider Kuuga.
Takaya Yamaguchi (Rintaro Shindo) grew up on Kuuga, Agito, and Ryuki, and his pose is inspired by Kamen Rider Knight’s use of the Darkvisor. He’s also a fan of the opening theme performers, the Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra, saying their songs got him through difficult times when he was a student.
Angela Mei (Reika Shindai) was a fan of Kamen Rider Den-O as a child. She is also a huge fan of Magine from her sister show, whom she got to meet during their series' crossover special and movie.
The SworDriver's belt strap and back buckle design is recycled from the Gamer Driver.
Shunpei's magic book can be seen in Touma's bookstore at the beginning of Chapter 2.
Just like the Magia before them, the Mamono all have different upper-body armor over the same base suit. Mamono that exist as multiple siblings have the same costume recycled as each individual sibling, almost never appearing together in a single frame (barring some green screen usage). Episode 17 marks a more conventional use of this trope as Goblin and Medusa are reused as Elite Mooks.
Kamen Rider Falchion’s suit is a repainted Kamen Rider Ghost Transient suit, with an original helmet and right shoulder pad, and Kamen Rider Build HawkGatling Form's right shoulder pad repainted as the left shoulder pad.
Mumeiken Kyomu is a retool of Kaenken Rekka, Suiseiken Nagare and Raimeiken Ikazuchi with the reader at the base of the sword.
The Haken Bladriver is a repaint and retool of the Seiken Swordriver, with the Animal and Story slots covered up.
In Kamen Rider Saber: Trio of Deep Sin, Falchion Amazing Siren is the Falchion suit, with the orange parts painted white, and new robing along the left side.
Kamen Rider Saber Emotional Dragon reuses Tsukuyomi’s cape and Fourze’s Shield Module.
The Emotional Dragon Wonder Ride Book is a remold of the Jaou Dragon Wonder Ride Book with three dragon heads.
The Seiken Saikou Driver is a recolor of the Jaken Caliburdriver.
Master Logos's throne is modified from King Oradin's from Mashin Sentai Kiramager, identifiable by the five rectangular holes in the back that previously held the Kiramai Stones.
Kamen Rider Solomon is a walking monument to reused suit parts:
Most of the suit is a reused and repainted Kasshine from Kamen Rider Zi-O.
The helmet is a repaint of Calibur Jaou Dragon's helmet. Given that Calibur Jaou Dragon makes no appearances after Solomon debuts, they may have literally repainted it rather than just reusing the mold.
The belt is a gold-colored Jaken Caliburdriver (also previously used as Saikou's silver Seiken Saikoudriver).
The Omni Force Wonder Ride Book is remodeled from the X Sword Man Wonder Ride Book, with only the cover page being a new part.
Caladbolg is a repainted Kingexcalibur.
Kamen Rider Storious is Solomon's suit painted black and switches the Jaou Dragon helm for a retooled helmet from Storious' Megid form. The body also has additional robing from Storious' Megid form.
The Grimoire Wonder Ride Book is another remold of the X Sword Man Wonder Ride Book.
Quite unusually for a main Rider's primary Final Form, Kamen Rider Xross Saber is a straight recolor of Saber's base form, Brave Dragon. In fairness, it is painstakingly detailed and handmade. Official blog posts about the form explain this is in part due to the production team setting a Simple, yet Awesome concept for the Reiwa era Final Forms as a way to set it apart from the Heisei era (which also explains Kamen Rider Zero-Two's simplistic design), as well as being inspired by Kamen Rider Stronger's Charge Up form, the first non-permanent Kamen Rider power-up form and a simple color change of Stronger's base suit. The apparent cheapness is also lessened by the fact that Xross Saber has three other forms; Crimson Saber, Featuring Saber, and Hybrid Saber; though it's still eyebrow-raising when one notices that they reuse Xross Saber's helmet and lower leg pieces, breaking consistency with how the Book combinations work with the standard Swordriver swords.
Saber Super Hero Senki form reuses Ghost’s Toucon Boost form with additional robing and a repainted Dragonic Knight helmet, in the colors of Zenkaizer.
Saber Ultimate Bahamut is a black repaint of Emotional Dragon, with the shield and the front robe taken off.
Saber Ghost Ijinroku recycles the Darwin Damashii cloak and adds the faceplates of the 15 ghost heroes.
In Kamen Rider Saber: Trio of Deep Sin, Espada gains a new form called Arabiana Night. It is a repainted Primitive Dragon suit, with a new head and uses the Gekkou Raimeiken Ikazuchi, the evolved form of Ikazuchi.
The Arabiana Night Wonder Ride Book is a remold of the Primitive Dragon Wonder Ride Book.
In Kamen Rider Outsiders, Desast gains his form rider form, which appears to be repainted from Kamen Rider Fuma's suit, but adds a new helmet and shoulder armor, and uses a new sword and the Swordriver.
Sophia’s absence from a protracted length of the series is due to Rina Chisen’s schedule prioritising a play she was in at the same time.
The Specter Wonder Ride Book doesn't have specific audio clips because it wasn't initially planned for the lineup. Because the announcements come from the sword itself, it uses the "Wonder Rider" sound clip instead of the "Legend Rider" sound clip.
Serendipity Writes the Plot: In Bandai's SworDriver Dex Site, due to an error forms that use Lamp do Alangina by non-Espada Riders do not get its face armornote It was meant to provide face armor for all Riders, if Brave Dragon and Lion Senki are to go by. Rather than fix this error, it was retooled into the show such that Saber Dragon Alangina doesn't have Alangina's face armor as per the site's error.
"Muscle Idol" Reika Saiki appears in Chapter 4 as Fighting Fairy, who grows to human size and wrestles the Hanzaki Megid to the ground as a part of Saber's Finishing Move.
Metal Yoshida and Ryo Matsuda (Oren and Hideyasu from Kamen Rider Gaim), show up as victims of the MOTW in Chapter 8. The cast list refers to their characters as Man A and Man B, but based off of their mannerisms and clothing, it's pretty blatant that they are reprising their respective roles from Gaim, coinciding with the new Gaim Gaiden release focused on said characters.
Troubled Production: Like Kamen Rider Zero-One, the COVID-19 Pandemic forced the staff to quickly rework their plans for the series due to the new guidelines in place. Guest stars and cameos had to be greatly reduced and some plotlines involving the Megid were dropped as a result.
Official subtitles for an episode preview named Desast as the Chimera Megid, although it remains to be seen if this name was due to him being a combination of all three genres of Mamono, or if he was originally meant to be a Legendary Creature Mamono representing the Chimera itself.
The show’s original concept was drastically different. Touma would’ve been actively searching for Luna by Walking the Earth and recruiting representatives of various sword styles to help in his quest. But when COVID-19 hit, the show was retooled to have everyone already aligned.
According to director Takayuki Shibasaki, an onsen was originally proposed to be included but had to be scrapped due to the pandemic. A modified onsen sign can be seen above Touma's desk in an allusion to that idea.
The Final Boss of the series was originally going to be a Demon King sealed in the giant sword in Wonder World.
As is tradition, Saber would have had both an early cameo in Zero One's summer film, and a team up film with Zero One in the fall but the fallout from COVID obviously put a stop to that by delaying Zero One's film to post show and not allowing the cast's to film together. Aruto's appearance in Superhero Senki was an attempt to make up for this and because Fumiya Takahashi still had one more film appearance in his contract because of the assumed team up film they never got to do.
Written by Cast Member: According to sub writer Hiroki Uchida, Takaya Yamaguchi (the actor for Rintaro Shindo/Kamen Rider Blades) helped him in the writing of Chapter 32.
Writing by the Seat of Your Pants: The first few episodes had to be rewritten after filming was already half-completed on those episodes, with little time to refill the recorded scenes with the new material.
Koji Saikawa (Zooous) previously appeared in Kamen Rider Fourze as Tsukasa Nishikawa in Episodes 3 and 4.
Tenta Banka (Sora Ogami) previously appeared in Mashin Sentai Kiramager as Takeshi in Episode 19.
Masashi Mikami (Kenshin Nagamine/the previous Kamen Rider Blades) previously appeared as Souta Mogami in GoGo Sentai Boukenger and as Hiroki Nikaido in Episode 15 of Kamen Rider Drive.
Keisuke Soma (Master Logos)'s previous and best-known role in tokusatsu was Genta Umemori in Samurai Sentai Shinkenger.
Mitsuru Karahashi (Hayato Fukamiya) previously appeared as Juzo Fuwa in Shinkenger and as Naoya Kaido in Kamen Rider 555.
Rin Asuka (Yuina Tachibana) previously appeared as Wakana Sonozaki in Kamen Rider Double.
General
This is the first Kamen Rider series since Hibiki to have an ending credits sequence. On top of that, the credits theme is a Dancing Theme, with choreography by Exile's TAKAHIRO, who previously choreographed dances for idol groups such as Nogizaka46 and Hinatazaka46.
This is the second Kamen Rider series to have a specific nomenclature for its episodes, using "Chapter" note 章/Sho , following Hibiki’s use of “Volume” for its episodes. "Chapter" being used for episode numbers also harkens back to Seijuu Sentai Gingaman, which started Idiosyncratic Episode Naming in Super Sentai.
French fans of Kamen Rider might recognize Tassel as half of Les Romanesques, who appeared on the 4th series of La France a un incroyable talent in a viral performance of their song "Zoun-Doko Bushi". The band also performed a theme song for France Five.
This is one of the first Kamen Rider series to have a number of mixed-race actors in predominant roles, with Hiroaki Oka (Tetsuo) being Japanese-Chinese, Kairu Takano (Legeiel) and Koji Sakawa (Zooous) being Japanese-American note Robin Furuya (Storious) is ethnically full Japanese, but was born in Hawaii and Angela Mei (Reika Shindai) being Japanese-Filipino. note While it's not the first Kamen Rider series to have mixed-race actors before, this is notably the first time that mixed-race actors have been shown off in this respect. This was funnily lampshaded for the Megid generals in the mini-anime spinoff, where they hold a conversation in fluent English that eventually derailed into an arguement.
Despite being the official head writer of Saber, Takuro Fukuda wrote fewer episodes of the series than Keiichi Hasegawa, who wrote 19 episodes of Saber in total, including the entire final arc.
that they were aware of the leaks and scans online and were looking towards criminal prosecution against those responsible, citing that this is considered copyright infringement. This wounded up causing a bit of a stir from fans, questioning the company's decision to seek legal action over leaked information that they themselves published.note 