Magic as a power source is quite interesting, from the rules that we set up to what they can potentially do it. So after years of powers coming from ancient civilizations or technology, Toei decided to try something different the powers of the next rider with Kamen Rider Wizard, the 23rd overall series for the meta series. But the question remains is there any magic to be found here, or is all cheap tricks you would find in a sidewalk show.
SYNOPSIS
Former aspiring soccer player Haruto Soma finds his life changed when finds himself among of group of people kidnapped and then subsequently sacrificed for a sabbath. Miraculously, he somehow is able to survive but finds that he is the only person alive and a monster, which is known as a phantom, comes to attack. But before he ends up meeting a grim fate, he finds himself saved by a rider clothed in white. Before he can fully get answers, the White wizard leaves with him a driver, a ring that would make a nice to-I mean transformation trinket, and laslty an unconscious girl whom he entrusts to protect. Haruto now fights as Kamen rider Wizard to protect others from the threats the phantoms bring to people and to protect the hopes of others.
The overall story here does start out as promising, there are ideas and potential brought up from how a person gains their magic from overcoming the despair that a phantom may put onto them, the villains have some threat to them and mystique and why they want more phantoms. The problems arise as the show goes on and it reveals just how woefully under cooked this story is. Character points appear for one episode before being completely forgotten, the series primarily rely on victim of the week plots through most of its run with very few episodes that are not near the end could be considered of having some kind of main plot development that could cause it to become rather monotonous. Not helping here is some rather aggravating characters or flat characters speaking of them.
CHARACTERS
Haruto Soma has no character. I don't mean that in the way that he is a complete blank slate, he has a defined personality in that he is stoic, snarky, and caring about helping those around him. But he doesn't really undergo any kind of growth or character arc. That is not to say that not going through anything is a bad thing, but their is not much to go off of with him an whether or not his stoicism is hiding his survivor's guilt at being the only person to survive or if that was just how he was before hand. Also remember I stated in the synopsis that he was a former aspiring soccer player (or futbol depending on how you view what it is), yeah, that is only for a single two parter and almost never up again because I really don't know what Haruto does besides being a Kamen Rider, all we see him doing is either going about searching for phantoms and victims of the weeks that are called gates. That's not to say that I don't like him, I think he can be particularly funny from time to time I and do like his cocky nature, know they do know to tone it down as the series progresses. I wouldn't say he is a top tier Kamen rider but I can't say I hated him. He is like his favorite food of plain sugar donuts, its okay, but you wish you had better donuts.
The same can not be said for his secondary rider, Kousuke Nitou. So Nitou is an archeologist student who during one of his expeditions comes across a belt that contains a chimera phantom and now finds himself having to feed it as Kamen Rider Beast. If you have watched Kamen Rider before you may notice that how his concept is pretty similar to Ryuki, in which he has to kill the monsters of the series in order to stay alive, and initially he does have a bit of issue early on because he has no idea about what phantoms are and ends up helping the villains because he is...okay not stupid just naive. Unfortunately the early concept of him trying to compete with Wizard for phantom kills is almost immediately thrown out and they mostly get along fine enough, even though his life constantly at risk and a nice good chunk of time is him complaining about needing to feed himself. It doesn't helping that find his overall Shtick and character rather annoying. Nitou is two things, one, mayonnaise. Okay, I think I need to clarify this, Japanese mayonnaise is very different thant it is not the the american brand in that it is more cream looking and sweeter. So he basically puts it on everything he eats, and I am not talking that he squirts a little bit on it, I mean he covers his dishes in everything. Even if the dish already has it or it has no reason whatsoever to be covered in it like donuts. His over big thing is interrupting people and saying what he thinks they are about to say. This is most of his character up until the end of the story where all of a sudden he take a turn towards anti-hero when, near the end of the series, a young boy who he grew to become a mentor to, ends up kidnapped by the main villain and spends a goog chunk of time trying to get him back by any means necessary. Buts to little too late as beast became a low point for secondary riders.
Moving on to side characters, Rinko was originally someone I legitimately like for being an officer who looked to get stuff done, tough and reliable, I thought he would be one of the better side characters. But unfortunately, she doesn't really do much, this is especially notable after the first evil general is taken down and most of the episodes that focus on her also generally have in focus with someone else like when she and the next character I talk about go on the run with a gate when he is framed for a crime he didn't commit. though the series does show that she isn't a detective for show, she is shown to be out and about collecting information especially in the lives that the main phantoms lead before they became monsters, but she never really does much fighting, I know, sidekick with no powers but she is a police officer who should have both firearm and basic hand to hand training so if say Nitou without his powers after he sacrifices them is able to handle ghoul's, then maybe Rinko as an officer could.
Shunpei may just be the worst character here in my opinion, he is supposed to be the child appeal character in that a lot of the comedy happens to him and how he is still an adamant believer in magic and is found to be childish by even children. The problem comes in the fact that his quirks get annoying very fast. What he brings to the team is that he is the nice guy and is able to help give people hope when all seems lost. But the longer I spent with him would make me want to spend time with the monsters since I would rather be anywhere else than around him.
Koyomi... is a plot device, that's not to mean she is not a damsel in distress the heroes need to rescue, it is that she serves one purpose in the story and the writers clearly forgot to give her any kind of focus episodes, (she gets a few, but they are few and far between). This wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the fact that she is central to the overall story of Wizard. From my research, Koyomi's actress, Makoto Okunaka was also an idol at the time and that made scheduling her for the series was rather difficult to get her for full episodes. This made me asks a couple of questions, one, if they knew it would be difficult to fit wizard into her schedule, why not come up with some plot reason for why she is not appearing consistently instead of just sitting around the ring shop, or B, how about getting a replacement who would be able to meet the schedule so we could have an actual character instead of a plot device. This is nothing against the actor, this more a casting issue that maybe or maybe not anyone knew.
Rounding out the ring shop crew is the owner Shigeru, he is primarly making new rings for Haruto to use and acts as a mentor to the group in certain instances. He is fine but nothing to interesting, he serves his role as the mentor and creator of wizard rings and how he has some clear guilt over how some of his stuff was used for the sabbath.
In terms of side characters outside of the Ring shop, there is the owner of a donut shop Haruto frequents owned by Yu kamimura who is another source of comedy in the form of how she makes all of these extravagant looking amazing donuts and more often than not wants just plain sugar donuts. Gotta feel for her though, how much time does she spend making these donuts and he just goes for a classic, I mean other people might take them but the fact she tries to get him to eat them must mean something, Or I am thinking to hard about a series aimed at kids.
The other major one is Masanori Kizaki, a superintendent for the special forces of the series who initially isn't keen on working with Haruto But comes around to it soon enough and even asks for help in certain instances, he is fine too, but I wish we got more of him rather than his rather sporadic appearances.
Over on the villains side first we have the Phoenix phantom, he is probably my favorite character here. He's hot blooded and easy to go berserk when things don't go the way of the villains. I think what I like is that in comparison with the other villains, he is pretty straight forward, no under baked twists that aren't developed after introduction, no flimsy reasons for evil, just straight destruction and after spending much of the season without him, I was kind of missing him. Yeah, that's Phoenix's biggest problem, he is only around for close to half of the series before he is killed off. Don't get me wrong his death is a highlight for the series in how Haruto deals with.
His fellow general, Medusa, is very much the opposite of him, conniving, scheming, and more calm in the situation than wanting to get into a fight, only when it is necessary. She mostly serves to send the phantoms on missions to turn gates into phantoms. Most of what we know about her is not revealed until episodes 26-27 (Like W, this also uses two part episodes) So we weren't technically done with the other heroes since their were three more, but they also sort of detail into the villains, in this case to talk about Medusa, we need to talk about her twin sister, Mayu. So Mayu was the twin sister of the person who would become the meduda phantom Miyu. So their sort of that more personal stake as not only did Medusa take the place of her sister, it also killed her entire family. It also helps that she is the first person in the series to overcome their despair since Haruto meaning she can use magic too, and she is then taken by the white wizard to be trained to become a wizard and return...13 episodes later and 11 from the finale. That's the problem here, they set what could an interesting dynamic and give Medusa something besides her current role as she ends up losing some of it as a certain someone and having a constant rival on both sides would have made for interesting fights, instead, she mostly becomes the dark chick of the group and the whole sister thing is not brought up again until Mayu comes back and the two constantly fight. Also, she is fine, I wish she came back a little earlier and joined the group then near the end of the series.
I did not like Gremlin in any sense of word, I got from him they were making another Shunpei for the villain side, being giddy and the campy villain who comes to replace the bad-ass Phoenix. That perception lasted for a good while but he grew on me slightly, he had some interesting schemes as this person who clearly knows that their is a lot more going on that allows him to get closer and closer to Wiseman as the series progresses, and his conniving nature also allows him to become the final villain against the others ones. Though he also falls into the camp of interesting characterization that they have going for them, that the show does really nothing with him. A later two-parter reveals that before becoming a phantom he was in actuality a serial killer whose targets were woman who had hair similar to his ex-girlfriend, and he clearly held onto his original personality which is considered a rarity for phantoms, and nothing is done with it, it is brought for one episode and feels more like, huh, interesting rather than a thread that is followed. Its just another disappointment on a series that was already disappointing series if you couldn't tell from this review. But it does get the brain thinking how many people still had the memories or even personality of their previous life or was it just him since he was already an irredeemable person to begin with.
So in order to talk about Wiseman, we have got to talk about spoilers for the endgame, and getting into the white wizard. Yeah, notice how I didn't bring him up at all when I was talking about the heroes, thats because Wiseman and the White Wizard are the same person Sou Fueki. So yeah, the mentor is actually a villain in a twist that really isn't a twist if you have read any amount of stories with how he acted, especially near the end. The other twist you'll likely see coming is that Koyomi is his daughter, who was extremely weak and died of illness when she was a child. So Sou does what any distraught parent does, kidnap a bunch of people on a solar eclipse to revive his daughter, what if reading this and you have a child wouldn't you do the same. While it does bring her back to life, she now requires doses of magic to keep alive since she is basically a magic powered doll. So I have two major problems with Sou, one,its his plan after the first sabbath fails to bring his daughter fully, now with the many new phantoms he intends to find Gate's similar to Haruto who are capable of overcoming their despair in order to make Magicians for a second attempt at the Sabbath. Not counting the fact that he is trying to work both sides who have different goals and that means that the chance of someone nearly succumbing to despair then over coming back from that to gain magic powers, the chances of that happening were extremly low and in the case of the last of four wizards he gets, that one just needed to be shown his wife wasn't dead like he was lead to believe initally, so it is shown that he could've induced despair and eliminate it in certain people, I know one would need to understand what is giving them hope first to crush it but some a really easy to figure out. I wouldn't be fully harping on it if it weren't for problem number two, the writers clearly want you to feel sympathy for Sou, but I really don't. Yeah he's the man lost his daughter, welcome to a large list of fictional characters who have lost family and are trying to revive them by any means necessary villains, but he is never shown to feel truly sorry for ll that he done, remember he kidnapped numerous people around the city and basically sacrificed them all, with the exception of Haruto all of those people are dead and never coming back, and when that fails he goes on to attempt it again but with wizard's and now potentially wiping out an entire city full of people just for a another chance of saving his daughter, that is also not counting the amount of damage the phantoms are now doing. He comes of as less a character motivated by tragic means and more as a selfish sociopath willing to commit genocide to bring back one person. To put it more bluntly, when I am feeling more sympathy for the serial killer written to be as much a monster as possible than the character they wrote as sympathetic, then there are problems.
AESTHETICS and MUSIC
Okay, If I can get really positive here for a bit it is that this Series has some amazing aesthetics, The overall design of the suits is pretty amazing. Wizard's suit looks rather stylish with Black being primary here and the color of each form being complimenting the outer suit. Which segways into the powered up version of each form now being the reverse the main color is now the primary color with black being secondary, Kind of like the black was a power inhibitor and entering this new form unleashes Wizard's full power. His final form of Infinity also has this kind of serene look to it as if he is at peace with himself and is at his max power, I also am kind of fond of the weapon it uses which is this combination of Axe and sword in which either end is the handle for the weapon whether in sword or axe form. Oh, and to back up a little a bit, it took be a while to get to his base form and dragon form weapon, it took a bit of time to grow on me, more the gun form of the weapon than the sword mostly since I thought it looked a little bulky but it grew on me since it was a combo weapon and it size makes sense. Though not fond of the Wizard All Dragon form Haruto does like two times in the show and most of the movies he will end up appearing in, I know CGI can be expensive an it is at the apex of one of the show's best moments, but with how little it was used it felt like the budget for these moments could've gone elsewhere for other CG moments.
While I may loathe the character who wears the suit I do like how his suit looks, a sort of matador look with the gold looking like a mantle, and getting a standard clothe one for the animals that his styles are based off of. His hyper form is fairly fine, trading out the black for royal blue and the sword for a gun. Though the form isn't compatible with his other mantles and has the problem of bad timing its introduced a few episodes after Haruto uses all dragon and litterally two episodes later, Haruto gets his ultimate form that completely overshadows Kousuke's new form. It's nitpicky but I wished that beast got a little bit of time before he was overshadowed, I know, he is the secondary rider and not the main, but it makes the hyper form less special as a result.
Monster designs are fairly solid, capturing the essence of the creature that each one is based off and powers that well match, with my personal favorite looking one's being Phoenix, Sphinx, and Siren. Though while I do say they take after the mythology, some skew more towards what popular fantasy series have done to these beings, for example, Bahamut is not this awesome, awe-inspiring dragon, he is a fish of Arabian myth who spends his time supporting the earth.
Probably the only major suit I don't like is the mage outfit for Mayu and the two of wizard's that are created for the show's climax since we needed two more for the climax. Its mostly a color thing, I just don't like the beige and clashes with the black the black and there is this red line going down that makes no...oh my god, I finally realized that these were supposed to look like uniforms for school while I was writing this, I get what it was going for but this feels like some generic outfit that anyone would be using.
Music wise it also does a fantastic, having a lot of tracks that has this mystifying element and some of that chanting as if the song was casting a spell, the music knows when something is sinister or when something awesome is about the happen. The main theme of Showtime also gets you ready for what is about happen before each episode, though if I had to knock some points in regards to it, it does give the false hope that what is being watched is amazing.
The action is also on point here, shots are well choreographed and the power of a wizard is on full display from a variety of spells and the CG is mostly integrated well, mostly, there are a few occasions where we get giant CG fights between humongous monsters and that is where it falters a bit, though it is not used that much to be an eyesore.
BEST&WORST EPISODES
Worst: Episode 18-19, Following his introduction in the previous episode, we learn more about Nitou Kousuke and learn he doesn't know about how phantoms work, so Medusa attempts to use him in order to make more phantoms. While what we learn about Beast and how his power work, the majority of the episode is an idiot plot where Nitou believes the monstrous looking creature and never really questions it, yeah he needs phantoms to not die but he never thinks to question why a phantom is coming to him for help?
Worst: 36-37, Rinko is investigating a series of arson cases and it turns out the main suspect is a gate. so Shunpei has to "protect" him by taking him on the run alongside Rinko to find the real culprit, it was hard deciding what was the my least favorite but I had to go for this, it is an idiot plot made on the fact that shunpei thinks that going to prison is not going to be good for the gate, yeah he is clearly not a good mental state, but maybe talk it through with them rather than running away with no good reason outside what he thinks is the right thing to do.
Best: 38-39, A blast from Haruto's past comes for him when he runs into his former Soccer friend and his girlfriend and it turns out he is a Gate that is being hunted by a Phantom. It is always nice to learn a little more about Haruto since we learn so little about him in the series so it is nice to get some characterization outside of being some drifter who just eats donuts and hunts phantoms.
Best:22-23, Phoenix begins to rampage across the city after Rinko tells him to be more true to himself and wants to finish things with Haruto. In terms of the end for the first half of the series, this is a really good one, bringing to an end of the big rivalry between Phoenix and Wizard which sees arguably the most awesome moments of Wizard literally kicking Phoenix into the sun to get rid of him, quite an interesting means of defeating him and Wizard makes use of almost all of the tools at his disposal at the time of the episode.
Their is good in this series but it is far and few between that are not episodes that can be completely forgotten.
CONCLUSION
Kamen Rider Wizard is by no means the worst series I have ever seened, but it is something that disappointing me more than anything, while I do like how this series looks and sounds amazing, the rest of the series has a lot lacking in its favor. I don't like a majority of the class, the story is nearly non-existent up until the end and it feels like it goes on to long with no real end goal. I can recommend it is as good popcorn fuel, it is something that you can sit down to watch if you want to turn the brain off and enjoy some good action, but if you are wanting more, I would say you are better off looking elsewhere.
FINAL VERDICT: ABSOLUTE TRASH
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