First thing to talk about is Koyomi. I have wondered about her before on where she comes from. We learn that she is some sort of doll. So she's sort of like NEVER just with magic. This makes me think if Koyomi actually died and maybe the White Mage fought her Phantom and somehow revived her to what she is now. Another thing is how she acts, she is not happy about having more people around as she sees Rinko and Shunpei as pests. I am actually a little surprised that we are getting into this early into the series as character changes usually take a while. This makes me think of the original Kamen Rider series with Hongo being blamed for murdering the man who saved him and now that problem was resolved early in the series. So expect the next episode to have Koyomi being more open. She also had some nice character moments like blocking out Rinko and Shunpei, being very considered about Haruto, and her talk with Tagaki. I am really happy that a big character arc like this is happening now because we can start liking how the character should be further in the series.
Next is Cat Sidhe and the first thing that jumps out is that he is played by a black actor. I'm not being racist it's just seeing black actors in Toku is surprising as Sidhe is like the third black guy in Kamen Rider (not 100% sure about that). Now onto his character, he is a lackadaisical kind of guy who is actually smart. He brings up a good point on why couldn't Medusa or Phoenix do this. He finds the actual job to be a pain as I guess he had issues with this before. This makes me think on how many Phantoms their could be right now since Haruto can't stop them all and we are not exactly sure when he started to actually fight the Phantoms. Cat Sidhe's appearance is good. You can easily see the feline parts in the suit and I do like the yellow claws and how they can enlarge. He has super speed and great jumping abilities, but his laziness and cowardliness gets in the way. So he's good, nothing to special, but he does bring a little comedic touches to this episode.
Onto Medusa as she actually took action for the first time. I give her points for wanting to watch over Sidhe since he was goofing off. Also I bet she wanted to see who Wizard was. Even though she knows of him, I bet she actually never say him till now. She had a really scary image in this episode as she threatened Sidhe to send the Gate into despair and killed Koyomi. She is clearly the villain moving the gears as Phoenix is just with her right now. So Medusa easily got my attention, but I hope Phoenix will do more soon.
For the action we got to see two new rings used in battle. Liquid is a very powerful spell, but high chance it will only work with Water Styles since water is a liquid. It's very like Biorider with how Wizard moves around in a liquid form and the effects with this were very good. It started with Sidhe attacking as the liquid was separated from Wizard's body and then seeing it flow around. I really do wonder if Liquid could work with other Styles since Fire could be like Magma maybe. Or will it just turn Wizard into a liquid no matter what form he is in. With this ring we say Wizard pulling some wrestling moves as he could easily move around giving him tons of wiggle room. It's nice to see how Wizard fights since he has a carefree style of fighting with an actual martial art and now he pulls of wrestling moves. This just holds many wonders on how else Wizard could fight. Finally there was Bind Ring which summons chains to constrain the enemy, pretty simple and effective.Last thing to talk about is Tagaki. He is the type of person I would find annoying. He is really bossy and thinks way too much of himself. He knows he is not winning, but he still thinks he is important. It does make sense since he had fame and having losing it pushes him to get it back. We clearly see that he is easily irritated and hates when people interfere with his work. He flipped at his instructor and was acting like Koyomi to the others. I did like his sudden change when he actually wanted to lose his hands. I was not expecting for someone to actually want to lose something, but he had a lot of thinking before the next events happened.
Overall this is another strong episode as Wizard is going to get another A. I love seeing Koyomi as she acted very harsh to Shunpei and Rinko and then so nice and comforting to Haruto. Cat Sidhe is a nice villain for this arc as he isn't that good at putting people into despair and he constantly gets bad luck (wait a second... he's a cat and his human form is black). The action was nice with new rings and the songs are okay, I will get into the songs at a later time. Tagaki already gets a big change of character as he thought his hope was the piano, but he is now thinking otherwise. Then Medusa who really took a big jump at the heroes by killing one of them! So this episode gets an A, when will the "A" streak end? I hope for never.
Next Time: The Last Song
An interesting episode indeed this week. Cat Sidhe (How does everyone know how to spell that? Was it in the credits or something and I missed it? It sounds like "shee" when spoken. It's a Gaelic word so spelling goes OUT the window.) is awesome.
ReplyDeleteI got a serious Faiz vibe from the characters and effects this time. The Phantoms are heavily reminiscent of the Orphnochs from the way they transform to their habit of turning people into more of themselves.
I'm still not 100% sold on this series yet though...as all the silliness still being brought by Rinko's perpetually poor acting (I do not believe she's a cop AT ALL...how I long for Ozawa from Agito) and Shunpei's....Shunpei-ness is still putting me off.
I want to like this show because I'm adoring Haruto and the Phantoms. But the supporting cast is what makes or breaks a Rider series I've come to find out. And so far I have to give the cast as a whole...a thumbs down.