Episode eleven is a great follow up to episode ten as it keeps the tone and adds more suspense. Wizard is doing really well with their second parts and this is no exception. First is Kizaki, he got more focus than the last episode. The last episode shown on how he is keeping things secretly and slowly breaking down. In this part he was very strict and wanted to get things moving quickly. What I was surprised by was how much he didn't know. I thought he knew a lot about Phantoms and Mages, but he only learned about things from Katayama. Also he started to be more nice when he started to find things out about magic stones and how the Phantoms work. I hope we get to see Kizaki again because I really want to see him meet with Haruto again. Who knows he could have learned a lot more than he was expecting.
Onto Naoki who was hidden and kept out for a while, but it works since he got the screen time when he fell into despair. His reason for falling to despair makes sense since he was accusing someone else on the death of his father. With Gargoyle telling him he was the cause can make anyone feel bad about themselves. Now what I like is that Naoki overreacts to the news since this is regarding his dead father. People usually blame someone and when he learned the truth he pointed the finger at himself. I do like it, but Shunpei's reason for despair is still the best out of the three.
Gargoyle did stay the same and I was disappointed on his connection to Naoki was. Gargoyle just wanted to get the target he missed for so long. I like that he remembers, but I would actually liked to have him be connected. I was hoping it was actually his father and his appearance just changed over the months. At least have him be close to his father and then that person was changed into a Phantom. Overall I like Gargoyle's personality, but his connection was very disappointing. At least we got a good scene when Katayama tried to fight Gargoyle. Going with that Katayama is an interesting character since he found out about things and told Kizaki. This leads to some questions about how he found the magic stone and how did he learn about the Phantoms. One more thing is that the Phantoms were moving before Wizard begun to fight so again this gives us news that there are more Phantoms than we think.Onto Naoki who was hidden and kept out for a while, but it works since he got the screen time when he fell into despair. His reason for falling to despair makes sense since he was accusing someone else on the death of his father. With Gargoyle telling him he was the cause can make anyone feel bad about themselves. Now what I like is that Naoki overreacts to the news since this is regarding his dead father. People usually blame someone and when he learned the truth he pointed the finger at himself. I do like it, but Shunpei's reason for despair is still the best out of the three.
With the other Phantoms they are getting more involved since they have been failing and with Phoenix attempt Medusa is starting to help out more. She knew something was up and sent Phoenix to distract Wizard so that Gargoyle could get his target. Phoenix did do his part, but he did leave quickly. I know Phoenix isn't the smartest guy and that he just wanted to tease Wizard. It still bugs me though since he could easily kept him around longer and kept fighting. Maybe his magic was still low even though he did show his strength when he fought. I guess he had enough left for a quick fight. At least he told Wizard about his immortality and thus begins the rivalry with Wizard and Phoenix since he can never die.
The action was much quicker compared to other episodes as it reminded me of Double at parts. There are good reasons though. Now the first scene of action was the longest with the police trying to keep the Phantoms away. I like this a lot since episode one had that moment and it's always nice to see the police be more involved. It reminds me a lot of Kuuga and Agito where the cops are just thrown around with ease. Now if they are dead or not is unknown for some and that was disappointing, but there was already a sense of death with Katayama. Even Kizaki tried to fight and he got tossed around as it's very similar to how Katayama fought Gargoyle. Both tried their guns at first and then used the environment around them. Both were even sent to the ground. Then Wizard shown up and had a quick fight with Phoenix. Hurricane and Water were used, but it was too short for anything big. People could say that he should have went into Dragon form, but he was in water so I think that form wouldn't do well. So it was very quick thinking Haruto had to use Water styles to get out of the water.
Then we had his final fight with Gargoyle and it was fast since Naoki was in danger. I did like how Wizard knew he had to finish things quickly. So he tricks Gargoyle to going into his rock form. We finally got to see double guns and with Haruto able to curve bullets he hit the same area with all his shots to break the rock armor. The Special finisher was used again and I was hoping for a Dragon gun finisher, but at least the effects and the angle of the attack made it looks somewhat different. Lastly, we had another Underworld fight and the effects were good and better than Shunpei's underworld. The creature was odd, but still cool looking. I like the eye in the center and it's reptile theme, but the multiple lizard heads for fingers was odd looking since the effects didn't keep to well with them. Then we had another Kick Strike finisher and that's one thing I was disappointed, Wizard has so many rings and he didn't use any creative finisher this time. I know he was in a hurry, but I was hoping for the Dragon form to have a little battle with the beast before summoning Dragon. The last two fights were still good, but I think they could have been a little longer.
Episode eleven delivers in good drama and giving more twists to the series. I love learning that Kizaki actually knows less than expected and how his views on Haruto changed because of the events. I still think Kizaki will try something else. Also my prediction was wrong since I know the new stone will become Hurricane Dragon Styles. Then Kizaki says he can trust the power with him, but what will happen when the new rider comes? The action was lacking in length, but there is nothing wrong with short and sweet. The bad part is that we didn't get anything new expect for double guns. I still rather see other forms be used in the final battle with Gargoyle. Seeing Flame Dragon going into the Underworld was nice though. So this gets an A- since the drama and character involvement is still well used and the pacing never felt slow or too fast.
Next Time: Hurricane Dragon hits Japan
Still feel the same about this arc as I did last episode. It just wasn't very interesting. The fights were repeats of previously seen powers (with the one exception being the double guns, which was really cool). The story wasn't very revealing...
ReplyDeleteIt feels like one big excuse to have an explanation for where the green dragon stone came from, instead of using the same "A white bird gave it to me" like last time. A mostly throwaway filler plot to keep things rolling.
What I did like is that we learned that officers like Kizaki don't know as much as previously thought. I was disappointed in some of the revealing moments, but the episode gave us a good characterization of Kizaki and I do hope to see more of him later in the series.
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