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Monday, April 15, 2013

Kamen Rider Wizard Episode 30 Review: EXCITING! (Spoiler Alert!)

For this episode of Kamen Rider Wizard we get Sora doing what he does best as now he lets a Phantom called Legion free. And boy this is one dangerous Phantom.
I really want to talk about Legion first since he is on same level as Beelzebub for greatness. Legion is very much like Phoenix with how he doesn't care about Gates. He is also a Phantom on a rampage, but he targets certain people. Legion looks for people who are beautiful on the inside so people who do good deeds. He finds it rather EXCITING! All we know though from the beginning is that after he is done with a person they are in a coma. When he encounters Wizard we find out what he can do. He can go into people's minds and further in as he strikes Wizard with this power. He then explores into Haruto's underworld and causes mayhem inside of him. Legion also reminds me of Bishop one of my favorite Kamen Rider villains since he's got a similar look and easily has the same creepiness (also it's the same actor). The design for him is great even better than the last Phantom. This is surely a big player right here as I will get into more detail to what he does in the end of the episode. Legion is a great Phantom as he is crazy with a heavy passion of finding beauty.
Since I talked about Phantoms before let's get to Sora. He has constantly been doing things that have been annoying Medusa and now he finally reaches the breaking point as Wiseman himself attacks. Wiseman finds Sora and chains his arm up and tries to kill him. Sora though wonders about something though as he wants to know the connections between the Sabbath, Wizards, Phantoms, and the Philosopher Stone! Now before people go on a Harry Potter or FMA tangent the Philosopher Stone is a real thing well sort of. If you know about you know that this stone can perform miracles in alchemy which is very similar to magic. It hasn't been obtained yet so I can see that Wiseman is aiming for this power for some reason. Now we know what connects to each other, but how? This is just another reason why I love the series so far they give us many progressing points, but still leave a big question. Things are setting into stone so now we just wait to see what will happen.
We also know to not mess with Wiseman
Now onto the heroes as we get some interesting insights here. First is with Koyomi as she is having trouble with Mana. It seems she needs it more often now and we did see the Please Ring being used in the previous arc so good transition there. I am still wondering on why Koyomi was left into Haruto's hands since she is just a shell. Did the White Mage feel sorry for her and wanted her to live on? Then why is she taking more Mana recently? Again more questions that will get answered I bet. Haruto shows his strong sides with his caring for others which is EXCITING for Legion. He helps a boy with entertaining his sister with some magic and does his usual protecting of others. Along with this he used up a lot of magic for this episode as he gives Koyomi Mana, performs for a girl, and in battle he does more with three forms. I will get to that part later. Haruto is still on my good side and this is an episode that shows why he is enjoyable. His actor is very good with this role as I love the personality he gives to the character. Now I do wonder about the out of suit action Haruto had since things seem much higher for the usual actor. I know he did his own stunt work in with movie with Fourze, but here I can't tell. So good for the direction of that scene. Kousuke was lowered down than the last episode, but he still does a lot in the action portion of the episode.
Going on with the other characters we see Rinko being hard at work cause of all the victims of Legion falling into comas. Shunpei was being more supportive as he helped with saving the boy and was very excited for Haruto to save the day. Medusa was more in the background, but that is because Wiseman wanted to deal with Sora himself and I bet she lost track of Legion. I wonder if she could even take on Legion cause Wiseman had him chained up. We do get a nice idea on how strong Sora cause he breaks the seal on Legion. Even Sora can't take on Wiseman though so yea don't mess with Wiseman. The boy and girl were okay, I will say the boy actor is pretty good. He has high potential and he easily looks like he could be a future rider. The boy is a very caring brother who wants to make sure his sister is happy which is why he was trying some magic tricks. Sadly he failed, but Haruto helped out. This is what got Legion to our heroes as I wonder how the two will come back in the next episode. So very little stuff for minor characters, but they still have fun moments.
 One more thing before the action is how Rings were used in this episode. There are some ones we only saw in battle being used out of a fight. This was Gravity as Haruto uses that ring to make things float. I am amazed that a ring like Gravity can be used while Haruto is not Wizard. I guess it makes sense though since some rings that were used outside of battle were then used in battle. For example there was the Smell Ring, also we see more of Dress Up. Again this is the third appearance this ring has gotten since episode twenty. We even got the usual Connect Ring bring used to take things from other areas. Now there was even some ring action for the action part of the show.
"The Force is strong with this one... wait he's using magic you say?"
Beast had a big fight in the beginning of the show as he fought Legion first. We got more Chameleo action as it got a three which was unique. Again the power does get higher with the higher numbers so three is in the middle with four. It did give Legion some struggle and sadly we didn't get to see Hyper form fighting Legion, but I bet Beast will get more action later on. There was an out of suit fight as Haruto was doing some sick back flips and shooting at Legion. Then we got Wizard action with Land Styles being used first. Wizard tries the Drill Ring, but that didn't work so he moved on with Hurricane. Here he used the Thunder Ring which I was not expecting since I thought it would only go with the Dragon forms, but it does make sense since it's not like the Special Ring. Beast appears with Buffa as Wizard goes into Flame Styles. I remember seeing someone complaining that Haruto should have used the Dragon forms, but I know why he didn't. He had to use the weaker forms because of the all the magic he used before the fight. So it's not confusing at all since Haruto used up more magic than usual. Here is where things get suspenseful as when Wizard defends Beast, Legion gets his attack and jumps into Haruto's underworld!
The Underworld fight was amazing! Beast follows Legion as the two fight there. Beast uses Khirima and even Dragon appears! This is the first time Beast as seen Dragon and both monsters are fighting together! You would think the effects would be downgraded for something like this, but no. Dragon and Khirima looked pretty much the same they did before and other added effects looked great as well. In the final moments though Dragon protects both Beast and Khirima, but Legion got too much of a big hit on him leading to his death! With Dragon killed, Haruto lost his magic! This is a big page turner as who would expect a rider to lose his powers. I know riders lost their belts before, but with Haruto magic granted him the power of Wizard.
Overall there were so many great things in this episode. Sora finally is getting what he wanted which was Wiseman as I wonder how things will turn up for him. Koyomi is using up more magic recently and wait Haruto doesn't have magic anymore so..... Legion is one great Phantom as he is another tough one and his character reminds me of Bishop. Finally Haruto lost his magic! It was very unexpected... well except the title of the episode gives it away, but I am still amazed the series used a plot twist like this. The brother and sister was a fun angle, but I think if the sister was more involved with the story of this episode it would have made it better. Overall an A episode as the brother and sister part of the show are really the only parts I can see improvement for.
Next Time: Infinite Power!

8 comments:

  1. Are we sure that isn't Bishop's actor? He looks damned similar.

    I liked this episode. It had really good pacing and a real threat for the first time. Legion isn't what I would call interesting though...he has one schtick and that's it. Just like all the other Phantoms save Cat Sidhe, the mole guy, and Beelzebub.

    Yet again though you say there are several progressing plot points...what do you mean by that? Because introducing a plot thread and then not doing anything with it is the opposite of 'progressing' in my dictionary. They keep mentioning them , yeah. But that isn't the same as progressing them. This mention of the Philosopher's Stone is the first real progress we've had in over 20 episodes (since Koyomi's backstory).


    A single neat gimmick is not a deep personality and a lot of lip-service is not a flowing narrative element. This show is simple. Compare to Agito or Faiz or Kiva that had multiple continuous threads throughout. Wizard is like a picture book next to those (irrespective of quality mind you).

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  2. I can agree in parts, but for the progression in the series it gives us new things that connect to the overall story. That is what I am mostly saying, Beast has connections and I can guess what they are. There is more background development and it's that build up method. The White Mage is easily doing many things and the same for Wiseman. It's just we don't know, but yea it's not as complex as Agito and Faiz. With Faiz though it kinda forced something of the complexity at times along with the dark overtone. Then I tried looking it up and there is no confirmation for Bishop's actor playing the role.

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  3. Hey Kamensentai what do you think of Shunpei(I cannot stand him)

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    1. I have no hate for the character. In the beginning he had a love for magic and wanted it to be real. Later on the series he is more of a comedic character, but he does bring some great humor. Episode 12 and 13 were really great and showing how Shunpei can really be helpful. Overall he's a nice supporting character that can bring some laughs for the series.

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    2. Shunpei has grown into a really good comic relief and audience surrogate kind of character. I still have my own concerns about Rinko's character (particularly the way she acts so stereotypically "girly" even as a detective) but overall the supporting cast of Wizard is great.

      I wish they'd actually make them feel like more than a peanut gallery.

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    3. Yea and even if Shunpei doesn't have powers he still protects people like he did with Kousuke's grandmother. A real annoying character would have ran saving his own life like Ben from the Walking Dead Video Game. I'm fine with Rinko because I think having her have some "girly traits" makes her slightly more realistic. I will say one thing though is that some of the supporting cast is not used all too much, but when they get their moments it's really good moments.

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  4. Oh by the way, the actor for Legion IS the same as Bishop from Kiva AND the Douji from Hibiki.

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    1. Thanks for the information, I guess I looked it up when that wasn't there. Oh well that makes me even more happy now!

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