Kamen Rider Wizard Episode 36 Review: Caw! (Spoiler Alert!!!)

Well I didn't have the best morning to start a day off so I'm just going straight into this review now. I got worst demons to be facing soon. So for this episode of Wizard we had an interesting premise, but sadly it falls, it falls so hard on the floor.

This is really the first time I am going to be not so defending of Wizard for once since this episode was bad. There is still some good in it, but the overall feeling was terrible. The worst part that this episode had a very unique premise going in. We see a Gate who is an arsonist and as we seen before a Gate can actually retain his humanity if he's already a dark person. So this works perfectly as a transition from the last episode since we learned about Sora being a serial killer and how he still continues to do so. The episode even begins in a dark feeling, but what happens? Slap stick comedy from Shunpei and Rinko....... UGH!!!!! People say comedy is hard to critique, but to me it's just another form of entertainment so it's very possible. I will get onto that some more, but first I hate this sense of transition from darkness to comedy. It was not well done at all in this episode. I see that a feeling of darkness and humor is the best mix for a superhero series since it will know when to be uplifting and when it can be serious. Here I was just begging the episode to be serious once more and it does here and there, but again Rinko and Shunpei were taking most of the spotlight.

Now don't get me wrong here, I enjoyed the humor done by Shunpei and Rinko before, but they usually never had duo like comedy. So this episode tries to have both of them doing something and getting in each others' way and it was completely predictable. That is the worst thing in humor since the shock value will be low and you will just be going, "just bring the punchline already." A perfect example of this was when Rinko and Shunpei both see the suspect and run after him. Now the two were separate and were chasing him from different places so guess what? They ran into each other....... didn't see that coming at all! Wizard has done comedy before and much better too. Episode twelve and thirteen had Shunpei trying too hard and his stubbornness came back in this episode, but wasn't the point of that episode supposed to teach him something? He learned a great lesson about being helpful so what did he just forget that? Rinko also had her moments as well like when she got arrested by an officer before. So why is the humor so bad here? I know exactly why.

The reason that the humor was so bad was that it made the characters seem very annoying. Again I never had this hatred for these characters before, but this episode I was like "You two need to go back to your normal selves!" The two even make problems for the others and again I have seen humor that does this well, but for this first part of the arc there was no redemption for them yet. So we just get constant slap-stick and annoyance from the two. I was so with Haruto when he just left and decided to work by himself cause even he knows they would have gotten in the way. The two made things worse for Koyomi and Wajime, made many disturbances, and by the end of the episode Shunpei steals a cop car! Shunpei you know there are other ways to help people, being a fugitive is not helping! The worst part is that he drags Rinko into this and she could be fired soon. So at least I can give Rinko some credit for her rashness since she could be fired because of this. Still she shouldn't be ignoring others and bringing harm to them. If she accepted Shunpei's help in the beginning this could have all been fixed as the two would have been together and work as a duo. We can't have that though it seems as the show is trying to be funny.

Now here is the part I lost it. After finding out that the arsonist is a Gate the two argue about protecting him or arresting him. Here's the thing though, arresting can be protecting! If they are getting the Gate away from a Phantom isn't that good? I know we learn that the man is very timid and would have not done well in prison, but I think by the law I know, no officer can't just throw anyone into a cell. There is questioning and those happen in a room not a cell. Also if Shunpei was so worried about him he should have just let the officers take both of them then. That way he can be with the man and supporting him cause if someone is defending him that just leaves room for more questioning. The Gate is just an arson suspect and he clearly pleads for help saying he doesn't do it. Then the cops will even know how the strange stuff since Phantoms have fought the police before. There is a whole section devoted to looking into Phantom cases. So the constant bickering of protecting or arresting is pointless since they should make this job as just protecting and Shunpei I got a question then. If someone murdered a someone right in front of you and they were a Gate, would you still want to fully protect them? There is a line that can be crossed and putting someone in a cell doesn't mean they won't be protected. As I said before the comedy in this episode was probably the worst of the series so far. It really makes me cringe of how bad it was. Alright that part is done, now I can talk about the good things in this episode.

Okay there was a great moment for this episode, but this should have been the major focus of the episode. Haruto actually meets Wiseman in person! This alone could have been a one arced episode where Haruto tries to find things out by himself. Because that would have been amazing to see, that episode could have shown Medusa then trying to stop him from getting in. It would have been a great focus for Haruto as this part clearly shows determination. He is confused and he wants answers so he goes back to the forest and breaks through the illusion in the forest thanks to the Infinity powers. When Wizard meets Wiseman he kicked out pretty fast right after talking about somethings. Wizard mentions many things as he asks about what is happening mostly like the Philosopher's Stone. Even Medusa didn't know about it so again Wiseman is doing a lot of things in secrecy. Wiseman then controls Wizard's magic and throws him out with them without answering any of his questions. We even find out that Wiseman took a lot of magic energy from him. So this episode could have acted like a survival episode as Medusa could have gave chase to Wizard and he runs of out magic. Again that alone would have been a great episode, but no we needed comedy!

Another interesting thing about this episode was the Phantom, as he is Raum. He is known in a myth as the Earl of Hell. He takes the shape of a crow and soon takes the form of a human with the request of the conjure. However it's actually the opposite here. The Phantom keeps his form as the bird and doesn't turn human at all yet. He pretends to be a bird and actually gets the two bickering heroes to take him to the Gate. Sora did mention to the riders that the Phantom loves to keep the bird form too so I am guessing his Gate was a bird person. So yea the Phantom was actually a smart and tricky one. I will say his design isn't my favorite, but he did some nice trickery so good for him. Also we didn't get to see too much of his fighting potential other than flying around. Sora even uses him on the right person because the Gate is a very timid person and he keeps a pet bird to keep him sane. This pet bird is the Phantom of course, but still it seems he knows this bird very well. So the villains got a great opening and their plan was working out since the man probably would have fallen into despair in jail. I guess I can say Shunpei overreacting wasn't too much of a bad thing then. I am still sticking to my argument, since I think the justice system in Japan is not that different from others.

Even if Haruto wasn't the main focus of the episode he shown the most intelligence in this episode. When he sees Rinko and Shunpei fighting each other and not catching the criminal he just busts out his Wizard powers. He turns into Water Dragon, puts out the fire with Blizzard, and then catches the suspect with Bind. Haruto did exactly what the two couldn't have done in the whole episode! I know he used powers, but hey I give major credit to him trying to put this to an end because he knows there was going to be a storm coming soon. Now the Phantom did get him free, but as I said before him being the bird gave him the opportunity of a surprise. Too bad Kousuke was just around just because he was hungry. I was disappointed with that since even though he hasn't been the major focus he has done a lot of great things in drama, action, and most importantly comedy! I was so happy to see him appear and then he didn't even have much material, *sigh* So yea the real heroes didn't have much sadly as Haruto's beginning was mostly slapped out of this episode by the terrible comedy.

Even the action wasn't much which even makes me more sad since again I was hoping for something more. I will say I was happy to see Wiseman simply kick Wizard out since he didn't even have to fight him, that's how strong he is. Still it would have been nice to see Wizard and Wiseman fight and didn't the scans show us that they were going to fight? So that was basically a tease.... *sigh* I can't even be fully angry anymore since this is not the worst part at all. I already talked about that in enough depth. The big fight then with Beast and Wizard was just them fighting Ghuls until Wizard ran out of mana. Again see that could have been used for a better episode. Heck they could have kept the arson thing and just have Haruto trying to save a Gate without magic. Or at least have Kousuke take the spotlight then and have him protect the Gate. At least make this episode better! I don't even want to talk about the fight since that was it. At least we saw Water and Flame Dragon in action.

This episode is a great example of how comedy can ruin something with good potential. The potential in this episode was high because we had a possible criminal be a Gate and Haruto met Wiseman, but nope the slap-stick just smacks this episode around. Rinko and Shunpei's comedy was the worst in the series so far and I hope the second part can save itself. There were some good things in this episode, but the majority of this episode was the dumb bickering between Rinko and Shunpei and it was never funny. I give this episode a D something I thought I would never have to give to Wizard, but it happened.

Next Time: Haruto save this arc!