Kamen Rider Wizard Episode 44 Review: A Wizard's Teacher (Spoiler Alert!!!)

Alright it's time for more Wizard! I will do a lot of catching up with Wizard for a while so be prepare for a lot of Wizard episode reviews for the mean time. I will probably skip the special episodes since they are just going to be a reveal for Gaim so people can get excited for him. Also I won't count those episodes as a part of the series since again it's after the main story. So with episode forty-four, Haruto's teacher finds him while on a search for his son's memento and now we get a Phantom aiming to bring the teacher to despair.

The first thing I have to say is that this is rather odd to have after a pretty big reveal of Koyomi's past. We now know she has a connection with Fukei as she could possibly be his daughter. Now Haruto does ponder about this and it does affect him. The episode also builds up a message for how Haruto is acting so I am still very happy to see this connects with Haruto. So at first I thought this was going to be an episode that was going to ignore Koyomi's past for the first part, but it doesn't. This episode actually plays well to be a good follow up and I bet part two will be the same. I will get into more details about the connections in the later sections of this review. The point I making here is a strong point Wizard has in the overall series so far, which is having the minor parts connect to the major plot points which I do love a whole lot. How Wizard does this really reminds me more of Double since it did that perfectly and Wizard is closer to that than OOO and Fourze was.

So the first connection that this episode has is within the flashback scenes when Haruto was a student. His teacher, Kumagi had a close eye on him since this was after the death of his parents. Kumagi was worried about Haruto since the death of a child's parents can really put him or her in depression. He thinks that Haruto was going to kill himself by jumping off a bridge as he pulls him away. Luckily, Haruto wasn't even considering the idea as he will live on for his parents. The teacher tells him though that he cannot place a burden only on himself as Kumagi tries to share the burden with him. I really have to wonder why this guy quit as a teacher since he seems to connect with his students well if he acts this open to students. So already I am liking Kumagi. I will say his story is just brought up and we quickly set in stone how he will be driven into despair. It's a toy plane his child used to one as he lost it because of burglars. His son also died ten years ago and he isn't that sad about it, but it has been ten years so he clearly got back up from that. Another part I like about him is his personality, he's a little wacky and over expressive and I really wonder how the show will use him in the second half.

With the flashback it actually brings up a the message I talked about. People need to share their burdens so that other people can help out. If the person just keeps it in, it will end up just devour them. This is a lesson that a lot of people have learned while growing up because bad things do happen to people even when they are children. Sometimes it's hard to tell people what is going on and that just causes people to act sorrowful and avoid people. Now with Haruto when he was a child it seems that he wasn't hiding this fact since it's kinda hard to hide, but he was living life still. He smiled along and continued his school life, but again this is another thing some people do to avoid bringing out burdens. They try to cover it and just live on. This is not what Haruto does either as he wants to live on for his parents. So for him at that young age he overcomes a very big accomplishment, but he still hide other things inside of him which we found out in previous episodes. So this is still a lesson Haruto needs to learn as he is hiding Koyomi's past to himself.

Onto Koyomi, previously she has been using more magic lately and has been running out faster than usual. Things seem to be getting worse for her though as we see her running out of magic two times in the same episode. Or at least I think she was during the last moments of this episode. The other thing is that her hand is starting to crack up. It's similar to when someone fell into despair, but the cracks on her hand are red, not purple. Now the hand that is cracking up is the same hand that has the Please Ring on the fingers so is it possible that the transfer of magic energy is back firing on her? It's the second connection this episode has to the last episode and the last one since she had most of the focus last time.

A nice little detail this episode had was with Kousuke trying to talk with Yuzuru's parents. Kousuke is really beaten up that he was kidnapped by the White Mage. Him trying to get the parents to forgive him shows how bad he feels about this. Rinko though stops him since having a Mage try to help them out would easily confuse them. Now we actually don't see the parents so this was mostly just a little detail for this episode. The important part though is how Kousuke is changing as Rinko discovers this. She doesn't say how exactly he changed, but we can tell. He is actually surprised on how much being a Mage doesn't help others that much. Now he does defeat Phantoms and has saved someone by going into their Underworld. Many times though him being a Mage is more of a burden and this is a big moment since the person who kidnapped Yuzuru was a Mage as well. From when Kousuke wanted to be a Mage since it was a big chance for him to him now finding out how much of a burden it is to carry.

Another important detail to follow in this episode is about the Philosophers Stone as we find out what it is exactly. It's a stone that contains enough magic to engulf the world as this stone lives on inside Wiseman's body. So this easily leads to how he can make stones from his body like we saw when he pulled out the Water Dragon crystal from his body. This also explains the origins of the other stones, but how did other people get them then? Did he purposely let them spread out? Then with Sora this is what he wanted all along and I have to wonder how he will get the stone since it's in Wiseman's body. Wiseman did promise him he would give it to him, but that was just a lie so he can have Sora on his side. Sora even finds this out as he listens on the conversation Wiseman had with Medusa. So I have a feeling that Sora could be doing some back stabbing soon.

For the Phantom on this episode, it's Siren. Now this is a very popular mythical creature as it's a female creature that lead men to their deaths. Sirens can control a man and do pretty much what she wants as we saw in this episode as she uses Wajime to get the address of the man who owns the toy plane. Her design is pretty good, but I have to say I was expecting more of a sea design, but I actually learned that is a common misunderstanding. A siren actually has wings so the angel like look for her makes a lot more sense now. By angel I mean that her design does look more human than some other Phantoms and there are also additional feathers on her body to show more off. So I am happy with her design and she is a pretty good villain as she goes straight for her source and finds information very well.

For the action it was good, but nothing special. I will say a the first fight had some fun thanks to the Doughnut shop owners finding out who Haruto is. Now you can correct me on this since I didn't see the Fourze and Wizard movie, but how they reacted made it seem like this was the first time they saw him as Wizard. It was fun to see the owner shouting like a crazy fan at some sporting event, he even helped him up. Also that fight did show the usual rings like Defend, Big, and Bind. The fight gets another plus for how Siren fights as she has a relaxed style which is interesting and her wind attack animations are nice. The second fight was short, but Beast got a sword finish with Chameleo as three finish off Ghuls and the other two get destroyed by Siren. Then there was Wizard in Land Styles doing some digging and reappearing. Finally there was a great moment when Siren just slaps Haruto across the face, not sure if that was supposed to be funny, but I loved it so much.

Overall this was a very good episode. I was expecting less from this episode based on the previews. There actually was some good connections to the last episode, a good message, and some nice detailing for characters like Haruto and Kousuke. Top that off with an enjoyable Gate and Phantom and you get an A- episode as the action could have had more.

Next Time: Mage VS Medusa!!