Kamen Rider Wizard Episode 45 Review: A Man and His Toys (Spoiler Alert!)

Continuing forward with Wizard as we ended with Koyomi in great pain while the team try to protect Kumagi, but is it possible that Haruto is having second thoughts on his task?

The first thing I have to mention is how this episode surprised me again. I thought the man who owned the plane was just going to be around for the guys to look over. That wasn't true though as we get into that person's family issues with his son. I didn't expect to see a child to appear in this episode. I can easily see that the child is here to represent Haruto because the child easily holds a burden that he never told his father. The father is a toy maniac as he collects many toys, but they are for a collection purpose only. It's a little messed up and funny to hear a grown man say that collecting toys is a man's job while a child should just play with them. It goes into the personality the father has and it's a role reverse at the same time. The child keeps thing inside and just continues to play alone. He acts more adult than his father who wouldn't give up the plane even regarding this situation. Then with Siren able to manipulate the boy with ease, the plane is in danger once more, so how will things play out?

With the plane in danger, the item that Kumagi put his hope into, Haruto should save it from danger. He does this with the Bind Ring, but he starts to think about the White Mage when his familiar appears. Haruto actually thinks about letting his teacher fall into despair with the chance that he can break out of despair. This will then lead to the White Mage appearing and trying to get him to be a Mage. Haruto wants to meet Fukei again so that he can know more about Koyomi and this is the only way he knows how regarding what he knows so far. Haruto actually lets go of Siren and was going to let her destroy the plane. Shunpei of all people though shoves Siren away with all he has. Luckily, Beast appears to save Shunpei and this causes Siren to retreat. The build up for this to happen was really good. We have Haruto deciding if he should let someone who he has a strong bond with to fall into despair. Haruto was thinking very heavily with his choice as Koyomi is in grave danger as of now. Also he knows he can save people from going into despair, but that is still a risky move. When he made his decision I can tell that he didn't feel proud of his decision at all

I want to give major credit to Shunpei. This reminds me of the time he protected Kousuke's grandmother. Shunpei just jumped right in to save the plane and Siren would have easily killed him if Beast didn't show up, or Haruto would have done something... at least I hope he would. Shunpei then calls out both of the heroes on this since these two were people who protected people's hopes. Shunpei was saved by Haruto and now that same man was going to let someone fall into despair. He even says that Haruto and Kousuke are now acting like the White Mage, a man who is now forcing a great burden on someone else. So now with that out of the way, what about Kumagi?

Kumagi has easily become my favorite Gate of the series so far. In the first part he was a very good man who helped his students with more than their studies. Now he was on the search for a toy plane his deceased son used to own. The time he starts to put his goals behind him since he saw a child was holding something inside of him. So with the plane safe again, the toy maniac goes to his child thinking that Siren was controlling him. That wasn't true though, the child actually wanted to destroy the plane because his own father never payed attention to him. When the two started to argue, Kumagi took the plane, threw it to the ground, and started to stomp on it. Just wow, this man is the most selfish man ever. Kumagi had no physical connection to his son anymore and here it was, that toy plane. When he sees that another family was having trouble though he made sure to help them first. He tells the child the same thing he told Haruto in the past and thanks to what he has done he made a father realize the pain he put his son into.

Not only did he do that, but now he has found a new desire that he makes into his hope. First he realized that the memories he had with his son is strong enough to keep him going. I would even bet that is how he got through that hard time in his life, remembering the smile of his son. With that in his mind he only wants others to smile, that is his new hope. First, I have to say is that is this a little callback to Kuuga? I could be stretching this here, but when I heard Kumagi saying his desire is to make others smile easily reminds me of Godai. With this he gets to put the lesson of sharing a burden deep into Haruto now. This man just got betrayed by his own student and he still helps him out because he can tell Haruto is going through a lot. Now I would wish Haruto would then tell the gang about Fukei and Koyomi at this point, but I guess that will be for later. The big thing here is that this is the first Gate who moved on by himself without going into despair. So yea, Kumagi is easily the best Gate of the series so far as he does a whole lot more than one would think.

Now Kousuke didn't have a big character moment like he did in part one, but Mayu comes back in this episode. She meets with Rinko at the hospital where Kisaki is still in a coma. Mayu tells Rinko that she is having a hard time believing the White Mage. This is the man who helped her to get closer to avenging her family and now he is attacking people and even forcing a kid to become a Mage. Mayu and Haruto deal with major issues regarding this man since he helped them. Mayu still has one major concern though and that is revenge. She fights Medusa in this episode and she cannot take her down yet. There is still a power gap between the two as Medusa is still more powerful. Even with Mayu as Mage she cannot take her down and she wants to find a way to defeat her now! She has chosen this lifestyle so that she can defeat this one person so she has no choice now. I can tell this will carry over in the next arc of the series.

We then got a little moment at the end of the episode with Sora. Medusa comes to him regarding a new target, but Sora doesn't care anymore. He doesn't tell her that he knows Wiseman is lying about the stone, but he does tell her his true goal. Sora wants to become human again since that was stolen from him. I would think a man like Sora would want to keep his powers. I guess Sora's ambition of humanity is stronger though. Now this really screams Enter from Gobusters when he tried to become human. Now I didn't like that transition for Enter. With Sora though it works much better since again he had his humanity completely stolen from him. Haruto is a Mage and is still human. Sora only kept his heart and memories and I would bet he wants to go back to his old life. With that he has also possibly discovered what Wiseman true plan is and with that he is now leaving the Phantoms.

The action was better than the first part which usually happens for Kamen Rider now these days. I'm not mad about it because the first part works to establish the theme of the arc and sometimes the first part can still carry some nice action moments. With this episode, Siren was mostly just in the fight scenes as she is still trying to get the plane. Also her fighting style was really shown that much in this episode as she fled from Beast and then got destroyed by Infinity. There was the Mayu and Medusa fight though and sadly Mage didn't use any rings, but she did her own Henshine pose! It was a good fight still as the two are near equals, but Mayu just lacks the power to finish the job. There was a good amount of exchanged blows to each other and even clashing moments between the two. Then the big fight was when Infinity hits the stage once more. I loved how Wizard fought as he has major confidence in his powers. He knows that his defenses cannot be breached and he shows that well. Then there was a new finisher which he uses by spamming the High Touch on the axe and then tossing it as it is used like a hand axe. It's a cool idea, but I do wish there was a little more effects for it.

Overall, this was a very good episode and a very good follow up to the first part. It played out in ways I wasn't expecting. This mostly regarding how Kumagi reacted to all of this. Kumagi really shines in this part of the arc and is easily my favorite Gate for many reasons. Then there were nice moments for Shunpei, Mayu, and Sora. Along with some good action and suspense I would give this episode an A.

Next Time: A new ring for Mayu?