Kamen Rider Wizard Episode 4 Review: Tuning Up

The episode begins with Koyomi using the Please Ring on Haruto's belt and she begins to glow? Rinko comes in during this and things get awkward since she say Koyomi glow, not having her hand near the belt........ (I have a feeling this series is going to have a lot of dirty jokes) Well going on Haruto doesn't tell Rinko what just happened as he begins to eat. Now Shunpei enters the building and brought doughnuts! The scene moves to the introduction of the Phantom of the week, Cat Sidhe (Cat Sith), but he isn't too motivated to work for Medusa or Phoenix. He finds it bothersome to get people into despair and thinks Medusa and Phoenix can do it better. Medusa says that everything they do is the Wiseman's will as she threatens Sidhe to go into action. He listens and is given his target of a young boy playing a piano. The boy is named Tagaki who plays the piano well, but he isn't happy about the song selection as he walks out during practice. Sidhe is quite happy with his target since Tagaki looks like easy prey. Sidhe soon attacks and Koyomi spots him with her crystal ball during a moment of hijinks. Before Haruto leaves Koyomi tells him to be careful as Rinko follows him out. Back to the chase, Sidhe's plan is to cut off Tagaki's hands since he is very connected to playing the piano. Haruto makes his appearance and Rinko gets Tagaki away. Haruto transforms into Wizard and uses his gun and sword to fight Sidhe. Wizard goes into Water Styles and uses the Liquid Ring to actually make his body into liquid as he takes any hit with ease and can flow around (sort of like Biorider). Wizard then pulls off some wrestling moves as he can move around Sidhe with ease. This doesn't last long as Sidhe shows that his only strength isn't speed as he almost pierces Wizard. After letting go of Sidhe he makes his escape as he had too much for today. Shunpei is disappointed that he got away, but he's happy that both Haruto and Rinko did a good job. Koyomi has different views as it she doesn't talk about Rinko and gives Shunpei the cold shoulder. Tagaki is given the information about Gates and Phantoms as the only thing he is worrying about his is contest, saying that the piano is his hope. Sidhe returns to his resting spot as Phoenix and Medusa aren't happy about him coming back already. Sidhe then goes back to hunting down the Gate in his human form. Back to the heroes as Tagaki locks himself in his house as Haruto and Rinko keep watch from a distance. We learn about his past achievements and now he needs to win this contest to make a comeback since he has been in a slump for a while. All of a sudden Koyomi comes out of nowhere and immediately tells Rinko that she is not needed as Shunpei followed her. Koyomi came to help Haruto out and only she will help. She talks about her ability to see Phantoms and after Rinko asks her how, but Koyomi doesn't answer. Rinko tries to lighten her up as she turns her around as she feels her hand as it is cold? Haruto tells everyone that he will be fine alone, but Cat Sidhe appears as Koyomi sees through his human disguise. Sidhe rings the doorbell and gets Tagaki outside, but Haruto quickly attacks and sees a similar pattern Sidhe has. He shows his true form and makes a run for it as Haruto and Rinko gives chase. Tagaki suddenly walks out of his house with Koyomi and Shunpei following as Medusa say the whole scene. Cat Sidhe then makes his escape by jumping onto the Doughnut shop and jumping to the buildings. Going back to Koyomi and the two boys, Medusa appears in front of them. Medusa is interested on how Koyomi can see Phantoms and lets Tagaki to get away. There Medusa constricts Koyomi with her snakes and sees that she is a Magical Doll and drains her magic. Now we get back to Rinko as she can tell that Koyomi finds her annoying. Haruto explains she is just like that in the beginning as he had that problem as well, but it was all fixed when he fully accepted her. Haruto gets a call as we cut back to Shunpei who called Haruto about what happened. Haruto uses the Please Ring again as he gives her magic energy to revive her. While Shunpei and Rinko are shocked, civilians scream about a monster. Haruto is all of sudden not in the best condition as Koyomi warns him to not go. He says that it will be fine if he is quick about it. Sidhe found Tagaki and is ready to do what he should have done before. This time Tagaki actually wants his hands cut off! Sidhe is confused, but Haruto quickly shoots at him before anything else could happen. Haruto transforms and fights Sidhe again as Koyomi followed him this time. Wizard seems to be having problems, but he gets the advantage back and uses the Bind Ring to stop Sidhe from moving. He uses the Kick Strike Ring, but it fails as he tries again and it still doesn't work. It seems that Wizard ran out of magic to keep fighting as the episode ends with Wizard's magic vanishing.

First thing to talk about is Koyomi. I have wondered about her before on where she comes from. We learn that she is some sort of doll. So she's sort of like NEVER just with magic. This makes me think if Koyomi actually died and maybe the White Mage fought her Phantom and somehow revived her to what she is now. Another thing is how she acts, she is not happy about having more people around as she sees Rinko and Shunpei as pests. I am actually a little surprised that we are getting into this early into the series as character changes usually take a while. This makes me think of the original Kamen Rider series with Hongo being blamed for murdering the man who saved him and now that problem was resolved early in the series. So expect the next episode to have Koyomi being more open. She also had some nice character moments like blocking out Rinko and Shunpei, being very considered about Haruto, and her talk with Tagaki. I am really happy that a big character arc like this is happening now because we can start liking how the character should be further in the series.

Next is Cat Sidhe and the first thing that jumps out is that he is played by a black actor. I'm not being racist it's just seeing black actors in Toku is surprising as Sidhe is like the third black guy in Kamen Rider (not 100% sure about that). Now onto his character, he is a lackadaisical kind of guy who is actually smart. He brings up a good point on why couldn't Medusa or Phoenix do this. He finds the actual job to be a pain as I guess he had issues with this before. This makes me think on how many Phantoms their could be right now since Haruto can't stop them all and we are not exactly sure when he started to actually fight the Phantoms. Cat Sidhe's appearance is good. You can easily see the feline parts in the suit and I do like the yellow claws and how they can enlarge. He has super speed and great jumping abilities, but his laziness and cowardliness gets in the way. So he's good, nothing to special, but he does bring a little comedic touches to this episode.

Onto Medusa as she actually took action for the first time. I give her points for wanting to watch over Sidhe since he was goofing off. Also I bet she wanted to see who Wizard was. Even though she knows of him, I bet she actually never say him till now. She had a really scary image in this episode as she threatened Sidhe to send the Gate into despair and killed Koyomi. She is clearly the villain moving the gears as Phoenix is just with her right now. So Medusa easily got my attention, but I hope Phoenix will do more soon.

For the action we got to see two new rings used in battle. Liquid is a very powerful spell, but high chance it will only work with Water Styles since water is a liquid. It's very like Biorider with how Wizard moves around in a liquid form and the effects with this were very good. It started with Sidhe attacking as the liquid was separated from Wizard's body and then seeing it flow around. I really do wonder if Liquid could work with other Styles since Fire could be like Magma maybe. Or will it just turn Wizard into a liquid no matter what form he is in. With this ring we say Wizard pulling some wrestling moves as he could easily move around giving him tons of wiggle room. It's nice to see how Wizard fights since he has a carefree style of fighting with an actual martial art and now he pulls of wrestling moves. This just holds many wonders on how else Wizard could fight. Finally there was Bind Ring which summons chains to constrain the enemy, pretty simple and effective.

Last thing to talk about is Tagaki. He is the type of person I would find annoying. He is really bossy and thinks way too much of himself. He knows he is not winning, but he still thinks he is important. It does make sense since he had fame and having losing it pushes him to get it back. We clearly see that he is easily irritated and hates when people interfere with his work. He flipped at his instructor and was acting like Koyomi to the others. I did like his sudden change when he actually wanted to lose his hands. I was not expecting for someone to actually want to lose something, but he had a lot of thinking before the next events happened.

Overall this is another strong episode as Wizard is going to get another A. I love seeing Koyomi as she acted very harsh to Shunpei and Rinko and then so nice and comforting to Haruto. Cat Sidhe is a nice villain for this arc as he isn't that good at putting people into despair and he constantly gets bad luck (wait a second... he's a cat and his human form is black). The action was nice with new rings and the songs are okay, I will get into the songs at a later time. Tagaki already gets a big change of character as he thought his hope was the piano, but he is now thinking otherwise. Then Medusa who really took a big jump at the heroes by killing one of them! So this episode gets an A, when will the "A" streak end? I hope for never.

 Next Time: The Last Song