Time for another episode of Wizard as this episode begins with Haruto getting his usual plain sugar doughnut. Haruto notices something different about the employee (has his name been brought up yet?) as he wears power stone bracelets and a lot of them. The boss tells Haruto that worker met someone very beautiful and she was selling the stones. At the store we see that even Shunpei has fallen in love as he is learning about the word of love in every language. Koyomi is confused on Shunpei's love since even he bought a lot of a particular item. With Shunpei he bought a lot of textbooks. Wajime comes along and it seems love is in the air as he met someone as well. He bought her many antiques and is thinking of giving her a ring, but it's the new magic ring. Koyomi starts to yell at Wajime and tries to take the ring. We are back in the city as a dazzling woman is walking around and every man is stunned by her beauty. After the opening credits, we are introduced to the Phantom for this arc. Sadly I haven't his name was announced, but he's some sort of drill creature (probably a mole). Phoenix and Medusa send him out to hunt for the Gate. Next we see the woman, named Manami having a date with Yamagata. He gives her flowers and jewelery and it's during this that the Phantom appears. Haruto is luckily around the area and he hears the commotion from a man running for his life. The couple are attacked by the Phantom as he wants to give despair to the possible gate by giving them the fear of death. He almost kills them and before he could scare them some more Haruto appears. He transforms into Wizard and fights the foe. After some slashes and kicks, the Phantom gets a quick attack on Wizard, but he quickly attacks back with Hurricane Styles. He flies around shooting around the Phantom to get him shaking and when back on the ground he shoots him down. The Phantom gets away though as the water fountain around them goes off as Wizard got distracted by it? Well either way the Phantom can dig so he goes underground for his escape as Wizard summons the Unicorn to follow him. With the fight over Haruto stays around both Yamagata and Manami. The three get to Yamagata's house and he seems to be a rich fellow as he inherited his parents fortune. The two are told about the Gates and Phantoms as Haruto is not sure which one is the Gate so he wants the two to stay close. Rinko shows and when Manami finds out she is a detective she tries to leave saying she has a job to do. There Yamagata asks Haruto to protect her so she can go. Haruto soon agrees as he is trapped in Manami's beauty. Later the day the mole is teased by Phoenix, but the Phantom says his job is not to fight and there are no worries since he already remembers her fragrance. Continuing on is Manami getting rather close to Haruto as she asks him about his spells. When she finds out that Haruto doesn't have any spells for money and that he sees no use for that she backs off a little. There she purposely throws her scarf as Haruto retrieves it, but she's not around anymore. With Rinko she asks Yamagata about Manami. He tells her that he met Manami at a gym and then later she tells him about certain food he should eat as he bought box loads of food. We finally see who Manami really is as she starts to talk trash about Haruto to herself saying there is no point of being around him. She sees a family blowing bubbles as this triggers a flashback where she did that with her family when she was younger. Shunpei is then strolling around the around yelling out many love quotes as he runs into Manami there. She is shocked to see him, but she soon hugs him so that Haruto wouldn't find her. Her luck is running out because Wajime and the employee show up. Soon Haruto found her and there the four start to see something. They all explain on how they bought items from or for Manami. All four of them see that she is swindler and she quickly goes sour and runs off leaving the three guys with broken hearts. When she gets away the mole takes his chance and takes her underground. Haruto soon finds the hole thanks to the Unicorn. In the underground the mole scares Manami by telling her what he could possibly do like slowly tear her heart out or tearing her beauty apart. Haruto soon transforms into Land Styles and uses the Drill Ring to follow down where Manami and the Phantom are. He summons Ghuls to fight him, but Wizard uses his great style of fighting and a Shooting Strike in Flame Styles to get rid of them. He then gets Manami away from the Phantom by shooting him. There Manami wonders why he is bothering to save her. Wizard responds by saying that even though she is a swindler she still needs to be saved. Wizard continues to fight the Phantom, but he makes another escape by making rocks fall onto Wizard. He uses the Defend Ring to save himself and not only the Phantom escape, but so did Manami.
Episode 6 keeps what is making Wizard great. First this isn't the first time we say love used in Kamen Rider. Heck Manami reminds me a lot of Femme from the Ryuki movie. She is a woman who is taking money from men who are tricked by her. What makes this character good is how quick she got caught. I love how the show didn't drag on with this. They even gave the mystery away of who is the gate when the Phantom said he remembered her scent. I love how Wizard is being more straight forward and isn't trying to force a mystery like OOO and Fourze did. Before who counter with saying Double did it first, it's a series about a detective of course there is going to be mysteries. Another thing that helps her who is playing her, Wakana Matsumoto. She played Ahri in Kamen Rider Den-o and it's fun to see the nice side like she was in Den-o, but then having that sour side. Wakana does this very well with her performance so far the character is good. She knows what she is doing and will quickly move to other targets to get money. Now I have a feeling why she is doing this is for her family and not her own desires because of that flashback, but the show can always have a twist. Overall Manami is a good character with a good actress playing her role.
I loved this part because you can see on her face that she knows she is going to be found out.
There was good character involvement with one of the most minor characters being shown more than once. Now Rinko and Koyomi weren't as involved since Haruto found the Gate and Phantom on his own. I think this also shows that Koyomi is fine with letting the others be involved like she said in the last episode. She is probably the one who told Rinko to situation. Along with the character involvement it was more comedic mostly with the scene when Manami got caught. I really loved how the comedy worked there was nice music touches and little sound effects here and there to give things a little boost. The best scene is the scene I talked about too many times already. I mean the chances of having everyone appearing at the same spot it really unlucky. Before someone thinks that Manami planned on meeting the men in the same area, I think she was thinking of different times. Reason one is that she was shocked to see Shunpei arrive already, then Wajime was supposed be the one she was going to meet first. With the employee he was easily out on his jog still. Then Haruto was just around because he was looking for her to give her scarf back. The amount of unluckiness was good enough and then seeing the faces of the men when they found out was great.
Haruto stayed true to himself. I am actually surprised how he even fell for Manami's looks. I bet he wouldn't be easily tricked, but I it's pretty shocking still. One thing that I noticed in this episode that Haruto got distracted by water! This may sound like nit-picking, but come on the writers couldn't think of another way of the monster getting away for the first time. This bothers me because I don't want to see the main be like a dog being distracted by a tennis ball. Oh well at least Haruto was still being Haruto with how he will save anyone. I always like a hero like that and I bet mostly other riders would agree with that. So I won't let that little moment bother me (too much).
That face just killed me with laughter
The monster for this arc is well something that can dig. I want to think of a mole, but he looks like a starfish. I think starfish is what he is, but who knows. Again that is too little to complain about since this guy is a very good villain. First I love how threatening he is. He wants to use the fear of death to lead someone to despair that is terrifying for anyone being attacked by him. He even got many chances to kill which shows how he operates. Then he can find his targets if he remembers the smell so he's a dog then.... ugh! Back on topic now, another thing I like about him is how he only wants to do his job. He thinks fighting the Wizard is pointless and him summoning Ghuls shows that. How he uses death to scare someone is just great and I love when he tells Manami what he could possibly do. So he's just another good villain for this series as he is easily the darkest out of the minor Phantoms.
Onto to the action portion of the show as we got two this time. First was where Haruto stuck to how he slashes and kicks his foes around. The best part was when they were fighting in the big fountain as Wizard used Hurricane Styles. We got a lot of different camera views when he was flying around and it gave the fight a good fast action pace while not making the camera look shaky. Then we got a close action fight with Land Styles and the Ghuls. It's nice to see how Haruto fights the Ghuls in the manor that he does. I am hoping he does that with big villains. Mostly like how he grabs weapons to use them against their owners. It makes sense he leaves that for groups though since he can easily back any foe away for a while so he can focus on any other ones that are closing in. We did get to see the Drill Ring, but it was used so that Wizard could get underground. Also Defend was used again while in Flame Styles and it created a flame blast to get rid of the stones around him. Going to that moment I thought the episode was going to end with Haruto being covered in rocks, but they didn't. Where they ended off was really great because it doesn't leave at a big cliffhanger that Fourze did a lot of times.
As I said before Wizard is having a strong front and it is not stopping. This episode gave what Wizard has been giving us already, but this time in a more comedic way. With that the comedy works greatly as the men are being tricked by Manami's looks. I really love on how that part wasn't being dragged out because Manami got found out already. This shows on how the show is focusing on the main point of the series, protecting Gates as they are having issues with their lives. The action is great with great camera work and seeing Wizard fight in a more confined area. Another enjoyable villain in the series as he wants to scare his targets into despair. Finally is how straight forward everything was and it didn't feel rushed at all as the episode ended without that big cliffhanger. I give this episode an A because it's near perfect, but some parts did bother me a little.
Next Time: Something smelly is in the air now
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