Continuing where we left off we first see the three heart broken men completely crying about Manami. Koyomi and Rinko show no sympathy since it was very obvious as they both look at Haruto with the same eyes. To avoid getting on the topic of how Haruto was also trapped in the love net he asks Koyomi where Manami is. So far there is no luck, but Rinko remembers about the gym where Yamagata first met her. Soon we see the three men with their sadness turning into anger. They begin to tear up the things they bought and even Wajime was going to destroy one of the magic rings! Haruto gets the ring away from him in time and decides to use it to see what it does. The Ring has the spell Smell as it creates a fog with a completely bad odor. Before we get to the opening credits we see Manami walking around in the city trying to not attract attention to herself as she says she cannot give up yet. The villains are then put on the screen as Phoenix is yelling at the Phantom, but Medusa stops him. What the Phantom is doing is trying to pick up Manami's scent again and his nose succeeds in finding the scent. Haruto then goes to Yamagata to tell him about how he has been swindled. It seems he had a hunch about this, but he wanted to believe that she is doing this for a good cause because she is still a kind person. This is because of how she stayed around him when the Phantom attacked. Meanwhile Rinko calls Haruto about finding Manami's location thanks to the information she left at the gym. Then she is called by the chief about why she isn't at the station and he suspects she is on a Phantom case. She hangs up quickly after telling him that she is on a swindler case, but he isn't fully trusting her and should called Kizaki from National Security, but doing that will show he is not managing her well. Next, Manami is packing some things up and the Phantom appears in his human form at her window. Now that he knows about her dream he can easily put her in despair. Luckily Haruto and Rinko were nearby as Haruto dashes in and gets the Phantom out of the apartment. Rinko tries to help Manami, but she shoves Rinko out of the way and runs. Now a fight between Wizard and the Phantom begins and both sides are pretty equal. The Phantom makes a run for it, but he actually was hiding so he could attack Wizard. The sneak attack fails though, but he isn't done with his tricks as he traps Wizard between steel pipes and thrpws a large cylinder object at him(no idea what it's called). Wizard protects himself with the Defend Ring and with Flame Styles it creates a flame shield that covers Wizard and melts the object and the pipes around him. Haruto then comes back to the apartment and sadly Rinko couldn't catch up with Manami. She does find some clues on where she could be though as she gives Haruto a picture of her family and flyers for a house. Haruto then notices that it's the same house on each flyer and it's the exact one in the picture. With this realization Haruto finds Manami on a hill that has a good view of the house. There she talks about her past when she lived with her family. Things used to be happy until her father got tricked out of all his money and the house. After that the family slowly separates as the only one left is her. Later on she would look at the house with hopes of buying it back herself. The reason why she had to start swindling is because of a man wants to tear the place down. She wants Haruto to let her go, but he cannot do that. She then tells him that he couldn't understand. She is wrong though as Haruto also lost his family and they aren't the only ones. Soon the two see black smoke which is coming from the house being on fire. The two get to the house and the Phantom then appears boasting about how he is slowly destroying Manami's dream. Now she is losing all hope. Haruto being his usual self tells her that he will protect her hope as he transforms into Water Styles and puts out the flames. When he takes Manami outside he tells her that she shouldn't give up just because of the past. Wizard then runs off to fight the Phantom. Wizard gets the most of his attacks to make contact, but the Phantom fights back with great force. Soon Wizard grabs the enemy and throws him away. Now the Phanton uses his ability to dig to his advantage as he pops in and out of the ground to attack. Also because of the Phantom's good sense of smell he can find Wizard even underground. Wizard then transforms into Land Styles and uses the Big Ring to make his fist hit the ground causing it to shake. This gets the Phantom out of the ground and when Wizard gets the Phantom on the ground he equips the Smell Ring onto him and activates it. The odor starts coming out from him and now he cannot smell anything else. Now he tries to retreat once more, but Wizard uses the Kick Strike and Drill for a drill kick as he goes through the ground and finishes the Phantom off. Now that Manami is safe she sees that she needs to start over, so she will turn herself in. Rinko then appears, but she brought about Yamagata and he tells Manami that he will buy the house so that someday she can buy it herself. All is well, but the Medusa and Phoenix aren't happy about Gnome's failure (finally I hear his name!) while Medusa is still calm, but Phoenix is completely angry.
Here comes more love for Wizard as it still hasn't stopped it's perfect sequence of plot, action, and characters. First thing is that we got a swap around for character focus. Last time the men who were love weren't shown as much, but it makes sense since they were heartbroken. We got more screen time for Rinko and I am liking her more now. Looking back her acting is good just not as good as the others. She does show good facial expressions. One thing I liked a lot is how we got a viewpoint on the police with the chief knowing that Rinko is acting on her own. This was one thing I was wondering about since we haven't seen much from the police for a while and Rinko seems like she is never busy. So the swap of character interaction was very good because I bet no one wanted to see the men being all depressing for the whole episode. Still it would have been nice to have Koyomi be more involved, but seeing that she doesn't go out that much fits her character. Before you try to tell me that in the last arc she went out that was because she wanted to show Rinko and Shunpei that they were not needed. Also any other time she was out it was to help Haruto.
The previous episode had more comedy in it and the beginning of this episode had humor the rest of the episode was more dramatic. This is good for a two parter since things start to be more clear and that's when things go serious. The beginning scene was funny with the best part of seeing Haruto crack up his voice when he tired to get off topic and when he used the Smell Ring. Then the drama was very good with Manami being more of herself this time. Last time we say her act lovely, but secretly be bitter. In the end she was just a desperate because she was running out of time. She is also a person who tends to get more angry which fits her bitter side. I do like her story about the house because it's family related and one's family is very important even if it's just memories. The best part of the drama was when Haruto confronted Manami and told her that having no parents is not that unique. This is like the first series I have seen that has said that. Tons of other series always pulls off the dead parents angle, but Wizard does it differently. Yes losing one parents is hard, but that doesn't mean a person should think they are the only one. For once a series finally does something different with dead parents because I am so tired of anime series doing that constantly.
As I said Haruto was his usual self in this episode which is always good. We did get a little more information about him. Like Manami he has lost his family. What I am wondering now if it is connected to him becoming a Mage. Maybe it's like Black where when he first got the powers the Phantoms targeted his family. I hope this information will actually be important and not just be a thing for the main hero like Fourze. Also in this episode we got some new qualities from the actor. He can go into this high pitched voice which cracks me up. I guess this will happen whenever he's under stress because it first happened when Rinko was talking about how he fell for Manami.
The Phantom Gnome was one really good villain for this arc. He easily gave a challenge to Wizard since he could always find his targets easily thanks to his nose. Then he was a good fighter who did play dirty at times. For a moment I thought he would be like Hell Hound and try to get close to Manami in his human form. He stayed the same though as he first tried to almost kill Manami. He then caught on what gave her hope and he went right for that afterwards. Overall a very strong and smart villain, but someone stronger is coming up next. The only thing that bugs me is his motif, I guess I have to do tons of research.
Finally the action and boy there is a lot to talk about this time. For once the first fight should a really big struggle between both fighters. Wizard did have the upper hand, but this is when Gnome started to play with some trickery. It shows how annoyed he is getting by Wizard's interference. He ran away only to surprise Wizard and tried to crush him. He was going for quick finishes in that fight as he wanted to get back to the Gate. In that fight we got a better look at the Defend spell in Flame Styles and it's awesome. It's a giant flame shield that goes over Wizard like a parasol as it melts anything that touches it. Then that heat goes down around him melting anything around expect Wizard. The final fight was the best fight in the series so far. First Gnome got back to playing dirty as he used his digging ability to his advantage. Heck he got some good hits before doing that. Water Styles was used during this, but it got quickly switched with Land Styles. So this was Land Styles first big fight and it didn't disappoint. Land Styles has a strong front in battle as the Big Ring shows that with making quakes in the ground. How Wizard gets a hold on Gnome to put the Smell Ring on him was genius. I love how the rings are being used in the series not only Wizard can use them on himself, but on others. Then the finale was amazing with the Kick Strike fused with Drill and the effects on that were awesome. The kick had rocks surrounding it, but then they formed into the drill making a drill kick and I say better than Fourze's. So the action in this episode was really top notch as we got different aspects on Wizard's styles yet again making things feel really fresh.
You can already guess what I am giving this episode, can you blame me though. It serves great as the second part, there wasn't any resting point and it still doesn't feel rushed, the characters were used wisely, and the action was amazing. Manami was an interesting character who was saved from despair and I am liking how the people who were saved and didn't go into despair have a good reason to be away. This would then help with how Phantoms pick their targets. We got a better look on Rinko and how the Chief is catching on to what she is doing. Finally for a good finish is Phoenix completely ticked off about the past failures. Phoenix hasn't been doing much, but by how he is getting so mad you can tell when he gets involved it's going to be big. So this episode gets an A+ for so many great things. As I said before, watch this series!
Next Time: Wizard VS. Phoenix!!!
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