Going back to the greatness that was episode 20 we had Beelzebub the best Phantom so far in the series. A woman who is found to be annoying, but is used very well in the term of the plot. Then finally, Rinko has met up with Phoenix since she wanted to inspect on a Phantom. Let's just say this episode doesn't disappoint like the many others.
I will get to Phoenix first since he did a whole lot in this episode. At first he seems to be tricking Rinko in his trap since he gains her trust. He does this by telling her of Beelzebub's minions who take control over people. This also gives Phoenix some happiness since it can ruin Beelzebub's plan. Rinko leaves to check this out and she soon comes back to him to talk some more. Rinko tries to get a deeper understanding of who Phoenix is and yes she knows he's a Phantom. Phoenix gets some therapy as he talks about how mad he gets because of his higher-ups bossing him around. Rinko sees this that Phoenix is a Phantom who doesn't want to make people go into despair and she tells him to be himself. What surprised me the most is that Phoenix actually tears up during this conversation. This is closest amount of humanity we had from a Phantom since Cat Sidhe with his laziness. What happens though is that Phoenix reveals himself to Rinko and she is shocked to know it's him. Phoenix will now stay true to himself and will rampage all he wants with no one controlling him. I love this arc for Phoenix, you can tell he wanted to work by himself and know he is stepping up to this. In previous episodes we can tell Phoenix didn't fight with Medusa at all, but when he became stronger he did start to be more risky with her. Phoenix is a wonderful character right now and I can't wait to see what Phoenix will do with this new resolve.
Now onto the great Beelzebub as he keeps showing off how smart and powerful he is. Yes he was defeated in this episode, but that's beyond the point. He still pulled many strings since once people have been injected by the minions they are forever in his control. It's a great plan B method since he can give his target some hope when they think everyone is okay now. Then he uses the people once more to use them to drive the Gate, Shiho into despair. This guy is just a genius and knows when he can gloat since no one expect for the White Mage has hurt him so far. Beast tries his best to fight him, but with the use of warping space around him he couldn't even get a hit. Overall, Beelzebub was way too much fun for me, he had the conductor style when he fought and his powers are very unique. Too bad there wasn't another classical piano music moment when Beast was fighting him.
I have to wonder what his Gate was like?
Rinko really went into full support for this episode since she learned of Beelzebub's minions and she was how Kousuke said "bold." Rinko striped people down to get those minions off and I really loved that. It was funny to see how she just went straight to stripping people. The best part of Rinko in this episode was how she treated Phoenix like a real person. She really wanted to believe that a Phantom can be a nicer person. By the conversation it really did seem like Phoenix was a good person. The way he complained about his higher-ups and didn't want to put people into despair. Also Rinko got Phoenix to cry, the man who would easily kill parents in front of children and burn X-mas presents actually cried. Rinko you did a whole lot.
The White Mage made an appearance in this episode as he saves Haruto from Beelzebub. We get to see two of his rings, Explosion and Teleport. Explosion well makes an explosion and this was one of the only things that hit Beelzebub. It makes sense it's an attack that expands in range, warping space around that is hard when it has a large surrounding area. The Teleport Ring is another basic one that takes him to one place to another. White Mage though does a whole lot as he had a quick conversation with Beast. Making me wonder if he is going to use Beast in anyway. Then he gives Haruto another new power, the Drago Timer. I will talk about that later since it will be in the action portion. We still don't have any idea who the White Mage is and how much he is doing. Is he really a helper for Haruto? Since he is not the only one giving powers to him. You see the series really takes time to leave a ton of thinking time as things in the background are happening. I bet for anyone not liking the pace it will easily catch up though. For me I have no problem with this since there is tons of build up happening. Overall the use of the White Mage is well done since there is no define answer if he's good or bad.
The comedy part of this arc is still around as it's apparent until Beelzebub comes back. As I said Rinko going straight to stripping people is quite different. Also I loved seeing Shunpei tied up while being gagged to keep him from talking. These scenes also give Shiho more happiness which actually made me feel good. This woman was being driven to straight down depression so seeing her get better felt nice. Even Kousuke gave some more humor as he kept seeing Rinko as bold and tried to help. Word of advice Kousuke, you shouldn't have your hand near a woman's butt. He is still at this little rivalry since at a point. I really feel a fight with Haruto will happen since he is very determined about this and he wants to keep it a honest battle. Beast did bring more comedy for the series, but the series had moments of that already so it doesn't feel out of place. Mostly when a secondary rider shows up or any other secondary hero for a Toku show the series gets darker. It's a nice change of pace as Kousuke is a fun character and he could be involved then he thinks.
Now we get to the action portion of the show. As I said before I hope we got some more classical music for the fight with Beast and Beelzebub and a chance to use the Dragon theme song. So the music score for this episode was off, but it didn't the fights since the reveal for Drago Timer was great. The new device can summon the three other Dragon forms so make your sentai jokes all you want just remember the rider franchise was before Super Sentai. It's a great power for Haruto since it keeps showing a growth for his magic. The White Mage even says that expanding his magic potential is a way of getting stronger. The way he gets this is also really good as he fights Dragon. Dragon goes all out and it shows that he will send Haruto to despair when he gets the chance. Going on with the fight it's very fast paced thanks to having four Wizards. They kept watch of each other and were quick enough to get Beelzebub before he can use his powers. Then the finishers were great, we had the use of all the Special powers and a quadruple Slash Strike. The effects are even good for this as there are many colors flying around and they all have good contrast. None of the forms were out done by each other and really worked well together. So in a way Wizard did better with a team then some Sentai series do.
Pretty!
A great follow up episode to a very enjoyable episode. We had good drama thanks to Rinko and Phoenix having a gentle discussion and having Rinko being shocked learning who he actually is. The beginning had good comedy with Rinko stripping people down and this leads up to some happiness for the Gate. Then Beelzebub kept being awesome with his well thought out plan. We even had the White Mage come back as I really want to know who he is and how much he knows. Just a perfect episode, an A+
Next Time: The Dragon and the Phoenix fight once more
Nice Review! I for one think beelzeebub mtehods were a stroke of pure genius! If you were ever going to make a top ten list of phantoms for this series I strongly think he would make it to the top of your list! On another note, I would like to give a hands down to the other stunt actors who were acting as wizard's land, wind and water style! they were able to capture the seiji taikawa's moves while doing flame style!
ReplyDeleteI should have mentioned that as well since when there are more than one suit actor they can not be the same. This time it really felt like four Wizards fighting which helps with how the fight didn't focus on just one.
ReplyDeleteHaha...better job than Sentai...yeah it did. I loved it, great episode. Good new power achieved in an interesting way with a story that lets Rinko actually DO something and a deeper look at Phoenix...just damn good stuff.
ReplyDeleteMy only twinge of disappointment has nothing to do with the quality of the episode, but rather at a lost opportunity. They really set it up to look like Phoenix was going to show how smart he was and plan ahead a couple of episodes...but it looks like he's just going to rampage some more. I was really looking forward to seeing what a Phoenix plan would look like, but it turns out his big plan was revealing the other guy's plan....that's like, kindergarten level.
Well I think he was originally going to use Rinko as bait for Haruto. Also I said some Sentai not all.
ReplyDeleteIt was nice to see Kousuke sort of take Haruto's place as the rider of the group for a little bit.
ReplyDeleteI love the dark twist on Rinko's plea for Phoenix to be himself. Only for it to turn out that he wants to kill things.
Wizard is actually quickly becoming a favorite of mine. It's all going to depend on the final 16 episodes. Since the show is doing a good job of building the story and world but it's going to need to follow through. Or fall into what made Kabuto a mess.
I can agree with that about following up. Kabuto still did good for me, but they just needed to not forget their characters or completely ruin them. Other than that Kabuto was much better for me after having a second full watch of it. For right now Wizard is easily in my top five if it can keep up this pace of greatness.
ReplyDeleteKabuto was doing so well...it still has my favorite suit designs in the franchise (in general) and my favorite rider thus far (Tendou). But they catastrophically ruined Tsurugi's character as the series went on, left Drake and Hiyori out completely, and left so many completely unanswered questions...like where the hell the Hoppers came from.
ReplyDeleteI still like it better than Faiz's ending mind you. That show fell APART.
To be honest I really like Tsurugi overall as a character since he had good movement. He was a good comedic character, but this was also the time for him to learn about how things really work. His final episodes were my favorite as he really displayed how much he can really do on his own and the type of commitments as well. For Faiz it was only at the ending that I disliked the most. It was way too fast paced and didn't take time to do some necessary things.
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