Monday, May 27, 2013

Kamen Rider Wizard Episode 35 Review: Sweeney Todd (Major Spoiler Alert!!!)

It's been a while since I looked into Wizard and last time had there was Sora who says he has kept his human heart. Sora even defended a Gate from Argos. It seems that Haruto also trusts Sora and decides to save him, what will possibly happen?
The first thing I need to talk about is Sora and well, I was surprised. I knew Sora was still going to be evil I mean there was no doubt. The arc does remind me of the Libra arc near the finale of Fourze, but I really love how Sora was handled. He always acted like himself and that's because he is Sora. He is telling the truth on how he kept his human heart, but that heart is very tainted. After some digging around thanks to Rinko and Section 0 they found out that there were many cases of women missing. All of these women had long black hair and wore a white dress. We even see a chart of how many women there were and my god there were a lot. There were even cases before the eclipse meaning that Sora was like this before he became a Phantom. Then with many other Phantoms we see the dark sides of the Gate, but Sora is already this dark person. So in fact there is no one darker than what he is now which was amazing.
I really still want to talk about Sora as he really got me to like him a whole lot thanks to this episode. It amazes me on how much Sora says the truth in this arc and yet he is still a big villain. In truth he did want Haruto to be on his side since they share the same tragedy of loosing their humanity. I bet Sora would probably have him help with the stone he is after. Before the big reveal of Sora's past though there was a nice scene where he talks with Haruto. He actually tells Haruto that there is going to be another Sabbath for the next eclipse. This is really showing on how Sora is, he is clearly doing things for himself. It really does look like he is still living his life since we saw his apartment where everything was clean and organized. With Phoenix when Rinko got to his Gate's place it was filthy. Now the most important thing is how Sora's big reveal was handled and it's not disappointing as well.
Half way in the episode, Sora saves Chiaki again from Argos. She is very happy to see him again and since he is saving her from danger. With this she starts to trust him and soon she is taken to Sora's saloon. I have to say it was a nice looking place and I wouldn't mind being there. Sadly though this scene isn't a lovely one. Chiaki starts to talk about her story of how she wants to by her father which I will get to later on. After hearing this story, Sora sees a weak point and just like with his other victims he cut off a chunk of Chiaki's hair. Then he begins to talk about how he won't be abandoned since he will be doing the abandoning. My goodness this scene was very creepy and how the actor pulled it off was great. He still kept that laugh of his, but with the setting it made me scared and then he throws his hat off and has a very menacing look as he holds the scissors. Also the saloon then gets an eerie feeling because when you start to think about it the cloths are all red. I was a fan of Sora since his first episode, but wow he is easily my favorite of the series cause of the great writing that supported him. Also his actor pulled off the cheerful attitude and then he came menacing and that gave me chills around my body.
Now for Chiaki since I mentioned on why she is working so hard with modeling. It seems her father left after the death of her mother. He became very depressed and probably couldn't support her as a father because of that. So she lost in contact with him completely so to get herself noticed she became a model. To make sure her father notices then she wears a white dress that was her mother's. Sadly this just got Sora's attention which was not good at all. So her busy body personality did come with a very sweet side which I was expecting, but it's still a nice touching story of a girl trying to connect back with her father. Her ending was that she is going with a new style for her hair since Sora started the haircut. Then she gets a letter from her father saying that he will support her from afar. As I said before her story is touching and how she was portrayed in the beginning was good. Overall I'm happy that she came out of this with a smile.
Now onto Haruto as he got a similar plot point that Rinko did with Phoenix. The difference is that Sora didn't change as a person. With Phoenix, his talk with Rinko made him realize that he should do what he wants to. Causing Phoenix to go onto a rampage. With Sora he knew exactly what he wanted to do and that was to kill. I can easily see why Haruto was trusting him though since Sora is right about that they do share something. This was their lost of humanity, but when Haruto found out about his past he knew he was different from Sora. I mean it's the exact opposite. Haruto became a Mage and protected people's lives and I bet he had this way of thinking when he was younger. With Sora he is a serial killer and even when he became a Phantom he still continued to do this. This twist really gives Haruto a new rival now and Sora is easily a good replacement for Phoenix. So I can't wait to see more fights between these two as things will get very interesting with them.
The best part about this was then how much Haruto learned from this experience. He clearly sees that Sora was telling the truth about himself so that leaves what he said during the other times to be correct as well. Sora even told him about the other Sabbath. Sora also talked about Koyomi since he doesn't believe that there is no way a shell should be left behind from a Gate turning into a Phantom. Haruto even starts to consider this because we still haven't seen this so called Phantom. Then there is other connection which is the White Wizard and why he left her with him. So is it possible that Koyomi is not what she think she is, is it possible for a Phantom to be born with no memories? I mean if Phantoms can keep their human hearts there could be many more possibilities. Another thing with Sora is that he did mention about the Philosopher's Stone before he ran off saying that should give him the power to defeat Wizard. So Sora easily helped with the plot as well and puts more questions on what could possibly be happening.
Now Argos was still the monster for this episode and his character was just for attacking the Gate. It's fine to have a Phantom like this and since this was Sora's story I will let it pass. Argos still had some nice fights with Beast though as the first fight was with Argos and Beast again. This time the Dolphi Ring gets used which is probably the uncommon one in his collection, but there are a total of four so even being uncommon doesn't mean it had low appearances. I still like how Beast holds his sword differently when he uses this ring and this is even shown when he does the Saber Strike. This time it was a three and it did pack a punch and they were pretty big so I guess Beast got a full control over the one between six on the Saber Strike then. Then the two had a final fight as Beast used Hyper to finish him. What made this fight good was with Argos' eyes as Beast used his gun skills to shoot all of them around him. I would rather have seen different camera angles when this was happening, but at least it was a cool scene. Also there still were great up close action even when Hyper form came into the scene.
Then there was the fight with Wizard and Sora. The first thing I loved was the environment they were in as it was dark with only the sun being the source of light. You can easily tell when the two were going further down in the area as it got darker. It really is perfect for Sora since now we know who he actually is now. Then the sword skills between the two were great. Also Sora kept to his quick speed for hiding and appearing which was nice and his wind attack was interesting. Wizard uses Infinity Styles and it's still a very strong form as Sora has no chance of winning. His attacks do no damage and Wizard can now match his speed thanks to the Infinity boost he gets from using the ring twice. Sora gets away though and dodges the Shining Strike attack. So all that Sora needs is the stone and he could match Wizard's powers. I so hope we get to see that fight!
Overall this was a very fun episode for me. This easily got Sora to be my favorite Phantom as the writing that back his character up was great. Also his character is still good as well since we now know that he is still Sora, but he is dark person. Then how that goes with the exchange between him and Haruto was very fun to watch. Sora even gave exposure to Koyomi's identity as it could be not as it seems. The fights were handled well thanks to more Infinity and Hyper fights. This episode would get an A cause I still see somethings that could have been added for the "+" this episode is still a lot of fun though.
Next Time: More Infinity, but with Wiseman!

4 comments:

  1. I was close with my theory about Sora. I said that I thought he might have been a Phantom all along, but it turns out he was just evil all along.

    I really enjoyed that twist, since it was at once what I was expecting and yet not quite. And you are right, his actor pulled off both manic and menacing extremely well this episode. His interaction with Chiaki was extremely creepy....but one thing, how the hell did Haruto-tachi FIND his hideout?

    This happens a lot in toku of all kinds and it *always* bugs me. It happened consistently in Faiz, for example. And that is when the hero hears about something happening (either by phone call or seeing it on TV or what have you) and 2 seconds later he's at the scene with no time seemingly passing in transit.

    It feels like a huge chunk of the crime drama aspect of this episode was just chucked out the window for expediency's sake. But it's so common now I just have the scoff and try not to mind it (but I still do).

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  2. As I said before thanks to the actor mostly, Sora is my favorite Phantom. Along side that his character was well done thanks to that twist. Also I did notice the base finding scene missing as well, but as you said it's very common. Even American television does this with crime dramas. It's so little that I don't let it fully bother me.

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  3. It isn't that they just skipped them finding the base, it's that the urgent event of IMMINENT MURDER was ongoing while they were JUST (apparently) finding out that Sora was a killer.

    If they had shown them finding out he's the killer then focused on Sora while he did his thing, to give a sense of time passing, then Haruto and company broke in afterwards it would be perfectly fine. We could just assume they found some clues when we weren't looking.

    No, the issue (and this was RAMPANT in Faiz) is the sense that our heroes can teleport or something. Takumi would get a phone call while an Orphnoch is getting his kill on and then BOOM there is on his bike 2 seconds later. That's what this episode did as well and it bugs the crap out of me.

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  4. Wait! I just remembered something from the episode. Kousuke had his Griffon follow Sora and Chiaki! Wow I completely forgot about that.

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