Last time on Wizard, Fukei appears and saves Koyomi from being kidnapped by Sora as he even takes her away when he finds out about the cracks on her hand. Even with Koyomi gone though, the team need to focus on the Gate as his wife and child are in danger.
I am quite surprised how some people took the new of Koyomi being taken by Fukei, mostly Wajime. He nearly collapsed when he heard the news like he lost his own daughter. The way he talked made him sound like a father as well since he was saying that this could be for the best. Koyomi had a brave front and is having a worse condition than she usually has so maybe Fukei actually knows something. Also knowing that he protected her and wanting her to be alive and well does make him look good once again. The group then knows of Fukei being Koyomi's father so again a father should protect her daughter, right? Haruto is putting a lot of trust in the man and with a Gate in danger he makes sure that the focus should be the Gate as of now. Kousuke was pissed off thinking it was another kidnapping like how Yuzruru was taken, but he does calm down knowing about the father daughter connection.
The most interesting part was how Mayu is reacting towards all of this while she is still aiming at her true goal. She was surprised on how Haruto of all people was changing his focus because of his trust in Fukei. Then when she hears from Haruto that he is still very worried about her, Mayu confesses on what she is actually doing. She tells Haruto that she came to steal the Infinity Ring to exchange with the Holy Ring we saw in the previous episode. Haruto then does another surprising thing and lets her take the ring because the very reason why Mayu is a Mage is to defeat Medusa so Haruto wants her to at least get rid of a burden in her life. Again, Mayu is being used very well even considering we are getting closer to the finale of the series, her character is going through a lot and she wants the job done as quickly as possible. Having Haruto help her does show how much Haruto trust Fukei and wanting Mayu to finish off Medusa as he now has gotten rid of his strongest power.
Now the reason why the White Mage wants the Infinity Ring is because the fact that this ring came from Haruto's body. It's not a ring made from the magic stones as he says there is a risk of using that power. He even says that he could destroy Haruto if he uses that ring more. Now I do wonder if that is true because when Fukei first saw Infinity he said it could be a problem, this could be the problem he is talking about. He wants Mages so having one dead is easily not a good thing. Now his reason for wanting Mages is still unclear, but a lot has been revealed about Fukei and the possibilities have been killed and more have opened up. For now though, still knowing little about him he is following his own plans and he has crossed the lines from them before, but he is now helping our heroes again.
The Gate of this episode did get more focus as we do get to know more about him this time. Masahiro is a man who is going to be a father soon. Already we can tell that his wife and unborn child will be his hope and Medusa already got onto this when she found a photo of the couple. Masahiro acts like how many father or husband would act in this situation and even with his life at risk he wants to go out to save his wife and child. Now I was expecting him to just go right into the fray without worrying about the monsters around him, but he does get stopped by the monsters. Now some may call him a coward, but again there is a limit on how a normal person goes with dealing with monsters as there is always a fear for the person's own life. Now this leads to Medusa appearing and trying to kill the wife, Aya. It seems like she succeeded and this drives the man into despair.
Luckily though, Aya was saved by Wizard thanks to Land Styles. Now Masahiro doesn't get out of despair right away as he does struggle with fighting this. He defeats his despair though as his life of being a father and being happy with his wife is still around. The best part is how the heroes were helping him through moral support to make him realize that his wife was safe. Also the best part about this character was how it works with the story as of now. The heroes are dealing with Fukei who is the father of Koyomi and he just fought Sora to save his daughter. Masahiro wanting to save his wife and future child is similar to this circumstance and then there was Wajime who acted like a father losing a child. Even though the Gate didn't have much depth as a character he does work well to be a good reflection of what is going on right now. The last arc also had a focus on fathers so this was easily a theme in both of those arc.
Medusa had a major focus for this episode as the many events of failure have been getting to her more and more. She still stands tall though since Wiseman puts a lot of hope into her. She wants to be with him for as long as possible, it's like she finds meaning in being with him. This has been shown many times with how Medusa feels about Wiseman and Sora questioning her loyalty. I would like to have known what Medusa went through when she first became a Phantom. Did she have issues dealing with the memories she had from Misa and Wiseman helped her out of this? Then Wiseman giving Medusa a purpose since she is the only Phantom who can see who a Gate is like how Koyomi could tell who Phantoms were. Wiseman wanted her around for a while as well, but he used her enough now.
I will get into the action now before getting to the big twist at the end of this episode. The Phantom again didn't get much as he was just the guy who attacked Aya. I will say it was nice to see Land be used for a longer period of time and then having Land Dragon be the form to finish things off. Beast also helped Wizard in fighting the spider Phantom as I loved the finisher with Wizard using the claws and mixing that with Beast's Hyper Magnum. There was some good ring use as I can tell Defend was used to protect Aya, Gravity was used to protect Rinko and the others when the floor fell down around them, Big was used with Land Dragon, and the finisher with Special summoning the claws. Sadly Beast's part of the fight was the struggle so he didn't get too much until when Wizard backed him up, duo rider action is still a plus though.
Now for Mayu, she gets the Holy Ring and quickly comes into battle by teleporting. She is ready to fight Medusa as the two riders let's her to have this fight. The fight was like the others which is actually sad because this is the final fight between the two. Mayu and Medusa were basically just brawling like two men having some fisticuffs. I was hoping for some more ring action since she does have spells like Barrier. I will say Medusa brought up a new beam like attack that she used on Aya, but not on Mayu well until the end. Mayu also got to use the Holy Ring which was a beam attack as well, but I really liked the effect for this one. It had particles group up to form the beam as you can see the many particles make up the beam. Also the sound effect for Holy was very good, so even though it was a beam attack it did have a lot of visual work on it. Sadly this doesn't defeat Medusa, but before she deals the final blow on Mayu, Wiseman stabs her!
Out of all the things to happen, I was not expecting Wiseman to pop up like he did. I was thinking Mayu would defend herself and somehow finish her off out of suit, but this works well. Now this is where Wiseman reveals who he really is and that is Fukei the White Mage. I will say this part was predictable since there weren't many other characters, but at least there were still possibilities as the series does cover these what if's. Even with a character reveal many have seen coming, the series knew how to deliver it. Medusa was killed by the one who gave her meaning. Medusa even knows it was only her and Wiseman so again she was fighting for him. Then to make things worse, Fukei transforms into the White Mage as Medusa sees all of this. Fukei does thank her for what she has done as he wanted her to find Gates because he wants Mages, not Phantoms. Then for the actress she really did this part well as it was like the part of her script was cut out and they just told her while filming that Medusa was just stabbed. The series made me feel sad about Medusa's death, that is very hard to do for a villain like her. Knowing how much she put into fighting for Wiseman though, having that man kill her, and ending with her finding out that she was lied to just makes her death a sad finale.
Overall this was a really strong episode. It carried the theme of fathers from the previous arc, had strong character moments with the biggest ones being Haruto, Mayu, and Medusa. This was also Medusa's final episode as Fukei now has four Mages since Masahiro fought his despair. Even with knowing that Fukei was on both sides the death of Medusa really made the scene shocking and unexpected. With that I give this episode an A.
Next Time: A new blue Mage?
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