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I'm not watching this anymore either (and a bunch of other stuff) because I'm prioritizing guitar practice and writing, but I'll keep checking your reviews, m4rc0! |
| <---made of awesome! |
| Stay tuned! xd In a way, Wiz is the opposite of Gobus. It has good characters (except for Shunpei), but average villains (at least until now) and plotwise it's very common and they don't do dark stuff. Both have great action, though. |
| The last few episodes I had been so tuned out of the show by the end of the episode that the action was lost on me. I really like the concepts and style though. It's true; Gobusters did have great action. But everything else was so lacklustre. |
| <---made of awesome! |
| Actually, except for the characters, I find Gobus good in everything, but this is something to be discussed in Gobus' thread. |
| I'll have to look up the preview for 17. Hrm. |
| <---made of awesome! |
| 17 |
| That's actually a pretty apt contrast. Though really unoriginal. |
| <---made of awesome! |
| Yes, the fact that it was just as expected shows how unoriginal it is. At least Beast didn't start as an "enemy". Just a rival. And not really a rival, because Haru doesn`t really care. It`s like Kakashi and Gai from Naruto. For Gai, Kakashi is his ultimate rival. Kakashi recognizes that, but he`s the cool type and doesn`t care unless it's one of the shounen moments. |
| 18 |
| 19 |
| m4rc0, what's the reason for the conflict? Nice to hear the banter is good. |
| <---made of awesome! |
| Beast needs to eat the Phantom`s mana to survive. So new Phantoms being created is good for him. Wizard wants to prevent the creation of Phantoms to save the Gates. |
| Ooooh. That's pretty cool. |
| <---made of awesome! |
| It turns out Beast is pretty heroic too, so he doesn`t want to put other people in danger to survive. Though he will still be Wizard's rival because he has to eat the Phantoms. @murasaki Well, it's a cat face, even if the cat is a lion... |
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| 27 28 |
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| 34 35 |
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| 37 |
| So... I picked this up again. I guess Akibaranger got me in the right mood for Toku. |
| <---made of awesome! |
| 19 episodes in. Beast is pretty good. He certainly changes up the atmosphere for the better. His high-energy goofiness is what I guess I wanted from Shunpei in the beginning, you know? He might not know much about anything, but he's quick to get ask questions, decisive, and his goofiness isn't from being incredibly naive/clutzy (like Shunpei) and is balanced out by his power. But with a second rider the sidekicks seem even more useless. Rinko might not be the most incompetent police officer, but because the episodes are focused on the riders there's no time to actually show her talents so she just gets these "Oh Haruto! I found out the thing!" scenes. It makes me miss the strong females of Kiva. Yuri was pretty badass, and Megumi could hold her own. As for the rest of the sidekicks, Koyomi is more or less being strung along, as puppets are, which is a bit of a letdown. She has potentially one of the most interesting characters but I guess I'm stuck waiting to see what's done with it. I'm disappointed that Shigeru will probably stop being useful should there not be any more magic stones to fashion into rings. He's also the least characterized. We learned more about Beast in 2 episodes than we have about Shigeru in 19. I mean, what is his store anyway? Antique store I guess? Finally, I've already talked about the problems with Shunpei. Ugh. I think I would've preferred it if the sidekicks had gotten a chance at being riders. I just don't think they're handling the huge cast very well this time around. There's certainly been better series for characters. Wizard is more or less focused on its main plot, its incredibly slow unravel, and toy sales. I honestly feel like I'm just watching a very long toy commercial. I guess that's how it's meant to be, from Toei's point of view. Gone are the days when they actually cared about telling stories and making heroes. I didn't watch OOO and Fourze, but I don't remember W being quite this bad. Can I just say, though that I love the subtle food theme to this show? Doughnuts and Mayonnaise! |
| <---made of awesome! |
| Magical Girl Beast. XD |
| <---made of awesome! |
| 38 I think one of the reasons Wiz is so weak is that they don't use the cast. I mean, Rinko is a very good character. Koyomi too. BOth have so many possibilities... But they keep focusing on the gates. It's the same thing they did in 4z. It wouldn't hurt leaving the gate and the phantom in 2nd plane sometimes to use the characters more. |
| 27 Right, that is exactly how I feel about it the series. The action is great (Holy crap the sword work is amazing), the designs are solid (rings are a bit bulky), overall concept is good, but the characters themselves are unfortunately underused. Finally we had an episode where Rinko was actually doing some useful police work, but in the end she was thrown into that very cliched plot arc where she tried to appeal to the "humanity" of a villain, only to fail miserably and have to await rescue. I didn't want Rinko to be portrayed as being so naive. It's terrible seeing her bumble around as much as she does. It's sadder than Shunpei sometimes. |
| <---made of awesome! |
| 37: Speaking of side characters, Sora's pretty damn awesome as a villain. I thought he was a bit too silly at first, but now I think he's just great! VERY dark. |
| <---made of awesome! |
| 38-39 Episode 40 Preview: Speculation: Overall Wizard has been a less-than-average series. Maybe better than Fourze and OOO... I don't know because I haven't watched those. Wizard has a lot of missed potential, mainly in its cast of characters. The action is amazing, but the storytelling falls short. I'm looking back at my expectations of this show, and now I'll answer to some of them (from earlier on in this thread): In all seriousness, he sounds like Philip. Nothing wrong with that! I like the idea of that the kaijin might be something along the lines of a golem. Or a homunculus? =D Haruto has turned out to be quite a bit like Philip in W. But less fruity/soft than I assumed. He did end up with a lot of goofy characters whose contrast highlights his coolness. Episode 1! Yes, summoning one's bike (and doughnuts!) is very cool. Unfortunately, very little bike use. But the "connect please" spell is still amusing. But I'm not digging the mix of tech lingo and magic so far. Bit too heavy handed, I think. They could've gotten away with zero tech. Might've lead to a better belt and weapon design because the current ones are clunky. Oh, and what is with all the voice over crap these days anyway? That's happening more than it did before, in Sentai too. It's irritating. =/ I guess kids might enjoy imitating it? I'm still annoyed by the overall design of the belts. Beast's is even clunkier. But this is a toy commercial, and I can see how the designs make sense in terms of being toys. OH GOD THE VOICE OVERS. LET THEM STOP. XD Every time I hear (the belt's) that voice when they henshin or cast a spell, I die a little inside. This has been as terrible as I thought it would be, His forms are all very cool, though I still think the rings are too big. I got used to the ring size, and I'm still impressed by his design. The creation of Phantoms and Wizard's origin remind me of Faiz (and Kiva)! Which is a good thing. I'm excited to see Haruto's struggle to keep his inner phantom in check. Or at least I hope they deal with that. I love characters with a dual nature! Wasn't I just talking about the similarities between Wizard and Faiz again? YES. Ah, but Haruto doesn't have a dual nature, so much as he communes with his... inner spirit dragon. Saddens me a bit. I'm totally behind the inclusion of familiars because I dug the disc animals in Hibiki. Though this is far from the first time since then we've seen them; W had them as well, thought they were a bit downplayed. GOLEM. =D Adorable! Overall I thought it was a very cool first episode. Good fight scenes, and Wizard has an interesting range of abilities. Most of his spells are goofy and sort of random. There's a good dynamic between the characters as well, though I fear Daimon is either going to constantly hinder Haruto's work, or end up worshipping him ala a Doctor Who companion. I hope neither. I want her to be useful and strong! ... not in love with him. A few episodes ago the donuts lady asked if Haruto and Rinko had broken up... This was a joke, of course, but basically this show really underwhelmed with Rinko, Shunpei... everyone that's not a Kamen Rider or a villain, basically. |
| <---made of awesome! |
| 39 |
| 40 |
SusanJun 26, 2013 3:32 PM
| <---made of awesome! |
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| 41: |
| <---made of awesome! |
| 41 42 43 44 |
| 45 |
| 46: Props to Nakayama Erina for being the bright spot of this series. She's been a badass villain (that devilish smile!), and also a great hero! It helps that she was introduced right along with her motivation and for her I know what's at stake. I hope she finds closure by the end of the show. Sadly, I think she's been underused as Mayu, and I wish she had as distinctive a rider design as Medusa has as a phantom. P.S. 44/45 and the previous soccer-themed episodes were too little too late for me. Haruto should've been characterized more in the first half of the series. As it is, I think the focus on silly comedy detracts from the show. It could've be cooler. The second half has been a bit messy, but isn't that how it always us? =/ |
SusanAug 8, 2013 6:54 PM
| <---made of awesome! |
| 46 Yes, Medusa is awesome. The only thing that stands out in the series, besides Rinko in her rare and best moments. Mayu is also good and is more of a character in the few eps she's shown up than Shunpei and Wajima... The show could've explored the characters and their relations more. They're very good and have very good chemistry. But it was too stuck in the arc format. And as usual, they don't use those arcs to develop the character, loosing precious time with the gates, who don't show up anymore... |
| ^That's basically what I was talking about when new shows seem shallower. Sure, Blade had arcs, but man the characters were well-balanced with each other, and they were characterized beyond their rider persons much more earlier in the series than Haruto was. Goofy comedy has always seemed shallow to me though; it's not just in Kamen Rider. So that's probably just preference. |
| <---made of awesome! |
| I won't comment much about blade because it might start an off topic discussion, but developing the characters doesn't create depth per se. I don't think Blade was deep, even though it's in my top 3 Heisei. Sure it's probably deeper than Wiz, but Wiz has no character development AND no plot. I like how the riders became more plot driven. They just need to work more on the characters. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like that's what they're going to do. At least they called Urobuchi for Gaim's plot, I'm expecting a good plot. But what we can agree on is that Wiz is full of wasted opportunities. You might forget your characters and build an awesome story. You might forget your plot and have awesome characters. You migh even do both and create a masterpiece. But they chose to do neither this season. Wiz is stylish, has great choreography, cool characters and interesting plot ideas. None were well used. Hell, even the fights are boring, because the choreography is good, but there's no strategy and the power levels keep changing to match the needs of the current episode. Also, they keep spamming forms. |
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