TV-Nihon

http://wiki.tvnihon.com/wiki/Kamen_Rider_Wizard_48

Ugh, the treatment of Mayu was pretty terrible this time. It's almost back to the despicable moments in Kiva when the girls can't transform for the most crap reasons. Sure, Mayu needs to get captured in the end for story reasons, but there was no reason she couldn't have gone down fighting.

Oh hey, four mages, four elements.

Kizaki gets speaking lines again, sweet.

Like the rest of the episode is pretty good with Haruto considering joining up with Gremlin, checking out Fueki's sweet house thanks to Kizaki, Koyomi exploring her old house and learning her past. All that stuff would have been fine if not for the bumbling, old-fashioned treatment of Mayu's character.

Story is always going to be Rider's weak spot, right? Very few of the Rider stories are going to competently handle an interesting story across several characters. "Well, Medusa's dead, let's just have Mayu get kidnapped to brush her out of the way." or "We've built up Nitou's quest to rescue Yuzuru... so let's just have him appear, beat Nitou up a bit, and then leave. No one will care if that's anticlimactic, because Nitou is just a second Rider." I sort of admire Sentai stories a bit more since they do a pretty good job at sharing the spotlight. They don't just get obviously shafted for being secondary characters the way they do in Rider stories.

And I guess I also liked the subplot where the characters wonder if Fueki is a Phantom or not.

I didn't expect that Fueki created Wiseman through artificial means instead of the typical falling into despair route. It was interesting that they were going to go that route in Fueki's diary but nope. So Mayu is the Land Mage which makes Haruto the Fire Mage. I wasn't bothered with Mayu being timid. Nitou kinda of said it "She wasn't happy being a mage anymore." which it's a good reason combined with the shock of Yuzuru reappearing suddenly.

I'm disappointed that all the setup with Kizaki was just for this single plot device.

Fueki's motivation isn't very interesting.

Sora keep mentioning that he and Haruto are the same. Exploring the differences between Phantoms and Mages sounds like epilogue material.

Somehow for me, this episode is more interesting than the whole series combined so far. There is a sense of urgency here, the bad guy has a plan and purpose and is making his final move. And it seems its not something that, even if they lost the first time, can still be averted by having a second chance (going into the underworld).

The revelations had a few twist that I did not expect, like Wiseman being an artificial phantom.

Beat that Giant claw with your Big hand, Haruto

Oh, and, blue and green look much better than yellow

Oh hey there Yui Koyomi, take a look and see how the big bad guy Odin Wiseman is actually your big brother father and has actually been pulling along the plot this whole time by trying to rescue you.

FFS, Yuzuru and Torodoki don't have to do that goddamn dance that Mayu does when she transforms? What is the point of making her do it then?!

Oh and great, give them different colors so that when you look at the movie, it makes Mayu look even more like throwaway material. Between Mayu and Yayoi this year we're certainly getting our cake, but it's cardboard and kinda moldy and I don't think I can eat it too.

Lunagel wrote:FFS, Yuzuru and Torodoki don't have to do that goddamn dance that Mayu does when she transforms? What is the point of making her do it then?!

The rider decides themselves if they wanna do a henshin pose or not. Mayu felt like she needed a dance to go with it.



Anyway, looks like I was right in my suspicion that this Koyomi isn't the same as Fueki's daughter.

So Yuzuru and Masahiro (Torodoki) finally transformed into Mages huh? I didn't know they're possessed by Wiseman like that.

Fueki is a modern age alchemist. Lol. Reminded me of a cartoon series I really liked. But then, I'm interested with what will happen to Gremlin and Koyomi soon. I just find Fueki's mind-controlling part on the 2 guys boring (special mention on the dark eyebags effect lol!) I would've rather threatened them big time to make them obey me instead (like taking the women of their lives as hostage.)

So it took 5 days to train the green one. Presumably because he already had rider experience. Ha.

Yay Luna agrees with me how this is turning into Ryuki. Odin wasn't Shiro though... it was his puppet Rider he created, still a link to Wizard.

I'm sort of blah with the whole artificial Phantom plot. I think it would have been better if Fueki was like Sora give that link to the two characters as why Fueki was giving Sora more power over Medusa.

I'm with Pheonix with the whole Mayu thing. Think about it, she just discovered she was a big plot by someone she thought was a good man who turned out to be an evil mastermind that killstole from her. Current records Fueiki/White Wizard - 229/0/0, Mayu/Mage 0/0/1

Dengar wrote:

Lunagel wrote:FFS, Yuzuru and Torodoki don't have to do that goddamn dance that Mayu does when she transforms? What is the point of making her do it then?!

The rider decides themselves if they wanna do a henshin pose or not. Mayu felt like she needed a dance to go with it.

And who makes Mayu do what she does? The writers/director. You can't tell me it's in character for her to do a dance when she's mostly serious and quiet and not a happy bouncy person.

LoL looks like no one was exactly right about the Philosopher's Stone.
(Though those of you who said it was Koyomi were the closest, good job!)

The moment I saw Yuzuru's form being blue.... I knew that Yamamoto's form would be green....
Because Mayu's was gold.
Thus: the four mages needed would form the final transmutation circle serving as the rune points in the normal magic circles that denote fire (Haruto), wind (Yamamoto), earth (Mayu), and water (Yuzuru).

And I take back my expectations for Gremlin to die..... He just might live after all.

Lunagel wrote:And who makes Mayu do what she does? The writers/director. You can't tell me it's in character for her to do a dance when she's mostly serious and quiet and not a happy bouncy person.

Oh my apologies. I assumed your question was meant in-universe.

Great episode again for Wizard but it didn't get pumped up for the final episodes like the past Heisei Rider shows. And Gremlin seems desperate now I wonder how he'll play a role now since the show is so close to the end.

No Wizard episode next week :(

Lunagel wrote:Oh hey there Yui Koyomi, take a look and see how the big bad guy Odin Wiseman is actually your big brother father and has actually been pulling along the plot this whole time by trying to rescue you.

FFS, Yuzuru and Torodoki don't have to do that goddamn dance that Mayu does when she transforms? What is the point of making her do it then?!

Oh and great, give them different colors so that when you look at the movie, it makes Mayu look even more like throwaway material. Between Mayu and Yayoi this year we're certainly getting our cake, but it's cardboard and kinda moldy and I don't think I can eat it too.

Yea, it just seems like this episode was a throwaway on characterization, not in good favor towards Mayu. As for her "henshin dance"; fan service i guess?

I had a hunch about Fueki's motivations in doing what he's been doing all this time up to this point, though, hell, goes to show what a parent can do to bring back their child yet on whole new and dangerous level.