I don't think it's a trick. What I do think is that it was Torin and King's dad plan all along. Consider that earlier Torin already expects to die, handing over his sword, and King's dad is already all synched up with his weapon/dino too, which is rather suspect.
As for why, I've only been watching handfuls of episodes, but I'm guessing it has to do with not being able to keep the Deboss creatures down, and finally figuring out a way to do so. And who's a Deboss creature to test it on? Torin. Torin also might believe that to get rid of Deboss for good, it means himself too, I haven't been paying attention to how Deboss reproduce and stuff.
Why can't Magenta and crew just drop everything they're doing and instantly provide subs for me to enjoy when Gaim comes out? The wait is agonizing!
I don't think it's a trick. What I do think is that it was Torin and King's dad plan all along. Consider that earlier Torin already expects to die, handing over his sword, and King's dad is already all synched up with his weapon/dino too, which is rather suspect.
As for why, I've only been watching handfuls of episodes, but I'm guessing it has to do with not being able to keep the Deboss creatures down, and finally figuring out a way to do so. And who's a Deboss creature to test it on? Torin. Torin also might believe that to get rid of Deboss for good, it means himself too, I haven't been paying attention to how Deboss reproduce and stuff.
As I understand it, Deboss creates all his knights and monsters; and when they die they are sent to the Deboss Hell where they are stuck there but might be able to eventually escape with help from above (as seen in a previous arc).
Interestingly enough, any time Torin got damaged he turned to stone, and to fix him you needed music. But I haven't seen any of the other Deboss knights suffer damage like that. They usually just dropped dead/exploded.
On a single Sunday, Super Hero Time has managed to potentially traumatise an entire nation of kids. Hurray!
I have just finished marathoning Wizard. Trust me, it became increasingly tedious as the series progressed and it reached a point when I just had to force myself to carry on, but the excessively-prolonged main plot thread was just about enough to give me the motivation to stick with it.
While the show is still fresh on my mind, here are my rambli- uhh, points to make about the show:
- Nitou deserves a prize. The man has turned in the eleventh hour from one of the most irritating and useless secondary riders in the franchise into someone I was actively rooting for, and someone who had at last discovered a concrete arc for his character. We can thank Yuzuru (the kid - I think I have his name right) and the
White Wizard, whom it gets particularly personal for Nitou as we increasingly discover that White Wizard doesn't like archetype wizards or the word "no".
Near the end, he becomes the true hero of the show. Oh, I will discuss that further below.
- Though having said that, I am not giving the writers any points here for the Chimera subplot. Here's a young man who was given a mystical Chimera creature who lives in his crotch against his will, and is commanded by this creature to eat Phantoms or drop dead. I'd have soiled myself immediately. But Nitou talks about it for one episode then shrugs his shoulders for the rest of the way and carries on happily downing mayonnaise. They could have gone for the pronounced angle of Haruto's philosophy about being the hope for many versus Nitou justifiably wanting to live in the context of the war on phantoms. Instead, that subplot becomes so muted, it was any wonder why they bothered. Chimera's not even a bad guy. It's even got a sense of humour-ish.
- Hi, Haruto, you are the final hope, as you have continuously said on the show ad nausea? Well, let me ask you this: what were YOU doing when
Fueki was preparing his blood ritual for the second time to properly bring back Koyomi? You seemed resigned, defeated and willing to allow Fueki his ultimate victory merly for Koyomi's sake. I don't care how much you seemingly care about Koyomi, but to allow himself to die - as well as a schoolgirl, a salaryman and a schoolkid - for that is utterly dissonant to your usual character. You can't bang on about being the final hope for many and be naive enough to think it would be worth giving Fueki his wish. And furthermore, why was he so shocked when he is told that the whole friggin' city would be sacrificed as well? He was there in the first Sabbat! And that one didn't even properly bring Koyomi back. Did he really think that there would be no other potentially sacrifices apart from himself and three other amateur wizards?
Hence why Nitou was the real hero that day. Final hope my arse.
- What is the point of Shunpei? He and Nitou may as well have been the same character. Shunpei dresses in the dark and falls over at every opportunity, which is supposed to be funny, and his only purpose is to ask Gates if they're alright and whisk them away.
- The show is heavily centered around Koyomi. That's great. She has this adorable pouting face a lot of the time. Except for the fact that Koyomi - whose actress I suspect was hardly there for half of it - is such a nonentity in the show, and a frequent pretty background for the very quiet shop, that I found it difficult to really care and be emotionally invested in her as I should be. She's no Phillip or Ankh for certainty. She and Haruto have barely any visible chemistry going on, bar standout cases like the cute shopping sequence in the first quarter of the show.
- The Phantoms, for the purpose of the plot, are
essentially throwaway villains because Fueki is only interested in them instrumentally to find wizards. That's understandable, though it has this effect of making everyone apart from Fueki look like dummies on a chessboard.
But writers, you can still make decent villains out of the Phantoms, even if they're essentially filler material. But they can't. The Phantoms are hilariously inept at their jobs. There are times when there is nothing stopping them from going after a Gate again. Then there have been a few times when the path to success is so simple, it's practically already laid-out for them. Take the idiotic Raum/arsonist episodes. If the suspected arsonist can just fall into despair at the mere thought of questioning by police, why not have the Phantom I dunno, dress up as a cop and take him in?
- Ah, speaking of the Raum/arsonist episodes, they are the standout worst episodes in the series. It's a stupid plot involving a stupid Rinko and an even stupider Shunpei, on this stupid goose chase to go after a stupid suspected arsonist with a stupid Phantom lurking, in this stupid plan orchestrated by a stupid Gremlin, while the city is at the hands of utterly stupid police officers. No one has ever bothered to VIEW the CCTV video footage before deciding yup! Guy definitely must have started the fire. Lock him up now and throw away the key. You can't begin with Haruto taking on Wiseman and have the rest of it as this circus of morons.
- Loooove Mayu's/Medusa's actress. Probably the best one in the show. Her Medusa
dying screams of bitter betrayal
made for a brilliant scene. And speaking of Mayu, the entire purpose of her character seems to be
taken away by having Fueki kill Medusa. Hurray.
- I'm going to repeat myself now, but yes, Wizard is largely full of fillers. Thank God for Gaim abolishing the stagnant two-episode format of routine side characters of the fortnight and an arbitrarily-included Phantom that is almost certainly going to die the following week. I don't know how I would have lasted if I had been watching Wizard as it was running, waiting weekly for it, etc.
- I must say, I do like Fueki. Yes,
Wiseman
is a waste, but Fueki is pretty similar to Kanzaki Shirou from Ryuki. Here's a genuinely heartbroken parent who like any loving parent, would do anything for his child. Only Fueki is so overzealous about it that he's become despicable in his own right, when you stop and think about everything that has happened by his hands. A very personal goal close to his heart, rather than some messianic desire like Ryubee and Gamou, or the sheer nihilism of Maki.
- I wish belts can shut up. The singing White Wizard belt ruins the scene when
Fueki transforms in front of the dying Medusa
. The L-I-O-N thing ruins the Beast Driver's supposed origin - according to the narrative - as this ancient, primeval mystical power crafted by totally unexplored sorcerers or alchemists of old. Now this just reminds me of how they could have done a lot more with the lore about the origin of the Beast Driver and Chimera. Guess what? They didn't.
- Infinity suuuuuucks. No, not as in it sucks because it's underpowered. It sucks because it is ridiculously overpowered and the directors have no imaginative clue how to amiably handle it in certain fights. The Bahamut Phantom is this tough, beefy guy who gives Haruto and Nitou a run for their money a number of times, but when Infinity is brought out, Bahamut is steamrolled in ten seconds. That's a major beef I have with this series. You want to build up some dramatic tension with this seemingly unbeatable bad guy, only to puff it out like a birthday cake candle instantly.
- Wizard is overall a show that puts on a very visually striking and flashy performance, but as a product is largely empty and hollow. I do believe that its cast as a whole isn't strong enough to carry a show, especially when the villains aren't much to talk about.
- Finishing the last two wtf-ery alternative world episodes featuring Decade, I have to ask:
what the hell were you thinking handing over the Deus Ex Machina Infinity ring to kids? What, you don't think you'll ever need it again?
4/10
PROS: Nitou (eventually); Erina Nakayama; Fueki; actually having another female rider even if she doesn't have a unique costume; the Zelda Four Swords-like thing is cool; Ring utilities and weapons make more sense with more practical uses here than most of Fourze's Switches; Phoenix arcs; Gremlin twist
CONS: Section Zero wasted; Phantoms are as a whole worthless, boring, unmemorable villains who largely hold little to no weight; inconsistency with Haruto's character; Nitou (before he gets his arc); Shunpei; Raum arc; the fact that much of the series is just standard Gate-Phantom two-parter filler; Koyomi's under-utilisation despite the story revolving around her; Infinity as this tension-sapping God ring; movie's underwhelming as well; the belts; missed opportunity to explore lore of Beast's power; I thought Dragon would be more important as a character, or at the very least an entity that isn't just Haruto's bitch also living inside his crotch...kinda
Am I too critical of Wizard? Too bad. My Heisei Rider rankings so far:
I agree with you on Wizard; it's a horrid show and Beast eventually became a fantastic Rider. But I loved Den-O. It being mentioned as being anywhere near the same quality as Decade, Kabuto, Wizard, Kiva, etc. is just crazy to me. Why didn't you like it?
As I understand it, Deboss creates all his knights and monsters; and when they die they are sent to the Deboss Hell where they are stuck there but might be able to eventually escape with help from above (as seen in a previous arc).
It's probably something along the lines of "hey we battled all Deboss monsters in Samurai times and they came back, so somebody must go to hell and kill them there to prevent them from returning again" or something.
Torin is clearly the only one that could go there, otherwise he would just become a Spirit Ranger.
Also, made for a friend, so might as well paste it here:
Gaim ep 14 subbed on Drama. net if you cant find it. My God...I haven't seen something like this since Kabuto. This series just spiked HIGH on the list of Heisei Rider series.
I feel like there's some antidote or something in the sengoku/genesis drivers that lets the user not get infected or some BS because Kota's definitely been hit many times by invess in the past.
The new show Tokkyuger/TOQGER/however-people-decide-to-spell-it premieres February 16th, the Kyoryuger finale is the week before. The new TokuGAF OT should be up by then, since the day before is also when Super Megaforce premieres.
i figured the genesis drivers were early. i wonder what the generation of drivers following them looks like. i also want to see what sids other lockseed activates
as for the recent plot developments, i hope we dont get "misunderstandings 2.0". that shit was a major downside to faiz
Oh I'm sure we'll get some since Micchy's the only one knowing
Kouta killed Yuuya
.
Though it won't be as dumb as "Haha I'm wearing another guy's rider suit and randomly attack another guy for no logical reason, they'll hate me for sure!"
i figured the genesis drivers were early. i wonder what the generation of drivers following them looks like. i also want to see what sids other lockseed activates
as for the recent plot developments, i hope we dont get "misunderstandings 2.0". that shit was a major downside to faiz
What I like about this is the heroes' powers are practically handed by the enemy (Yggdrasil) themselves. The enemy will always be one step ahead unless stealing is involved, like what they did with Watermelon arms.
What I like about this is the heroes' powers are practically handed by the enemy (Yggdrasil) themselves. The enemy will always be one step ahead unless stealing is involved, like what they did with Watermelon arms.
I'd go with the later, especially because he isn't going to get a genesis driver itself, but
combine the Genesis buckle with the Sengoku Driver, replacing the belt's faceplate. That can be done by default in the toys, but I think in the show it'll be some kind of alteration of the belt.
Ryoma is going to give Kouta anything, if anyone from Yggdrasil were to be handing things to him, I'd imagine it would DJ Sagara considering his meeting in the preview for 15 and that he also told Takatora & company NOT to underestimate the Beat Riders. That or Sid does it to undermine Takatora.
Ryoma is going to give Kouta anything, if anyone from Yggdrasil were to be handing things to him, I'd imagine it would DJ Sagara considering his meeting in the preview for 15 and that he also told Takatora & company NOT to underestimate the Beat Riders. That or Sid does it to undermine Takatora.
Badan are confirmed to be the movie's villains. Narutaki also seems to be in it.
Takumi (Faiz) crosses paths with a man who he doesnt realize is a Showa rider. The encounter makes him wonder about his own path in life. The shadow of an old rival flashes
The movie starts with fierce Rider battle between Kabuto and Stronger. Eventually the other Showa and Heisei Riders join the fight. The warriors that are defeated turn into Lock Seeds. For some reason, Ambassador Darkness, from Badan, is after the Lock Seeds.
Hongo doesnt seem to like the name Armored Rider and refuses to admit Kouta as a Rider. He decides to show him how its supposed to be done by defeating a Badan Combatroid.
I wonder if both ZX and Decade will finally close their stories at the same time? The ZX special originally ended with a big cliffhanger with the reveal of Badan's real leader and that their battle against them hadn't ended... and Decade, of course, still has Narutaki running around with nothing about him revealed.
Also glad to see Hongo isn't bashing all the Hesei Riders, but rather just Kouta since he's new. I'll imagine it'll tie into the current arc of the show where he's still unsure of what he's doing.
"Hongo doesnt seem to like the name Armored Rider and refuses to admit Kouta as a Rider. He decides to show him how its supposed to be done by defeating a Badan Combatroid."
This cracks me up lol. Hongo represents the purists side of the fans confirmed.