Some of my responses go pretty far back in the thread, since I'm still catching up from missing last week. Sorry if that bothers anyone.
Can you tell me when exactly was Haruto an asshole with Rinko?
He sneers at her a bit when he's in jail, but I think it's understandable for him to be really frustrated with her in that particular context. He has the power to easily break out, but he clearly isn't willing to do anything unlawful until it's absolutely necessary. Heck, he easily could've kept her from arresting him, he just didn't because he's clearly all about doing the right thing as much as possible. Rinko clearly doesn't grasp that at that point in the episode, so she's also frustrated with him, too. Overall, I like that right out of the gate, Haruto is depicted as a human protagonist who will make mistakes and say regrettable things, despite overall being someone clearly committed to doing the right thing as much as he can.
:laugh: Posted it right after you.
If I'm not mistaken, Fourze's ep1 was lower than OOO's finale.
Not true. OOO ended at a 5.9%, Fourze debuted at a 6.3%. The ratings trend for the last quarter of OOO and the entirety of Fourze is basically the same.
As far as that goes, Wizard's 7.1% debut really isn't all that much better. While it is up two points over Fourze's ending, it'd still be toward the bottom if you compared it to all the other Heisei Rider first episodes.
Agito: 11.7%
Ryuki: 11.5%
Kabuto: 10.9%
Faiz: 10.5%
w: 10.2%
Blade: 10%
OOO: 10%
Kuuga: 8.9%
Hibiki: 8.6%
Den-O: 8.5%
Kiva: 7.6%
Wizard: 7.1%
Decade: 6.3%
Fourze: 6.3%
Wizard really hasn't managed to turn the Rider ratings around yet. To do that, it would need to be a show like Decade or Kuuga where its ratings actually increase steadily from the first episode onward, due to positive word of mouth. If it ends up being a show like Kiva that steadily bleeds viewers throughout its run, then Rider's really no better off than it was last year.
-Silver bullets?! Now this is a Rider that means business!
I'm going to be really annoyed if it turns out that only magicians can use silver bullets, and the cops are SOL if they want to contribute at all to suppressing phantoms.
I 100% agree with you. It really was something about that CG fight at the end really kinda made me stop and go "Hmm, is this going to happen every episode?" CG is not really bad but it might get a little silly if that happens every week.
I figure it won't. At most, every other week, though Hibiki proved that trying that is an expensive proposition. I figure the giant monster fights will be handled as per W and OOO, something you see once or twice per quarter.
So... For ever Phantom that appears in the series one person has died in agony... Wizard might be a little too dark :sweat:
I really like this aspect of the setting. It means that it's utterly impossible for Wizard to save everyone, every single time. He has to fail to stop a Phantom for each week's episode to be able to have a monster in it at all. That means, by definition, Wizard's battle against the enemy will be an uphill struggle where the odds are against him from the very beginning. That's a compelling set-up for a henshin hero.
I like how people say that "newer talking belts are so obviously toys".
I think when people say this, they really mean that the "newer talking belts are
obnoxiously toys." Yeah, the older belts are clearly toys, but they're unobtrusive and don't take you out of the action. Between Wizard's belt and his sword-gun, I really wish his gear should shut the **** up and let the show's BGM actually set the mood for the fight. Wizard would be an incredibly stylish character if his gear wasn't so utterly goofy and impossible to ignore.
Did White Wizard (or something) get any promo beside saying he existed?
Nope. This is another aspect of the show I really like. I think this is the first time since Another Agito that a Rider-shaped character has appeared in a show without being extensively spoiled in scans first. That suggests the show really cares on some level about putting storytelling over mindless hype.
These aren't really themes unique to OOO. I think of them as basically the most generic themes you can use to create a henshin hero show. You can go back to the progenitor of TV henshin heroes as we know them, Ultraman, and see basically the same themes explored. This is one of the ways where Wizard displeases me. It's picked some really intensely generic subject matter to follow up Fourze's ambitious themes of generational conflict and individuality vs community.
It doesn't mean that others are weak.
No, it really does. If Rinko was as good as Haruto, she would quell her Apparition herself, as Haruto did. Instead, she needs Haruto's help, so clearly she isn't. Clearly no one Haruto ever saves is going to be as good as he is, because they lack whatever it is that makes Haruto special.
This is an inherent problem with the premise Wizard is using for magic. Any explanation the show makes regarding why Wizard is special is just going to reinforce that he's better than everyone else, unless the show goes out of its way to point out that Koyomi and Haruto simply got lucky somehow.
I wouldn't be surprised if there are more Madoka Magica parallels in the future.
Nor would I. Madoka Magica was an extremely predictable and generic plotline, and Wizard seems to be trying to use how generic it is as a selling point. What makes these generic plotlines memorable is the melodrama the writers use them to generate, so Wizard had better opt for a twisty-turny plot than its predecessors have. Without a lot of surprises, the show just won't have anywhere to go.
If this rating can be maintained, it's going to become quite a success for the franchise.
Not true. If Wizard's series average was a 7.1%, it would be the fifth-lowest ratings average of the 15 Heisei Rider shows to date. For it to be considered a real ratings success, I think it would need to pull an average that was, at the very least, higher than Kabuto's 7.7%. That would put it on par with W and Decade and significantly above the last two shows.
Wow, this thread has got BIG.
Yeah, I think the "one thread per episode" experiment has already justified itself.
Kind of like having Dan Didio trapped in your skull.
I love you so much. We obviously disagree on Marvelous, but he was (at least at the start) supposed to be more of an anti-hero,
I don't agree. Marvelous is never truly anti-heroic, he's just apathetic and unheroic at first. Zangyack seems like too bit of a threat to really stop, and when he does save people, it's clearly for his own gratification. That's why the show's climax occurs the first time Marvelous makes a truly heroic decision and decides to fight for a truly heroic reason.
Haruto is certainly a different sort of character. He's more a guy struggling under the burden of his mission, trying to appear normal when he knows he's really not. He's Takeru from Shinkenger run through Rider tropes instead of Sentai tropes, when you get down to it. "I'll let you arrest me and won't break out until a monster attacks" is a very Takeru thing to do.