Kamen Rider Wizard "The Finale" - "The Last Hope"

[big_j_ny]

The fact they are ramming DCD into this mess of a series is just priceless. They took a crappy ass series, a shitty ending, and are wrapping it all up into a DCD themed turd sandwhich.

Decade is apparently suppose to salvage whatever remains of this flawed Rider show, humorous ain't it :laugh:

 

[Wing Saber]

When you look at Wizard, it's execution was not it's best. Especially on the part of the Phantoms. Since they were never were able to reach first base. And to reveal it was never about them, but three more wizards. It felt that they were irrelevant from the beginning.

 

[xSHiNOx]

Decade is apparently suppose to salvage whatever remains of this flawed Rider show, humorous ain't it :laugh:

good thing Decade hasn't done that to W, OOO, and Fourze :thumbs:

 

[FieryRed]

Haruto is looking for a place to put the Philosopher's stone so it will never be found again.

Why won't he just carry it with him at all time? It's not like he's incapable of defending it with his magic from any potential threat, anyway.

 

[Clocktower]

Well, I'd call this an anticlimactic ending, but that would imply there was some sort of climax in this series to begin with. But with all the negativity, I'll focus on what I actually did like.

• "You don't count as a person" - Haruto killing Gremlin. It made a lot of sense for his character arc and having more moments like these would have helped the show immensely. He chose to focus on his own hope and someone who he deemed more important, despite the fact it meant literally killing somebody elses.
• The budget riders got a chance to shine. I particularly liked the idea of Mayu taking Haruto's position of protecting the city, does this mean she can get a decent suit now?
• Beast didn't regain his powers. I liked that this story arc basically finished with his fight with Wiseman. They didn't tack any more onto it and didn't give him his powers back for the final episode. Sure, he'll have them back in the Special and any subsequent movies, but I really thought they would't be able to resist having their secondary rider there for the finale.
• Likewise with Kiyomi, they resisted the temptation to bring her back and have he big happy ending (all like I said previously, I think the audience in general lacked the connection with her that we had with Philip/Ankh/Kengo). And in general, seeing all of the characters move onto their new positions in the epilogue was handled quite nicely. It was touching, without feeling too drawn out or forced.

I really didn't hate the show as much as some people seem to, I still think it was handled a hell of a lot better than Go-busters ever was, but it had similar problems, flailing for direction pretty badly, the story took too long to go anywhere and most of the cast felt completely wasted in their roles. Shunpei basically didn't need to exist and Rinko should have had a much bigger part in what was going on with the phantom "mystery". I liked Nitou, if only because he gave a bit of personality to things, while he was goofy, it wasn't as over the top and as totally random as Shunpei.

 

[Oblivion]

Totally would had cried if Koyomi had as much screen time and development like Philippe and Ankh(who I honestly didn't really care for in the end) managed to get. I was glad Nitou ended up a lot better than when he debuted. God I wanted to kill whoever wrote him into existence at that time. I don't hate Wizard, and I actually like it more than OOO. Though the wasted potentials just makes me sad inside.

I can't decide I want Mayu more or Rinko more.

Poor Koyomi, now we might start making fun of the future partner leads using her. "Oh man, this partner to the main rider apparently has other drama series to act in, brace yourself guys, we'd got another Koyomi coming!"

This series could had been one of the best Rider series ever like someone had said if it only didn't got lost on the way.

 

[Hidden Masta]

Why won't he just carry it with him at all time? It's not like he's incapable of defending it with his magic from any potential threat, anyway.

And then one day he's just taking a nap and his hand with the ring on it just accidentally swings passed his belt as he rolls over and BOOM!!! PHILOSOPHERS STONE ACTIVATED!! DESTRUCTION EVERYWHERE!! BLOOD ON HIS HANDS!!! YOU WANT THAT TO HAPPEN?! HUH?!!!

 

[Toku Prime]

Decade still continues his journey.

:castlerock::castlerock::castlerock::castlerock:
:castlerock::castlerock::castlerock::castlerock:
YEEESSS!!! Totally stoked!

Haruto is looking for a place to put the Philosopher's stone so it will never be found again.

Which is actually quite a nice lead-in to the next double episode. Though I really doubt that he'll actually leave the ring in some far-off dimension (though with the rumour that Wizard's cross-over with Gaim might be AU, just knowing she'll be back for that movie doesn't rule it out).

It was good up to that point, before everything was screwed up when Fourze teleported Gamou into the gym rather than finishing him off in space...:redface2:

I liked the gym scene. Yeah, it was melodramatic, but I always liked it when Fourze was being melodramatic. It meant they weren't trying (and failing) to be funny.

With Sora he just didn't gave a damn about his hope (since it didn't involve f-ing Koyomi) and just killed him with the worst excuse ever of "I protect people's hope, but your not a person". It just seems off place.

I think they were just going with "we've said he's a serial killer, so it's OK to rider kick him into dust." Though, yes, wanting to become human after having been forcefully turned into a monster is not inherently unsympathetic. Much like with Fueki, it's meant to be Sora's actions that make him a villain and not his goal. If the show had focussed on the pair of them more then that might have been really interesting. But hey, typical Rider, no plot for ages then we just throw it all in at the end and hope something sticks.

 

[FieryRed]

And then one day he's just taking a nap and his hand with the ring on it just accidentally swings passed his belt as he rolls over and BOOM!!! PHILOSOPHERS STONE ACTIVATED!! DESTRUCTION EVERYWHERE!! BLOOD ON HIS HANDS!!! YOU WANT THAT TO HAPPEN?! HUH?!!!

That sounds very awesome, actually. Sign me up! :thumbs:

 

[tigerblood]

With Sora he just didn't gave a damn about his hope (since it didn't involve f-ing Koyomi) and just killed him with the worst excuse ever of "I protect people's hope, but your not a person". It just seems off place.
I think Fourze style of ending would have worked a lot better here. Have Sora achieve his humanity and make him pay for his crimes / repentance (Yes, I did like Fourze's ending, ok?)

Also I couldn't help but feel sorry for Gremlin. If they didn't have those serial killer episodes then he really would have been a misunderstood villain. Haruto's reasoning for killing him was kind of a dick move too.

*strums air guitar and points to the sky*
FIRST! I agree with Haruto that a serial killer who (murdered dozens of women while still a human and) sadly got turned into a monster who, of his own choice, got killed another victim of the Eclipse (Phoenix) like him and sought to kill countless more to achieve his hope of becoming human again is no longer human and deserved to die.

I really liked the direction this episode; all the quiet moments with Haruto in the beginning were so good. When he smiled after holding the Please Ring I thought perhaps he had snapped and was going down Fueki’s road. I imagined that the Mages or something else would stop him, but there was some uncertainty towards his motives, which I found satisfying. When he said he was going to grant Koyomi’s dying wish that made me happy and quite relieved that he was finally living up to his motto of embracing what has happened and moving on; this has been a struggle for him since she started to crack.

The denouement with everyone was really good and I’m glad to see everyone moving on. Had they not showed any epilogue the ending would have been weak. I don’t care about the fight choreography so much, but I was disappointed that he didn’t stay in Infinity (which was forged partially from his close connection to Koyomi) to defeat Gremlin or at least to tear the Philosopher’s Stone from him; that would have made more thematic sense to me. I loved the Rider Kick of Hope, it was truly beautiful!

Nitou fighting all those Ghouls and Gremlin was fantastic! It was a little bit of a stretch that Shunpei and Rinko were too, but they struggled while he did far better, so I can excuse that. Why did Rinko never get silver bullets to shoot at least Ghouls? Episode 1 told us the Phantoms have some sort of weakness to silver and it could have made her more useful. Also, Nitou researching Chimera NOW is ridiculous, I get that it can be a way to get Beast back for the future while maintaining “canon†or logic, but had he been able to research Chimera during the show it could have 1) given him something to do and 2) been better than just ignoring him for the stretches they did, then perhaps he could have figured out HOW Chimera got sealed and how to do it again for the eventual (assumed) regaining of the Beast powers.

I thought this was a strong end to an overall weak series; if this show were to be given the anime series to an OVA/OAV treatment it could work really well. IF I ever re-watch Wizard I might just watch 12 episodes I honestly think the existing story could have been told in that space. Wizard was full of wasted potential because so little was done with what was there so I'll trim out all the useless stuff if I want to go through it again.