Kamen Rider Wizard - Full Series Talk UP!

[big_j_ny]

Agito is still a little weird to me, because I'm still not quite sure which Rider is the focus where I'm at. And no, you can't just say it's Agito, because just look at Kabuto.

Agito bounces its focus around a lot, which isn't a bad thing because it gives all the characters equal development.

But yeah, it didn't feel like it was 100% Shouichi's show

 

[KickHopper]

He was always that way
She was always that way except for her random antics spurt
None of the characters had any meaningful changes.

Whatever you say, KingRanger. As usual.

 

[Dr Kain]

Every single character was the same in the final episode as they were in the first episode. There was no character growth at all.

I agree. Shunpei believed in child magic in episode 2, he stoppd in episode 3. He did nothing else the entire series. Rinko was a detective in episode 1, outside of investigating Phoenix, she did nothing else. Koyomi was an emotionless doll in the first episode, she was an emotionless doll in the final episode. In fact, she spent like 30 episodes standing in the background either looking depressed or sounding depressed. Haruto was the same character too. I highly enjoyed the first 40ish episodes of Wizard, but Gremlin had more development in 2 episodes than the entire cast in their 51.

 

[KickHopper]

Gremlin had more development in 2 episodes than the entire cast in their 51.

You mean the guy that was the same bad guy, who always did **** for himself and **** anybody else, from the first to last moments we saw him?

 

[Glamador]

You mean the guy that was the same bad guy, who always did **** for himself and **** anybody else, from the first to last moments we saw him?

Precisely. Now, assuming the comments on the rest of the cast were true, let that sink in a bit.

 

[FlashNeko]

I have to say, the recent trend of "kill the magic sidekick in the last episode and give our heroes no real chance to react or mourn" is getting kind of tiring.

Say what you will about Double's ending bringing Philip back to life but at the very least we got a whole episode devoted to seeing what it was like for Shotaro and the others to have to move on from that death.

Things like Ahnk's death, Stag Buster's death (I know he's from Super Sentai but it's still part of the trend), a temporary death with Kengo (though again with no real time for the cast to react and grow from it) and now Koyomi's death just don't really have the same impact.

It just feels like, if you really must kill off a main character like that, either have the last episode be devoted to the consequences of that or have it happen earlier in the show.

Let the characters have a chance to properly evolve from such a life changing event instead of shoehorning any sort of vague illusion to mourning in the last thirty seconds of the final episode's end credits.

 

[Undrave]

Beet Buster is the one who died, not Stag Buster.

 

[KickHopper]

Precisely. Now, assuming the comments on the rest of the cast were true, let that sink in a bit.

I was being facetious.

 

[Heaven Stream]

Well, i realy liked Wizard. First of all, i agree that it had no character development for, well, anyone besides Haruto, and because of that, i see everybody as mere plot devices for "Haruto's Saga". Wizard has very good direction, camera cuts and inversions were very good timed in pretty much all the episodes, we had a very good creation of atmosphere in almost all the series, the tracks in Wizard were also very good, hell, i didn't like Girls, but after Wizard... I love them, realy, and not to mention the glorious return of Rider Chips. Talking about the plot, well, i liked it, we had a realy good growth in Haruto's character, he sufered for the entire series, to be honest, he was just trying de swap his pain with the bulshit of heroism, he used that to "sustain" he's hope, and we had Dragon as a good counter-point to that, at first, i thinked Dragon was like a symbiont, but after the Infinity debut episode and the final episode i got his real purpose, he was a counter-point to the "false hope" that Haruto created to fool himself, he wanted Haruto to have his own hope, hell, Haruto called Dragon "his hope" a lot of times, and at end, he was the GUARDIAN of his hope. Back to Haruto, he was kind of hiding his sadness during the series, the revelation about Koyomi was the trigger to free that pain, and he give up to "despair"... Hell, he was even concerned about giving up his life (and the life of others) for Koyomi's sake, and that make his character much more of a human, puting his desires before the heroism bulshit. For me, the final episode was a tie up of Haruto's situation, he finally accepted himself and the situation of Koyomi, he figthed for himself and put an end to Sora in a realy selfish way, which was really good for his character as all. All in all, i really enjoyed Wizard and Haruto's character development, it had very good fights choreography (Hell, just look at episode 50), extremely good OST and some good two-episodes arc, at least in my point of view.

 

[Actar]

I really think the "victim of the week" format let down the show too. Pretty much all of them were dreadful characters that contributed nothing to the storyline and were just very, very boring - at least Den-O and W tried to make the victims of the week a bit more lively.

The thing is, the 'Victim of the Week' can be, and has been, done well just like in W or in anime like Heartcatch Precure. The secret lies not so much in the victims themselves, but in the boring monsters of the week - for to have a good victim, you need a good antagonist. That's my main theory as to why Wizard's Victim of the Week formula fell flat. The monsters were boring.

In W, the monsters were people that were involved with the clients and had their own motivations that drove their crimes - this made for interesting and three dimensional characters and stores. In Heartcatch Precure, the monsters were the victim of the week themselves, being driven by a personal problem or issue that the main characters had to solve, along with dealing with the monster.

Not to mention, in both shows, the Victims kept reappearing in later episodes creating a very believable and immersive world that made the Victims themselves feel more realistic. In HCPC, the saved Victims actually played an integral part in the show later on - adding much needed value to them.

What about Wizard? The monsters that attack them are flat, 2D and completely random. We care nothing for them and in essence, lose half of the story potential - making the Victim's stories suffer significantly. We also hardly see them again, if ever.

Lastly, as many have already mentioned before, the upgrades are problematic. The issue isn't in the number of upgrades, but how they are written into the show. They have to make it feel like the characters actually earned it or make it important in the context of the show some how. Flame Dragon Ring was well done, but others like the Drago Timer were horrendously executed.