Wizard Opinions Thus Far?

[Artisan]

I can't say I'm disappointed with the series so far. It's largely because I walked in on the show with tempered expectations, and going by the rigidity of certain aspects of the neo-Heisei Rider shows so far, I wasn't expecting Wizard to ever extensively break the mold.

+ I have enjoyed certain individual arcs. I thought the one with Beelzebub was very decent, backed with a Phantom I absolutely adore. The Mayu/Medusa two episodes featured plenty of tension and are hopefully a meaningful pivot to something bigger down the line. Flame Dragon's debut excellent.

+ I do like the doughnut guys considerably more than I was expecting to. I guess it could partially be that they're not ubiquitous and I haven't generally noticed them being shoved in unceremoniously at every opportunity. With their relatively sparing appearances, they're pretty likeable.

+ Sure, Gremlin's giggling is obnoxious and a tad creepy, but he's probably the most interesting of the established villains so far.

+ I've grown used to Nitoh. It doesn't mean I like him. It just means I don't mind his presence, though I'm not sure how I feel about strings of focus arcs involving him in a short space of time to make up for his sidelining earlier.

+ Well, uh, I guess the fight choreography isn't as jarring as in Fourze when that show featured a ton of goofy modular add-ons.

- Koyomi has barely done anything...yet. I heard that Makoto Okunaka is too busy to be there half the time, but I'm not sure how much I can attribute that to her character being in the background a lot of the time.

- Shunpei is...well, sure, he always falls down. That's funny, right? Let's repeat that gag ad nauseum because it might suddenly start becoming funny!

- Yeah, I know, toys. But the loud belts just hurt the mythology full stop. Especially Beast's.

- I know I tempered my initial expectations for Wizard, but I grew rather hopeful for Rinko to play something meaningful to the plot. A rookie police officer? There's plenty you can do with that! Superiors who were initially shady with how they behaved? There's plenty you can do with that! But, no. Scrap that then. She's had her moments, I haven't forgotten that, but she's so far been a waste, and I'm not expecting that to change much.

- Likewise with Wajima. There's got to be more to a guy who can casually whip up magic rings, right? Right?

- And here is the problem with the multitude of power-ups. How do we properly handle them? Flame Dragon's debut arc was a highlight of the show. Then each of the Dragon forms wander in arbitrarily with little fanfare, as if Kida just looked at the tickbox in front of him and just shrugged his shoulders. Infinity's episodes were erm, uhh, yeah, they were enjoyable to watch, but sorely lacking in much buildup. Those tears were such a blatant deus ex machina.

- Phantoms' power scaling. At least with shows like OOO (hybrid Yummies, then dinosaur/mythical creatures Yummies) and Fourze (Horoscopes suddenly emerging left and right), we have adequate and believable situations where it makes sense for the villains to be stronger and the riders to have to whip out their power-up forms, but Wizard isn't very good at that. And I reiterate that Wizard is most certainly not the only one guilty of this, but it could have done with something to help flesh out the Phantoms' lore.

- With the toys out of the way, I hope we can move on now. From a central, ongoing narrative point of view, barely much has been accomplished. It's been crawling from power-up to power-up and a series of mostly forgettable cannon fodder Phantoms, while Wiseman skulks in the dark somewhere, showing up on camera only for two minutes occasionally.

The "It's Showtime" allegory kind of works here. Sure, you're flashy and good with presentation, but past a certain threshold, it feels stale and my investment in you begins to visibly wane. At this point in time last year, I was really enjoying Fourze, goofiness and nitpickings aside. Wizard is failing to do the same for me this year, which is unfortunate. Oh well, nor was OOOs two years back, but that managed a second half that made up for it. Here's hoping Wizard will do the same.

 

[komoo]

I can't imagine someone getting the urge to ever rewatch an episode.

I dropped Wizard a long time ago, episode 4 i think. But if there is one episode, I will return to it's.......the one with the Jiro Okamoto Cameo :laugh: and I will only watch that scene.

 

[Sage Shinigami]

inb4 next year people are saying "at least with Wizard" like they are with Fourze.

 

[xSHiNOx]

^ I liked W, OOO, AND Fourze so the "at least with xxxx" doesn't apply to me. Wizard on the other hand, yeah...the spark has disappeared a long time ago

 

[Sage Shinigami]

I still don't get all the love Fourze got. I stopped watching OOO's because I was just doing other ****, but with Fourze...I quit because I got tired of how willfully stupid they chose to be with the suit and the fact that I didn't care about any of those characters.

 

[xSHiNOx]

love for Fourze? the way i see it, some liked it and some hated it. i do wonder though, for the people that loved it, why did they love it? i liked it because of the characters especially gentaro, the background music, the highschool setting, friendship, that ryusei with the bruce lee yells, AND the movie war featured the past two riders.

wizard has good choreography for its fighting but everything else kinda lacks. the best music its got is the henshin music..

 

[tigerblood]

Fourze was my first "airing" Rider show. I had just finished Black when Fourze started. It had dropped plot lines, the Rider Club turned one-note once the focus was off of them and "Friendship" was the conceit of the show; if you have a problem with that theme, that is just to bad. It didn't bother me. I grew up on PR which is "RRRR! UGGHHH! Team work, guys!" Just like Digimon and all the shounen shows (pretty much). I just accpeted the Friendship thing. Just like Heart of the Cards or whatever.

Lynara is right. Wizard has so much potential that it isn't fulfilling. It is sad. I would say Fourze failed at things, but it always gave it 110%

 

[Lynxara]

Fourze opted to be a kind of show that a lot of Rider fans dislike, but it was a fairly well-made iteration of that show. Chances are if you didn't like it, there was simply no execution of the idea that you would like.

Wizard is a very different case. It's not at all difficult to imagine a version of this show that would simply be better. The sort of talent that backed Fourze simply is not in play in Wizard, outside of the direction.

 

[Chenix]

Fourze opted to be a kind of show that a lot of Rider fans dislike, but it was a fairly well-made iteration of that show. Chances are if you didn't like it, there was simply no execution of the idea that you would like.

Wizard is a very different case. It's not at all difficult to imagine a version of this show that would simply be better. The sort of talent that backed Fourze simply is not in play in Wizard, outside of the direction.

While I do agree that Wizard could be alot better then what it is, I am still liking it more the fourze. Mainly cause I either like the characters or am fine with them being there. With fourze, whenever most of them talked I wanted to punch something. Wizard, even with its problems, has had more plot then fourze had in its entire series. With humor as well, there are parts where I do actually laugh or get a chuckle from something, but with fourze its forced humor. Something like "HERE SOMETHING FUNNY! LAUGH! LAUGH!" Villain-wise the phantoms are somewhat co-herent, where Sagittarius give him back his belt, and even though he knows who fourze its lets him go on his merry way. Here is a question, why did Sargittarius not just do his plan at the beginning of the fourze movie? He had all twelve switched.

To make a long story short, wizard can be a lot better yes, but I am enjoying it a hell of a lot more then fourze.

 

[tigerblood]

Wizard, even with its problems, has had more plot then fourze had in its entire series. With humor as well, there are parts where I do actually laugh or get a chuckle from something, but with fourze its forced humor. Something like "HERE SOMETHING FUNNY! LAUGH! LAUGH!" Villain-wise the phantoms are somewhat co-herent, where Sagittarius give him back his belt, and even though he knows who fourze its lets him go on his merry way. Here is a question, why did Sargittarius not just do his plan at the beginning of the fourze movie? He had all twelve switched.

To make a long story short, wizard can be a lot better yes, but I am enjoying it a hell of a lot more then fourze.

1. Wizard has more plot.

I don't think so. Wizard has followed Fourze's pattern in terms of Secondary Rider debut and Final form power up, even making the Infinity debut feel a bit samey. At the Kyoto arc of Fourze we knew that Gamou wanted something and his generals were making more Horoscopes for some unknown reason. At this point in Wizard we know that Wiseman wants to hold the Sabbat again and is having his generals make more Phantoms in order to do it.

I think it is about the same. That is also excluding all the AZA Tachibana/Meteor stuff. Beast is made useless and his story adds nothing to Wizard.

2. some-what coherent

Wise keeps powering up Haruto and has done NOTHING on-screen! The Phantoms haven't Broken a new Gate, probably because thay have all gotten lazy and now just say, "let the fear of death drive you to despair!"

OK, TBH, they have had some good ones, but there was a rash of lame, I will scare you to death Phantoms.

3. Why didn't he start his plan sooner?

He had to make that soup first!