One reason Kamen Rider Fourze is better than Kamen Rider Wizard (opinion)
 

Hello.

So Kamen Rider Fourze is my baby. I love the show, I love the characters, and I will defend the show to anyone who wants to argue about it.

THAT BEING SAID.

The difference I see so far between Fourze and Wizard, is that the villains in Fourze were all characters we got to know (with the exception of just a few). Even the 2 episode bad guys who weren't Horoscopes were often characters they introduced and you got to know and the group had to find a way to save the person and not just destroy the monster side.

In Wizard, the bad guys are people that are already "dead" and the phantom beast inside them has taken over. So there's no "getting to know" the bad guys, they're just there and the surprise is when you find out who the bad guy was (well, for two episodes at least).

Because of that, Fourze (in my opinion) had a bigger impression ... when a character died (Emoto for example) it was really sad, because you got to know that character aside from the good guy/bad guy part of it. Wizard? Not so much, not yet at least.

Thoughts?

I teared up and almost cried when Kengo died. I'll admit it.

Well, while true that all the current villains are all just Phantoms using the former human's faces, we still haven't seen what could come of this. Just look at the likes of Medusa, Phoenix, and Catsith. The Phantoms seem to operate through fear, not a unified desire to bring about more Phantoms. We may very well see a Phantom turn on the others for their own agenda.

I was tearing up during the scene when Kengo revealed he was afraid, and I was crying during the letter :p

As of now, Fourze indeed has a TON more empathy and emotion. Also the Horrorscopes had a reason to want and take their power, either from envy or feeling weak, to of course just being power hungry...Wizard...well...monster of the week lol. But at the same time, those monsters do some mean junk to achieve the despair they need for their goal...so you kinda want them to get the ass kicking they get.

Although, we do get to see the Gates and help them through their problems. At the moment I'm not going to say whether I think Fourze or Wizard is better, simply due to the fact we've only seen four episodes of Wizard, so it's kinda hard to judge the series as a whole(Blade would be a very good example of this.).

I still don't get the Phantom's motives ? Make more Phantoms. Then what ?

Kill off all humans and make themselves the dominant race on Earth?

I love Fourze lots too!

I think instead of exploring the monster of the week, Wizard puts the emphasis on their victims instead. So it is the victim that is the focus of the weekly episode, not the monster. We see the motives of the victims, their thoughts, feelings and what makes them despair.

I do admit though, this means that the Phantoms are less developed as villains compared to the Horoscopes.

We're on episode 5 of Wizard, way to early to compare Wizard to other shows in this way. These things are best left to review in hindsight.



PS My favorite Rider shows have monsters that barely talk or don't talk at all. Getting to know the monsters of the day is not a major factor to me a all as long as the major villians get good screen time. However, it is welcome if done well, like in W.

Monsters that only lasts for 2 ( or even worse, 1 ) episode shouldn't get much development because it'll be a waste.

The letter is what sent me over the edge.

Me: :blubbering:
Girlfriend: .. What's wrong?
Me: He cares....
GF: Who, your dad?
Me: Kengo! That little bastard cares!
GF: ... :beats over head with her pillow:

you lightweights crying during fourze :lol

i didn't even cry during the end of Ryuki, and that was way worse than anything in fourze.

you truely know sad when you watch the anime clannad :lol everything else is smalltime

I don't find any of Ryuki's endings to be that sad. But yeah, who doesn't cry watching / playing Clannad ?

My major complaint with Wizard so far is the lack of characterization for Haruto. I haven't seen as many of these shows as you guys have, but I'm 20-something eps through Fourze and 12 through OOO and compared to those this guy's a complete cypher.

We know part of his origin. We know he likes donuts. Everything else is a mystery. We don't know what he was doing before the eclipse. We don't know what his life's ambition is if he ever defeats all the Phantoms. His personality is pretty bland. We know he takes his mission very seriously but thats a given. Meanwhile by the end of episode 1 of Fourze and OOO we know quite a bit about the protagonists. As of Episode 4 of Wizard... next to nothing about Haruto.

This is probably intentional though so I'm not holding it against the show. But he is pretty much a blank at this point.

Mysteries are what make him interesting, we have to wait to eventually find out about his past (like Kuuga's (Kuuga, not Godai) and Agito (Shouichi), ...)

Yeah, I would say that what they've done is intentional. They've hinted quite often that there's far more to him than we've seen, and I think they're building up to something big.

i'm trying not to spoiler a part of it, but i'm talking about The death of ryuki

I never got far in Clannad because I wanted to kick Fuko down a well, and she was the first character to get a story arc...

I can agree with you on the weekly monsters being more developed. That was one of the points of Fourze after all, that Gentaro would defeat and then befriend the current Zodiart. On the whole, though, I like the Phantoms more.

A lot of that comes down to motivation. We already have a clear motivation for the Phantoms. They want to break open the Gates and create more Phantoms so that they can retry their big ritual thingy. With the Zodiarts it took us almost a quarter of the series to get told that kids were being given Astro Switches in hopes of finding the rest of the twelve Horoscopes. And even then we didn't know what the point of the Horoscopes was until the end of the series. For me, one of Fourze's biggest failings (outside of the pacing problems) was that the masterminds behind the monsters lacked any obvious end goal for most of the show. It was very frustrating. At this point it at least feels like we have some sense of what the Phantoms are trying to do, even if the details are still vague.

I don't mind this. It's been done in the past and has worked well. I'm specifically thinking of Takumi from Faiz, who was just this random dude who showed up and could use the Faiz Gear. It wasn't until about halfway through the show that we really got to know anything about him, and that turned out to be a really interesting plot twist.

It's probably also worth remembering that Wizard's head writer worked on the good part of Hibiki, which was a show that wasn't very interested in backstory and preferred to spend time examining the characters relating to each other in the present.

It's also good to remember that it's only been 4 episodes. You weave a story in, not spurt exposition to the viewer :lol

Yeah, I mean we've barely had time to get to know the characters. I don't think it's fair to compare Fourze which finished it's run, to a show that barely has a chance to strut his stuff.


I feel as though that's both a plus, and a minus for Fourze. Fourze was good at keeping a mystery, you wanted to tune in to find out what exactly the Zodiarts are, or who Virgo really was. When it gives you those reveals, it feels like a big slap in the face almost. But at the same time, I can't help but think that most of the episodes filler, an example being how the 12 Horror scopes that weren't Cancer, Leo, Libra, Virgo, and Scorpio were handled. Fourze didn't really seem to have an overall plot, and when you think about it….Gamou's ambitions really weren't all that evil.

Don't get me wrong, I love Fourze but when the show got obnoxious, it was almost hard to sit through

I don't know what to say here.

Fourze's heroes were so dysfunctional during episodes 1-7 and I doubt they were truly friends during the end, while Wizard's a bit of a jerk, but you know he cares.

On the other hand The KRC cares about the people they help too, while Wizard's group is well, not one I'd trust with my life.

I just don't know.