Haruto really does come off like a sort of end of the series Wataru. A real badass. I think I've put my finger on why this episode was so good. It has a nice, dark, early Heisei feel with the character death that we see mention of to create the phantoms. Rider series have been missing significant deaths of suplimental characters since Kabuto. The deaths in Den-O were (mostly) reversed by time travel, Decade had some but not enough, and W OOO & Fourze were very light. It's nice to see a degree of realism come back into play. Anytime you're dealing with evil monsters there's gotta be collateral damage of some degree.

I like the PlaMonsters more than I thought, though I still think their transformation are the most useless of all the helper guys so far.

At first I thought that was some promotional photo, and then freaked out when I saw the wrist hinge. :eek:

Speaking of Haruto and Wataru, why is it that they pull of those fabulous red jeans so well?

Weren't people turned into medals during OOO? *Shrug*
That, and the Uva/giant monster thing at the end, turned entire portions of the town into medals.

It wasn't blatant on screen deaths, but, uh...You really couldn't avoid the obvious implications of death though that...

Don't forget the masses of people who got disintergrated by the Ptera Yummies or the mothers and children that were stored in Mezool's egg things. We NEVER saw those people returning after OOO beat them.

Like I said they just generally felt lighter on deaths. It just felt like they intentionally detached that aspect from W onward. They made it more distant, more vague, so that it could appeal to kids more. I like that Wizards' villains are more sinister and that aspect of death is a little more real.

The henshin is great! But that belt needs a serious redesign, especially the "hand buckle."

Yeah, that just dawned on me today and I was laughing and laughing. As I tell my three year old: Please IS the magic word! :lol

Well, since I can't find the Fourze threads...I'll also post my thoughts on the last 3 episodes of Fourze

So Kengo is something called a "Core Child" ok? And when they killed him off I thought to myself "oh man! They pukked an Ankh!" But then they revived him so, yeah. All the fight scenes were cool, interesting how Meteor finished off Leo by using his normal Meteor switch rather than Storm, since Storm does have it's own rider kick limit break. Also, interesting how Gamou revived Kengo, and I don't know how I feel about them playing the Rider Girls during the "graduation ceremony" overall I thought it was a great ending to a great series

Now onto Wizard!

I want a doughnut now...also I like the standby noise. Did anyone else think that the gunsword has a similar silhouette to the Medajalibur is sword mode? Overall I like Haruto, I understand that it's the first episode, so it won't be as good as Fourze's final episode since it's going to be all exposition. Interesting how he starts off with his powers right off the bat. I'm getting a bit of a Decade vibe from this show (mostly because he lives in a house with a girl and her grandfather) getting a good look at the details of the suit...I really like it, bring on the Figuart! I wonder if the girl, I forget her name, will become a Kamen Rider since Haruto gave her a ring, and she too came back from almost turning into a Phantom, but maybe not since Wizard saved her. Overall, very cool! Looking forward to next week's episode!

I know she won't, because he killed the phantom inside her...Wizard apparently was able to beat his phantom, hence he can control the power. Be is basically a Vizard from Bleach