This pretty much hits the nail on the head. He's gone from a character I overlook to one that may actually turn out to be really good.

He's certainly no Sonozakis or Maki.

I am a pretty cool guy.

And I still think he was a huge waste of potential because of the stupid doll thing.

I liked the doll thing.
It was dumb, but it's purpose made sense in the contest of the series.

I thought the doll thing was creepy as hell and funny at the same time.

My problem was the squeaking noise it'd make.

Oh thank the gods these two episodes more than mad up for the ****stain that were the previous two. While I was expecting Gremlin to be playing around as his reasons for rescuing Chiaki, I actually did not see the serial killer twist coming. That was a nice change for the normal Japanese writing. And I love that this indicates that if a human is already evil, he retains his personality even when he becomes a Phantom.

Oh boy, only 15 episodes left until we are done. I cannot wait to see what this show has to bring to the table as we gear up towards the grand finale.

What are you talking about? Outside of 32 and 33, Wizard has been fantastic since Day 1.

I HATE HATE HATE Dr Maki. I thought he was annoying, pointless, and nothing came out of the doll. They really should have had the doll be an actual Greeed or something because when it turned out to be just a doll, it made the whole thing stupid. I also hate Maki because he stole the spotlight from Uva, who should have been the main villain like the show had been building up to be for 30ish episodes.

I don't count Ankh as a villain.

Now I do agree about the Sonozaki family, as they are my favorite villains from all of the post-Decade series.

I don't believe so.
It's had many ups and downs, and was pretty stagnant until Nitou showed up, in my opinion.

Agreed. I've certainly found it to be the weakest Neo-Heisei series.

But the purpose of the doll was to signify his obsession with endings. The doll was what kept his perfect memory of his sister.
It didn't have a plot purpose, but it was important to his character.

As for Maki as a character, you're free to feel whatever you want.

Anyway, on to Wizard, it's had subpar villains (Both in terms of generals on MOTWs), pointless characters, and all the gates stories (Ungrateful assholes who don't take the fact that a monster is trying to murder them until the last 8 minutes where something redeems them) have all been the same.