Wizard Episode 45: "The Smile in My Heart" Discussion
 

Is this the first time we see Plasma Shining Strike? Seems like it . . .

Sorcerer's transformation is pretty cool. :)

Holy Den-O Batman

What a fantastic episode, I enjoyed that thoroughly from start to finish...and as such I have nothing constructive to add.

That microwave gag. :lol

Great episode. The plot is really starting to come to a head now. Sora's got plans, Mayu's getting desperate, Koyomi is breaking, and Nitou is now jobbing to little boys. I'm very interested to see how this is all going to end.

I also liked how the Gate story this time resolved itself. The teacher giving up the plane and choosing to just remember his son and to hope for the others, that was pretty awesome. Nice to see something like that finally happen.

I enjoyed this episode. The gate solved his own problem, helped the father and son's problem, and helped Haruto. I liked him.
I liked that Shunpei spoke up against Haruto, and I'm glad Haruto's attempt to put Koyumi over someone else was denied by Shunpei. It was great.

Mayu seems to be on Medusa's level, but she just can't seem to get an edge up over her, and I'm liking that Gremlin is starting to get interesting again.

And the microwave gag was nice. It was cute.

Wow Haaruto. You have ONE job and you were willing to let the one Gate that solved his own drama fall into despair on the faint hope it'll help White Wizard. Way to go Wiz.

I get that he's not like the other Riders we had before, but if he's willing to slack off on his one job then I cannot in good judgment root for him anymore.

I really want a gif of the teacher smashing the airplane.

I think you're being a bit too harsh on Haruto. In the previous 44 episodes, Haruto didn't have nearly as much on his plate as he does in this one. Here, not only does he have to try to figure out what the White Wizard's game is, he's also worrying about Koyomi and what is wrong with her, in addition to protecting Gates. The stress from all of these factors culminated to cause him to make one bad move, and that was a move he regretted. Yes, he should have known better, but I think his excuse is good enough to ease off some of the backlash. Either that or I'm trying to justify the side of myself that is forgiving to stupid levels.

Poor Nitoh. He didn't deserve that. Nice how Haruto worries about Koyomi, even if he was willing to let his teacher go full-on despair for it. Shunpei finally does something interesting for the first time in... I have no idea. Also, we final find out about the Philospher's Stone. And it was... Not Koyomi. There go all our theories

Although I guess it does make Haruto a 'lesser' hero, it was nice for a protagonist to have a genuine moral dilemma fo once and have the Gate stand up for himself instead. The whole 'you can't save everybody' storyline is often surprisingly absent in toku, or given an easy answer or brushed over but I think they handled it really well here. At least as well as you can expect. Especially when Shunpei stood up as well.

But I'm seeing that Haruto haters are already completely missing the point of this scene to continue to rag out on him before it goes out of style and we're all hating on Gaimu because we all know we can only like Kamen Rider shows from a decade back, all the rest are uncool.

It's just a shame that by this point I have so little investment in anyone but Haruto, so Koyomi rolling around in a bed trying to act didn't really engage me how I think the episode wanted it to.

I did get a bit mad during the scene with Haruto deciding to prioritize tracking down White Wizard, with the hope that he can help Koyomi, over helping the Gate. However, I guess I'm being to harsh on him, he does have a lot going on, and he really needs to decide what's more important, helping Koyomi, who has who knows what wrong with her, or his teacher who might go into despair any moment. I think one of things that was most frustrating about the scene though, was how Haruto thinks about the situation, he really tried to justify to himself that possibly letting his teacher go into despair was the best option by claiming that he can just come back, put the engage ring on, and everything will be fine.

Shunpei actually doing something, instead of being an annoying gag character, was nice for a change of pace. And the teacher deciding to show that family what really mattered by smashing his memento of his dead son, and then giving that speech about the smile in your heart was a really great scene. It's nice that we're finally getting some gates that aren't selfish and unlikable.

But Haruto's chain of thought is the point. It isn't supposed to frustrate, it's supposed to connote the internal struggle that Haruto is battling with, he is telling himself it will all be okay even when he himself doesn't believe it, he doesn't make this decision out of weakness or stupidity, he makes it out of the fact that he has been shouldering the burden alone this whole time and really needs to start letting people the fuck in. He can't save everyone, but THEY can.

Haruto isn't flat as many claim, Haruto plays his cards close to his chest, he wants to be everyone's hope after all the shit that happened to him, he wants to save everyone and fears letting others in. And for the first timeHaruto truly realised he can't be like this, if he ever hopes to truly win in the long run.

Yeah, I liked that, too. It was a moment where Haruto was stuck between a rock and a hard place - possibly find out what's going wrong with Koyomi and find a way to save her or save the Gate. I don't remember the last time a Rider actually faced a quandary like this and it was cool to see. Besides, he made the right call in the end, anyway.

The one thing that's really falling flat about the show's wrap-up for me is Koyomi. It's just really hard to invest any drama in a character who hasn't done anything for most of the series. Now to be fair, that's not the show's fault - the actress is a member of a popular idol group and her activities there have clearly taken precedence over being available for Wizard. Obviously it's not the first time an actress's availability has been an issue, but the show hasn't really tried to find a way to work around it like Kabuto or Den-O and have just stuck with leaving the character largely in the background. For someone who's apparently so important, though, that just hasn't worked and it doesn't give the audience much of a reason to care about what happens to her.

It was nice as well because it was a climactic moment outside of the fighting, as weird as it sounds the more toku I watch the more the two halves of the shows feel disconnected. This was a pure character drama moment, he wasn't getting his ass kicked and pulled himself together and saved the day with a new power, it was a human realisation and drama built entirely out of character focus. This was almost a new challenge for a Rider, who rarely has to overcome things outside of the suit.

I think this is one thing that Wizard has done well in general, there is a real sense that just because the fighting is over, the conflict isn't. Haruto is always on Phantom patrol, the new Phantoms each week mean the villains are always active and plotting. We may not see it but often in Rider shows the Riders feel reactionary, twiddling their thumbs and waiting for a victim before they snap into action and then as soon as the monster is done they just go back to thumb twiddling, here it feels like Haruto is actually having an active involvement in the whole hero shebang and even when the fight is done the conflict continues to plague him.

Not only has Koyomi done nothing but she's barely been in the show, often standing in the background has been her only purpose, you could probably have just a cardboard standee of her on set and it'll do as much as she is currently doing. So how the hell can I care for her? I'm as emotionally engaged with her as the seats they sit on. And I wouldn't blame the actress but why the hell did Wizard bother hiring someone who is clearly rarely available in the first place?

Skipped 44 to get to here. Nothing has been lost... I HAVE THE PHILOSPHERS STONE!!!!

Why would you skip episode forty four? That was a great episode as well.

Anyone knows where I can get subs for this episode?

Should be on krdl by now.

How come this show doesn't have a "Nitou Owned" counter in the bottom corner yet? :lol

Anyway, this was a really fantastic episode. Nothing left to say that hasn't already been said.

Because there aren't enough numbers. :p

Wow, these episodes were meh. Siren was an absolute joke. She seemed to be a worthy villain in the first part, but then in the second part she did nothing but flee and get beat. I cannot believe Haruto even had to go to Infinity form, they should have just had him use All Dragon to beat her. If it weren't for Siren, these would have been great episodes, but because of her, they were average.

Infinity does seem to have the writers confused, don't it? It seems to have no real stand out powers considering it's the "final" form and as such we've seen Haruto use it on foot soldiers and then go ahead and beat the Phantom with Flame Dragon (and stuff like that), it's dumb.

I swear, Mr. Kumagai is the best gate, period. Heck, he's just a plain good character. Honestly, my favorite in Wizard. That being said, I don't think the others are bad. Between Mr. Kumagai, Shunpei standing up to Haruto, and Haruto actually being fallible for once, this episode has to be my favorite in the series, hands down.

I also don't like Infinity because it seems Haruto know has an infinite amount of Mana. I like it better when shows like Blade and OOO had there be a limit to why the ultimate form should be used.

And if Siren is such a badass, why did they wait until this long to use her? You would think she would have been one of the first ones they used way back then.

He doesn't. He can run out and, if he does, Infinity doesn't work. The show just doesn't really do anything with that beyond the one time it happened. :(

I do agree, though, that an ultimate form should have drawbacks. Otherwise there's no reason not to just use it all the time like Kiva.

Was there a drawback to Hyper Kabuto?

The only ultimate forms with real drawbacks are Stronger Charge-Up (discharge the power in thirty seconds or die), Ultimate Kuuga (have a pure heart or turn evil), Blade King (use it too much and turn into a Joker), and OOO PuToTyra (berserker fury, risk becoming a Greed). Shining Agito had a minor drawback of needing sunlight for full power, but the rest were pretty much just strong power-ups with no downsides.