Wizard Episode 51: "The Last Hope" Discussion
 

1. Gremlin Has The Philosopher's Stone! Koyomi...Fueki...
2. Gremlin Evolves! Nito Attempts To Protect The Innocent!
3. Mayu, Yuzuru And Masahiro Come Together To Help!
4. Haruto, Be Strong!
5. "Ore Wa...Saigo No Kibou Da." The Final Battle Between Gremlin and Wizard! ~DISCUSS! PLEASE~

Next Week...Rider Rings?!

Awesome. :) Just awesome. :)

Completely amazed at how Wizard ended. As Koyomi ended up alive, and not alive.

And I'm completely worried of Yuzuru's future, since he was stuck up with......uhh......sigh...

Watched the RAW and I know I'm missing a lot but I have to say the series ended a lot stronger than it began. Hell, the last 6 or 7 eps were better than the series as a whole.

Glad they didn't bring Koyomi back. It's nice to see that they sorta stuck to their guns

I'm honestly surprised Koyomi didn't come back. Though I suppose there's always the Movie War. Gremlin's new form was a pretty cool design also.

So, damn, good.

I love Gremiln's plan of just attacking indiscriminantly to get mana, it's barbarically brilliant. Loved loved loved seeing the three Mages come back for a triple henshin. Scenes like this no matter how big or small always do a lot for me.

But hot damn that was a good final fight between Haruto and Gremlin. Tearing the stone out of his chest to make a ring for biggest badest of all kick strikes? Most definitely awesome. And his line after was just perfect "You lost your human soul long ago. You don't count as person." Ah! Such a badass way to send off a villain!

And I am very very impressed to see Koyomi's death stick. Very pleased to see that they didn't pull another Kengo on us. Thank you Toei. Can't wait to see the Heisei rider team-up next week! And seeing as they left the series ending open ended this team up will actually make sense, as will the eventual Movie Wars story.

Very good episode. Very surprised that Koyomi didn't pull a Kengo. Thought Gremlin was defeated too easily even though he's got the stone in him. Really looking forward to next week's episode and the congregation of all the Riders, including Gaim.

Looks like Haruto will have to find another girl in his life. Koyomi will still be around... probably her spirit will guide him.

Loved it. Terrific finale, liked the apocalyptic tone of the scenes depicting Gremlin's rampage, the heroic fighting-against-all-odds of the supporting cast. Was that the first time Rinko's used her gun since the series premiere?

Gremlin's plan was just pure evil, and his sendoff was well done. He deserved to die for blowing up the donut truck alone! I liked how they wrapped up everyone's storyline, can't wait to see Beast's return in one of the movies.

As much as I was restless during large portions of Wizard's run, I will miss this cast. They were far from the best but they were still likable at the end of the day.

I'm crying.
Not from Wizard, but hearing Decade speak again... *Sighs*

Anyway, count me as happy that Koyomi stayed dead. As for the rest of the episode at hand, it had it's ups and downs. I loved seeing the 3 Mages again. While I wish they got to do more, having them be more than sideline cheerleaders (Well, initially) or just missing altogether was nice enough. Gremlin's plan of "If they span a Phantom, then they're a gate. If they die, they're human" was pretty fun, and gave a reason to have mass attacks on the city. Haruto pulling the Philosopher's Stone from Gremlin was a cool scene, too (Oh, and look! Dragon! Where the bloody hell have you been for the past 30 episodes? :lol)

The character resolutions were nice, and I liked Nitou's decision to go out and find Chimera (And, if the preview for the next episode is any indicator, he succeeds). Oh, and what's up Long, I mean Kizaki!

However, not everything was hunky dory. The climax itself left a lot to be desired. It just felt so...Dull. When compared to Beast vs. White Wizard, or Wizard vs. Phoenix, this final, ultimate fight was kind of meh. It wasn't bad, just not as good as other big, dramatic fights. It had it's moments (Aforementioned ripping the Philosopher's Stone out of Gremlin and the bitchin' Rider Kick), but otherwise, this fight just felt par for the course.

All in all, Wizard ended a hell of a lot stronger than it began. I still don't see Haruto as a strong protagonist, but whatever. I'm not up for delving into that for the umpteenth time.

So it's the last episode, eh? It's amazing how little I care. I've gone on about how much I love this show, I've always been so quick to defend it and yet as the corny wrap up began I realised my love for this series vanished a long time ago. I mean don't get me wrong, it's had consistently fantastic action, but between the terrible pacing and all the cop outs I've found pretty much all of this shows wrap up underwhelming.

I mean just take this final episode, Haruto's fight against SIC Gremlin fell almost totally flat when in just the last few episodes, we've seen the city almost sacrificed in some huge ritual, only to be saved, before being dropped into all out chaos with our civilian heroes leaping in to help how they can. Something so epic should surely have had several episodes dedicated to it right? Nope! I think both scenes have about fifteen minutes when put together.

There are some things I will miss, mainly Nitou. As in these last few episodes they completely rewrote his character and made him so incredibly awesome. And it's kinda sad that just when they found a use for him, the show ended. But yeah, overall, I'm amazingly mehed by the whole thing to be honest.

I still do think that overall Wizard was treated unfairly as a show, though. Pretty much every problem people have had with Wizard, are problems most Rider shows have had. I see Wizard probably closest to OOO and everyone adores that show almost for the same reasons they hate this one. And Kamen Rider, a largely cheap looking series in comparison to Super Sentai at least, really was at its most epic here in Wizard's action sequences which were incredible throughout.

So although my final reaction is a giant 'meh', I still think the dedicated haters of this series are wrong, and I'd still defend this show in the areas that it really excelled in, and in the areas that it failed in, that other beloved Rider shows have failed in as well.

Bye Wizard.

While I'm somewhat happy about the ending not being esoteric overall it was a weak "ending" of sorts. Hell, they didn't use the sad ending music for the preview.

I don't think I'll be looking back on Wizard fondly. If anything it was just a long painful trip that went on far too long for my tastes.

Eh, after a few strong episodes I'm kinda mixed on the finale. While W's ending was heartwarming, OOO's epic and Fourze's (although completely ridiculous) made me feel good, I just felt nothing for here. I don't know whether it was the fact I didn't care about Koyomi or that I never considered Gremlin to be final battle material, but even really flashy action can't help me fully enjoy a Rider I've never fully connected to battle a villain I'm indifferent toward to honour a girl who was barely in the series.

I was far more excited to see Decade come back to be honest. Really looking forward to next week!

I cried a little, in all honesty I'm still not sure how I feel, Locke is right about the pacing, but I enjoyed the ending no the less. I do hope we get to see Wizard in future rider movie war with a decent roll in what ever takes place. The Mages were a nice add in but I wish more then one of them had more screen time and not just add the two at the end and have them be brain washed and fight so minions.

Okay, first of all, why are we calling it "pulling a Kengo" when all Kengo did was pull a Phillip? And nowhere near as well, at that. :confused:

Second, I just realized that Yamamoto was the Green Wizard and he used the power of lightning. Hell yeah! :thumb:

Third, this was a good ending. Wizard as a show has a lot of problems. It couldn't decide if it was a screwball comedy or a serious drama. It wasted damn near every character's potential. And it got so stuck on the two-episode arc format that it almost makes Fourze look well-paced (almost). That said, I do like how everything wrapped up. Fueki's plan really did tie together everything that had been going on - it was kind of like Ryuki, only it made sense. What's more, the show didn't cop out on anything at the end the way Fourze did. In fact, I'd say this is easily the strongest ending we've had since W. What can I say, the Showa fan in me is a sucker for a Rider show that ends with the hero riding off alone for further adventures.

Ultimately, Wizard is going down as a middle-tier series for me. It has some real strengths, but like Fourze before it, the weaknesses can't help but weigh it down. I'm glad that this looks to be the end of the Den-O format and Gaim is trying something new. We've gotten some good shows out of this style, but it's beginning to wear out and it's time for something new again.

Looking forward to the coda next week, even if it is probably going to be kind of silly and stupid.

I agree with just about all of your opinions on the series except for the bolded part. The strongest ending to a Kamen Rider series that I have seen is that of Kamen Rider OOO. It was well paced, well thought-out, well written, and, overall, well done.

OOO had a good ending, too, but I still have problems with Dr. Maki as a villain and that can't help but shade that show's finale.

But at least we can agree that Wizard's ending was better than Fourze's slugfest in a gym accompanied by the soundtrack of grateful speeches. :p

I thought it was a decent ending, but this was better, so I guess we do agree after all.

Good episode. And I guess it makes sense that he beat Gremlin in base Fire Style, and I get what they were doing with that, but I'd rather it have been in Infinity, just because that is Haruto's own form/magic/style that he created. Also, Infinity seemed way weaker than usual, without the magic barrier, without super speed, and all the other powers he magically forgot he had. I also thought how they handled Koyomi was well done. Either way, I thoroughly enjoyed Wizard (even though there's more, it's technically filler) and thought it was overall great, and that the good far exceeds the bad. Haruto was also pretty great and his supporting cast was fun (though I feel that some of them should have done more throughout the series).

OOO's ending is the only Rider climax I've been satisfied with so far.

I've been thinking that myself :lol.

Average at best end to the series.

While it didn't do anything to piss me off in its resolution like..well any other season of the show I've watched has, it also didn't really have much of any major..anything.

Like the other seasons were able to piss me off with pretty much resetting all of the big dramatic losses and events, Ryuki was especially bad about this even if the reset made some form of sense. Wizard just didn't have any events or losses like that to undo, save for Koyomi's death, which I never really felt.

Admittedly I enjoyed the final fight between Haruto and Sora, that final kick strike is everything a final attack of the series needs to be.

I think in a way I have similar feelings to Locke.

Wizard is what got me into Kamen Rider. I remember seeing an ad for it on some sidebar somewhere, probably TFW or HLJ or some place like that, and it piqued my interest. I had always liked watching reviews on the Kamen Rider figuarts, and knew little bits about the franchise, but never actually got interested in watching it until now. I want to love this season more than I do, but in the time it has aired its run I've watched a few other seasons and I think that they all were just..better, Ryuki especially, which is honestly probably one of my favorite shows of all time. I just feel...mixed emotions and overall indifference to the season ending.

I don't know, I just don't feel the same about Koyomi bucking the kicket now like I did the last episode. I mean, it's not like he kicked Gremlin into the sun. Shoulda saved that for the finale. It's almost like Wizard lost steam about halfway through the series. Actually, let me rephrase that, it's like there were two story arcs, with episode 1-23 being the first arc with Phoenix, and the remaining belonging to Fueki's descent. I've got to say though, the last parting lines between Gremlin and Haruto were flawless. That's the gravitas that the series had needed all along. Here we have what could have been a fairly realistic scenario of a serial killer becoming your worst nightmare. Sora was a soulless thing even before he lost his mortal life the first time, and Haruto's finishing him off wasn't just a wish of Koyomi's. I'm sure his prior victims would have seen it as justice as well.

However, I did really enjoy the twists. I still think that all of the characters were poorly slotted into their respective roles, with Koyomi being the ultimate Mary Sue of (possibly) all of Kamen Rider lore. Maybe once we peel back the premiere of Gaim, we'll have something a little more hardcore, but it seems that the whole premise of Kamen Rider is to have some form of action, mixed with enough levity to make it a kids show.

I really hope Gaim ends up being more of what I am looking for in Kamen Rider and less the Kamen Rider spinoff of Kyoryuger it looks like on the surface.

Other than that they both include dancing in some shape or form, I don't really understand how you reached that conclusion.

The dancing, and the whole fruit ninja gimmick makes it seem much more...well, aimed at kids ala Kyoryuger, than I personally like.

It did suffer a bit of Fourze syndrome in this regard, huh? I loved those first 25 or so episodes. The final fight with Phoenix was epic, the show seemed to have a good grasp on what it was, the information it fed was slow but steady, the Gate's of the week had yet to fall into the agonising repetition of 'the asshole of the week'.

Then suddenly half way through the show kinda remembered that they wanted to have a wider plot for this show, while ticking as many Rider boxes as physically possible while still retaining its own personal sense of identity.

So what we got was a secondary Rider who was totally useless until like the last five episodes, we continued the Gate of the week format despite by this point the focus being taken entirely away from the Gate's, Phoenix was replaced in such a fashion that it felt insanely awkward and clunky and then the 'oh shit we have like ten episodes, wrap this shit up wrap this shit up!'

Bleh.

Well we watched episodes 49-51 tonight, and from an action point of view, they were pretty awesome. From a story point, they were the most predictable sack of **** ever!!! My god, what the hell happened? We went from the build up of something great to the final 6 episodes of crap. The series as a whole was good, but it has been knocked down in rank from being better than OOO to being behind it. This series just did not know what it wanted to be and played everything safe.

I have no complaints about Haruto, as he felt the closest to a Showa rider compared to all of the Heisei riders, but it is the rest of the characters where things fell flat. Koyomi was pretty much useless for a block of 30 episodes. Shunpei is one of the worst characters ever. Rinko is one of the worst detectives ever. And Medusa, my god, I won't even get into how much of a waste she was. At least Phoenix and Gremlin made up for her, but she had about as much purpose in the show as Shunpei.

The story of the show could have been told in 20 episodes. Hell, they should have built up the additional wizards back in the early twenties, given them legitimate looking costumes, and built up the Philosopher's Stone Sabbat as an opposing force against the Phantoms so much earlier in the series. As it turned out, that whole portion felt rushed. They could have easily spent less time doing Gate of the Week plots and more on the actual Gates Turned to Wizard plots.

I was absolutely loving this show for a while, but there is so much potential with it that it is easily the weakest series in the Post-Decade era. I did love how Chimera set Beast free, but of course he is going to find him in the next cross over movie just so he can return, and that is something I am sick of. As much as I love cross overs, I don't want the evolution of the characters to be restricted to future movies. Not every rider needs to always be there just to please the fans of the shows.

Anyway, overall, I give Wizard a 6/10. The last several episodes did not completely ruin the show as series in the past have (555 and Kabuto), but they could have done A LOT more with them had they actually spent time to build this whole thing up months ago.

I just want to chime in that I LOVED LOVE LOVED how everything wrapped up, ever since Episode#40 I've been on this ride that ended so perfectly, sure overall as a show Wizard felt a bit like GoBusters, where they do much of nothing, but all the storyline converged to reveal the greater purpose, I truly feel that the last 11 episodes redeemed the series as a whole for me.

lol Since I felt the last 6 episodes kind of pushed the series back. I also would not even say it was like Go-Busters, because unlike Go-Busters, Shunpei was still not as annoying as the Buddyroids and the characters were not half dimensional.

I agree, I thought Wizard's ending was shit. Way too much was happening over a tiny space of time, that none of it had any time to have any sense of purpose or meaning. Honestly with all the stuff that comes out of nowhere, to steal the focus, and vanish again you'd be forgiven for thinking the last ten episodes were from another show entirely, hell some of the characters, most noticeably Beast, were like characters from another show. It was just bad.

A 6/10 sounds about right, yeah. I disagree with some of your criteria, but my overall assessment is about on par. I might bump it up to a 6.5, but that's only because I really, really like Haruto.

The wrap of the series certainly pushed it down a peg for me, as it gave us a glimpse of all the potential the show had, then ripped it violently out of our hands. Why we weren't focusing on Koyomi, the Philosophers Stone, the Sabbat and Fueki's decent into grief sparked madness from the beginning is truly beyond me, as for whatever reason for about forty episodes the show was nothing to do with any of that, then in the last ten or so episodes the show decided it was about all of that, and nothing else. I felt like I was in another show with the same cast.

You know, the more I think about what I said earlier, the more it should have been. Instead of having Haruto have four forms which also had their own upgrade forms, he should have been fire only and each additional wizard sans Beast were given the same suit that looked like Haruto, but related to whatever element they had. It is just overkill and shows the lack of planning Toei had with this show. And then they could have had each of the wizards get their own dragon form, which could combine with Haruto for All Dragon before he upgraded to Infinity. For example, they could have brought in the user of the water ring earlier in the series, and had him be the one who defeated Phoenix (regardless of how awesome his final battle with Haruto was) given he has water as his base. Have Medusa's sister come with, gain the Earth ring, and she defeats Medusa after a really nice build up of why Medusa is weak to the Earth element (she does turn people to stone after all, use that as a weakness). And then have Gremlin be vulnerable to air and be defeated by the Hurricane ring bearer. Wiseman gets defeated via All Dragon while the White Wizard is defeated by Infinity.