Wizard Episode 52: "The Kamen Rider Rings" Discussion
 

I know I haven't even seen the raw for 52 yet, but dat preview for 53! 14 Heisei final form riders plus Gaim!!! Some of them are obscured by the weird angle but they're all gonna be there! Hell yes!

I've been calling it for ages that Rising Ultimate was Kuugas and Super TaToBa was OOO's :D
http://imageshack.us/a/img69/7097/th3o.jpg

Dude, I posted that earlier on my Tumblr cause I was so excited ^_^. Especially seeing OOO as Super TaToBa. I mean, it's no PuToTyra (even though recent movies make it clear OOO has all his medals bar Imagin and Shocker.) I'm surprised that Liner and Rising Ultimate are there though, you'd think if they did that, it'd be Liner and Ultimate or Super Climax and Rising Ultimate.

I guess technically the argument can be made that Liner is the true final form because it's Ryotaro at the apex of power he earned for himself, physically wielding the Imagin. But I had always considered it to be Super Climax. But I'm cool with this. Very col with Rising Ultimate Kuuga.

Rising Ultimate is AU Kuuga's
And the only medals OOO has are the Super ones and the broken Taka, anyway.

Yeah, I guess that's a given. That and if we are going by Decade actually being here (since he also shows up out of suit), that Kuuga is Onodera instead of Godai, hence Rising Ultimate instead of normal Ultimate.

I feel bad for CJX, Faiz Blaster and Blade King Form, you can barely see them in that pic (CJX is near Super TaToBa, Blade King's armor can barely be seen behind Decade and Faiz Blaster is standing behind Decade) :lol

Not true about the OOO part, seeing as he has Super, it's clear he has the other combos due to MegaMax. Ultimatum made it kinda blurry by having the BuraKaWani medals though.

Dear lord those Riders... Guys, is it gonna spoil anything for me to watch these before I get done with Wizard? :lol

Yes, because the episode takes place after the end of Wizard's series and opens with something relating to the ending.

Dang. Well Im at 20 now, so I should be done before episode 53 airs. Huzzah! Another Rider under my belt!

They certainly messed up the difference between supersonic speed and light speed in this episode, but a cool episode though, at least all the riders shined instead of pure randomness like All-Riders vs Dai Shocker.

And Gaim's slash is.........JUICY!!!!

Gaim debuted like a BOSS.

Ultimatum was kind of weird, though, and you can probably argue that it wasn't Eiji's real body, just his spirit.

I definitely saw it that way, especially since W switched to and from FangJoker so easily.

So I haven't watched anything besides the first episode of Wizard, I'm going to be horribly spoiled by watching this aren't I? Because I don't really care I really want to watch it.

Probably not a ton. The show's main plot is over, but while there will likely be some references to what happened I doubt it will be too spoilery.

Dang it!
One day, one day.

I loved this episode, simply because it seemed to just revel in its absurdity :lol seeing straight-faced Haruto react to all the AU characters and campy villain were brilliant, as was his deadpan "I don't think so" response to the "So this is Wizard's world line" :lol Gaim made quite an entrance too.

Also, could AU Haruto be any more obvious?

Holy crap this episode sucked.
Like, jesus. Gaim's debut was practically the only thing that saved this episode. The Riders being constructs of the Rider rings is so boring. They kinda sorta have memories of the actual Riders but are blindly loyal, like Di-fucking-End's summons. The kids were annoying, Koyomi is back, and I was bored to tears.

And oh boy. Tsukasa comes back next episode, and lemme guess, the Rider group shot are all Rider ring constructs (Sans Decade and Wizard), not the actual characters pulled to this universe via Decade's BS powers. Riveting.

I haven't been watching Wizard since the film director episode, and they've made it so you didn't really need to follow Wizard in order to understand what the episode was about.

Man that was a lot of fun! And after Wizard's lacklustre finale, damn refreshing.

That was a really neat episode. I liked that they grabbed a Nitou from a world where he still had his powers to dodge the pesky Chimera issue. After all we all know he won't actually get his powers back until Wizard/Gaim Wars.

The plot while a little weak still provided a fun story. Guarantee the kid with Koyomi is that worlds Haruto. And I know a lot of people will be upset that the actors wouldn't/couldn't reprise their roles outside of Decade but at least they let the awesome suit actors do the voice work this go around instead of just shambling about with no lines. I saw a qutoe from one of the producers yesterday explaining why they brought Decades' actor in:
:lol

I loved this episode. It was on all the crack and I absolutely adore it for that.

I honestly expect this arc to conclude with Haruto waking up in the desert next to his bike, recovering from some kind of rancid-donut-induced hallucination. It is the only thing that will make any of this make even a little bit of sense.

Also, as a side note, I am really happy to see Tsukasa again. Decade's not a good show, but it still has a very special place in my heart. The first episode of Kamen Rider I ever watched was the first episode of Decade and even though I followed that up by watching every other subbed Heisei series before getting to episode two, I still consider it the show that got me into the franchise and I still have fond memories of finally working my way up to Decade and getting to see it. So yeah, I'll always welcome more Tsukasa and the nostalgia he brings with him.

I voted for poor.
Honestly, those episodes are like a gaiden special, and damn it's poor, except for The Rule Of Cool.
I was expecting something original (this is a premiere 'after the end' for a modern KR serie after all), like a transition to Gaim. But a giant glowing orb transporting heroes to an alternate universe because...
I don't know, I even questioned myself what I will do if executives assign me to write a script for a 10 year old audience, where I must reuse arbitral characters. I think I would have used Decade as a plot device. He came to wizard world for the macguffin, and the big bad would have been a kind of rogue phantom summoner.

So I'm safe just forgetting this special ever happened and can just ignore it/not bother watching it?

I know I'm not one to talk, but I like that even when Wizard is just trying to have some fun, people still criticise the show as if they were expecting this special to be anything other than a long string of random nonsense with fun turned up to eleven.

^ Exactly. What were people expecting? All the original cast members from every episode to show up? As it stands, we got a good selection of every monster from each series, and I was very happy to see what a slow fight versus clock/speed up would look like. Each of the prior riders not only got at least a line in (Double and Fourze's banter made me laugh because it's exactly what the two of them would do), and we got to see what a fully powered Gaim could do. The blade gun concept is not just nice, I want to see that happen in real life. Make it happen someone. I even appreciated that they gave some proper nods to Ryuki and Hibiki.

I just think people expect there to be some sort of logic behind Rider storylines, where they have a magical happy ending to their favorite characters, and everyones appearance is given some Star Trek pseudo-physics theory to explain why they're there. Maybe it's because I've been watching the Kamen Rider series for a year, but from an outsiders perspective, I already knew that where this series, much like other sentais, it's not there to make sense. It's there to entertain. Or maybe I'm wrong and just like Gaim, there's a seedy underside to the juiciness of it all.

*Shrugs* I didn't like it. Plain and simple.
What was I expecting? Absolutely nothing. I had no expectations for this special, and they were met.

I rather have had..well pretty much anything other than a crossover special to close out Wizard. I mean I know the show had a proper ending prior, and one that didn't quite piss me off as other seasons, but I rather have had two real episodes of the show instead of them using it to introduce a rider I have very little faith in.

People just refuse to like Wizard, and so if they can find a problem, they'll poke it until they make a hole. I was personally fine with simply being entertained, I'd expect more from the core series, but for an episode to just waste some time it did more than enough for me.

So, without watching any of Wizard since I stopped, I checked this out figuring it'd be self-contained fun. I'm only a bit in, bit while it's cool to see the suits running arund, what are those voices? I'm surprised Shotaro's actor didn't come back, but I guess if they can't get all of them why bother with a select few? BECAUSE W IS AWESOME THAT'S WHY. Also, Fourze isn't the same actor. Especially weird.

Also, I see Haruto has not improved, acting-wise, but he's freaking Oscar-level compared to those kids. I know Kamen Rider is a kids thing, but kids suuuuck no matter what.

But it is really cool to see these suits again. That's worth admission alone.

Save us! Save us! Save us! Save us! Save us! Save us! Save us! Save us! Save us! Save us! Save us! Save us! Save us! Save us! Save us! Save us! Save us! Save us! Save us! Save us!

This episode, a summary.

Putting Clock-Up Kabuto and Accel Faiz fighting worms together was pretty clever. Oh yeah I'm commenting on this as I watch it because meatballs take a long time to cook.

EDIT: BTW, I finished this earlier. I gave it a "poor" because it just stopped when things were getting good! It spent too much time talky-talking about the rules of this obviously silly and for-fun world, and not enough time with Rider hijinks. I'm afriad I can't see the point in taking a joke so seriously. This feels like the first half of a single hour-long special, but because they decided to air both halves as seperate episodes this feels really weak. But hey, I'm pretty sure that was Momo's voice for fake-Den-O (kind of lame they aren't the real riders since, as Matrix said, Decade's entire gimmick is crossing into AUs and bringing riders into the fight. He's a walking crossover button) and Gaim was aaawwweeesssooommmeee. But... I already saw his scene by itself, so I was dissapointed he didn't do more. But whatever, only need to wait a week.

I enjoyed this, it really felt like an episode of Decade (with a movie style next Rider intro thrown in). I would have liked more Tsukasa, but it looks like that's next week.

Actually Save us! Oooh, Riders! Save us! Oooh, Riders! Save us! Oooh, Riders! Save us! Oooh, Riders! Save us! Oooh, Riders! Save us! Oooh, Riders! Would be more accurate:p

It's a total tribute towards the epicness of Wizardriver, just more annoying and least reasonable.

But I like Wizard, I like the strong final arc, I like to see the previous Riders again. I was complaining about the writing. They just... gave up, they don't even tried at this point.

:lol

Why are you complaining about the writing here though? It's just padding time before Gaim starts, what were you expecting from a Rider cross over like this? I just....people are so confusing.

Well, it is a different writer than normal and it was thrown together pretty much at the last minute. Some sloppiness is to be expected.

Under those constraints, it's actually pretty cool that they were able to get an older Rider to return. And really , love him or hate him, you still have to give Masahiro Inoue some respect for how willing he always is to come back and strap the belt on again.

He just caries himself with an air of arogance and smug awesomeness that I can't resist. He just has it in him to sell his character no matter how unbelievable the circumstance. I always welcome his return as Decade.

See, it's obvious that the production crew just went "Screw it" and had fun with these last two episodes. The joke about the sudden jump cuts during fight scenes was hilarious and I like how they just decided to pull a Decade and make the world as far from Wizard's original world as possible. Not that the origin of this world world isn't interesting.