[Kamen Rider Die]

KAMEN RIDER WIZARD EPISODE 52 - "THE KAMEN RIDER RINGS"
KAMEN RIDER WIZARD EPISODE 53 - "NEVERENDING STORY"




It’s a cute little story about the anxiety of puberty, which is a tricky topic for Kamen Rider to cover.

It makes sense to try, though. The kids watching this show are only a few years removed (if that) from a massive upheaval in their lives. Hormones are going to flood their brains, their bodies are going to change drastically, and they’ll come out the other side completely transformed. They’ll be unrecognizable to themselves, and that’s going to be scary.

But, y’know, it’s a process that you have some control over. If you hold onto the lessons you learned as a kid, there’s no reason you can’t be a good person. Kamen Riders have harnessed darkness to fight for justice, so, like, there’s no reason you can’t become a not-horrible teenager. All you need is hope!

So a story where a kid is terrified to grow up, because growing up means he’ll turn into something he doesn’t understand? I’m into that. Kamen Rider shows usually stick to Growing Up metaphors that are more about pre-pubescent concerns: respecting your elders, seeing things through, honesty, sacrifice, etc. To have someone attempt a story where a kid is afraid of how he’s going to change into an adult, that works for me. That’s some Hibiki stuff, you know? Not really a major part of these shows' storytelling tricks.

The metaphor of this story was fun, but it’s the structure that really had me excited.



This is a Decade story. It’s 100% a Kamen Rider Decade two-parter, just produced three years later. It’s a story about Wizard’s themes and conflicts – hope, despair, Koyomi being worthless to the story and always in need of rescue – but shuffled, rearranged. It’s even got Tsukasa and a kid version of a Rider, so it’s not exactly being subtle about what it’s doing. (Decade flat-out says that this is the World of Wizard!) It’s about using Haruto’s personal growth to help a different Rider overcome a thematically-similar trauma. There’s a gigantic Rider War-esque finale! Just… new Decade episodes, man. YES.

Really fun to have Tsukasa in this story about whether Kamen Riders are evil if they drew their powers from evil, because he does not care about binary concepts like Good and Evil even a little bit. Tsukasa’s moral ambiguity and general exhaustion with *gestures broadly* all of this makes him a fun foil for Amadam’s attempts to induce despair in Riders. It’s a very Tsukasa solution to an existential threat: not caring about a villain’s perspective. Tsukasa’s been good, and he’s been evil, and it’s nothing that’s inherent to his power. It’s all choices. It’s up to people to decide, not something baked into them at conception. We aren’t destined to be anything other than ourselves, and it’s up to us what that means. That’s some solid Decade theming right there.

It’s, of course, written by the guy who was the original Decade showrunner. It’s got the same pros and cons as those early Decade episodes. It’s nailing the themes of Wizard while sort of punting on its characters and relationships. Rinko and Shunpei are great, but they’re almost brand-new characters. (Rinko is always great, though! I loved her extra-aggressive take on her character.) Kid Haruto and Kid Koyomi are representations of the story’s emotional content, not fully-formed characters. Nitou’s appearance is some hand-wavey time travel stuff. It’s all fun, but it’s not a great finale for Wizard.

Which, who’s expecting that? The tone of this all is very Extra Summer Movie, where it’s just about telling a quick, light, guest-star-heavy story. And it’s great at that! Tons of costumes, some jaw-dropping long-take fight choreography, and even a debut:



GAIM! And also, Actual Kota! Very little interaction with him as a specific kind of hero (it’s the standard I Heard Someone Needed Help stuff), but I did appreciate the call-back to Wizard’s debut in the Fourze, where he learns what a Kamen Rider is, but now he’s the one explaining it to the next Rider. That sort of baton-passing, I’m a mark for it. I like that rare moment where a Kamen Rider is fully-grown, and able to be the adult for another Rider who’s about to start their journey.

And Haruto gets to be that twice in this story, to both Gaim and a younger, alternate version of himself. (It’s bonkers to me that the story saves Kid Haruto’s name until the very end. Once you know the girl is Koyomi, and this kid has a Wizard belt, why wouldn’t you assume it’s Haruto?) He gets to bring hope to other Riders, which is as Wizard-but-Decade as I can imagine.

This was nice. It was a nice story to come back to after an unexpected toku break, and it’s a nice one to start a year with. It genuinely brought me the hope I needed!