[AgileSiamang7]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Suzu

No, Wizard wasn't like Fourze. He solved all of the conflicts with crying and plot conveniences, his secondary rider was mostly nothing more than a comic relief because the author didn't want to have him on the show and unlike in Gaim, the female Rider is pretty boring and lifeless.

Also it tries to make us like one of the most terribly written and acted characters aka Koyomi.

But seriously, Wizard is kind of a mixed bag for me. It had some good points, like cool designs, overall good music (if you can get over the incredible Rider Girls-heavy vocal tracks) and pretty neat concepts. It even had a mostly great group of actors.
But the thing is, it's lacking quite a lot. The story is mostly pretty uninteresting due to issues in pacing- in the first three episodes, a whole bunch of info is stuffed right in your face and what follows are a dozen of episodes filled with random events of boredom. Most good sideplots end up being pretty useless and as said before, whenever the main writer has to write an episode with Kamen Rider Beast, he is degraded to a terrible comic relief. From what I know, the author didn't want to include a secondary rider and he sure makes you feel that. Character development overall is a major problem of the show as it doesn't really happen that much. And the show tries to build an emotional finale by focusing on a character with whom you could barely even connect because Koyomi was rather useless most of the time (partly because her actress could rarely be on set because she was so busy)- I mean, Koyomi could sense Phantoms, but she rarely ever made use of that ability. Most of the time, she just stayed home and didn't do anything. And when she did something, she was usually whining about stuff.

To me, Wizard is one of the seasons that wasted the most potential. It could have been an awesome show... but it ended up failing in many aspects. Which is a pity, really.

Fourze tried to solve all his problem by acting like 99% of the people he meets can and will be his friends. The only honorable exception to this was Pyxis, but he was just a murderous high school creep. Gamou was content to destroy all of Japan, and Gentarou still chose to befriend him. I hate plot-saving tears as much as the next guy, but that is some skewed bullshit.

You want to talk wasted plot?

Fourze spent the last arc having the Horoscopes skip their initial Zodiart form because of the plot convenience that was Libra's rather lazily conceived super nova, getting rid of at least 5 plots involving Fourze not stopping a Zodiart's evolution in time, which would have made more sense with Ran's switch since she didn't want to join Gamou's group but her continued use could have caused the switch to evolve over time regardless of her intent. Erin's growing rage towards Yuuki could have been better used by having her refuse to be defeated before she's taken care of the "cheater", showing her resolve to become an astronaut is strong enough to trigger the change, but instead we get a standard monster of the week fair with Goto to Ran, with some minor character aspects highlighted on (we already knew JK was a false friend, why another two episodes highlighting that?).

Kengo is brought back through bullshit villain redeeming nonsense, and no Phillip's revival isn't the same, as then his last remaining relative had to sacrifice herself, giving it more of an impact as his only "real" family left are Shotaro and the Detective Agency. Gamou just felt bad so he revived a kid he killed, making it seem more like fixing a mistake on a quiz than bringing a person back to life.

Wizard's Infinity form was unimaginative bullshit, and didn't have as many cool abilities possible with it as Cosmic, but at least it was Haruto's own power, and didn't shut down if just one friend stopped being loyal. Really? It's so tied into the "power of friendship" that just one of your friends getting in your way causes it to malfunction?

Maybe Mayu was boring, but when I show her as opposed to Nadeshiko, it doesn't cause any new Kamen Rider viewers to ask "what the fuck is this? Why are they focusing so much on a teenage school girl's ass in a fight? Why is it just because she's a girl everything she does has to be 'cutsy'?" And unlike Marika, who I love regardless, Mayu's existence isn't dependent on following whatever guy she finds to be awesome. Sure, Mayu needed White Wizard to power her up, but she doesn't follow him around like some loyal servant they way Minato did Ryouma or Kaito. So I'll take independent (if not failing) and boring over awesome yet subservient.

Wizard was by no mean perfect, but dropping it to the lower regions of the Kamen Rider totem pole because it didn't live up to people's expectations is bullshit. The rider's didn't have the Inoue syndrome of fighting each other throughout the series, Wizard and Beast get that out of their systems rather early on (even W, my favorite, had Shotaro and Accel basically butting heads repeatedly for a while before Terui calmed down). Haruto isn't an arrogant ass like Tendou or Tsukasa while not being treated like the kid or idiot character like Shinji, Shouichi, or Shotaro/Eiji (half the time, which while occasionally fun does get annoying when the main protagonist is always treated like the dumbest in the crowd). Rinko actually tried to do things on her own and yeah, trusting Phoenix was dumb, but at least she made an effort to try and reason with a monster, and not always default to "he's bad, kill him", and while the Special Bureau part was barely picked up upon, unlike Fourze there really was an organization show, unlike the 2 man group that was the Anti-Zodiart League (complete with one actual Horoscope in said league).

I admit there are parts that I like about Fourze, as I do admit part of the reason I like Wizard is that it's attitude contrasts with Fourze's, which I've seen cause problems for people in real life when they act like everyone can just get along as if there aren't real differences people will never get over or set aside. But then I also like Wizard because it broke the limit of having only Two Riders (or just two types of Riders, counting Proto-Birth as to similar to Birth to be separate) with having at least 4 different riders, even if Mage is just a mix of White Wizard's advance style mixed with Sword-Gun fighting.

There are problems with every Rider season if you look, Wizard just has very vocal critics. GoseiWonder, decide for yourself if you want to give a go or not, but remember that people were dismissing Gaim as just a dumb fruit ninja season before it started, and now people may over hype it to Kouta's level of godhood. What people say about a show, especially what I say, may not match what you ultimately find when you choose to start it.