Summary: Love is in the air as it seems everyone but Haruto is meeting beautiful ladies. At least he has his donuts.

Aquagaze’s Thoughts:  This week, Kamen Rider Wizard once again takes a nice spin on its own rules. No stereotypical “girl seduces the main character but is actually a villain” set-up, as last week’s preview anticipated, but the introduction of a character much more interesting than that. Manami is our first morally ambiguous Gate, and I would be surprised if her scamming antics were not somehow related to this crippling to fear of death this week’s Phantom aims to exploit. Of course, Haruto, being the hero he is, does not fall for that evil girl’s malicious deceiving (bit of an accidental busted moral there), yet still decides to save her from the Phantom, even though she is a con artist (that’s a nice moral, though). I don’t really blame him for being a pure and incorruptible spirit due to the fact that he is the hero of a kids’ show, but his lack of character remains the only thing Kamen Rider Wizard manages to disappoint me in.

Oddly enough, the cheesy rubber suit fight sequences have become the part I enjoy the least by now. Not that they are anything short of awesome, but the plot clearly hogs the spotlight for now. This episode saw some toying around with Wizard’s Land Style, including manly drill mode.  Sadly enough, despite fighting an entire battle in a fountain, Water Style remains unused. I guess efficiency isn’t exactly Haruto’s strong point. Fountains are surprisingly present in this episode, though. After the battle in the fountain, another imposing waterworks device stars in the background during a particularly comical scene. In general, the backgrounds and settings in Kamen Rider Wizard are colourful and well varied, rather than that same old abandoned factory or barren stone landscape the Power Rangers fight out their battles in.

Whoa, only now I made my first Power Rangers comparison? (Zigg’s note – You did this in the very first post) I’m starting to turn into an actual toku fan!

Dragonzigg’s Thoughts: This week Wizard gets nicely subversive with the concept of true love, which leads to some pretty interesting twists in this week’s episode. Though it’s obvious that Shigeru, Shunpei and the Donut shop assistant are all in love with the same woman, the fact that they’ve all bought stuff from her didn’t immediately spring to the forefront of my mind (helped by the fact that it’s not revealed Shigeru bought a ton of crap from her until later). In fact, the setup initially seems that she’s the Phantom, some sort of PG-rated seductress. Her eventual revelation of the gate is also an important crux for Wizard and one I’m glad they’re putting forward early – not all of our gates are going to be nice people. Manami isn’t out and out evil, more misguided, and clearly with tragedy in her past, but she’s still a swindler, and it’s a good move on the show’s part to make it apparent not all of our Gates will be angels waiting to be preyed upon.

Elsewhere, there’s a lot of action in this episode, but none of it is super inspired. The DRILL power is dumb in the best possible way, but the first appearance of Land Style since the opening episode didn’t really offer any additional goodies, and the two fights in this episode are pretty by the numbers, though there’s some cool moves on display. I do like the savvy of the Phantom this week though – as he points out, he doesn’t need to fight Wizard and in fact running away and leaving his victim to stew in her own fear is the perfect option. Haruto is still a worryingly blank slate character wise, and Koyomi (understandably) moves into the background after her big focus episodes, meaning this is by and large an episode a little light on exploring our cast. Still, it’s solid entertainment, and the reveal of Manami’s intriguing past next week is a decent hook.

Random Observations

• Anybody who’s seen Kamen Rider Den-O will instantly recognise Manami as the titular hero’s adorable coffee loving sister Airi.
• Even by toku standards, Haruto flying around in Hurricane Style and shooting everything but the villain was pretty stupid.
• The real star of this episode is that waterfall in the park. So awesome!
• Kind of convenient there’s a massive service tunnel underneath a wood, isn’t it?
• We’ve got some more details on the annual Rider team-up movie. This year’s installment will be called Kamen Rider X Kamen Rider Wizard and Fourze: Movie Wars Ultimatum and will allegedly see Wizard team up not only with his immediate predecessor Fourze, but also Kamen Riders Double, Accel, OOO, Birth and Meteor for a massive multi-Rider battle!