Summary: Shunpei runs into an old friend who’s now working at a traditional sweet shop, but business is tough and then there’s the prospect of a Phantom attack to deal with.

Aqua’s Thoughts: This episode was a nice return to form after the ambitious, but not always successful ’emotional’ episodes we’ve been having as of late. Great fun, great action, and a who-is-it twist that still does everything right. Last week’s preview seemed to imply that this would be a Shunpei-centered episode, but in the end, he did not show up that much, aside for his usual gags and dressing like a complete moron. This, oddly enough, makes him the most noticeable of the “Wizard buddies”. The downside to Wizard‘s Gate mechanic is that most of the episodes’ share of character moments will be usurped by the victim of the week, while the main cast — Haruto included — gets pushed to the side. Rinko suffers an extraordinary amount from this especially, being on screen for less than a whole minute during this episode.

Aside from that, this was a very entertaining, though fairly by-the-numbers episode. Gang meets Gate, wacky hijinks occur, Phantom attacks Gate, Phantom runs away, more wacky hijinks occur, Phantom attacks again, plot twist, new power, roll credits. It is a formula inherent to the genre, and one that — surprisingly enough — is still just as entertaining as it was back in episode 1, due to how well it is varied and played with. In the action department, the Hurricane Dragon Style was introduced without too big of a carnival, as the writers wisely decided that Haruto having to face an enemy he cannot defeat four times in a row would be way too tedious. We do get a cool THUNDER spell, as well as some nice, non crappy CGI-ish use of COPY. Besides, Wizard’s backhanded grip is badass.

Dragonzigg’s Thoughts: Wizard builds on the good work it did last week and pulls off another highly entertaining episode, taking their foot of the heavy emotional pedal they’ve been pressing for the last couple of weeks and instead stepping back into the same format they ran with for their first few episodes – namely, Phantom menaces random stranger. There can only ever really be two possible twists in such a setup, the identity of the Phantom or the identity of the gate. This episode actually uses both for a pretty well constructed reveal. While anyone who’s seen any of this show before should immediately spot the Phantom as the ‘too good to be true’ businessman, the store boss being the Gate genuinely took me by surprise. It’s helped by the fact that the assistant is Shunpei’s old friend, and since this is set up from the beginning to be a Shunpei centric episode, we’re predisposed to believe that it’ll focus on somebody close to him.

In fact, despite some lip service this is barely a Shunpei episode at all. He gets a funny Manju selling montage and gets kidnapped damsel-in-distress style at the end, but otherwise he’s relatively unimportant. The sidelining of the supporting cast is a nagging issue with Wizard, and one which it needs to address quickly. With Rider #2 getting closer (all past shows suggest he’ll show up somewhere before episode 20) and likely to take the lion’s share of character time when he does, we really need a bit more from Rinko and Koyomi, both of whom are relegated to super brief cameos in this episode. The best Rider shows work because we care just as much about the people out of costume as the ones punching monsters – think of Den-O‘s bickering team or OOO‘s strong central partnership. At the moment there’s nothing on that level in Wizard, and it’s something the show needs to be proactive about going forward.

Returning to the good stuff, there’s some excellent action in this episode. I’ve got to particularly commend the exceptional stuntwork in the COPY sequence – only by freeze-framing can you tell it’s actually two different Wizards, as opposed to the CGI doubling that was used the first time we saw this power. The big reveal is of course Hurricane Dragon style, and I’ve got to say I’m digging it a bit more than the Flame equivalent  I think it’s a combination of the bigger eyes, the shoulders and the fact that the green isn’t quite so garish as the red.  It also comes along with a pretty awesome THUNDER attack, which I suspect may not stay Hurricane exclusive, though we’ll have to see.

This was overall a fine, highly enjoyable episode of Wizard, though I do hope we get a little more character empathy soon. Next week looks to be another major milestone as Wizard takes on Medusa in battle for the first time, complete with unnerving tentacle hair. Fun!

Random Observations

• As good as the COPY sequence is, when Wizard first activates it you can clearly see the copy is substantially taller than he is. This appears to be bad sfx rather than a taller actor, as they move identically. By the time he dismisses the copy, they’re the same size.
• Wikipedia tells me that Manju is  ‘a popular traditional Japanese confection. There are many varieties of manjū, but most have an outside made from flour, rice powder and buckwheat and a filling of an (red bean paste), made from boiled azuki beans and sugar.’
• The first of many ‘let’s put an advert in the credits!’ opening sequences confirm the return of all the post-Decade riders in Movie Wars Ultimatum, as well as a surprise appearance for Kamen Rider Nadeshiko from Movie Wars Megamax.