Recap: With the destruction of Dragon, Haruto is no longer a Wizard. As he and Koyomi mull over what this means for their respective futures, Kousuke attempts to track down Legion.

Zigg’s Thoughts: The episode where the hero loses his powers is a trope not just in tokusatsu but in all fiction, so it’s a little difficult to bring a fresh spin to it. That said, I think Wizard does a pretty decent job here. The major advantage it has is the Koyomi angle, and the fact that by losing his magic Haruto has more than just himself to worry about. As a result, there’s not too much anguished emo moping – sure, Haruto’s kind of out of it for a bit but he never descends into whining and he gets some pretty strong scenes to help justify his state. I like the scene with the kids in the park more – it’s subtle and understated, something which Kamen Rider obviously lacks for most of the time, and the older brother delivers a nice performance that works well alongside a less intense Shunya Shiraishi. The scene with Koyomi on the shore is a bit more bombastic and hammy, but still works, mostly because that sort of over-the-top performance fits this setting and Makoto Okunaka sells it pretty well. It’d be even stronger if, you know, Koyomi had had anything to do in the plot recently.

The non-Haruto wing of the plot suffers because of this intense focus on him though. Now that his powerup honeymoon is over, Kousuke can get back to doing what he does best – namely, jobbing to the monster of the week. Granted, he gets some good hits in first, but Legion just immobilises him and wanders off at the end, and it’s pretty rubbish watching Beast just be able to do nothing once again. He continues to be the weakest aspect of the show. Speaking of Legion, he’s still effectively creepy but it’s a shame we don’t get to see or know more of him this week. Given the ominous buildup and the way the other Phantoms seemed to be wary of him, I’d expect some more backstory about how he became such a rogue, but instead he’s basically relegated to another disposable villain.

Ironically, what I feel is the weakest aspect of this episode is also its main point for existing – the introduction of Wizard’s ultimate form, Infinity Style. Let’s go with the good first – the costume looks fantastic, in exactly the sort of this-is-so-goofy-its-amazing fashion Rider super modes should be, and it’s a million times better than the dumb CGI of All Dragon Style. But the actual gaining of the power is curiously underwhelming and basically boils down to ‘you get your powers back because you wished for it enough’. Granted, it’s dressed up a bit as ‘your strength of heart revived me’ but I still feel it’s something of a cheap way to gain a powerup, and we don’t even get a very dramatic scene to supplement it. Also, that belt just needs to shut the hell up already. It was dramatic the first time it said INFINITY, but after the twentieth time I was wishing it had stayed destroyed. The fight is kind of lame as well, although given this is probably a function of not being in a god-damn quarry I’ll happily take it.

With the long game of powerups finally complete, Wizard can now move to focus purely on story in the back third. It’s going to be interesting to see how well they’ll do – there’s some fascinating groundwork laid, and several cool hints given as to a possible future direction in this very episode. The show will need to step its characterisation writing up a gear though, but there’s still time for that. For now, enjoy the pretty sparkles. There’s plenty of them to go round.

Random Observations

• I don’t care if this is a kid’s TV show and I don’t care if it’s a toy – you can’t use a sword blade as an axe handle, end of. The entire weapon is sort of lame actually, the flashing lights making it even more toylike than these things usually are.
• I feel sorry for the poor guy whose job it is to polish that costume.
• Whatever Gremlin knows about the Philosopher’s Stone, it’s clearly enough to hold considerable sway over Wiseman. While I don’t think Medusa working for Gremlin will make much of a difference functionally, it’s definitely a very interesting new personal dynamic between the two.
• The White Wizard seems unhappy with Haruto regaining his powers, despite the fact he’s been trying to build him up all along. Why? The suspicions that he’s actually Wiseman are becoming stronger again.
• What sort of surgery has you perfectly OK days before and perfectly alright just after?
• The fact that Infinity Style leaves rainbows whenever he moves just makes me miss JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure all the more.
• Since Super Hero WarZ is now out, Toei have adopted their usual ‘The longer you wait, the more we spoil’ style of marketing in the opening credits. I hated the first film and have little interest in this one, but I have to admit it was sort of cool seeing Haruto fighting King. Also, Gai!