Recap: Hobgoblin is seemingly dead, but all of his former victims have suddenly had unusual runs of good luck.

Aquagaze‘s Thoughts: Kousuke, you have superpowers. You can defeat the shady mobster types that are trying to beat you up. You can literally walk up to your friend who is trapped in a car that is about to explode, transform and use your superpowers to safe him. Heck, you even have a mant that gives you super strength! Yes, this is once again one of those episode in which everyone acts like a complete idiot for no other reason that the writers being lazy. Why do the gates all fall for the same trick twice? Why does Haruto get beaten down by the most stupid obstacles? Why does Gremlin have to go through such a ridiculously convoluted scheme for a plan that doesn’t even come close to driving the Gates to despair?

Yes, now that I think about it, what exactly was Gremlin’s plan? Have the ghost of Hobgoblin possess to make the extremely lucky first, then to take all that luck away from them hoping they are greedy enough bastard to be utterly wrecked by this? Kinda stretching it there, Sora. Heck, even “fear of death” would be more efficient. Oh, and since when are Phantoms able to come back to life as ghosts? How did Sora even know this? If the ghost can teleport, how where the Riders able to beat them with very slowly charged up kicks? Yeah, I am pretty certain half of these issues would not be as mind-boggling if this episode weren’t so damn bad.

Luckily enough, this episode had filler written all over it. Kousuke and his stupid friend promising they will stay besties forever and see each other again? Yeah, not gonna happen. With next episode promising higher stakes and some answers surrounding the mysterious Gremlin, let’s hope Kamen Rider Wizard can redeem itself. Only to probably fall flat on its face again afterwards. And get back up. And fall down again.

Random Observations

• It seems that a lot of people in the fandom hate Gremlin for various reasons. Strange, because he is one of the very few characters in this show I give a damn about.
• Rinko and Koyomi were pretty much nowhere to be seen once again. Apparently Koyomi’s actress has a busy schedule, but in that case you really shouldn’t cast her in a show that lasts for an entire year. Pity, because I like her performance.
• Beast needed Hyper form to beat an enemy Haruto could beat in regular form. Just sayin’.

Zigg’s Thoughts: Ugh. There’s not really much I can say in defence of this episode, which commits a multitude of sins in return for not much. Not only is it dull, predictable and agonizingly drawn out, it also combines two of my least favourite things in the world – kids humour and Japanese slapstick humour. The result might be one of the worst Wizard episodes yet, and that’s very disappointing after last week’s enjoyable romp.

Yet again it’s a Kousuke-centric episode that falls under the hammer, and that’s such a shame. The writing team have shafted the character so hard it’s difficult to see a way back for him, and here’s he’s weak, ineffectual and cliched. He’s not helped by Tsuchiya, who shows no nuance or resistance to his descent into the biggest dick imaginable, and the abruptness of his transformation to jerk and back is so sudden and so predictable it’s wearying. There’s ways to make hay with this plot arc, despite the fact that it’s a very old and well worn one, but here the presentation is about as basic as you can get, with little effort made to put any sort of ambiguity to the characters.

Meanwhile, Haruto is busy looking utterly stupid in his various battles against the ‘ghost’ hobgoblin. Maybe it’s just me, but I simply do not find the Japanese-style comedy hijinks on show funny, and instead they’re intensely grating to me. They also make Wizard look utterly useless and stupid – surely you could come up with something better than ‘I’m too unlucky to take a ring off my belt’? There’s nothing wrong with poking fun at your premise, but do it in a way that’s clever and in character – this is just lame.

In fact, lame pretty much sums up this episode. If there’s one redeeming feature, it’s the creepy interplay between Gremlin and Medusa at the beginning. The reveal that the next episode will focus around Gremlin and his mysterious past is encouraging and hopefully getting back to the meat of the plot will prevent another dud like this.

Random Observations

• The scene where Wizard steps in dog crap might be the single worst moment of the show so far, especially as they don’t even bother putting down fake crap!
• If you’ve got the bad guy caught in your massive magical hand, why not just crush him?
• The four way Rider Kick was admittedly pretty sweet.
• Production team, before you decide your villain should be a floating legless ghost, maybe consider how difficult that’s going to be to shoot during fight scenes.
• Tsuchiya’s wheels are not even close to being flash. While it’s understandable since they need to wreck the car in the next scene, it still stinks of cheapness.