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Kamen Rider Wizard japanese drama review
Completed
Kamen Rider Wizard
1 people found this review helpful
by Cegarth
Aug 11, 2024
53 of 53 episodes seen
Completed
Overall 3.0
Story 2.5
Acting/Cast 7.0
Music 9.0
Rewatch Value 2.5
Everything the show did well:
-The two main riders, Haruto and Nitou are constantly charismatic and pretty funny.
-Gremlin is a really memorable villain.
-Phoenix was a pretty entertaining villain.
-Action is consistently amazing.
-Some episodes can be really funny and endearing.
-Final arc cam be kind of interesting due to the reasoning behind the antagonist actions and the arc of the mages.
-The rings add very varied moveset of abilities for Wizard.
-Pretty good finale.
-The crossover epilogue is entertaining.
-The acting is overall pretty good.

Everything the show did bad:
-Nobody in the hero sidecast is compelling. Rinko and Shunpei while initially likeable, they barely get to actually do anything and their character arcs stay at a stalemate. Shigeru is never given enough of character or barely any semblance of a backstory. The 3 mages are an interesting concept, particularly Mayu backstory but all of this happens so late in the show that it feels really rushed and poorly executed. The donut shop are just gags characters. The only character that was given something was Koyomi, and even then she's mostly a plot device than an actual character.
-The Phantom are among the most boring villains in the franchise. They barely have anything interesting going on which makes the episodes feel pretty boring. This wouldn't be much of an issue if the sidecast had strong personalities to compensate but they really don't. And since most of the show is filler, them being boring monsters make the show generally feel like a drag.
-When the show finally moves the plot forward in the final arc, it's extremely rushed and tries to do too much at once making it feel really messy.
-Wiseman plan to achieve his goal is too conveluted.
-Medusa's reasoning for following Wiseman is kind of dumb.
-Despite Haruto and Nitou being likeable they barely get any proper backstory or character arc. They are just interesting enough to bring life into the show and have a great dynamic but they aren't a particularly amazing set of characters.
-Comedy can be very hit or miss.

Reasons for the show strenghts:
Director Nakazawa wanted to go all out in order cheer people up due to the earthquake and make you want to watch the show continously. The characters that secondary writer Komura focused were really entertaining.

Reasons for the show flaws:
Main writer Tsuyoshi Kida had scheduling issues which resulted in him barely writing or supervising the script. Producer Utsunomiya had secondary writer Junko Komura run the show on automatic without actually progressing the plot since he expected Kida to be back on time. On top of this Komura without supervision tends to only focus on a few characters, thus she only really focused on Haruto, Nitou and Gremlin. While this caused Gremlin to be a fantastic villain, everyone else got sidelined (It's unclear how many of Gremlin's ideas were made by Komura or were part of Kida's story draft but seemingly it was the latter?). Ultimately Komura ended up writing so much of the show that she's occasionally credited as Wizard main writer. Ultimately since Kido wasn't supervising we couldn't get that supposed "lovecraftian nature" he wanted to portray in the phantoms. The show would ultimately get extended but this happened so late the already rushed final arc was already in motion, which is why the finale ended up being a crossover.

Overall:
This is the most consistently boring show in the Kamen Rider franchise. And one cannot give it the benefit of being average due to even the story being rushed and conveluted in the final arc. I can only recommend this show if you REALLY like Haruto and Nitou, and if you REALLY like the action. If you like both enough, you can probably tank through the show while having a good time, but otherwise it will be an average watch at best and a bad one at worst for most people.
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