This review may contain spoilers
3 2 1 Nap Time!
If you are a fan of Kamen Rider, you will inevitably be recommended Kamen Rider Wizard, and it is overwhelmingly going to have to do with the fight choreography. The use of weaponry and kick-based fighting to work within the gimmick of the series brings unique fighting styles to the protagonists and leads to some interesting and fun fight scenes. And that's totally true! Wizard has fun action scenes, a neat gimmick, and I'll admit the belt sounds are fun to me with the statements of "PLEASE" or "NOW". It's a neat show aesthetically.
Unfortunately, I think everywhere else is where the show begins to falter. Funnily enough, I feel this series has a lot of the same issues that Fourze does. The plot of Wizard involves a lot of characters sort of idly twiddling their thumbs saying everything is going according to plan while the monsters get washed into next week (because episodes are typically two-parters). What plot we do get that could be seen as intriguing happens all at once near the end of the series. It makes the show kind of a slog at times, especially in the episodes around 30 to 40 as there's some really really rough ones in there. To top it all off, the ending of the series itself doesn't even get to be what sends off the show, as the true sendoff is a two-part advertisement for Superhero Taisen and Kamen Rider Gaim.
The characters we get are, for the most part, not great. I think the Secondary Rider is more fun than the main one, and the donut sellers are icons of course. But the comedic relief of this show tends to be some of the things I hate in these sorts of shows - big stupid funny faces made at the camera while yelling and being stupid. It barely if ever works for me, and Wizard's combination of this style of writing along with the slow, plodding pace, makes the whole series feel difficult to engage with. Fun suit designs and good combat interspersed with boring writing, uninteresting characters, and unfunny comedy. I think the fight choreography makes it a little bit more entertaining to me than Fourze, but not by much in all honesty.
Unfortunately, I think everywhere else is where the show begins to falter. Funnily enough, I feel this series has a lot of the same issues that Fourze does. The plot of Wizard involves a lot of characters sort of idly twiddling their thumbs saying everything is going according to plan while the monsters get washed into next week (because episodes are typically two-parters). What plot we do get that could be seen as intriguing happens all at once near the end of the series. It makes the show kind of a slog at times, especially in the episodes around 30 to 40 as there's some really really rough ones in there. To top it all off, the ending of the series itself doesn't even get to be what sends off the show, as the true sendoff is a two-part advertisement for Superhero Taisen and Kamen Rider Gaim.
The characters we get are, for the most part, not great. I think the Secondary Rider is more fun than the main one, and the donut sellers are icons of course. But the comedic relief of this show tends to be some of the things I hate in these sorts of shows - big stupid funny faces made at the camera while yelling and being stupid. It barely if ever works for me, and Wizard's combination of this style of writing along with the slow, plodding pace, makes the whole series feel difficult to engage with. Fun suit designs and good combat interspersed with boring writing, uninteresting characters, and unfunny comedy. I think the fight choreography makes it a little bit more entertaining to me than Fourze, but not by much in all honesty.
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