Check out mah new bling!
Haruto obtains two new Rings special thanks to the magic stone that they got courtesy of Agent Kizaki. Because of this, Shunpei becomes more pumped up in becoming a better assistant to Haruto and goes a bit annoying. Later, Shunpei meets his senior at seems that he is a target of the Valkyrie Phantom.
Shunpei is seriously annoying in this episode, so annoying that I am bothered what his purpose in this series is. I mean aside from being a victim in a story arc that ended up becoming a recurring character in the series. He is so annoying that Haruto needs to stop him every time he is trying to "comfort" someone who falls into despair... or his definition of despair.
While Haruto decides to chill in the usual donut place, Shunpei ends up meeting his senior who works in some sweets shop! Before reviewing this episode, I decided to check some forums (you know the one) and as it turns out, the boss of Shunpei's senior is that ramen stand guy from Kamen Rider Agito, the piano guy from Kamen Rider Den-O and that guy who played a lot of extras in the history of Kamen Rider franchise that end up of being the guy who had the worse fate or if he is lucky enough, the guy who did a couple of snarky comments, like what he did in Kamen Rider Agito!
While Shunpei's senior is delivering the sweets, he is attacked by a Phantom and during the process of his attack; he destroyed the package of sweets! Since he is attacked by the Phantom, it is best presumed that he is the Gate and he thinks that the best way to put him to despair is to destroy what is close to him, his job as an apprentice as a sweets maker. So yeah, Wizard appears and fights the Phantom but the Phantom leaves because he is done with his quota for the day. I guess that he is the type of Phantom who wants to slowly make the Gate fall into despair.
When they explained to the restaurant who is supposed to receive the sweets, one thing that surprised me is that the owner of the restaurant can't believe the story that a monster attacked them and destroyed the sweets! Seriously, the Kamen Riders are fighting monsters since 1971 and at one point, monster attacks are reported by the media just for the citizens to be aware to take care of themselves. As expected, they lost the job from the restaurant and this means that they lost a customer.
Because of this, Shunpei continues his streak of being that annoying sidekick as he tries his best to force anyone he sees to buy at least a couple of the sweets sold from the shop that he is carrying right now. By force, I am he will just place the sweets in a table and will ask for the payment coming from the guy he thinks is interested in buying one. What's more, his approach surprisingly worked because Wajima, Koyomi and Rinko were stunned had no choice but to buy his sweets! As for Rinko, she is forced to treat her co-workers sweets because they are now in her table and her co-workers saw those sweets!
But Shunpei's methods will not suffice to keep the sweets shop out of the red and to make matters worse for the sweets shop, one of their suppliers might be backing out if they cannot pay their bills! This is when some random guy that Shunpei meet offered them a really great deal; he will order 500 boxes of sweets for his shop. If you are businessman and see this guy, the first impression you will have is that he is one of those shady salesperson that is hard to trust but because they are desperate, they decided to accept his offer.
To commemorate this, the sweets shop boss decided to make a new manju that he called "Hope". On the day of delivery of the new manju, much to their surprise, the company that is supposed to order these sweets didn't order it! I knew it, the guy is a con artist but he is more than just a con artist, he is a Phantom! Because we are so used in seeing the Gate getting attacked by the Phantom the first time they will meet, I didn't expect that the Phantom for this arc is the boss! This made me analyze the Phantom's plan of slowly putting the Gate into despair. His plan is clever, he made him lose hope on something and give him hope on another thing and in one sweep, make him fall into despair by being a jerk at the end.
Since the Gate is actually the boss, Haruto rushes to the scene and fight the Phantom. Wizard used the Copy Ring in this episode and the first thing I notice is that the shot the scene in angle that looks a bit uneven. The second thing I notice is that when I paused the scene, I can't help but notice that the lighting looks a bit off and second, some marks that made the scene look like they shot it on a blue screen then crop it so that we will have two identical Wizards. Even if that scene looks like an obvious digital work, the fight featuring the Copy Wizard looks amazing because the second Wizard stunt double did a good job in copying the lead Wizard stunt double.
Since we have a new Wizard Ring, it is expected that they will use it in this episode and in this case, Wizard transformed into his Hurricane Dragon form! Just like the Flame Dragon one, the suit looks fantastic, no question about it. His new spell, the Thunder spell that he created using the Thunder Ring is really cool that it easily wiped out an army of Ghouls. Before he can display more of his new magic, Shunpei is kidnapped by the Phantom proving to us once again that he has no purpose in this series. Will Wizard save Shunpei next episode?
