DAYUM
Because of the Phoenix Phantom's power, Haruto is quite worried if he can save the kid from despair. As Phoenix continues his attacks, he finally figured out that he is planning to put the kid into despair with his parents. With the mysterious new Wizard Ring finish, will this be his trump card against Phoenix?
The first thing I noticed in this episode is the parallels of the kid Gate's situation with Haruto's past in regards to his parents. Unlike Haruto, the kid witness someone trying to kill his parents for the sole purpose of making him lose all hope and fall into despair. Since Haruto can relate to the kid, he is the first one to comfort him that he must continue on clinging onto hope since he is the only hope his parents have.
Speaking of Haruto, this is the first time we saw him this troubled in regards to a Phantom. Aside that he only has a few mana left, he is frustrated that his basic Styles can't beat or land a scratch on the Phoenix Phantom. His worries get into him at one point in the episode as he had a nightmare that he didn't save the kid from the Phantom and he successfully put the kid to despair. What made the scene really good is that there is no special transition that leads to this nightmare until Haruto woke up after that scene. Kudos to the director for pulling that stunt, it made nervous that they finally put someone to despair in this episode.
With no idea on how he can beat the Phoenix Phantom, Koyomi then gave Haruto the Flame Dragon Ring. Haruto later identified it as the ring that can tap into the power of the Dragon that is residing in his body. With that in mind, it is understandable why Koyomi hesitated in giving the ring to Haruto and Rinko being worried sick about Haruto's safety. But if you think about it, they don't have any good options left and all we can do right now is to trust Haruto that he can do it.
Phoenix attacks the hospital but Haruto transformed into Wizard and fight the Phantom. The fight in this episode continues to be impressive but the main highlight of this episode is Wizard's first transformation into his Flame Dragon form. Just like the other power-up forms in the Heisei Kamen Rider series that involves a new transformation item; it gave Wizard a hard time before the Wizard Ring started to work. Even though it sounded like it is the average last minute transformation power-up cases, what made it memorable is the scene that happened before he transformed into the Wizard Flame Dragon.
After his scan of the ring, Haruto ends up visiting his own Underworld and finally saw the Dragon residing inside his body in a different manner. For most of the time, we never see the Dragon speak to Wizard, he only do some growls before Wizard dock his bike to "tame" it. Seeing it talk for the first time is a rather weird sight especially how he taunts Haruto about his Underworld.
What made this exchange between Haruto and the Dragon really interesting is what happened after. That once Haruto decides to use the Wizard Flame Dragon, he is slowly getting himself closer to his own despair. Haruto's reply of accepting the Dragon's power is something I expect that he will reply since he has no other choice as of the moment except to take this gamble with the Dragon. But what surprised me is how he responded, that the Dragon is giving Haruto hope. The first thing that comes to my mind is how will this turn out in the end, will the Dragon's warning that Haruto will fall into despair come into fulfillment or the more he uses the Dragon's powers, Haruto will fall less into despair?
Kamen Rider Wizard Flame Dragon is really amazing design wise and in terms of its fighting style. Design wise, I just love how they incorporated the Dragon in the overall design and the strong shade of red, a perfect contrast to the base Flame Style. In terms of fighting style, Wizard still retains the same flair of the Wizard Flame Style's fighting style except that in his debut, we saw more of Wizard's sword skill as he did some great action with the two swords he is holding when he fought Wizard. It looks so good that I wish he keeps on doing it for the rest of the entire series.
As for the Wizard Flame Dragon's finisher with the Special Ring, the head of the Dragon pops out of Wizard's chest and shoot a strong torrent of flames that destroyed Phoenix. For starters, I find it really impressive especially how the Dragon "docked" on Wizard's chest before he performed the finisher. But since he is fighting a Phoenix Phantom and if you are unfamiliar with tales about this creature, obviously he is reborn from the ashes after he burst out of flames. So yeah, Phoenix is still alive and that he properly assessed Wizard's strength and the Gate is safe... for now and is now cheerful thanks to Haruto.
