Sunday 17 March 2013

Kamen Rider Wizard 26 – Medusa Strikes

Why is she so darn cute?

While Kousuke is busy with his snack, he ends up meeting Medusa who is dressed up as a high school student! But the bigger question is why is she disguised as a high school student and why is she acting differently? To make it more interesting, the Gate in this arc is a high school student!


If there is one thing this episode confirmed is the fact that Medusa and Koyomi are not related in any matter. Second is that they sorta brought up why we saw Medusa in the show's opening sequence. I repeat, sorta brought it up. You see for starters, Medusa is the only Phantom that was given a brief scene in the show's opening sequence. What's interesting is that we see her in tears. I was expecting that the show will bring it up in a later story arc and here we are right now. To make it relevant with the opening sequence, she is dressed up as a high school student to look for the Gate!

Lucky enough, Kousuke ends up meeting her earlier in the episode, which leads to shenanigans with Kousuke searching Medusa from the group of students! It's fun and it ended with Kousuke and Medusa's fight in this episode. When Medusa greeted Kousuke, I started to wonder if the Medusa we saw earlier might be someone who just looks like her. As for the fight itself, it is really great. What made it more great is that Kousuke is starting to use Dolphi and Falco in this one and not the usual Buffa and Chameleo Rings. Also, we see more of those luck-based Sabre Strike finishers and I pity Kousuke's luck in this one, like it has a pattern when he will get six in the Dice Sabre!


The Gate managed to escape; Kousuke continues his search for "Medusa" only to end up getting arrested because of he looks like he is harassing a high school student! This is when Haruto comes in and starts his investigation. For once, we saw the Dress Up ring in action, what's cool about it is that it is not limited to classy and fancy clothing, he can also use the ring for a quick costume change and in this case, a school uniform. There is nothing really interesting with his infiltration scene because he easily blended in with the crowd and unlike Kousuke; he took the subtle approach when it comes with his investigation. He did what most people will do, ask them politely and listen to their answers.

We then learned that "Medusa" here is Mayu, a transfer student from abroad. For weeks now, all of us are aware that Misa is Medusa's real name. With that in mind, it is obvious that Mayu is related to Misa in a manner. Add the fact that she has this keychain featuring two girls that look exactly alike; it is safe to conclude that Misa and Mayu are siblings, to be more specific, they are twins. Since Haruto and co. are not aware of Medusa's real name, Haruto just assumed that Mayu is Medusa. Because he is not aware of Medusa's real name, it leads to a lot of moments wherein Haruto tries his best to hide from her.


Back to Kousuke, it's funny how Rinko tries to hide the fact that he knows Kousuke because he was arrested for harassing a high school student. Thankfully, Rinko listened to Kousuke that the high school student he "harassed" is a Phantom, this lead her to discover that Medusa has a twin sister named Mayu. The only thing that's left is clearing this misunderstanding with Haruto who still thinks that Mayu is Medusa. They cleared it up easily by having Medusa attack the Gate. Well that is one fast way to resolve this misunderstanding.

The fight in this scene is fine I guess nothing that I find remarkable or interesting at least. The only thing worth noting is the meeting between Mayu and Medusa. Aside that we have the official confirmation that they are twins, it sorta created this emotional reunion that Mayu can't believe her sister is still alive... and she is a monster. Guess they will expand on it in the next episode. One final thing about this episode, I hate Shunpei's cross-dressing. Seriously, if they need a girl in this one, why not go with Koyomi? I mean, she looks cute in a school uniform! Also, they introduced Golem in this episode; hopefully he will be useful in the next episode.