My precious~!
Now that the Sabbat has been cancelled, it is time for the final battle between the White Wizard and Kamen Rider Wizard! As for Koyomi, who is the cause of this entire mess, she now wants to die to stop this madness.
The opening fight sequence is really incredible. What's great about the first duel between the White Wizard and Wizard is how they showed us the differences between their powers. In the White Wizard's case, his own version of "Copy" called "Dupe" is at the same level of Wizard Dragon's copying abilities. For those who haven't noticed, Wizard's Copy ability is limited to what the original Wizard is doing. In White Wizard's case, the Dupe ability creates a clone of the White Wizard who can act on its own without relying on the original's movements.
Another thing worth praising in this episode is the interactions of the main characters with the three Mages. Less Yamamoto, the scenes featuring Yuzuru and Kousuke and Rinko and Mayu are really well done and showed us the dilemma of each character. First is with Yamamoto, his short scene wherein he just said that he quits basically sums up the situation of the Mages. They ended up in a situation that they should not be part of.
In Yuzuru's situation, after learning that his friend Kousuke cannot anymore transform into Beast, he offers him that he will fill in for him. This led us to a scene where Kousuke gives him some good advice about choosing his own path. What's great about this scene aside from the chemistry between these two is that this scene is really authentic. Even though these two are together for only two episodes, you can see that in just a short span of time on how they became good friends. With that in mind, will Yuzuru continue the role as the Blue Mage or will he continue on living a normal life?
In Mayu's situation, after learning the truth that everything that happened to her life is because of the White Wizard and that she is used by him, she start to wonder if she will continue as the Yellow Mage or not. It's a really nice situation for her since it feels like her entire motivation the whole time was manipulated by some guy who wants to revive his dead daughter. What's great about this is how Rinko made her realize that even if that's the case, what's more important is that she has the ability to help those who are in despair. What's left is her final decision; will she continue the role as the Yellow Mage or will restart her normal life?
As for Fueki, he still insists on continuing the Sabbat, which then leads us to one interesting scene between him and Koyomi. This scene is really great; it shows us that Koyomi is more than just a vessel to revive the original Koyomi. She has her own personality and probably, understands the original Koyomi more than her father. But this moment between father and "daughter" is interrupted thanks to the Gremlin Phantom. The fight between the two is really great and once again, showed us how powerful the White Wizard is when it comes to magic then stabbing him with his sword.
Back to Koyomi, she discovered that Haruto's Infinity Ring is with Fueki and rushes out of the house just to give it to Haruto. The scene between Koyomi and Haruto is well done. Even if that's the case, it feels like this scene is lacking more emotion to make the audience connect with the characters. If Koyomi's flashback scenes in the episode are an indication, we barely see Koyomi interact with the other characters of the show. The only time we see her interact is during the antique shop scenes. Outside from that, she's just that girl in the antique shop.
This made me realized one thing, Koyomi's basic power is to detect Phantoms but the series never used it to its full potential. In the earlier episodes of the show, we see her walk outside of the antique shop and have some proper interaction with the antique shop regulars. But as the series progressed, they slowly drop the interaction scenes and she ends up getting reduced into that girl in the antique shop. The only time the show remembers her if she needs more mana or if they want to advance the plot.
Which then lead us back to the plot and the reason why some people are now Phantoms and a select few are wizards, it is because of Koyomi. This revelation didn't have any impact to me to be honest and them trying to carry this thing to the final battle made me scratch my head. I know this kind of desire makes sense but why should I care on a girl wants to die after discovering the truth about her existence if the show just placed her for most of the time as that girl in the antique shop and not as one of the main female characters in the series?
This then lead us to the final battle between the White Wizard and Wizard, it's all about Koyomi. The White Wizard still insists on the Sabbat thing while Wizard here wants to find a way to bring Koyomi back to normal without doing it. This kind of motivation kinda ruined the effect of the final battle between the two because it just made me say, "Wow, they are willing to do all that just to save a girl who wants to die". But screw it; the final fight between the White Wizard and Wizard Infinity Style is awesome. The Rider Kick scene is really fantastic, which made me wish that they will do more of these Rider Kick finishers in the show.
As expected, the two wizards reverted back to normal. This is when Gremlin comes in and steals the show. The fact that he stayed alive after getting stabbed by the White Wizard just to get the key needed to take the Philosopher's Stone out of Koyomi's body is one of the best moments of this series. What's more is how he killed Fueki. It's really shocking and I didn't expect that from all people, Gremlin is the one who delivered the finishing blow. Fueki's final moments just show us that at the end, he is just a father who wants to revive his beloved daughter.
Since he has the key to open Koyomi's body so that he can take the Philosopher's Stone out of her, it's quite obvious that Koyomi will die in this point of the episode. As for how they execute it, it was okay. Okay in a sense that I was shocked on how they killed her but apart from that, I didn't feel any sadness when Koyomi died. I know the writers desired her to be a very important character, but the way they treated her in most of her appearances made me care less about her. Heck, the flashback scenes are basically telling the audience how little we saw her with the rest of the main cast!
Her final moment in the series is really weak. Aside that I don't care about Koyomi, is the way she "died", it feels like it is telling us viewers that she didn't die, she just joined the lifestream or something. And true to that part, the preview for the next episode basically showed us that Haruto will try to pull Koyomi out of the lifestream! But hey, at least the episode ended really nicely... which lead us to the final episode. Seriously, the final boss is Gremlin? Come on production and writing staff, you can do better than that!
