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Haruto is transported in a world inside a magic stone wherein everyone that Haruto met is now different people. In this world, almost everyone are monsters and two kids don't want to be one, so they want to escape from it, but sadly, if they escape in this world, it will cause the end of this world and our world.
This is the first of the two Heisei Kamen Rider specials that happened after the main Kamen Rider Wizard story ended. Unlike your regular Kamen Rider Wizard story arc, this episode feels more like a Kamen Rider Decade story arc as it featured parallel versions of the original Kamen Rider Wizard characters. To give you an idea, mostly everyone in this world are monsters and that Shunpei and Rinko are high school students, and Koyomi is still alive, except this time, she is a kid. Since we have AU Koyomi, it's expected that this episode will have an AU Haruto.
Even though the episode didn't reveal who is AU Haruto, it is quite obvious who he is, he is the kid who is always with AU Koyomi. He is AU Haruto for obvious reasons, first is that he is wearing the same belt like Haruto's, second is that he is an orphan and third, he has this strong desire to protect Koyomi. Since this story arc is basically a post Kamen Rider Decade episode, it makes a lot of sense if this kid is AU Haruto. To give you guys a quick refresher course, all AU Riders at least retained a couple of traits from their original counterpart.
Unlike original Haruto, AU Haruto doesn't have the ability to transform into Wizard yet, what's interesting is that he is wearing the WizarDriver belt but the episode didn't explain how the heck he got hold of the said belt. To make it a bit confusing, he is transforming into a monster and since he is AU Haruto, it's quite obvious that he might transform into a Phantom. If a wizard needs to cling onto hope while there is a Phantom inside of their bodies, then why the heck AU Haruto is still undergoing the monster transformation? This kind of logic reminded me the Kamen Rider Blade arc of Decade where they can kill Undeads.
Seeing past Riders summoned by AU Haruto is one weird sight to see. Aside from the substitute voice actors for the Riders, it's kinda weird that a single kid can summon these Riders with ease and fight under his command. What's great about these past Riders is that they still retained their original traits, assuring us fans that the Riders that appeared in this episode are identical to the original Riders, and not the AU Kamen Rider Decade Riders.
We later learned the reason why the kids are running away from the monsters, turns out that they stole Rider Rings and once these rings align with our planet, they can open a portal to our world, allowing them to escape. Though it sounds good for their part, it comes with a price. Since it opens a portal to our world, monsters from the world inside the magic stone can enter our world. Since almost everyone in that world are monsters, letting these monsters out in our world means that it will be the end of our world. This is when the wizards come in a save the day.
But before talking about the performance of the wizards in this episode, let's talk about Amadam, the leader of this world. Amadam is one campy villain, so campy that he doesn't feel like he is final boss material. It feels like that I should not take this guy seriously considering that he is cosplaying movie exclusive villains, villains that I myself don't take seriously because it's quite expected for them to die before the movie ends.
The only thing sweet about Amadam's introduction is the use of clips from past Heisei Kamen Rider shows; one thing I noticed in those clips is that the clips from Kuuga-555 and Kabuto kinda looked like it came from a non-HD source, to be more specific, from a DVD. If my memory serves me correctly, all Heisei Kamen Rider shows were filmed in HD and were edited in SD. Considering that Kamen Rider 555 will have a Blu-ray release next year, I was surprised that the 555 clip looked like it came from a DVD source. Just my minor nitpicks in this scene.
The biggest surprise in this episode is Kousuke's appearance, as well all know, Beast Chimera is not anymore residing in his body. As it turns out that he ended up in this world before he freed Chimera. This made me realize one thing; time is kinda irrelevant in this alternate world. To put it simply, past Kousuke is teaming up with present (or future in Kousuke's perspective) Haruto to prevent hordes of monsters jumping to our world. But before they can proceed to stop the kids, Haruto ends up seeing a vision of the original Koyomi. I decided to bring this up because I am not sure if Koyomi's appearance will play a big role in this arc.
When they arrived to the antique shop, the kids are gone and the ones hanging out in the show are now trapped inside the Mirror World. Thankfully, they are freed immediately after a brief explanation on what happened to them thanks to Ryuki who asked them to help the kids. Back to the kids, they are once again attacked by monsters. Even though they were saved by Wizard and Beast, AU Haruto doesn't trust his original and summons more Riders to attack the monsters and our heroes.
This is when I noticed something different; they are kinda inconsistent with how the Riders are transported in this world. In the earlier minutes of the episode, their logo will first appear then the Rider will appear. In this scene, some sort of a magic portal appears and the Rider will come from the portal. The magic portal thing started to kinda make sense when we saw the kids asking from help from our world with the 13 Rider Rings that served as a catalyst to create a portal to our world. It kinda makes sense since they are aligned to our world, and it is said that it they can create a portal to our world if they have the 13 Rider Rings.
So how did Gaim ended up in this episode? He just heard the cries of the kids and decided to jump on to the open portal. Well that was simple, but it kinda establishes what kind of person Kouta is. He is the kind of guy who will jump into the unknown just to help someone in need. The biggest surprise is that he arrived in the world inside the magic stone transformed, and his entrance is kinda similar to Kamen Rider Meteor, except he is inside some giant orange. His "debut" fight in this episode is really great and it gets me hyped for the new show. Episode ends with our heroes learning that his name is Kamen Rider Gaim.
