Headscratchers / Kamen Rider Wizard

• Haruto never defeats the gate's inner phantom in episodes 4-5. So why don't Pheonix and Medusa just send another phantom after him?
  • They presumably don't want to waste more than one phantom per gate, since it's a limited resource.
  • Also, that person pretty much had their hope fully restored. The first two were rather emotionally fragile at the time, not this one anymore. So the window of opportunity kind of closed.
• Why had it never occurred to Haruto to use Copy on the WizarSwordGun before ep 9?
  • Maybe because he needs his dragon power up to dual wield?
  • Possible, but nothing from the fight seemed to show that Flame Dragon was needed for Copy to work.
    • Most likely the power needed to use copy on the WizarSwordGun is more than could be spared in his normal form.
    • But he can copy himself in his normal forms. I think it's more that the Dragon forms are so powerful Haruto trades the versatility of having one hand open (to use various rings) for the strength of having two weapons. The only rings he uses in Dragon forms so far are the finishers anyway.
    • It's confirmed through promotional material that Haruto needs to be in a dragon style to use any of the standard spell rings on his weapon.
• Why does Dragon become mindless in someone elses underworld, but when he's in Haruto's he's intelligent ?
  • Actually, Dragon only becomes that chaotic on Wzard's first two trips of a Gate's underworld. On the third time, after Wizard has Flame Dragon, it didn't go berserk and destroy stuff. If anything, it only seems Dragon only speaks in Haruto's mind.
    • It makes sense if you think about it. Dragon is Haruto's Phantom, hence he should be normal and reserved, he's essentially locked in a prison, and unless Haruto loses hope, he's not getting out. When the pair were in other Gates, Dragon could break out if he aided the other Phantom(s) in breaking loose. But now that Wizard is using the Dragon Rings, and Dragon has a decent shot of getting free, he has no need to do anything to jeopardize his chance.
• Why doesn't Haruto use his Dragon Forms to fight Phoenix and Medusa? He has Flame Dragon and Hurricane Dragon AND he could use them at will, so why didn't he do so when confronted by Phoenix a third time and Medusa for the first time?
  • For Phoenix it was a combination of shock that he was alive, coupled that he was focused on defending Kizaki and the fake Gate, not beating Phoenix. Plus, he had just been told by Phoenix that he was immortal, so he likely didn't want to waste the mana. For Medusa, he had no idea how powerful she was until it was too late.
    • In episode 14, he breaks out the Dragon styles against Medusa, after fighting her a bit in his normal ones. While Haruto's getting a little better at fighting the higher Phantoms in his normal styles, it seems like he's choosing only to bring out the Dragon forms as a last resort.
• Why is Medusa seem to be the only phantom as of yet who is female? So far, all of the phantoms of the week are all males. Even when the ritual showed female victims.
  • To add to the insult, the Valkyrie Phantom is male in Kamen Rider Wizard. Why is this consider insulting? According to mythology, a Valkyrie is a demi-goddess or female warrior like being which means the being is technically suppose to be female and what did the show did? Make the monster and the human form male! How insulting is that!?!
    • Not very, unless you decide for some insane reason to take it personally. This is hardly the first franchise to have male valkyries, it's just artistic license. It's probably just a coincidence that we've seen so few female Phantoms.
• Instead of lying, can't Haruto just tell the Gate in #15 the hard truth, then enter her underworld to destroy her unreleased phantom?
  • He's trying to preserve her hope, not shatter it. If he told her the truth, she would fall under depression because of him. Making him no better than the Phantoms he fights on a weekly basis.
• Why do the people whose inner Phantoms he destroys still have to wear the Engage Ring apparently forever? I thought once your inner Phantom was destroyed, you were no longer a Gate, done deal.
  • Maybe they just like wearing them.
  • It's a reminder that they were saved and given hope by someone. They keep wearing the rings because they believe in Haruto and are grateful to him.
• Are phantoms really categorized as greater or lesser? Phantom Beelzebub seems to be more of a Greater Phantom, especially by creating a portal to avoid the latter's attack.
  • Its not really split up based on power. But he's a minor phantom because he follows Medusa and Phoenix while those two report directly to Wiseman. Also he's still a Monster of the week.
  • Just to double-check again, but does Gremlin really counts as a Greater Phantom before #31? I think he is a lesser phantom and not a greater phantom as he had no contact with Wiseman until #30.
• If Phoenix becomes stronger every time he's killed and revives, won't he eventually become powerful enough to resist the heat of the sun, and become capable of flying back to earth?
  • Ever heard of a little thing called gravitational pull?
    • While Phoenix managed to break out of Wizard's Gravity Ring, at least the Sun's gravity is strong than Earth's, so at least there's hope.
    • Yeah, but seeing as how Phoenix is able to adapt to whatever it was that destroyed him previously, it's only a matter of time until he revives with the ability to achieve escape velocity and break free of the Sun's gravitational pull.
    • Let's just hope that the amount of power that Phoenix has gotten during the multiple resurrections ends up destroying his own body.
    • Latest scans shows that yes he will return with a different form which would imply he got powerful.
    • That scan was old promos for the climax of that fight which came out late. Gravity has no effect in destroying his body, so that would be some pretty idiotic "logic" claiming that "oh, now he can fly faster than the speed of light!" Also, the actor got flowers from the rest of the cast. They don't do that til an actor wraps on the series, meaning they're done with the show.
• So, is the White Wizard a Rider or not? He looks Rider-y and has rings, but it's hard to know in a series where the term really isn't used at all.
  • He's as much as a rider as the Alternates are to the Ryuki Riders or as Shadow Moon is to Black.
  • The show's website seems to say "not" - while it has the standard rundown of his gear and such, it's in a separate menu from Wizard and Beast's "RIDER" section, where he's just labeled "SHIROI MAHOUTSUKAI".
  • Maybe it's because naming him Kamen Rider Wiseman would be too spoilery.
• Why don't the heroes consider using the Engage Ring on the Gates when they have them in a room and are talking to them about the situation at hand? We've seen with Haruto's attempt on Nitoh that one doesn't have to wait for the Gate to fall to despair and can just do it anytime.
  • No no, Nitoh's a special case as he is a non Gate, with a Phantom inside him anyway. As for other gates, they don't actually have their Phantoms within them until they're driven to despair. So unfortunately all the heroes can do is try to keep them safe and away from the MotW.
• Two questions: (1) Why didn't Koyomi notice that Mayu was a gate? She's supposed to be able to sense that stuff isn't she? She should have known the moment she met Mayu, but flat out says that the girl is not a gate. How does that happen? (2) Considering how strong Medusa is, why isn't Haruto busting out all dragon the moment he sees her? In 26, she was a match for all four of his forms and Beast, and in 27, she whooped his ass before he could even use it. Get your head straight Wizard! Now's not the time to be Holding Back the Phlebotinum!!!
  • For the first question, I think Koyomi can only tell who is a phantom and who is not.
  • For the second question, he may need to use Dragon Timer in Flame Dragon form only. Don't forget he just flew into the scene as Hurricane Dragon.
    • The first answer is correct, Koyomi can only detect Phantoms, she has pure vision. As for the second, partly needing to rush to save Mayu, he wasn't focused. Secondly, I imagine All Dragon burns through mana like crazy, and against a foe like Medusa, you'd want to save everything you have. That, and there might have been something that said that using All Dragon will make Dragon popping out of Haruto all the more easier... Sort of like Explosive Overclocking.
• Right, the sub I watched had Mayu saved by a memory of a moment with her sister, along with a saying of hers, with her telling Medusa that she wouldn't let someone that was pretending to be her sister end her life. Yet I keep reading that she believes that Misa's not gone? Am I missing something?
  • Nope, I think people watched this episode before the sub and assumed Mayu still kept on believing Misa to be still inside Medusa.
• Why did Dragon choose to fight Legion and protect Beast and Chimera, resulting in his death? Dragon always wanted to be free and when Legion breaks the Underworld, Dragon could take over Haruto and become the Dragon Phantom. But why didn't he? Why does he bother to even care about Haruto at this point now?
  • First, because what Legion was doing was different then how Phantoms are created. He was simply destroying the mind, which would leave Haruto comatose. Even if Dragon could break free, he'd still be trapped in a unmoving body. Second, after using the Dragon Styles and still not falling to despair, I personally believe that Dragon has grown to respect his human "partner", just as Chimera has with Nitoh.
• Why did the Bogy Phantom use his luck manipulation powers to try and kill the Gates? Even if the fear of death will drive them to despair, the falling debris and car explosion would kill the Gates long before the transformation into a Phantom was completed. If not for Haruto the Gate would have been crushed completely unaware, so how could he despair? In fact Gremlin states that the plan would create despair by giving and taking away the money obtained through luck so why try to kill the Gates at all?
  • Perhaps he would have used his luck manipulation to ensure that the gates survived the accidents, if just barely.
• How was it that Sora didn't become a phantom after being dumped by his girlfriend in the first place?
  • Either other Phantoms are required for the Inner Phantom to break out of the Gate (which seems to be a logical explanation for half the problems surrounding Inner Phantoms and their chance of breaking out), or he snapped soon after and the "hope" he got replaced the despair he had. Or it could be (and this is just Wild Mass Guessing here) that he did become a Phantom right then and there.
• Why does Haruto never use All Dragon again? It would make sense if he used it against some tougher than normal Monster of the Week. But he used it against Phoenix, a major villain. Yet he never even mentions it again.
  • I can think of four reasons. The first is that it All Dragon is too mana intensive to risk wasting in most situations, and using the Drago Timer itself just opens the risk of Dragon breaking out of Haruto. The second is it takes a long time to set up since he has to summon the Drago Timer, then four Dragon forms, and then summon the Special parts. All of these require precise timing and must be done over a fairly long period of time. Third is that he already has Infinity, which while statistically weaker than All Dragon, is much less expensive to use and is still strong enough for most situations he would need All Dragon for. Lastly, since it is a mostly CG form it probably is too expensive for Toei to use often. All Dragon is practically the definition of Awesome, but Impractical.
• So what happened to that arsonist Gate? He started to turn into a phantom at the end of his episode and the next one doesn't even mention him acting like it never happened. What gives?! A Gate actually falling into despair could've been a cool thing!
  • It was clearly a joke ending, Haruto probably used his Engage Ring.
  • Nitoh and Haruto were both standing a few feet away and the Monster of the Week had already been destroyed by that point, so it's likely one of them simply dealt with the Phantom.
  • If it was resolved offscreen that makes it even lamer and that doesn't change the fact that the show missed an opportunity to have the phantoms succeed onscreen for once. I mean by this time in Fourze they already had a couple of students turn into Horoscopes.
    • People didn't die permanently when they turned into Horoscopes. This really needs to be reiterated: if Haruto and Nitoh fail, people die. And there's been plenty of deaths in the births of all the prior Phantoms, why do we need more?
    • Because it would make the Phantoms look competent for once.
    • So the dozens of people the original Sabbath killed pre-Rider-intervention doesn't count, or...? Besides, the theme of the series is finding hope even in the midst of despair. Having Wizard and Beast fail to save a bunch of Gates would heavily subvert that (and make for a really depressing show).
    • It was never meant to be an opportunity anyway. As it was CLEARLY a gag. It wouldn't even make the phantoms look competent because the heroes would probably just beat the inner phantom anyway like they've done before. Even then it STILL doesn't make the bad guys look competent because the man falling into despair probably could've been done without a phantom since he was so frail anyway. If anything this makes them look idiotic because they could've used low-key non-Phantom tactics to break him and the good guys probably would have never known.
• Why doesn't Nitoh use the Dolphi ring on Kazuya in episode 39? If Dolphi can heal poison that can kill a wizard, then it should be able to heal a broken arm and a injured leg, right?
  • Dolphi heals poison, not injuries.
• Why does Haruto never use the Connect ring to just teleport to places? Yes there's a teleport ring in existance that the White Wizard has, but nothing seems to suggest that you can't use the Connect ring to teleport places.
  • Perhaps because the Connect ring only teleports small objects. We've seen the White Wizard Driver having different names for Wizard's rings, some of them having more effect, for example, Smell = Smoke.
    • Well Connect seems to have no trouble teleporting Haruto's motorbike.
  • I would assume that it would take up too much mana.
  • Most of the stuff he teleported is in-organic, maybe it is dangerous to teleport living beings?
    • True, although he seems to have no problem with sticking his arm through the portal to reach in and grab the stuff.
• Why didn't Rinko recognize Phoenix in episodes 20-21 when she clearly saw him in his human and Phantom form in Movie War Ultimatum?
  • Movie Wars tend to be loose with their continuity. Remember OOO in Movie War Core?
    • Not really. With the exception of OOO in Core the Movie Wars have had very tight continuity. They have a very clear point in canon and fit into the expanded Neo Heisei universe. Everything from 2010 and Megamax fits into continuity just fine.
    • My best guess is she simply didn't get a good enough look at him and forgot. It happens. Though, it did bug me as well at first.
• If the White Wizard needs Wajima to produce rings for him, where did he get all those new rings for Mayu from after she became a wizard?
  • Toei's stock room.
  • Either he's able to produce some rings himself, but not to the quality of Wajima's rings, which is why he relied on Wajima to make the Eclipse Ring, or he'd had Wajima make him vast supplies of rings well in advance of the Sabbath, fully intending to recruit more Mages aside from Haruto early on.
    • The problem is that his dialogue suggest he did not expect he would need to recruit more mages, and that he went that route after the sabbath had failed.
• Why didn't they let Mayu finish off Medusa? I mean I know The Reveal, but couldn't Medusa have been mortally wounded by the Holy Ring and as she's dying The Reveal happens?
  • Maybe she was and that the stab was just to further it.
• Do they ever say why Medusa was so loyal to Wiseman? I mean, it's implied most Phantoms obey him because he's the strongest, but she really did value him and his praise. Did he take her in after she killed Misa's parents or something? Was she brainwashed like the Mages?
  • It's probably just her personality. It's implied he caused the Sabbath thus he CREATED all of them. So of course most are loyal to him. With some exception all Phantoms seem willing to obey him.
• Why are all the white wizard and mages' rings dragon printed when Haruto is the only magician whose phantom is dragon? Mayu's is crystal-themed rather than being even animalistic and Yuzuru's as ambiguously a Four-Legged Insect, yet theirs are not designed accordingly.
  • The Toei staff weren't gonna put much effort into rings that will only be used once.
  • Another option is the White Wizard isn't as fancy or skilled as Wajima and just replicates the ones he made for Haruto.
• How come Fueki never used any of the Story Breaker powers Wiseman displayed when fighting as the White Wizard? We saw that Wiseman could instantly absorb all of Infinity Style's mana so why doesn't he do this during their final duel?
  • Perhaps his Wiseman powers and his Wizard powers are two different powers that he has to switch between.
  • It could also have been because that was in his lair, and he used it to power the spell hiding it. It's possible that he can't absorb mana without that spell around him to transfer it to.
    • He may also have been weakened by using his mana during the Sabbath, meaning he couldn't access his Wiseman powers.
• Why is it that, in Episode 53 when all the Riders go into their final forms, Momotaros as Den-O became Liner Form? Why not Climax Form instead? And isn't Liner Form Ryotaro's true Den-O form? Did they just lose the Climax form costume or something?
  • I say it's all part of Faux Symbolism when almost all the rider get their Final Forms; they all do a classic rider kick instead of executing their appropriate final attacks.
  • They probably used Den-O Liner Form because they were following what was on the K-Touch.
  • Which explains Rising Ultimate Kuuga how?
  • My cents on the form issue, with ascending order of frustration.
    • W CJX should've been in his Gold state if that's the case, since it came from being backed by the wind of Fuuto.
    • Addressing the K-Touch reason, even if Double to Wizard presumably doesn't exist in the K-Touch powerset, the logic remains, so Super Tatoba doesn't make sense either.
    • Rising Ultimate Kuuga, cool as the form is, as I am very much a fan of its design and power, is a gimmicky anomaly to begin with. One that even, quite honestly, was a massive letdown after being so hyped up, and in the same movie it was introduced, since it got so handily beaten by the AR Shadow Moon. Never mind that its very existence undermines the terror of the being we know as Ultimate Kuuga, the form that everybody was so afraid of in the original. But because its simply the Amadam stone getting stronger, and with the power of electricity (glad to see they remembered that), it doesn't bother me TOO much. No, what bothers me most is...
    • ....MOMOTAROS. USING. LINER! I call absolute bullshit on symbolism, because if that was the case, then all the more they shouldn't have used Liner, because that was RYOTAROU's form, not Momotaros', meaning if ever we see Liner, it's supposed to be an Imagin-less Ryotarou. ANY attempt to explain/justify why Momotaros can access Liner is automatically bullshit considering the form's genesis and purpose, the amount of work needed to give Ryotarou a means to fight on his own when his sync with the Taros was failing, and thus was deprived of his ability to use any of the forms. Since Ryotarou still wasn't the kind of person to be able to manifest his own special form, unlike Yuuto, the Taros had to jury-rig Plat Form into something usable, and it represents the growth of Ryotarou on his own, hence why he could transform straight into Liner w/o the Den Kamen Sword process. As it is, the only reason that does make sense is a behind the scenes one, that they somehow couldn't get even just Climax Form's costume, never mind Super Climax (which, I'd like to point out, has not been seen since Movie Wars 2010), or worse, it got damaged or lost, which is rather sloppy on studio's part if they were planning this sort of crossover.
• Forget the part with Den-O in episode 53: during the part where Amadum steals all the rider power sources, why did having the Arm Monsters taken from him cause Wataru/Kiva to lose his powers? Sure, losing them would reduce his arsenal, but they aren't the source of them; his power comes from Kivat the 3rd and the Fuestles.
  • For that matter, why did Agito lose his power? He gets his power from the Seeds of Agito - said power was given to humanity by the Overlord of Light so they would evolve beyond the control of the Overlord of Darkness; however, the monsters from Agito aren't people who lost control of the Seed of Agito (which, going by the other connections in the Cross of Fire, would be the Agito version of the Uncontracted Mirror Monsters in Ryuki or the villainous Imagin in Den-O), but rather, monsters created by the Overlord of Darkness to hunt the Agitos down. I guess it wouldn't bother me so much if they had shown him stealing the powers of Kamen Rider X or Kamen Rider Super-1, since like Agito, those riders got their powers from sources completely unrelated to the villains they fought in their respective series.
  • One COULD try to justify that Agito's powers, and all Seeds of Agito in general, are of similar psychic powers as the Lords, given both Agitos and Lords are manifestations of the Overlords' powers. However, that's as far as any parallels between the Rider and their respective kaijin goes in Agito's case. And besides, the whole thing seems rather forced to begin with, like their origin was THEIR fault, that their being linked to monsters makes them sinful and evil. Otherwise, the Showa Riders, who are unambiguously heroic (to parrot a reviewer, fuck Kamen Rider Taisen) despite most of them being altered into transhumans against their will by evil forces, should also be seen as sinful monsters that should atone. But the thing is, there's no sin in their being given or gaining power similar to the monsters, and therefore have no such sin to atone for, all because they all chose to use such powers to protect people from those who would see to rob them of their freedom to live their lives. If they do have sins, it's certainly not because of the nature of their powers.
• During "Wizard in magic land", why didn't Fueki/White Wizard interfere with KR Sorcerer's ritual for creating his "new world"? (I mean, Koyomi might have been killed in that ceremony, and the White Wizard made no attempt to stop it)
  • Was he even there?
• Wizard had a time ring that allows him to send people(and probably himself) through time, which he only used once to send Fourze and friends back five years to the future in Ultimatum, and why hasn't he used it before like to stop the first Sabbath or to prevent Koyomi from dying? If Den-o taught us anything, the concept of a Stable Time Loop doesn't really matter in the world of Kamen Rider.
• Sorcerer used Philosopher's Stone to create Magic Land, basically overwriting reality itself. That bears the question: why reality altering at such massive scale requires less magical energy than reviving one human?
• Every Phantom who has escaped from their respective Gate has a true form, one that's smaller and more humanoid than in the Underworlds. So let me ask a a question: Why during the climax of the show when Kosuke got the Beast Driver destroyed did Chimera remain the same, despite not being bound to the Driver's Underworld!?
  • Chimera isn't a typical Phantom. Typically, Phantoms are the embodiment of despair and malice of the respective Gate. Chimera himself is an anomaly, having been out and about before being presumably sealed within the Beast Driver. His chimeric form is his true form.