Recap: Kamen Rider Wizard, Episode 7 – Buying Memories

WIZARD 7

Rinko and Koyomi watch as the men cry over from being heartbroken by Hanami. “Men really are shallow,” Rinko says as they turn to Haruto about to enjoy a donut.

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Haruto says she shouldn’t lump all men, though Rinko points out how he too fell for her charms.

Garuda and the others are searching the city for Hanami and Rinko suggests she check out the gym where Hanami and Yamagata first meet.

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Shunpei, Wajima and donut shop worker continue their pity party. Shunpei rips the flags down, donut shop worker snaps the bracelets off his wrist and Wajima is about to take a hammer to the ring he was going to give Hanami.

Haruto stops him and wonders what kind of ring it is. He tries it.

“Smell… Please.”

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A yellow smoke emerges from Haruto… a nasty smell fills the room.

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Phoenix and Medusa are with Gnome, the Phantom who is able to track Hanami’s scent.

Haruto talks to Yamagata. He says he had a feeling Hanami was only interested in her inheritance. But he believes she has a reason for needing the money so bad. He recalls how she took his hand when the Phantom first attacked them. She could have easily left him, but instead she stayed with him, so that’s why he believes in her.

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Rinko gets Hanami’s address from the gym and calls Haruto. She then gets a call from the police captain who gives her an earful for doing her own thing and chasing Phantoms. She says she’s following a swindler case and quickly hangs up. The captain says he should tell Kazaki at National Security about Rinko being suspicious. But then that would mean he’s not managing her well and he’s conflicted as to what to do. He decides to flip a coin.

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Manami is packing. She looks at a picture of her and her parents when she was little. She tells them to wait, but that she’ll be back as soon as she gets enough money. Gnome appears, taking note of what her dream appears to be. He takes the picture frame and throws it at the wall.

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Haruto and Rinko arrive at the apartment and Haruto takes the Phantom outside. Manami pushes Rinko against the dresser and runs off.

Haruto henshins and he fights Gnome.

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The Phantom manages to escape and Haruto heads back to the apartment. Rinko shows him what she’s found, real estate flyers. Haruto notices they’re all of the same house and looks exactly like the home in the photo of Hanami’s family.

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Haruto finds Hanami looking out over the neighborhood where her family’s old home was. She admits she started swindling to buy her childhood home. She flashbacks to that time when her family was happy until a swindler ticked her father and they lost everything. He promised to buy the house back someday, but he, then her mother faded away until she was the only one left.

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She’d visit the home from time to time, remembering the happy moments. But this summer, she overhears a potential buyer planning to demolish the home. That’s why she is desperate for money to buy the house herself.

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You don’t know what it feels like to lose family, Hanami says. But Haruto tells her he doesn’t have family either. And neither does a lot of people, not just them.

Suddenly, Hanami sees black smoke and realizes her home is on fire. They hurry to the house and find the Phantom inside.

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Gnome eggs Hanami on and wants to hurry her into despair. Haruto saves Hanami from a falling ceiling fan. She says he should’ve just let the thing hit her. But Haruto says…

“I will protect your hope.”

Haruto henshins directly to Water mode to put out the fire. He takes her outside and tells her not to give up what she has now by looking only at the past. The Phantom lures Haruto away and Hanami realizes what he said might be right.

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Haruto fights the Phantom and realizes it has an excellent sense of smell. He first goes into Land mode, then uses the Big ring to enlarge his hand to whack Gnome out of the ground.

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“I’m good at Whac-A-Mole.”

Haruto then puts on the Smell Ring and sends the smell the Phantom’s way.

“What a most abhorrent smell.”

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The Phantom goes back into the ground, but Haruto does a Very Nice Kick Strike right into the ground to finish Gnome off.

Haruto goes back to Manami at the house. She says she’s going to turn herself in and that she wants to start over so she can properly live from now on.

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Rinko arrives with Yamagata. Manami apologizes, but Yamagata says he’s going to buy the house. Not for her though. He says when she comes back, to please buy the house from him.

“I’ll wait for you.”

Meanwhile, Phoenix expresses his frustration to Medusa about them moving too slowly.

“I’m really stressing out.”

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Episode Thoughts
A good, solid episode. It is very interesting to see how Wizard deals with balancing the light and the heavy. We get some genuinely funny stuff at the beginning at the shop and the overly-comedic bumbling police captain, but we also got those heavy, emotional scenes with Hanami. The scene after the fire especially was pretty heavy, complete with silent soundtrack.

I’ve also noticed. This episode, Rinko points out how all the men were putty in Hanami’s hands. But since the first episode, we’ve seen the women go to putty in Haruto’s hands too.

Maybe not so much putty, but I definitely notice the way they’ve smiled at him. First that creepy smile from Koyomi two episodes ago, Rinko always lovingly smiles at him and then this episode, Hanami’s smile at the end before Rinko arrives.

Either Haruto’s swag and charm are supposed to do that to the ladies as part of his character or maybe Shunya Shiraishi himself just has that effect on the ladies in real life.

Oh, and I am determined to cap every single moment Haruto has a donut close to his mouth. lol

0 thoughts on “Recap: Kamen Rider Wizard, Episode 7 – Buying Memories

  1. looks very promising. this is much better than fourze (which i never liked). OOO was ok, but i think double is still the best among the series after decade. i hope they will be able to keep this up.

  2. Like I said in my last comment, these storyline here was not one I liked. It was too predictable to me.
    Sure you could make the argument that Hanami is kind of “abused becomes abuser” with her swindling, but I am pretty sure there would have been more effective means of collecting the money via swindling than what we got.
    So not really my thing.
    I noticed however that the reason we only have a phantom of the week is because they have no actual organization or goal of any sort that unites them. So despite so many being around, they have not started mass attacking wizards, although you could still say that its kind of stupid not to. Especially with what we learn towards the end of the series.

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