Kamen Rider Wizard's Second Episode Posts the Franchise's Best Rating in Two Years

Kamen Rider Wizard’s second episode drew a 7.8% rating in September 2012, up from its 7.1% premiere and the best result for any Kamen Rider episode since Kamen Rider OOO’s twelfth episode scored 8.2% back in November 2010. Coverage at the time read the increase as a sign that Wizard might be pulling back some of the older, non-child viewership that had drifted away during the ratings decline of the previous series, Kamen Rider Fourze, whose own second episode had seen an early ratings bump before trending downward for the rest of its run.

The same week, Tokumei Sentai Go-Busters’ twenty-ninth mission tied the show’s own series-high rating at 5.2%, likely helped along by Wizard’s lead-in and by the episode’s billing as the buildup to a final confrontation with the villain Messiah. Even with the improved numbers, Go-Busters’ 4.0% series average left it on track to become the lowest-rated Super Sentai series ever, a title it would later be unable to shake, even accounting for the boost expected from its planned crossover with the veteran hero Gavan.