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Kamen Rider Die watches Kamen Rider Ghost
Hi everybody.
I'm Kamen Rider Die, and I'm new to these boards as a poster, and relatively new to Kamen Rider as a franchise. I started with Ex-Aid back in March of 2018, and since then I've been working my way through the Neo Heisei series. I've done: W (fantastic, the last arc is maybe a little less fantastic) OOO (not the best at anything, but good at absolutely everything, my favorite series so far) Fourze (best opening episodes, best ensemble, maybe not a great suit design) Wizard (great suit design, Beast is fun, mediocre everything else) Gaim (excellent arc, good ambiguous "villains", Peko is hilariously worthless) Drive (BEST theme song, Heart and Chase are great, the middle of the series is a little muddled) Amazons (first season good, second season super weird but mostly not good, the movie is an insult) ...aaaaaannndddd now I'm working through Ghost. It is not going great. I'm up to episode 23, just before the Sentai crossover, and just after the Ichigo movie. I've never posted on these boards, and I thought, "KRD, what better way to introduce yourself to a batch of knowledgeable, engaged fans than by sharing your suffering with them? As Takeshi Hongo says in the surprisingly dull Ghost spring movie, 'We're all a single precious life,' so isn't my pain other fans' pain? Can't we all work together to help me get through this?" Long story short, I was hoping you'd all be cool with me venting about the episodes of Ghost I'm watching. This is my first watch through, so if you comment (and please feel free to comment), please, no spoilers about what's to come in this series. Please don't even tease stuff. Anything prior to the episodes I post about is fair game, or any other series I've watched is also cool, but I'd rather go into future episodes cold. Thanks! Oh, and also, I'm new at this franchise, so please forgive any names/terms I get wrong, unless I'm doing it as a joke because a lot of this needs humor to keep from crying. I'll do my best! |
I have very strong feelings about Ghost, so I am definitely going to watch this thread with interest and possibly popcorn.
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I'm not gonna lie, when I first saw this thread the first two words that popped in my head were "Oh goodness gracious here we go again".
Personally, I think of Ghost as a beautiful mess: I love the costumes, forms and even the Sunglasseslasher (blasphemy!) but I can't figure out the second half of the story at all. |
I swear, I'm not doing this to troll or reignite any fiery debates. If this all doesn't get me banned from the boards, I plan to write about other series, like Build and the first 10 Heisei series I haven't seen. I expect them to be some mix of good and bad, just like I hope Ghost ends up being some mix of good to go with the bad. I don't just want to dump on a show that it seems like plenty of other folks have dumped on. I want to talk about how I'm getting through the series, and maybe some early negativity will help some future positivity mean a little more. Let me know if my criticisms feel unfair, though, since that's not my goal.
KAMEN RIDER GHOST'S FIRST 46% I've not been at this franchise that long, and I'd only seen a bit of what the fandom talked about, but even I knew that Ghost was... let's just say "not highly regarded", to be diplomatic. While I was working my way from W up to the present, I was always slightly curious about why Ghost wasn't beloved. I'd seen Takeru in the Ex-Aid movie, and he seemed okay? I liked the suit design? What could be so wrong with it? https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/alright.png Oh. Oh, God. The first twelve episodes digs this series a hole that, even by episode 23, it has not quite dug itself out of. Ghost, just on a basic premise level, has a whole bunch of problems: -What does the hero do when they're not Kamen Ridering? This is the same problem I had with Wizard, another show I mostly didn't enjoy. (Rinko and Beast can stay, everyone else can go.) Takeru and Haruto are superheroes, but... what else? Takeru mostly sits around unless acted on by the plot. Which means, like Wizard, this is a show that has a tough time generating plots in interesting ways. It's mostly them sitting around until the villains act, then going to stop them, repeat for 10 episodes. Ex-Aid could generate a plot/sympathy through doctoring, Drive through crime-stopping, W through slightly-sloppier-crime-stopping, OOO through Ankh being a tremendous asshole, etc. Wizard and Ghost just sit around until evil happens, but at least Wizard had his goddamn donut. Ghost doesn't even have a donut! Beyond the lack of a b-plot to generate story, it also makes the hero feel one-dimensional. What does he want, besides Not Dying and Also Maybe Other People Shouldn't Die? Does he want to see the world, make friends, something? Takeru doesn't seem like he wants to do anything other than weakly insist that he wants to be a hero. That's not going to put food on the temple's table, kid! At least your dad chopped wood for a fire! You just sit in the basement all day! -Trying to tell a whole Eyecon story in an episode is insane. It would feel more rewarding as a viewer if Takeru's quest to get an Eyecon took, y'know, longer than twenty minutes. The fact that the show felt the need to have a new Eyecon AND a new monster AND a human victim to tie it all together with AND an emotional arc for the week's human victim, all in one episode? Crazy. NOT recommended as a way to tell engaging stories. It makes everyone involved feel paper-thin, and it leads to bizarre scenes like this one: https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/rh1.png https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/rh2.png These two just met! He's a teenager who approached her in a parking garage, and she's telling him her formative childhood traumas! In their first conversation! And he's doing the same! But they have to, because he needs to form a connection with her and she has to relay her motivations RIGHT NOW because she's going to be revealed as the week's human victim/culprit in 8 minutes. With no space to tell a story, you get dialogue that's perfunctory and baffling, powers that barely get utilized, and villains that are bland. -The post-winter movie do-over is better, but two first arcs are still a huge mistake. The rush to kill/revive Takeru was some terrible storytelling, and it feels like the show just wanted to take a mulligan and do it all over, with a better approach. And it is better! Alain's path from Villain to (where I'm at now) Not A Villain, Exactly, But Still A Prick is a fun arc. Specter's need to show kindness and gratitude to the Ganma Royal Family even as he's fighting against them is an admirable character trait. Cubi and Lady Brienne of Tarth Ganma are intriguing takes on monsters-of-the-week. But, it's all in service of not very much. In theory, Takeru needs to be gaining the trust of the Heroic Eyecons. He needs to demonstrate character growth in line with the expectations of each Eyecon. Robin Hood needs to see a commitment to justice. Benkei needs to see a dedication to his friends. Beethoven, I assume, needs him to learn a choreographed dance routine. (Wait, no, that was Gaim. And that one Wizard Hyper Battle Video.) That would've been a strong premise for the first batch of episodes, but what good does it do now in plot terms? Are we learning anything new about Takeru? No, it's all aspects of his personality we've seen before. (Surprise! Kamen Riders are dedicated to justice!) Does it unlock new powers? No, he could pretty much use the Eyecons like normal. Sure, Edison might get squirrely, but it's not like he used that one much, anyway. Overall, while the Ganma World stuff is a fun change of pace, too much of the other post-movie episodes feel like a slightly remastered version of what I already saw. -Onari and Akari are incredibly annoying. No screencaps, just *gestures at the first 23 episodes of Kamen Rider Ghost*. I'm in this for the long haul (if I could get through the middle-third of Wizard and the Amazons movie, I can get through anything), but it's been pretty rough so far. I can see a bit of light ahead, but I don't want to give myself false hope. Am I totally off-base? Is Ghost better in the first half than I'm giving it credit for? Let me know! |
You’re not off base, but you’ll probably also look back fondly on this part of the show as its glory days the deeper you get into the second half.
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I truely have terrible memories of this series...I might be the only one, but I don't like the Rider suits.
Weird thing is, Takeru is boring and unappealing to me in this and the character was treated as a joke in some of his other appearences in movies with the whole "Ore wa Tenkuji Takeru" and with him dying but that guy is interesting in Zi-O... |
Rider has a strange tendency to make bad series a lot more interesting in revisits or returns; like Kabuto in Decade or Gaim in Drive/Gaim. I'm certainly not complaining about having an excuse to love every Rider.
Ghost I definitely remember having a lot of problems with - some MAJOR ones towards the end - but it wasn't quiiite as bad as people were making it out to be. Still in my bottom 5 rider series, but it's not horribly painful. |
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Thanks for the feedback, everybody! |
I genuinely think Ghost is one of the best main rider designs there's ever been. There's a lot of things going for it that I could go into; but really, any design that manages to make a Parka work into general Rider aesthetics is enough to deserve high praise.
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Maybe my favorite thing is the "pulling the hood down, going to work" part of the transformation. It's a little flourish that helps energize the fight. |
I remember when I used to like Kamen Rider Ghost. It didn’t last long.
But don’t worry; there are lots of good shows you haven't seen yet. As far as Kamen Rider goes, most of them are pretty good IMO. |
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I'm excited about most of my unseen series for a variety of reasons. I want to see a big Rider vs Rider series like Ryuki. I want to see how good Den-O really is. I'm fascinated by what Hibiki is like. It's all very exciting! |
I mean, I really liked Ghost.
Got a Deviantart Stash write up here (yes I use Stash as a memo of sorts) if you wanna see my thoughts on every character. It does contain character spoilers, though. But it's mostly just gushing and love. |
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Thanks again for that link! |
The thing about Ghost is that it had a meh first act, then got amazing in the second once they introduce the third Rider, then becomes terribke by the time Takeru obtains his final form.
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Still, I'm particularly psyched to check out Kuuga. I saw on the Wiki that it was a single Rider show? As, again, someone who came in with Ex-Aid, that sounds amazing. I literally don't know how that could work. I'm looking forward to seeing all the early ideas, the aborted directions, what the franchise was like before the formula. |
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I do largely disagree, obviously. Onari is a character who's either going to click with you or he won't, but lumping Akari in with him? That's just mean! She was great. Everything about her that would've been annoying gets dropped almost immediately and she proceeds to spent the vast majority of the show being one of the most competent, active female leads Rider has ever had. Speaking of active, I also have to stick up for my boy Takeru. I just don't see how him sitting around waiting for the Ganma to do evil things is any different from Emu waiting for someone with the Bugster Virus to be wheeled into CR. Sure, he doesn't have the charisma of Gentarou or the depth of someone like Eiji (fun fact: every show looks at least 10% crappier when compared to OOO!), but there's plenty going on with his character, and I think just like the show he stars in, Takeru gets a lot of heat for no good reason. He always felt like a very human lead to me, and I appreciated the drive he had. He has this strongly held belief in the value of every individual person's life that I don't think is quite like any other Rider hero, and it was cool how he always tried to reach out to people, to the point where his primary goal in opposing the Ganma isn't even about simply defeating them after a while. The early done-in-one episodes were also something I always really appreciated. In my mind, the occasionally clunkiness of the hyper-compressed stories is no worse than the opposite problem of padding that can result from making them two-parters. The lack of breathing room makes them feel less natural, but the plots manage most of the same depth in only half the time, and the result is a really brisk first quarter that packs a lot in. Quote:
I could probably do a slightly better job writing that now, and my actual view on Ghost is a lot more tempered than it probably seems like from it (there are absolutely some glaring issues with the show's writing), but I put just about everything positive I feel about Ghost in there, and nothing's really changed since. Quote:
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I guarantee you'll love Kuuga, by the way, especially if you're actively looking for something different. Although maybe not as different as you'd think considering the first ever Heisei Rider show consisted almost entirely of two-parters. And come to think of it, having 11 forms probably would've seemed like a really transparent and gimmicky ploy to sell more merch back in 2000... Maybe this franchise hasn't changed as much as we think it has. :lol |
Hey, thanks so much for the response! I wrote a bunch in turn, but WOW does the board not want to post it. I keep getting "Post denied. New posts are limited by number of URLs it may contain and checked if it doesn't contain forbidden words." And that's if I post one paragraph of your post! That clearly was okay with the board! So, after spending 15 minutes getting any part of a post kicked back, I'm going to eat dinner and calm down. Back in bit!
EDIT: Literally the next minute the board let me add the whole post piece-meal. ROIDMUDES! |
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For Takeru, his motivations seem both selfish (he would rather not disappear into glowing particles, which, fair) and generic (fight monsters, save people, help friends). He's not a bad hero, necessarily. I loved that he decided to sacrifice his early revival to bring back Kanon. That's a big ol' hero move and if the show had swerved away from it, I don't think I'd ever believe in Takeru again. So, I'll follow him for the series. He just comes off a little bland for me. I need some spice to a character that I'm going to watch for 30+ hours. Quote:
There's absolutely a problem with padding in two-episode stories, and Wizard is, like, Exhibits A-Z for that, but I'm not sure cramming so much into the first few episodes, as we're supposed to be getting attached to these characters and this premise, was a smart move. Quote:
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Thanks so much for your thoughts on Ghost! I love talking about this stuff. I'm grateful for your time, and I'm definitely going to check out that thread you linked when I'm all done with Ghost. |
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I'll also be glad to tell you that for the most part, Kuuga through Decade you can leave all their stuff until the end. The only exceptions are Agito, Den-O and Decade -- Agito has a special that introduces his final form between episodes 35 and 36; Den-O is the series that by far hinges on the movie being part of its continuity and said movie (I'm Born) takes place between episodes 27 and 28; and Decade... also has its movie be kinda relevant, sort of, maybe? I mean it'd be weird to watch it after the end of the series in this case for reasons. Decade: All Riders vs. Dai-Shocker takes place before the final 2-parter of the series; between episodes 29 and 30. The rest of the pre-W series movies are either very staunchly AU stuff, a side thing like Agito's, or in Den-O's case they got like 7 post-series movies because they became a cultural phenomenon. A fair few of them also had HBV stuff, but once again: please, please, please do not bother with trying to fit every little bit of those into the continuity of your watchthrough and just leave them as fun things to watch at the end. Honestly to this day I still haven't watched the HBVs of Agito, Kabuto, Den-O and Kiva, and I only watched Decade's the other day. ... so! With all the continuity rubbish out the way, my problem with Akari is the problem I have with a lot of scientist side-characters in shows like this that deal with supernatural elements -- when faced with undeniable truth that supernatural things do exist, they instantly say "that's unscientific", and rather than that be a dumb flaw they have to get over, they just keep saying it. That just really gets to me because it's treating science like some sort of religious scripture; this unchanging truth which must be adhered to and doesn't ever alter. But science is very much a reactionary thing; if new proof is offered that disproves what we previously knew, then we have to change that and have to come up with new hypotheses and such for why these things exist. Ghosts exist now, Akari; it's your goddamn job to explain how they exist and why; not keep droning on about how it's "unscientific" until the end of the series. The only reason ghosts and ghouls are unscientific is because there is of course no conclusive proof in the real world that they exist; but you're staring at ghosts every day! You saw a giant portal explode in the sky! YOU'RE TALKING TO YOUR DEAD FRIEND! Admittedly that's kind of a nitpick, but... it's one of those little things that gets to me. Otherwise I actually like her enough. |
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And, okay, I'll play Devil's Advocate on this one for a minute. I actually kind of liked that, after sacrificing his revival to bring back Kanon, while all of his sidekicks are out there literally beating the bushes for Eyecons, Takeru's zen about the whole thing. This is the consequence of the choice he made, and he doesn't regret making it, so he'll enjoy the three weeks he has left. That's a sweet idea, and it never felt like a defeat to me. There's a serenity to it that I thought was interesting. ...then his dad shows up and resets the clock and we're back to the Episode 2 status quo and THAT just drove me crazy. There were stakes, and then suddenly there were no stakes and a new coat. I'm not saying they should've killed Takeru for good in the twelfth episode of a 50-episode series (although...), but they needed a better solution to the dilemma than "his dad gives him a do-over". |
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The only plot-relevant theatrical movie I can think of that I've seen so far was the Dr. Pac-Man movie. There's a chunk about Emu's origin that gets revisited a few times in the main series, and since that was the first Kamen Rider theatrical movie I saw, it might've made me erroneously assume that all Kamen Rider theatrical movies have heavy continuity with the main series. Which HA HA, Jesus, do they not. Quote:
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Without reading through a lot of the backlog, my rules where Ghost were concerned after getting into the second half of the arc were:
1: Stop counting how many times he dies and comes back, or the countdown all together. It'll spaz out your OCD. 2: Spectre is one of the best secondary riders. 3: Once you get to the final reason of where Makoto, Kanon, and Alain come from, it's not a bad premise. You just wonder why you had to go so far into the series to get to that point. 4: Onari is not annoying. He's comic relief like a boss. I still hear his screams. And Akari is a female character that isn't a Mary Sue like some of the prior rider series. 5: Ignore the OVAs and other media unless you really just want to torture yourself. The closure in current Zi-O helps a touch, but not much. 6: Bad writing and main characterizations make Takeru kind of one of the weakest Riders from the Heisei era. His ambition isn't to live again, but to make his life burn bright, while he's dead. That makes absolutely no sense to me. 7: Not nearly enough time with the Eyecon ghosts. 8: I don't care how tough a person you are, you're allowed to cry at the Takoyaki episode. 9: Grateful is shamelessly overpowered, even though Boost was the better suit design. |
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4. Agree to disagree! He's still less awful than Brave's dad in Ex-Aid, so it's not like he's the worst comic relief character I've seen. 9. Boost is an awesome design. Grateful, like a lot of upgrade suits, is just too busy for me. Like, Wizard Infinity Style is maybe my favorite upgrade suit: clean, thematically appropriate, looks premium. |
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1: Grease 2: Birth 3: Spectre 4: Mach/Chase 5: Baron IXA is also up there somewhere with Beast in the 6-10 of that list, but Birth is without a doubt one of my favorites. Looking forward to what you think after Ghost. Considering Ex-Aid followed after, looking back it's not impossible to consider watching Ghost again, albeit with considerably less judgement from when it was airing. |
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I think Ghost is a lot easier for me to take than it likely was for all of you because I'm (relatively) burning through them. If I had a week to stew over each episode, as opposed to just jumping to the next one, I'd probably be a lot more down on it. Maybe it's worth a rewatch? |
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There's really no getting around that Ghost just doesn't have that. The scope of its world is ironically a lot more narrow despite having an entire otherworldly society as a major fixture of the setting, and it definitely hurts the believability of a lot of the cast. Especially poor bit players like Shibuya and Narita. In retrospect this is probably a huge reason it doesn't register on any real emotional level with so many people. It's easy to notice you're watching a TV show when you're watching Ghost. Remember though: everything looks crappier up against OOO! And Ghost did have the attention to detail to give the freakin' mailman regular cameos (Until he kinda fell by the wayside...), so it's not all bad. At any rate, I can't disagree on this point so much as say it's not a deal-breaker for me personally. Onari in particular also has an actual motivation for obsessing over Takeru the way he does, so I'm certainly letting him off the hook. Quote:
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I know you've said before you liked how Haruto was always out on patrol for Phantoms, so is that basically the gist of it here? Just show Takeru looking for trouble every now and then? Quote:
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Anyway, sorry I inadvertently proved GOOOdwin's law, "As an online Kamen Rider discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving OOO approaches 1." |
I mean being fair, Fish is just a massive OOO fan and rewatched it recently. Though, like, can you blame him? It is the best Rider show :p
I do see what you're getting at though. Takeru does have goals and a life outside his ridering - or, uh, he doesn't have life, but... you get what I mean - but it's just that it's not seen or communicated in an active capacity. As I recall it's mostly his crossover appearances that express this a lot more, even if just in a small sense - Heisei Generations Final shows him looking after the temple in his last scene, while Drive/Ghost deals with his legacy a lot more directly. I must admit I'm struggling to remember a point in the series where, even if he expresses care about this stuff; he's actively pursuing following his father's legacy beyond being a rider and doing temple things. He's kind of shown to be doing something like that in the very beginning by researching the luminaries; ie looking into something his father left behind and he feels is important. But it doesn't feel like we get a lot of those moments in the series afterwards. |
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Though I do feel the last part almost proves my point -- it ends up that the Ganma actually are something that's a lot more easily comparable to things modern science has discovered, and yet her first reaction was to hit it with "it's not what has already been found out, so it can't be real". And no matter how things eventually turned out, it still remains that that's just... not a good representation of science to me, and it's never challenged in any meaningful way. Still though, semantics -- especially when as I said, I do like how she turned out! She's very helpful and is thankfully allowed to be a lot more fun and do a lot more than stand on the sidelines like how certain other female lead characters are treated by certain other rider shows, and I'd like to see the sort of drive and determination her character had a lot more. |
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Also, you made me realize something that maybe explains the way some people can be, like, "Takeru doesn't have goals", while other people can be all "He totally has goals": his goals as a spiritual character are inherently difficult to dramatize. If (if) we're meant to see his adult growth as being connected to his Buddhist beliefs, how the eff do you portray that in a 22-minute television show that's designed to make children ask their parents to buy them toys? That is a high goddamn bar to clear! "I want to make friends" or "I want to be a better doctor", these are easy things to communicate as goals, and easy things to show when a character is more skilled at them. Is Takeru getting 1.5% more enlightened each episode? Is that what he means by wanting to make his life burn bright? His enlightenment? Did... did we just crack this thing wide open?! |
KAMEN RIDER GHOST EPISODE 24 / ANIMAL TEENS SUPER-HERO DANCE PROGRAM EPISODE 07
https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/ghost/sentai1.png https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/ghost/sentai2.png Y'know, not bad. Dopey as hell, but a pretty fun two-episode lark. That tonal whiplash, though! I've only seen a few Sentai episodes, and only as a result of Kamen Rider crossovers, but (and I don't mean this as an insult, I swear): they seem pretty juvenile? Like, Kamen Rider is a show for children, but Sentai seems like a show for children. The main heroes seem way goofier than I'm used to from Rider shows. Like, are they all comedy relief? Is it just heightened from the crossoverness of these types of episodes? I don't know if I'm seeing the normal version of these characters or not. Was this representative of the Animal Teens Super-Hero Dance Program, or not? I sort-of assume it was, because virtually nothing about this episode of Ghost seemed different. I mean, sure, Animal Teen Red shows up for a fight, and there's a Go See The New Movie Featuring Shocker guy, but the rest of it was pretty heavy on the melodrama and arc stuff that the show normally deals in. Which, how the hell would this play for someone who just watches the Sentai programs and checked in with this one episode of Ghost? They spell nothing out for you. Animal Teens, at least that was early enough in the season where they could get away with a monster-of-the-week plot and no arc stuff I could notice. (Again, I don't know these shows, so maybe it's all monster-of-the-week and no arc stuff?) I was able to watch the Animal Teens episode cold and follow the character relationships pretty easily (they are very broadly sketched) and get a whole story. The Ghost episode was just "this guy you don't know gets possessed, this other guy you don't know is being hunted, some other guy got killed last week but he's not really dead, some other other guy is in a dark room and he cares about some other room that isn't working right, TUNE IN NEXT WEEK." I mean, not new-viewer friendly. Weird choice. Still, I had fun. It sucks that the show needed to move Makoto off-screen for a bit, but I'm psyched for more Alain. He's maybe my favorite character on the show right now? https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/...laintalk1a.png https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/...laintalk2a.png |
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But I guess the simplest way to describe it is... it makes me happy. The cast is amazing. The fights and suits are cool. Especially the final form. The midseason powerup incorporates an idea I'd love to see replicated in later series, but hasn't. The lore is epic. The Ganma are some pretty cool villains; they even have tier levels~ And I personally thought the latter half of the show was pretty awesome. I mean, I binged most of the last 12 episodes in one night, and not not once did I get infuriated. :D |
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