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06-17-2016, 10:02 AM | #11 |
The Immortal King Tasty
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: Every diner you've ever been to.
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I heavily disagree here; Ghost has not "escalated fairly well". It did tackle some more interesting plots for sure, but Onari is still insufferable, Takeru and Makoto are still bland as all hell, Kanon is still a trophy, and they still throw resurrections and power-ups around like nobody’s business.
Ghost did not get better (yet?), at all. It’s the same it has ever been: A mediocre show. Let me just stop you here: If you describe Onari as one of "the most active and useful supporting cast members we've gotten in a while" then I have no idea what show you’re watching. It’s definitely not the same Ghost I watch. He’s active, that’s for sure, but useful? Hell no. Takeru had a time where his motives were interesting but he transformed into the bland posterboy hero really fast, and Makoto went from interesting to boring as soon as Kanon returned to life. And while we’re talking Kanon: Horrible damsel in distress trophy character. Completely useless. Or maybe Ghost just isn’t for me, that could be a thing too. But it has nothing to do with me having high expectations still. As for the supporting cast, not all of them can be as useful as Akari because most of them are normal people, and not super scientists, and they still find things to do anyway. I hear people act like Kanon had nothing to do after coming back to life, but she plays a huge role in Alain's character development through their conversations. And in Onari's case, he may not be active all the time, but he's supportive in a very literal and emotional sense. He's extremely dedicated to helping Takeru, even if there's not much he can do, and nonetheless he basically starts a ghost-busting business to find Ganma, which I'd say is pretty dang helpful. There's more to the plot and characters in a story than the literal events that happen. Little moments and broader themes count for something too, and I find Ghost has those in abundance. I guess Ghost really isn't for you, because you seem to not fully understand it. I know "You just don't get it" is an excuse that gets thrown around a lot, and I don't mean to disparage your taste, but I don't really know what else to call it here. It's interesting you describe Kanon as a "damsel in distress trophy" though, given I hear a lot of people complain about Mai saying the same thing, both from people who liked and who didn't like Gaim. Not to mention the tossing around power-ups thing. Pretty much every Rider show since like, 2006 has that problem to some extent. It's just kind of something you have to accept.
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06-17-2016, 11:07 AM | #12 |
AMAZON!!!!!!
Join Date: Jul 2013
Location: Okoto
Posts: 1,119
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The thing that I have found with tokusatsu shows and with Ghost and Amazons in particular is that they are better to "binge-watch" than to sit through week to week.
Before I went on my break of Ghost for a few months I found the show to be dreadful with only a handful of good moments. When I started to pick the show back up I found that it is a lot more enjoyable than what I had remembered. Now is it the best Kamen Rider show? No not by a long shot, but it has elements in it that I really like and have kept me invested. I have yet to be caught up, but when I am I think I'm going to take another break. Why? Because if the show dips again for me then if I binge through it the struggle won't feel as bad as it would watching week to week. Then with Amazons with the story developing as it is its a lot better to me to just go straight through episodes than week to week. Also the whole first handful of episodes thing. The beginning of a show is what gets people hooked onto a show. If people don't find something that they enjoy in that time frame then they don't have to watch it. One day I told myself that I'd watch every Heisei show out there. After four years I've only got six series left to complete. There are complaints about those shows that people have found and I didn't because I "binged" through them. It also might be a case of toku fans are just starting to bet burned out on everything. Its understandable because when I got into tokusatsu I was fascinated by how much there was and I really wanted to know everything. Then in the fall of last year I had started to notice to many trend and patterns in these shows. I just started to find each show similar to the last and after a while I just burned out. So I took a break and varied the shows that I watch and only recently I have started to watch these shows again and not feel so burnt out on them. |
06-17-2016, 11:16 AM | #13 |
Dai Shogun
Join Date: Jul 2014
Location: Germany
Posts: 7,532
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I should keep this in mind when the next season starts. Anyways, you raise some interesting points, I don’t give Takeru enough credit and your argument with Kanon helping out Alain is valid, I forgot about that. But one of my points I'll defend until the end: Onari is stupid and they could handle him way better if they wanted to, but he's still just a clown. Yes he does root for Takeru, and as I said he had some good moments, only that I can count them with one hand. Last edited by Kiwami; 06-17-2016 at 11:19 AM.. |
06-17-2016, 11:35 AM | #14 |
I have a problematic type
Join Date: Jan 2012
Posts: 10,432
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You know, every year I hear complaints about the lead in Rider being "bland" and every year I don't get it. Takeru is only bland in the sense that he's really nice. Sure, he doesn't have any overt flaws, but he has a personality, and the show consistently show him learning lessons and growing as a hero.
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06-17-2016, 11:40 AM | #15 |
Veteran Member
Join Date: Mar 2014
Location: CA
Posts: 2,499
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I'm still fairly new to Rider, but Ghost has been way more interesting than any Sentai I've ever watched. The plot started developing as soon as the show started - it's not just "let's send this monster out and watch as it blows stuff up and fights the sentai" for 50 episodes. It might help because I started when the show was already on episode 30 and could knock em all out in a couple of sittings, but if Ghost has a boring beginning then I don't get how people can actually watch some other toku shows.
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But one of my points I'll defend until the end: Onari is stupid and they could handle him way better if they wanted to, but he's still just a clown. Yes he does root for Takeru, and as I said he had some good moments, only that I can count them with one hand.
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06-17-2016, 11:59 AM | #16 |
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Join Date: Jun 2016
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1) As a cynic, toku is aimed towards 11-14 year-olds. That demographic is particularly adept at discerning what is to their tastes, and what they find unpalatable within a very brief span of time. If a show isn't compelling within a reasonable timeframe it will be dropped (and one would argue that 5 episodes is being extremely generous given modern attention spans). 2) As a toku fan, there is a plethora of wonderful content which has accrued over the decades. Simply put if Black, a show from 1987 edited on a 7 MHz Amiga 500, can grip you from the opening frames of Ep. 1 then any other competitor had better at least be in the same region of attractiveness to stand a chance against its historical competition. Otherwise why shouldn't people just rewatch their Laserdiscs? 3) As a writer, I can appreciate deliberate languour in pacing. Two of my favourite movies, Jaws and 2001: A Space Odyssey have extended sequences of zero plot significance which go on for lengthy minutes. Lengthy excruciating minutes for the uninitiated. We cannot expect everyone to be writers. |
06-17-2016, 12:56 PM | #17 |
The Immortal King Tasty
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: Every diner you've ever been to.
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My problem with Takeru isn't that he's bland. I actually agree with you that he does have a clearly defined personality (now you want bland, that's when you go to Makoto, who is about as dynamic as a sheet of plywood). My problem with Takeru is the same one I had with Wataru back in Kiva: he's almost entirely reactionary. I like my heroes to be proactive, that's one of the big reasons why I'm the biggest cheerleader on Team Haruto. When there's some kind of big evil threat, I want to see the Kamen Rider out there confronting it head on, not waiting around for it to come to him. Takeru, especially during the first 99-day countdown, was frustratingly passive. He only got involved in events when they came to him and showed zero initiative in hunting for the Heroic Eyecons; he just waited for the old man to show up and spoon-feed him a clue (I think that the opening narration date tracker is a huge factor in giving me this impression of Takeru, as a side note; in the first part of the show it would sometimes show us that well over a week had passed between episodes with the characters making absolutely zero progress on anything). At least Takeru doesn't spend most episodes moping in the bathtub between monster fights, but he still doesn't give off much sense of a being a man on borrowed time trying to stop an evil invasion.
Second, I think that passivity in the early episodes is less a flaw in the writing and more a trait of the character. Takeru explicitly feels a little lost and overwhelmed by all the crap he suddenly finds himself dealing with, and in I think the second episode, he even confides in Akari how worried he is he won't be able to find all 15 Eyecons before he disappears. There's a moment in the episode where Takeru gets the Boost Eyecon where, during the montage of everyone looking for the last Eyecons before his last few days are over, he stops (on Christmas no less) to just lie down and admire how pretty the sky is for a bit. I can't put it into words super adequately so I hope you get what I mean by this, but especially the way the scene is acted, it sort of shows just how exhausted Takeru actually is from what his life's become. Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but subtle character moments like that are what made me like Haruto so much. As for after that, I don't really know what you mean. He's still a little lackadaisical about coming back to life, but that's only because he's so concerned with the Ganma by that point. He decides pretty early on after Necrom shows up that he wants to try and understand and make peace with the Ganma and 20 episodes later he's still sticking to that. If anything, he seems more driven than the usual Rider.
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Last edited by Fish Sandwich; 06-17-2016 at 01:48 PM.. |
06-18-2016, 08:56 AM | #18 |
Professional Lurker
Join Date: Jan 2016
Posts: 124
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At first, when I got into Toku, I was a lot like what MrHerofan said, seeing that there was so much of it and wanting to learn it all, but now I'm having a hard time starting other series.
Funny thing is, when I watch a toku show, it seems like the opposite happens to me than everyone else. I'm fine with watching an episode a week, in fact I think it's been helping me get through Ghost. Lately it's been teetering on the edge of "Meh" for me, but being able to watch an episode a week at a time, it gives a kind of cool down and gets me excited for the next one to come out. Meanwhile I've tried to start up both Ryuki and Kabuto, both praised from what I've seen in the toku community, but after a while I just forget about it and... stop. Even Amazon kind of got like that after the first few episodes, and I've been lenient on it for the virtue that its much older than shows I'm used to. Maybe I'm starting to get burnt out on toku, or maybe I'm just completely mad and enjoy mediocrity. Also, going back to Ghost, I don't see Onari as useless. Yes he can be annoying (I personally don't like the way he talks), but in the beginning he pretty much drove the plot. His paranormal investigation led them to almost every single eyecon, and while we don't see it all that much, him and the other two temple guys were constantly out searching for stuff. Actually... now that I think about it, alot of what he did that was useful was handling mostly mundane things off screen...
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06-18-2016, 09:40 AM | #19 |
Alias: ZeroEnchiladas
Join Date: Aug 2015
Posts: 2,602
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Me I have a ton of patience due to the job I work so Ghost really hasn't driven my patience to it's limits too much, and by too much I mean only one time, which was the Mugen tease, that legitimately angered me but other than that I've had a fun time with Ghost. Could it be better? Yeah, it could, but for what it is, I personally don't think it's as bad as people are making it out to be. But alas that is only my opinion. |
07-16-2016, 01:31 AM | #20 |
Ex-Weather Three leader
Join Date: Jan 2012
Posts: 10,581
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For myself it varies per show. Blade I gave up after episode 3 only to return after episode 16-ish, Ghost I just gave up after episode 20 ish cause I was too tired and lazy to continue that the synopsis on Toei was good enough.
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