I enjoy a good redemption story when it feels like the show has earned it. My preference is something that develops over the course of several episodes or plays off of established events or relationships, like Hana's love for Sakura bringing her to join the heroes or Juggler growing attached to the crew of STORAGE. I can also accept something like Chase's story, where there's amnesia or a suppressed true identity involved, provided the show pulls it off well.

Stories where the face turn feels too abrupt, unexplained, or forced don't work for me, though. I think Gai is the poster boy for this kind of forced redemption: dude was an all-out villain, but then he got a new robot dog toy and all of a sudden he was Aruto's best bud. It didn't make sense within the context of the narrative and felt like he only switched sides because the show was done with him as a villain.

I totally forgot about that part, holy crud. I think you're right that even a small scene of Parado acknowledging that what he did was wrong because he now understood what it's like to have only 1 life/die would've helped a lot.

I would say that this is expected, because Parado is part of Emu and reconciliation in one sense or another between them should have taken place. Another thing is that the writers could not leave Parado a physical body, making him, like Takumi Katsuragi, a voice in Emu's head.

The thing with Parad is that he's extremely childish and did not quite understand mortality until finding out he was now mortal after Chronos appeared, the fact the killed Ride Players could still be saved might have been added afterwards to make it make sense but the idea of a petty child wanting revenge for being what he likely sees as being bullied and not realizing the consequences of his actions does work imo

I mean, the Thouzer merchandise is just really lame. Gai makes a big deal about how his Rider System uses two Keys, but Awaking Arsino is literally just a piece of black plastic that hits a button. Although it's totally fitting that Gai would oversell his cheap quality ZAIA products to con people, haha.

Otherwise, I was prepared to go in to that redemption episode expecting to hate it, but honestly, I thought it was surprisingly emotional and tragic. I know some people weren't so easily convinced though, so, to each their own, I guess. However, I also think Gai received more punishment than people acknowledge. He's genuinely trying hard to atone for the mess he and ZAIA made, but other than Thouzer and Rin, nobody gives him a chance to prove he's changed and they continue to ostracize him for his past actions.

Mutsuki was possessed, but after they used Shima to counter Spider Undead's evil influence, it seemed to merge them so that Mutsuki had more control and now he was just a conflicted a**hole instead of an evil puppet. His interactions with Hikaru have him becoming gradually softer as he realizes that being alone and relying on nobody doesn't actually make him better, just more miserable. I'd say that Mutsuki and Hikaru have a similar dynamic to Ren and Desast, but where Ren's development comes from learning to accept himself like Desast does, Mutsuki's comes from Hikaru willingly being sealed to exorcise the remaining Spider evilness, which makes her look cool, but not so much for Mutsuki, who once more needs someone else to solve his problem for him. It's a great arc for Hikaru, but a bad one for Mutsuki.

I also enjoyed the performance of Takasugi, which he has since improved on further in J-dramas. However, a talented performance can still be diminished if the material is terrible, like what Hyuuga had to work with for Revice. Takasugi succeeded in depicting a truly evil and despicable character driven to madness by greed and lust, so I can only blame Urobuchi for thinking he could turn that character in to someone I could forgive or sympathize with. I won't.

Did he kill kill them though? I recall that all the Bugster victims were just turned in to data that can be restored by advanced medical treatment, with Kiriya being the first successful patient in Another Ending.

Speaking of Thouser, I think many people want official punishment for him. That is, if he had helped the heroes and Zero-One went to prison at the end, his redemption would have been received much better. That is, Orteca is not hated that much, despite the fact that he does not even repent. Unfortunately for Amatsu, he appears too often for anti-viewers to even cool down on him.

I really really enjoyed Necrom's arc in Ghost. The show wasn't perfect but that arc sucked me in.

Agree. Thank you for your opinion.

I'm assuming those examples are from post series stuff as I don't remember them at all and my only experience with those was rocking a wiki on the Real Eyes movie in which Gai explicitly caused another character's tragic backstory (That's like, the 5th Rider he did this too I think) but could you elaborate? Again, seeing as how he was the cause of everything bad that ever happens in the show, what exactly has he done to prove he's earned the right to let this go unpunished? What punishments did he receive other than getting pantsed by Naki?

You mean RealTime? I don't recall which other Rider apparently owed their tragic backstory to Gai's actions, but considering how he caused the destruction of an entire city, there's probably a lot of people who could claim that. But yeah, I'm referring to post-show content, where he suffers some misfortune. He tried to reform ZAIA in to a good ethical company, but Isamu and Yua don't take him seriously and Metsuboujinrai blew it up before he could make any real progress. He tried to start from zero with his new company, Thouzer Intellion, but (and I'm not making this up) he got infected with Shin Dan Kuroto Kami-sama, who revived again and forcefully took over his position as president.