Everything about Ghost is a waste of potential.

Except Onari; there was never any potential there.

I found them to be pretty unique. The whole them having physical bodies that they leave behind to inhabit ethereal bodies aspect is quite different from other shows and in my opinion justifies why some of the suits keep coming back. If they were just demons or yokai, I think that would make them a little generic.

Completely rehashing a concept used in Super Sentai three times would be a "waste of potential".

I think the problem is more that the early episodes are throwing so much information and hints on plot details at you that the more subtle character bits kinda get lost as they mostly happen in calmer, dialogue-heavy moments.

I actually wrote a little essay-thingy about it some time ago, so if you have the time to read it...
http://suzustarlight.tumblr.com/post...ly-episodes-of

In Ex-Aid when they level up it takes long just to get to level 2 which is so annoying. Who's your favorite character so far? Mine is Taiga, he's like Kaito.

That all sounds about right. I don't know, I never really had a problem with Blade's first episodes to begin with, so I've always found it strange how frequently they get treated like they're a completely different show. But me being in the minority in liking stuff people hate is hardly a new thing, I guess.

I super appreciate you noting that Kenzaki gets fleshed out decently right out of the gate, by the way. I remember joking as I was watching Blade that "did you guys know about my dead parents?" is his idea of an icebreaker (I can't really remember now but I felt he brought it up a lot early on, like the show was scared you'd forget), but I think a lot of those early scenes, especially his conversations with Kotarou, did a great job of establishing him as a lovable, kind of dorky and awkward dude who was very serious about saving people, even if he himself didn't really know it yet.

My mindset from back when I first watched Blade did play a part in not liking the first few episodes all that much, I even thought Kenzaki was kinda boring back then. (And now I like him just a little too much, lol) I was in a kind of difficult mental state in my early toku-days, lol
But every time after that, I actually enjoyed those episodes and discovered more and more each time, which is why I wrote that.

Actually, Kenzaki doesn't mention his parents all too much to other people, but there are a hell lot of flashbacks (or rather always the same one) in the first few episodes and he struggles with the loss a lot, so a lot of time is dedicated to him reflecting on that. He's actually rather awkward, socially, which he admits himself when he gets closer to Koutarou (episode 4, for reference), so he doesn't have many friends. Despite being a precious cinnamon roll and all xD His ice breaker in episode 4 is actually: "Hey, maybe I'm gonna die from using the rider system. Isn't it cool to die as a hero?!" :lol

I'm starting to wonder if I watched the same Blade as everyone else. I don't remember half of this stuff. I either totally missed it or TVN subs were just that bad.

It's impossible to like Kenzaki too much. :p

Well, they are some of TV-N's absolute worst work ever. I'd imagine a lot of the nuance of these casual, character-building conversations gets lost in the clunky wording. But then I watched Blade with those subs before I knew a lick of Japanese and I still followed everything fine, so...

My precious Sword-Husbando :lol


I mean, I hardly remember them since I basically banned them from my hard drive after I got the raws 2 years ago, but considering how prone TV-Nihon is to mishearing stuff (which is really a problem many subbers have), I imagine they missed out on some important stuff. Also, since they tend to not get certain idioms as well, that might have affected the casual dialogue a lot in connotation of certain things. It was the "Don't fuck with me!"-era of TVN-Subs, after all.

I already watched it three or four times already. I can remember for everyone :lol