Kamen Rider Ghost Episode 23- "Possession! The Massive Eyecon" Discussion
 

Returning from the Ganma World, all 3 Riders are shocked by the events that have unfolded. Where can they go from here??

Huh. So I guess the 15 tablets the Ganma have are like... evil great souls that can upgrade Ultima Ganma? I dunno. Looks interesting though.

Loved when all of the Damashii materialized around in the basement and talked to each other for a bit. That was a pretty hype moment leading up to Grateful.

Wow what great episode every moment was incredible so much happen in the plot. First Ghost refuse to help the two other riders because of all the bodies he saw in the Ganma world can't blame him for feeling that way. Then we found out that Makoto did not get his body back from the Ganma world which I knew cause it never show him getting it back. Makoto was killed off and return to the Ganma world. Graceful is really cool form. I felt it was a special moment when all eyecons were together came to life and talk among each other love it so much.

Hmm....Makoto killed.....but I think he will revived in incubator from Ganma World...

Hmm....interesting to see Takeru angry in this episode....and Ghost Grateful Damashii looks very cool...

It just occurred to me. Basically every time we've seen Houdini after its debut episode, it's been the "RETREAT!" Damashii.

At first the thought kind of annoyed me because it seems like a waste, but then I realized how fitting it is given that Houdini was an ESCAPE artist. Maybe that was the whole idea in the first place... sorta blew my own mind a little with that revelation.

I don't want to sound like a jerk but this episode sort of raised a few more questions than it put down. What are those gigantic slate things Adonis used to worship?

Why didn't Takeru have to connect with Nobunaga, Tutankhamun, Houdini, Grimm and Sanzo? (Unless he already connected with the first three back when they broke Spectre out of Necrom's control and the latter two decided to ditch Alan anyways.)

Takeru being the jerk with Makoto being the understanding one was a nice change of pace though.

I never considered that. Kudos to you on that brilliant observation, if I say so myself.

Well first, he did connect with Nobunaga when they freed Specter from Necrom. The ones he still hasn't connected with are Billy, Beethoven, Goemon, Tut, Houdini, Grimm, and Sanzo. But that's irrelevant; Grateful isn't what his father sent him on that mission to achieve.

Good episode, but I feel like there was too little reaction to Makoto's sacrifice. But then, I was under the impression that he'd actually managed to get his body back, but...I guess not. Regardless, this does not put Makoto in a very pleasant position, and Takeru having little reaction beyond "whoops i guess i dun fucked up" was a little eh.

The part where all 15 ghosts were hanging out in the basement was definitely really cool, wish it could have been a bit longer but it did what it had to. Grateful as a form is still pretty cool, but kind of...cluttered? 15 is just too many forms, man. The transformations sequence ran a bit longer than the jingle, which is rare and makes it feel a bit out of sync. And the whole sequence for the Zendaikaigan was basically an incomprehensible mess of sounds. And I'm still not fond of all the faceplates being flat colors. But still, cool.

The thing of greatest interest was definitely the tablet going out of the prayer room and upgrading Ultima to...Ultima Fire, the Asahi site says. Simple name, but appropriate I guess. Wonder what's up with that. The more we know, the more questions we have...

Also a bit shocked that Javert didn't die. Thought this would be a repeat of the Boost debut but I guess he's sticking around this time a bit more. Though I mean...he has his body back so he's kind of human, I think, so maybe Takeru wouldn't be that into it. Not that he knows that. Still.

Yeah, I had to raise an eyebrow at the lack of any real drama surrounding Makoto's "death". Hell, Takeru seemed to get over himself rather quickly after such a sight. Regardless, Grateful Damashii was awesome as hell, and the build-up to it was pure hype. It was really cool seeing all the other heroes sitting around together, if only for so briefly.

Of course, this all raises more questions than it answers, especially with the tablets in the prayer room. Can't wait to see how this goes.

Also, Zyuohger crossover next ep! <3

At least Grateful got more Screentime than Type Formula one from Episode 22

Don't worry, Next Episode will showcase Grateful's power more!

*Rant incoming*

Nope. Sorry, nothing, not a single thing in this episode worked for me. The drama was crap, Takeru’s sudden change of character was gone as fast as it arrived and felt fake as shit, and the whole thing was an incredibly horrible setup for just another new form. Which looks awful IMO and is the same old "All Powers Combined" kinda deal. Yawn.

The combination of the Eyecons should've been special, but it wasn’t. Takeru gets moody (which is understandable but still absolutely out of character, in a bad way) all his Eyecons fly away, five minutes later they're like "Nah the kid's good" fly back and that's it. What the hell. Also: Every Eyecon Takeru never used agrees with this? Because the others say so? No, because lazy writing. He also didn’t had a lesson from all of his own Eyecons yet, so the whole "Go into the Eyecon and learn from the heroes"-thing was for nothing? Wasn't that supposed to be so that Takeru learns from the heroes so he can unite them? Or what?

And the characters don’t work. At all. Kanon for example: You just witnessed your brother getting killed because Takeru the idiot didn’t want to intervene, next thing after he goes "Grateful" is that you smile at him and just accept that he will somehow get your brother back? No! You get angry, you scream at the idiot for letting your brother die. I realize Kanon probably knows that her brother’s body is still alive in the Ganma world, and to be fair Takeru has a track record for getting her brother back, but still: No human reacts like this! They even have her faint when it happens and next up she’s still all like "Nah its fine", WTF. That’s probably why I can’t take Takeru’s sudden extreme character change for real, because every other character feels like a puppet that always dances in the same way. Takeru had some good development immediately after he died for the first time, that felt natural, this didn’t.

Also the obligatory "Punch a depressive/cowardly character in the face"-scene every other Rider show has for some reason. Why?

I also hate how every character is always right where he needs to be. It’s a television trope for sure, but come on; this show does it so badly. Every time any character just finds the character they need to find right away or after running around screaming "Takeru!” Makoto! Kanon! Alain!" for 30 seconds. Or the freakin' mailman (who is the real hero of this show by the way) saw someone walk around somewhere and just casually goes back to Takeru’s place to tell everyone. I know that every Rider show does this to some extend, but with Ghost it's just so in your face that it annoys me.

Ignoring shitty story and character development, there surely is some cool action to behold in this episode, right? Nope. Specter and Necrom get their asses kicked; Houdini is back for more horrible CGI- and "Fly away!"-action, Grateful does nothing other than spitting out annoying sounds like a machine gun and Rider kicks Javel. I get that they can’t show off what the form can do at the end of an episode – no wait, they can. Kiwami Arms did it. Type Tridoron did it too. So yeah, they could’ve done it, they just chose not to.

Thumbs down, horrible episode, this show needs to get its shit together. Or be over already.

No offense but it sounds like watching TV-shows with you is a pain if there are many plotholes, then why must you continue to watch it?

I felt the same in some ways, especially when Takeru suddenly become a jerk and then turns normal again. It felt so logical. Granted, the Ganma will keep coming back. I thought realize that fact will strengthen your will or somewhat like that, but nope, Takeru just acting incomprehensibly. He said he's afraid but there was no single moment he show that emotion. All he did is yawn, rant, being lazy.

However, to be fair:

All eyecons gathered at one place, become human form and talked to each others, is that not special enough? Did they ever confirm that they leave him because he suddenly become a jerk? Why did Makoto and Alain's eyecons go to the temple? It's maybe plot convenient, but may has it's own reasons.
Also, writer never said that uniting 15 heroes will lead to Grateful, what if it's the reason he get Mugen? It's us who are assuming that, just like why we rant about the obligatory plot because they are supposed for the next form. You have the choice to not know anything and feel surprise, not like "This is predictable because of the incoming new form" or anything.

Kanon has always be like that, it's the best she can pull out. I agree that she lacks of reaction when Makoto "dies" but screaming at your friend when there are larger threat sounds selfish to me.

Houdini is just like Suika Arms or CGI Tridoron, so it's understandable. About the finisher, considering the small time left (around 2 minutes?), what they can do to pull off a finisher? In Kiwami debuts Kouta spawn nearly every weapons, just not consecutively. Type Tridoron is limited by 3 tires at once, however in the final showdown when Shinnosuke summons all the tires it is the same thing.

All in all, this episode has lots of things that happened but did not impress me in the way they were executed. Kachidoki Arms and Type Formula debut episode felt better.

Why do you assume that watching TV with me is a pain because of a post I wrote on the internet? I don’t criticize TV-shows or movies while I watch them with others unless they ask me what I think about it. Which is exactly what this topic is for; it asks me what I think about the episode.

And I continue watching it because there only is one Rider show at a time and I’m like halfway through so I might as well finish it. I hate to leave books or shows unfinished.

No. Because the other Eyecons were never used by Takeru, they don’t know enough about him and vice versa, and he didn’t even meet all of his own Parka Ghosts yet. He never talked to Billie the Kid or Beethoven, he never learned a lesson from them. Why should they care about Takeru? Because the other Eyecons think so? Nah.

This would’ve been logical if the Eyecons would’ve interacted with each other more, but we only saw Himiko and Newton fighting, that’s it. There’s nothing established about how aware the Eyecons are of their nature and how much they trust each other.

What other reason is there? Did he forget to shower and the Eyecons left because he smells bad?

Yeah it could be for Mugen, however having people talking about “uniting the heroes” and knowing that there is a form which does exactly that – you would assume they are related, right? That’s what I don’t get.

The best she can do is act like a robot? No.

What larger threats? Kanon doesn’t seem invested about what’s going on, and since she never showed any initiative aside from clinging to her brother it’s a bit unreal to see her like this after fainting from seeing her brother die.

They could show what the form can do, because with Grateful they didn’t. They showed us that Kiwami summons weapons, they showed us that Type Tridoron combines tires. What does Grateful do exactly? It did nothing aside from a few punches and the "All forces combined" Rider kick. Is that what it does? Knowing what the toy does I assume it isn’t, so they failed to show us that.

Huh. If you look, the Eyecon that explodes when Makoto is axed was the Specter Eyecon; not his Ganma eyecon from a few episodes ago. I wonder if that was intentional or just a lazy mistake.

After rewatching with subs and paying more attention I no longer think this is a good episode with flaws, more like a flawed episode with some good stuff. The emotion just isn't there, and it's perhaps in episodes like these that demand more from Takeru that the fact that his actor just isn't good really makes it a pain. Reactions to Makoto getting busted just weren't very logical and the entire final fight with Takeru just saying platitudes the whole time just...I really just tuned this shit out.

I don't really think we need an involved reason for why the 15 heroes helped Takeru, though, honestly. He may have only talked with some of them, but it's not like the Eyecons aren't cognizant of their surroundings. They're literally eyeballs, they're always watching what's going on. Even if Billy and Goemon and etc. haven't gotten to chat with Takeru personally, they've fought alongside him previously, and they've observed his behavior up to this point as well. Considering every time he does connect with an Eyecon it's basically just the same thing--them just observing him and at the end just telling him what a good job he's doing--it only makes sense that they'd help him out again. Makoto's Eyecons and Takeru already have helped each other before, too, and with their user gone helping out his friend is again not that big a leap. Alain's Eyecons haven't had much interaction with him before, but I still don't see why it'd be weird for them to want to help a good guy after getting thrown around by nothing but villains up to this point.

They also seem to have some level of omniscience considering they were able to tell what was going on all the way over wherever from the basement, so who knows. Sennin has exhibited the same sort of ability for a while.

I guess it's driven by convenience, but it makes enough sense imo. I'm more bothered by other things.

On top of that, in the Ryoma two parter the guy mentions Takeru's father as if he's had some personal interaction with Ryu before. If Ryoma had a bond with him, then the other 14 probably have as well. Hell, they also very well might have had interaction with each other in the past. I don't know HOW given their souls had been sealed in items or whatever for who knows how long, but there's very much more going on here than we know. The fact of the matter is, at this point we're practically in the dark as to what exactly the mission Ryu sent Takeru on is meant to achieve and what involvement he's had with the Great Souls before and after his death.

There's actually a LOT of good mystery going on here. I'm more excited about what we don't know at this point than what we do. And hey, at least unlike Wizard, none of it is apparently predictable and the twists don't seem super obvious either.