[Kiwami]

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Originally Posted by Shin Henshin

Rider-wise, we've gotten the fantastic Gaim, the equally great Drive and Ghost has been very entertaining as well.

Well that’s your opinion. I think Drive is a good show, but calling it equally great to Gaim is not something I’d agree with. And Ghost is just bad, that’s all I can say about that show.

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Originally Posted by Shin Henshin

That said, a lot of shows like these don't really get their ball rolling as quickly as shows that only get 12 to 24 episodes to tell their story. The first handful of episodes tend to be a slow burn, establishing characters, powers and abilities and having the audience getting to know the characters they'll be following for the next year.

That’s fine and all but if you need half of the shows runtime to get your stuff together like Drive did then you have a problem.

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Originally Posted by Shin Henshin

So why do so many people literally jump ship by the fifth episode and never look back?

Because they realize that this show features a recurring theme, characters or ideas which (most likely) will be a thing throughout the entire show and they can’t stand it. And there’s nothing wrong with that, because even if that changes later on you can just pick the show up again. But even then you’ll need to sit through a few or in the worst case a lot of episodes which you won’t enjoy, and some people just don’t want to waste their time with that. And that’s their decision to make and I can absolutely see where they’re coming from with this.

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Originally Posted by Shin Henshin

Drive had a slow burn before hitting its peak and was a great ride.

Drive had a good second half, no doubt about that, but once it arrived at that point I already didn’t care anymore. I continued to watch the show, appreciated what it did better, but I couldn’t be entertained anymore. Seeing the characters always left a bad taste in my mouth.

Which is exactly the problem with shows like these: Even a great comeback needs to happen before you write the show off or it’s too late. In Drive’s case, it was too late for me.

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Originally Posted by Shin Henshin

Ghost also started slowly and has escalated fairly well, too.

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.

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Originally Posted by Shin Henshin

Yet I've seen a lot of people say that these series have terrible pacing and characters when those of us who stuck with it saw these things evolve and improve over time.

No. Because you feel the show got better does not mean it really did. In the case of Drive I agree: It got better during the second half, a lot better in fact.

Ghost did not get better (yet?), at all. It’s the same it has ever been: A mediocre show.

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Originally Posted by Shin Henshin

For example, so many people who complain about Ghost's supporting cast probably never watched past the single digits, where characters like Akari and Onari get their moments, their characters level out and have become some of the most active and useful supporting cast members we've gotten in a while.

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.

Akari was never a problem for me; in fact I think she’s the best character in the entire show. She achieves her goals through her own power, without bullshit power-ups, and she’s the smartest and most considerate person in the entire cast.

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.

Alain is the only other character I can think of right now who has generally good development, stays true to his motives and is fun to watch.

Onari though… he is useless. Plain useless. He’s an insufferable token comedic relief character who in my book had two, two generally cool moments in 35 episodes. And that’s just awful. He continues to do dumb shit because that’s just Onari, and they never bother to let him grow as a character.

Very early on he dropped a line where he said that he was a bad person in the past but Takeru’s dad took him in or something like that, and this was never mentioned again. Not a single episode where they bothered to focus on this buffoon and tell us his backstory. They waste so much time with Onari just doing stupid shit.

I get it, he’s supposed to be funny and apparently it’s working because Japan loves him, but calling him "useful" is just wrong IMO.

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Originally Posted by Shin Henshin

And I've seen the argument that we don't have the time to spend waiting for pay-offs. I honestly think that's a bad excuse. Especially when people turn around and claim that Blade is one of the better Rider installments even though it apparently has a 15 episode slow burn. People nowadays have time to marathon netflix shows, so how much valuable time is someone wasting watching a 23 minute episode a week compared to that?

I watch the new episode every week and I think the show sucks, so what? It's not like everyone who sticks around magically enjoys the hell out of every show.

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Originally Posted by Shin Henshin

I can't help but feel like a lot of Rider fans write off recent installments since the "almighty" Kamen Rider Gaim (which even though I adored, I think gets way too much praise by people and is held way too high as a standard for Rider shows) as terrible seasons when they're probably going off of the first 5 or so episodes alone.

I don’t think that’s the case. People just drop stuff because they don’t like it. And the comparison with Gaim is unfair IMO, people don’t dislike stuff because Gaim was good. They dislike it because they don’t like it.

Gaim was my first show, I watched a lot of Rider after, found lots of shows I enjoy, so I won’t accept that people write my opinion off because I’m a Gaim fanboy who has high expectations. I don’t have high expectations; I just think I watched enough Rider by now to know when a show just isn’t good.

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.