[Fish Sandwich]

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Originally Posted by Kurona

Moral in this episode's a bit more basic than I'm used to with this season

Probably another sign Kobayashi wasn't handling the script, but even so, yeah, these are great episodes for Gotou. And as you pointed out, a great one for Eiji, by extension. Actually, despite that remark I just made about Yonemura's writing, I really do love the whole turning point being that Eiji is completely willing to basically let some guy steal his whole life story because he thinks it'll serve a greater good.

It really is the perfect thing to illustrate the key difference that's been preventing him and Gotou from getting along, which is that Eiji has no particular sense of pride, and Gotou seems to be legitimately incapable of understanding the concept that someone might not share the same values as him, hence why he thinks he's being mocked after Eiji says that line in your first screencap – the idea of someone not craving that kind of power the way he does goes against his entire worldview, which makes him feel belittled, which is extra bad, because his entire worldview revolves around pride. It's quite the cycle this guy's trapped in!

So uh, yeah... it's not a Kobayashi episode, but the characterization really is still there, at the end of the day. I didn't even start this post thinking I'd end up with anything significant to say...

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I think this one could very easily have been one episode.I dunno, really felt like the writer accidentally made 26 minutes of content and had to double most of it to pad it out.

Your intuition might be serving you well here, because there's actually a bit on Ghost's Wikipedia page that I think mentions something about the original plan for the show using a standalone episode format changing after the 6th episode due to budgeting and scheduling concerns, which might explain exactly why this first two-parter is the way it is – maybe it wasn't supposed to be.

I specify "I think" because I honestly have a tiny bit of trouble parsing that particular section; it seems almost like it stops mid-sentence, and is followed by a huge block of "citation-needed" text describing other bits of the formatting like the narration and use/non-use of cold opens.Still better maintained than the average Rider Wiki page, no doubt...

At any rate, this episode does have my favorite Ghost/Specter fight, and that alone makes it all worth it. Good characterization to get me invested, AND great choreography that managed to convince me the Gan Gun Hand is actually super cool? Sign me right up!

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Originally Posted by Kurona

... wooo. Well, between work and procrastination and my own self-imposed rules and other Toku (I started up Tiga the other night; I'll have to talk about that at some point), it took me a bit; but I've finally done it! Until this weekend, that's me finally, FINALLY caught up with every episode of OOO and Ghost as per my release date watch order.

Congratulations! I doubt I've been making much of a secret out of this, but just for good measure: I've really been enjoying reading your thoughts on both these shows; I'm glad you've managed to keep this up so far.

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... oh good god the movies are soon

Also nobody will blame you if you "forget" to watch Movie War Core...