[Sh Ranger]

I enjoyed reading it since I pretty much feel the same way. Like I said about Yuto being a big plot character, I think that's one of Kobayashi's flaws, that she writes plot at the expense of characters. In contrast to Inoue's works, which are usually all about the characters and how they affect the plot, not the other way around. Not that Yuto doesn't fit with the themes or anything like that, since he has some presence as a character and a comedic routine with Deneb, but his entire existence creates this big mystery that has little relevance to how others feel, or even how he feels. Like he's supposed to have this connection to Airi in the future, but that doesn't exist. He's like a ghost, on a different wavelength to everybody else in the present. If he was a POV character, maybe it would be more interesting, but he's not, so it isn't and the result is a dissonance between the amazing comedic characters and the plot that comes to kill the mood.

It's the same with the Kanzaki subplot in Ryuki, it's extremely important to everything that happens in the show but it's presented in such a boring and diluted way compared to the actual Rider War and the character interactions. Maybe Kobayashi writing so much of Den-O can be a disadvantage and shows a lack of faith in other people. Not everybody has stamina like Inoue. If you exhaust your stamina, you get writer's block and then the quality of your work declines if you rush it to meet a deadline. My favorite episodes of Ghost were written by Mouri, who is consistently great at taking the wheel when he needs to. I think it's important for a writer to understand their limits and when it's best to delegate work to somebody else.

If you want my personal opinion on the direction of quality from here, I think it starts improving again from Episode 47. Just hold out one more episode for the climax to this climax!