[Switchblade]

Okay, so good points first:

I like how the show's overarching plot seems to be advancing. Evil Prince J-Pop clearly has a plan and is starting to move forward on it. That's good; I don't want the next arc to just be a retread of the original Eyecon hunt.

Goemon is easily my favorite form to date; the flashy fighting style and kabuki music are great. It's just a pity that the lemon yellow coat looks so awful on the red Boost bodysuit.

I really like the suit design for the space helmet Ganma.

And the bad points:

I think I've finally locked in on the main reason why Ghost isn't doing all that much for me. It's not the plot, which is pretty loose so far; it's not the show's mythology, the vagueness of which is growing increasingly frustrating; it's the characters. I just straight up don't like any of the characters. The most likeable character is probably Akari, but she's still kind of boring and her main role is to basically be a wet blanket. Makoto is poorly defined because outside of his quest to revive his sister, and with that resolved he feels like an afterthought at this point - I assume we'll get the big reveal episodes at some point, but for now he's just not very interesting. And I'm with Dormamu on this next mother fucker:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dormamu

I think my rage toward Onari is rising, just hearing his voice gives me a headache, even if his actor is a pretty cool dude.

But the character that's working the least for me is, unfortunately, Takeru. It took awhile to peg down, but after the last couple episodes I've finally clicked on why exactly I don't like him: he reminds me a lot of Wataru. He's not as bad as Wataru, obviously - no one is - but he has a lot of the same traits. He's very wishy-washy and indecisive. Takeru talks a lot about having his life burn bright (which is, yes, ironic for a dead guy - loved the Ryoma Eyecon lampshading that fact), but he mostly just stands around whining and looking confused and/or mopey most of the time.

We've had heroes that start off weak and grow stronger over the course of the show before, but considering the stakes at play here, Takeru is frustratingly reactionary. He's not actively looking for Ganma to stop or hunting the Eyecons, he's just sitting around waiting for them to show up or for the old guy to give him hints. Some of the early episodes had weeks pass between them with no apparent progress, which gives off the sense that Takeru is basically just sitting around with his thumb up his ghost butt when nobody is around to give him directions. And when he does finally get told what to do he generally stumbles through all the non-fight parts. I'm really finding him increasingly annoying and it's dragging the rest of the show down around him.