[Fish Sandwich]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

they don't push back enough and/or have their own lives enough to be a good support system.

This is admittedly something about Ghost that's tough to put a positive spin on. Having recently rewatched OOO, I was absolutely blown away by (among so many other things) how much everybody in that show felt like they did things when they were offscreen. It's hard to describe exactly why, but just look at Chiyoko in that show in any given scene and you can tell from the way she carries herself that her entire world doesn't revolve around Eiji and Ankh. And again, that's everyone in OOO.

There's really no getting around that Ghost just doesn't have that. The scope of its world is ironically a lot more narrow despite having an entire otherworldly society as a major fixture of the setting, and it definitely hurts the believability of a lot of the cast. Especially poor bit players like Shibuya and Narita. In retrospect this is probably a huge reason it doesn't register on any real emotional level with so many people. It's easy to notice you're watching a TV show when you're watching Ghost.

Remember though: everything looks crappier up against OOO! And Ghost did have the attention to detail to give the freakin' mailman regular cameos (Until he kinda fell by the wayside...), so it's not all bad. At any rate, I can't disagree on this point so much as say it's not a deal-breaker for me personally. Onari in particular also has an actual motivation for obsessing over Takeru the way he does, so I'm certainly letting him off the hook.

Quote:

Emu was a doctor before he got his Driver, and he's a doctor while he's a Kamen Rider, and he's a doctor after his show ends. That part of his character informs his need to be a Kamen Rider. He needs to save people, and he's doing it all day regardless of the Bugster Virus.

Granted, Takeru doesn't actually have a day job, but first of all, being dead will do that to a guy, and second of all, he still does have something that informs his character in that same way you're talking about. Not only does he want to follow in his father's footsteps as a ghost hunter (which, again, I will grant you is not the most realistic occupation to have, but I can't think of a Rider protagonist besides Takeru who has a properly developed relationship with an actual parent, and that was another element of Ghost I've always really enjoyed), but he's also the heir to his family's straight up Buddhist temple, and that clearly has a huge influence on him. We see him meditating and the like frequently throughout the series, and his entire philosophy of life, along with the show's overall themes, is shaped by that in a way that just makes me feel uncomfortable brushing off Takeru's motivations as being generic or half-baked.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Switchblade

One of my biggest problems with Takeru is that he's a very reactionary main character. He doesn't really go out and try to solve his problem, he just waits around for the next piece to stumble into his lap.

Hey, Switchblade, have I ever actually asked you to elaborate on this? Because you and a million other people have said this about Takeru and I think back when Ghost was actually on the air it drove me so crazy I probably went straight to trying to make a counterargument without having a proper grasp on what exactly it is you're asking for instead.

I know you've said before you liked how Haruto was always out on patrol for Phantoms, so is that basically the gist of it here? Just show Takeru looking for trouble every now and then?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

I'll play Devil's Advocate on this one for a minute. I actually kind of liked that

Also, holy crap, am I the devil now? Kiwami has been insisting for years that I'm his evil counterpart, but this is a new one.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kurona

Akari; it's your goddamn job to explain how they exist and why; not keep droning on about how it's "unscientific" until the end of the series.

Eh, I think this is mostly an issue of semantics, given that Akari starts doing that first thing even as she keeps up the second. It was only really the first few episodes where she acted truly skeptical about everything that was going on. And to her credit, the nature of the Ganma means a lot of the ghosts in Ghost, including Takeru, genuinely aren't spirits in the traditional way someone like Onari would assume they are, so, there's that.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dormamu

5: Ignore the OVAs and other media unless you really just want to torture yourself.

The only thing that tortures me about Ghost's spin-offs is knowing Over-Time still hasn't subbed the Specter movie.