Cegarth
This review may contain spoilers
Mild spoilers ahead:
Everything the show did well:
-Alain is an amazing character. Other than him the majority of the hero cast or redeemed villains in this show range from fine to likeable overall.
-Some cool world-building concepts here and there.
-Adonis is and his motivations make sense.
-The monster of the week in the first half are pretty entertaining.
-Fantastic soundtrack.
-Cool action for the most part.
-The show does the human drama/slice of life scenes really well.
Everything the show did bad:
-The villains Chikara and Adonis get removed from the show in the dumbest way possible.
-The main antagonist Adel is among the worst antagonists that this franchise ever had.
-The other 2 dudes form the temple, Narita and Shibuya could be removed from the show and it would hardly affect the plot.
-Most of the cool world-building elements that help explain what's going on in the Ganma world happen in movies, novels and specials, not in the actual show which makes it near impossible to care for the show's main conflict.
-After the first quarter the show's writing quality takes a nosedive outside the Alain focused episodes and the eyecon collecting episodes, the latter of which are very few since they collect most in the first quarter. Basically the show introduces the Deep Connect organization which ends up making the story unnecessarily conveluted and then the show's quality drops even harder when the show starts focusing on Adel.
-After the first quarter Makoto's character feels aimless. For a while his character goes nowhere and when they finally put focus on him his backstory and development become unnecessarily conveluted.
-Ghost's main form, Ore Damashii has a pretty boring fighting style initially and it's only later that it improves as it starts having a monk-like fighting style.
-Most of the stuff with the Great Eye is poorly explained, since again, it's explained properly in content outside the show.
Reasons for the show's strengths:
Main producer Kazuhiro Takahashi wanted to return to the bizarre editing and direction of the Showa seasons so he came up with the unconventional and unheroic motif of ghosts. He wanted to portray the importance of life which led to the creation of characters Adonis and Grandma Fumi.
Main writer Takuro Fukuda excels at writing slice of life and human aspects to his stories, so the Alain episodes and his slice of life scenes are really greatly done.
Reasons for the show's problems:
Main writer Takuro Fukuda had scheduling issues which led to him being absent during the show's pre-production which resulted in some poor planning when it came to the show's setting and him being absent during the show's middle with the exclusion of the Alain focused episodes. Due to not being able to write the episodes in time he dedicated himself to write the movies and specials of the show since he wouldn't have such restrictions which is why the spin-offs of this show have so many important plot-points when in comes to the setting and better character writing for the most part.
Due to the response of parents and kids who watched Kamen Rider Ghost's cameo in Kamen Rider Drive's summer movie being that he was 'too scary', main producer Kazuhiro Takahashi decided to reshoot the first 2 episodes of the show in order to edit some of the scary scenes and ended up changing the show's directing style for the rest of the show. This resulted in the show not being able to adopt the Showa/creepy directing style the staff wanted for the show and for the directors to not know what of fighting style to give to Ghost's main form 'Ore Damashii' for a while since he wasn't able to use the spectral fighting style they had planned for him. This reshoot of episodes also resulted in the show having more budged constraints and scheduling issues, these combined with Fukuda's affected the show's pacing. Takahashi also ended up changing the show's setting 3 times during the show's run, which led to the writing feeling more conveluted and caused most of the problems with the show's writing as spite of the Fukuda being absent the show still had competent side writer Keiichi Hasegawa but with Takahashi making so many changes midway to the show and the time constraints with the scripts, there just wasn't much him and even Fukuda could do once he returned for the final arc.
Overall:
Despite the majority of the characters being likeable, this show has so many things dragging it down that the show ends up being bad overall. I can only see people enjoying this show if they consume all of the outside the show's content, but even then that only elevates it to a 6 since those specials don't fix Adel who's a prominent aspect of the show. I can only recommend this show if you're a Kamen Rider completionist or if the setting and motif seem cool enough to you to watch its movies and specials alongside it even knowing that the main antagonist in this show is disappointing.
-Alain is an amazing character. Other than him the majority of the hero cast or redeemed villains in this show range from fine to likeable overall.
-Some cool world-building concepts here and there.
-Adonis is and his motivations make sense.
-The monster of the week in the first half are pretty entertaining.
-Fantastic soundtrack.
-Cool action for the most part.
-The show does the human drama/slice of life scenes really well.
Everything the show did bad:
-The villains Chikara and Adonis get removed from the show in the dumbest way possible.
-The main antagonist Adel is among the worst antagonists that this franchise ever had.
-The other 2 dudes form the temple, Narita and Shibuya could be removed from the show and it would hardly affect the plot.
-Most of the cool world-building elements that help explain what's going on in the Ganma world happen in movies, novels and specials, not in the actual show which makes it near impossible to care for the show's main conflict.
-After the first quarter the show's writing quality takes a nosedive outside the Alain focused episodes and the eyecon collecting episodes, the latter of which are very few since they collect most in the first quarter. Basically the show introduces the Deep Connect organization which ends up making the story unnecessarily conveluted and then the show's quality drops even harder when the show starts focusing on Adel.
-After the first quarter Makoto's character feels aimless. For a while his character goes nowhere and when they finally put focus on him his backstory and development become unnecessarily conveluted.
-Ghost's main form, Ore Damashii has a pretty boring fighting style initially and it's only later that it improves as it starts having a monk-like fighting style.
-Most of the stuff with the Great Eye is poorly explained, since again, it's explained properly in content outside the show.
Reasons for the show's strengths:
Main producer Kazuhiro Takahashi wanted to return to the bizarre editing and direction of the Showa seasons so he came up with the unconventional and unheroic motif of ghosts. He wanted to portray the importance of life which led to the creation of characters Adonis and Grandma Fumi.
Main writer Takuro Fukuda excels at writing slice of life and human aspects to his stories, so the Alain episodes and his slice of life scenes are really greatly done.
Reasons for the show's problems:
Main writer Takuro Fukuda had scheduling issues which led to him being absent during the show's pre-production which resulted in some poor planning when it came to the show's setting and him being absent during the show's middle with the exclusion of the Alain focused episodes. Due to not being able to write the episodes in time he dedicated himself to write the movies and specials of the show since he wouldn't have such restrictions which is why the spin-offs of this show have so many important plot-points when in comes to the setting and better character writing for the most part.
Due to the response of parents and kids who watched Kamen Rider Ghost's cameo in Kamen Rider Drive's summer movie being that he was 'too scary', main producer Kazuhiro Takahashi decided to reshoot the first 2 episodes of the show in order to edit some of the scary scenes and ended up changing the show's directing style for the rest of the show. This resulted in the show not being able to adopt the Showa/creepy directing style the staff wanted for the show and for the directors to not know what of fighting style to give to Ghost's main form 'Ore Damashii' for a while since he wasn't able to use the spectral fighting style they had planned for him. This reshoot of episodes also resulted in the show having more budged constraints and scheduling issues, these combined with Fukuda's affected the show's pacing. Takahashi also ended up changing the show's setting 3 times during the show's run, which led to the writing feeling more conveluted and caused most of the problems with the show's writing as spite of the Fukuda being absent the show still had competent side writer Keiichi Hasegawa but with Takahashi making so many changes midway to the show and the time constraints with the scripts, there just wasn't much him and even Fukuda could do once he returned for the final arc.
Overall:
Despite the majority of the characters being likeable, this show has so many things dragging it down that the show ends up being bad overall. I can only see people enjoying this show if they consume all of the outside the show's content, but even then that only elevates it to a 6 since those specials don't fix Adel who's a prominent aspect of the show. I can only recommend this show if you're a Kamen Rider completionist or if the setting and motif seem cool enough to you to watch its movies and specials alongside it even knowing that the main antagonist in this show is disappointing.
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