What to Expect in Kamen Rider Ghost
We are now a few days from the premiere of the 2015-2016 Kamen Rider Ghost! Wahey! So I thought it would be worth looking into the actors, writers, music and all sorts of different parts of the production and figure out what we might get out of this year’s Kamen Rider!
So I’ll start off with the story/tone/plot of the series. The head writer for this year is a somewhat newcomer to Tokusatsu Takuro Fukuda. He has written the scripts for episode 3 of Ultraman X and episodes 18 and 36 of Ultraman Max, so he isn’t completely new to the Tokustatsu genre. However the majority of his work is within J-dramas and movies. Thus we can probably expect a more story or character driven plot, rather than one that relies on tropes of the genre or relying heavily on big set pieces. Now this could be either good or bad: good because the writer may bring a better knowledge of how to create plots and so forth, as well as a better grasp of drama. But it could be bad as he is not used to the tokusatsu genre and may betray some expectations of the genre and could be a disappointing choice for some hardcore fans.
As for the tone, all I can gather from the released information and media is that despite being about death, Ghost may rather light to middling with its tone and may lead towards triumphant or epic. I infer this from not only the motif of gathering great people, but also the videos realeased so far have a rather fun tone to them. Furthermore, the head producer, Kazuhiro Takahashi, helped produced Fourze, thus adding credence to a lighter-ish tone. But multiple times Ghost has been called a “sorrowful” character, so there may be hints of tragedy to the plot. I would guess the overall tone to be somewhere in between Fourze and OOO, with a smidgen of Wizard considering their similarities. As for the plot, we will most likely get some form of globe-trotting, a collect-them-all plotline much like OOO (which could lead to a great story line of Eyecons changing hands, again much like OOO) and hopefully, at least 3 riders. Apart from that, who knows were the plot will go.
Now let’s take a look at the actors and by extension, the characters. So our lead actor this year, playing the role of Tenkuji Takeru, is 17 year old Shun Nishime. Now this is his first role so his acting could be a bit rusty, however Takeru Satoh and Fukushi Sota’s first roles were Kamen Rider and both were young when they started the role; therefore we could get a good performance from him. On top of that Nishime joins the long list of Kamen Riders who won the Junon Super Boys contest, which includes Inaba Yu (Shijima Gou/Kamen Rider Mach), Katoono Taiko (Chase) Gaku Sano ( Kazuraba Kouta), Shu Watanabe (Hino Eiji/Kamen Rider OOO) to name others. This proves that he could be very talented since he comes from a group of extremely gifted actors. As for his character, from the brief moments we have seen of him, he seems quite aloof, but at the same time humorous (noticeable from the way he acts as Ghost), charming and noble. I expect a more joke-y and charming Haruto.
Osawa Hikaru, who plays the female protagonist of the year Tsukimura Akari, has had quite a lot of experience from her short career, which does include some Tokusatsu and anime roles, which means she is used to this sort of thing. I expect her character to be more of a big sister role who will be the ‘logical one’ of the group. Yanagi Takayuki, who plays Onari, has had few roles so I can’t really judge how he will be, but his character seems to be the spiritual counterpart to Akari and will be the comedic foil for the year. Ryosuke Yamamoto, who plays Fukami Makoto / Kamen Rider Spectre, has had a few roles, mostly Dramas as side characters, with Ghost being one of his first major roles. Character wise Makoto seems like the straight edge and serious type like Nago-san from Kiva. Isomura Hayato, who plays Alan, also has had only a few roles, but this may not really be a judge of his acting abilities. His character Alan barely has any information, from what has been revealed he seems like one of those serious and mysterious villains in a similar vein as the Scorpio Zodiarts. Takenaka Naoto plays the Wise Hermit, the mentor character of the series. Takenaka is a veteran actor and comedian who is quite famous in Japan with a career starting in 1977. Not much is known about his character, but judging from their choice of actor he seems like comedic, but wise type. Finally, out of the main cast, we get to Yurusen, the ghostly helper of the Wise Hermit. They are played by the popular anime voice actress Aoi Yūki and, judging from the final episode of Drive, is an often annoyed assistant to Takeru. So overall I think we have a very solid cast with a wide range of characters that could be very interesting.
Now let’s look at what directing/aesthetic we will get with Ghost. Satoshi Morota returns as the head director for Ghost which gives us a large clue on how Ghost will look. His most significant work is as the head director for Wizard, thus we will get a clean and flowing direction of camera. I think this will work perfectly for Ghost as he is supposed to be incorporeal and his fighting style, from what we have seen at least, involves a lot of flying and soft and smooth movements. So may say that comparing it to Wizard may be bad, but I think it works in Ghost’s favour since Wizard’s direction was one of its best parts. On top of that, again, that sort of direction will work perfectly with Ghost’s motif.
Now aesthetically, from previews and the special video, it seems that we are getting quite a clashing aesthetic of a fusion of modern sleek-ness and traditional Japanese style. But I think this style will work very well. You have to keep in mind that Ghosts and the supernatural in japan are still heavily tied to traditional Shinto culture, rather than the typical western ideal of ghosts and the supernatural having very modern associations. On top of that it seems that Ghost really wants to showcase Japanese culture, through not only its aesthetic, but also from the use of Japanese historical figures. It’s the first really Japanese Kamen Rider we have had in a while. This is gonna translate into a very interesting and gorgeous aesthetic that I will certainly enjoy and that I hope you will too. At the same time however, I think we will still get those Western ideals of Ghosts and the Supernatural through the designs of weapons, vehicles, riders, monsters etc. For instance Ghost himself looks quite western with the use of black and orange, typical Halloween colours. Another example comes from Spectre’s weapon the Gan Gun Hand, which looks like a sawn-off, one-handed shotgun used by many a modern vampire hunter. What I am getting at is that Ghost is going to have a very mixed aesthetic of traditional Japanese supernatural style with a lot of western horror iconography, which is going to be fantastic.
As for music there are only two figures we really need to look at: Kishidan and Go Sakabe. Kishidan is the band performing the theme/opening song this year and it could be quite interesting, if not what I was expecting. They are a semi-comedy rock band who dress and act like delinquent teens. They tend to sing about adolescent love, not liking authority and all sorts of teen issues in a retro style. They have, well the singer Show Ayanocozey did, collaborate with Kamen Rider before with the theme for Movie Taisen Megamax “SAMURAI STRONG STYLE”, so they have had experience with the show. The theme is probably going to be quite a fiery and rock-style, which is not what I expected, but hey it could be good. As for Go Sakabe, he will be the composer for Ghost. Listening to his other work, I can see why they chose him for the composer: he does very epic and vast sounding tracks with choruses and lots of traditional instruments, yet with a modern twist with electric guitars thrown in. Some of his other songs also sound dark yet easy to listen to, thus again further showing he will be a great fit for Ghost.
So overall, what should you expect? Well I think with all these factors combined, we will get a good or at the very least interesting and unique season. I’m little worried about Shun Nishime since it’s his first role, but we have seen newbies do fantastically. I’m also worried about Takuro Fukuda since, again he is inexperienced with tokusatsu, but his experience with dramas may actually be a boon since he will quite likely bring those skills over and offer a better plot and characters, that probably will feel more realistic and natural. Bring it on Ghost, let’s look forward to a great year.
