REVIEW: Ghost 24
So I will say right off the bat that this week’s episode was a bit of a mess. Why? Well because of the bizarre tonal dissonance that came with having this week’s outing be the spring crossover. By having two plots of wildly different tones and importance, episode 24 felt like a mess. Now the individual parts were good and fun, just as a whole it was such a disjointed mess.
SMLXL
Now I’m not against having the spring crossovers. Done well, they can be a lot of fun and are a nice little treat every year. In fact, I love the Gaim and ToQger crossover because of the sheer ludicrousness of it as well as just the sheer joy of seeing the two casts interacting. Here because they didn’t completely abandon Ghost’s current serious tone in regards to the story with Alain, having the light-hearted moments felt very jarring and uncomfortable, especially when we see Alain realizing he can feel fear, seeing the machinations of Adel and then suddenly we get a comedic moment with Goemon and Onari.
I’m not saying that Kamen Rider Ghost should be completely serious all the time; that would make it quite a chore to watch in all honesty. It’s just that at this exact moment in Ghost’s plot, having this much levity is a bit distracting and lessens the impact of the genuine drama occurring with Alain. If they had an episode completely devoid of any or not have much seriousness, I would be totally fine with having this kind of comedic and carefree plot, but again because Alain’s very dramatic story takes up quite a bit of run time, it feels out of place. I would much prefer Toei to have done a one hour special like previous years, and glossing over the drama for a week, then have this messy situation that we did get.
But as I said earlier, the individual moments themselves are quite good and entertaining, it’s just that they were tonally all over the place. Despite being a plotline we got last year with Chase, I’m really enjoying this arc of Alain learning about having a body and emotions. It feels like they are spending more time on it than the Drive writers and are covering all aspects of being human, rather than just love and family like Drive did. I’m not outright saying Driver’s rendition of that particular plot is bad, I feel like it was limited by the other plots in the programme. While in Ghost, it’s given more time to develop and we are seeing more of the human experience than just love. We are seeing fear, resentment, hunger and many aspects of human existence. In short, Ghost is just doing more with that theme.
Speaking of resentment, I was partially wrong about saying that Takeru completely got over his towards Ganma and Alain as he displayed some of it again this week. But for a single scene; in fact not even a whole single scene, just very briefly. This is such a disappointing plot point because it has such great potential for good drama and moral complexity to be brought into the show. It’s not even like the ultimate message of this plotline is wrong either because overcoming your differences for the greater good is a great message!
It’s just that by having Takeru get over it so quickly it lowers the impact of him having those feelings in the first place if they were so easy to get rid of. On top of that, apart from having some disagreement, his feelings on Alain and Ganma really didn’t affect the plot. Basically, if Takeru slowly started resenting Ganma more, then started to see the better side of them, this plot line could’ve been fantastic.
Yet there was some good in this episode, despite my complaints about the jarring tonal shifts. I’m really glad that Goemon finally got an episode dedicated to him. As I said way back when, it felt weird to suddenly introduce the form/hero without any pomp, circumstance or having Takeru earn the form, since with every other from before and since then, he had to jump through a few hoops to get them. So to now get an episode where he needs to help Goemon and get him on his side is quite nice. Plus seeing him possess Onari was a delight because, firstly, we got to see Takayuki Yanagi’s comedic chops even more, and secondly Goemon is just a fun character in general, so the more we see of him, the better.
Also the plot with Porcupineroid and Yamato was a lot of fun, just out of place. The two heroes have really good chemistry together and I hope to see them work together again on a longer scale. On top of that, seeing Taker doing a roll call and the two comparing weapons was quite adorable and a neat little moment. Porcupineroid was also fun to watch, with him trying to recruit our heroes being a joke that is a highlight of the character. Again these light-hearted moments are great, it’s just that they clashed with the more serious moments of the episode.
If only Toei just had a one hour special like they have done in years previous, I would have been less strict and critical of this week’s entry. If they just made the whole episode light-hearted, instead of being mostly light-hearted, with some deeper more dramatic moments thrown in, I would have been more lenient as well. It’s again just that the tone was all over the place, thus making the whole episode feel just awkward and alienating.
