REVIEW: Ghost 27
With this week, it definitely feels like Ghost is back on track. Lots of things happened, character development occurred, we got a swerve, more things were revealed and we got the set up to next week’s events in a very organic matter! In short, yeah this was a good episode!
So when I say ‘good’, I don’t necessarily mean the best. It certainly still feels very practical, but in a manner that furthers the plot more than the increments we are getting. What I mean is that this episode felt more like a continuation of the story like previous episodes, but at a faster pace and with more events occurring. It felt like a practical moving of the plot along, rather than an organic growing of the plot, at least for the most part.
But this is absolutely not a bad thing at all! Stuff is happening and the plot isn’t just spinning its wheels in the air. It just doesn’t feel as amazing as say the when Takeru gains Boost where every moment felt natural and had its place in the plot. Here it feels like most episodes where a whole bunch of things happen and are stitched together. Again not a bad thing, but I would have preferred a cohesive and whole plot, such as the whole episode being Alain and Takeru invading the Ganma world.
But indeed this episode is made up of many good things stitched together, hence why I think it’s a good episode, not great. For instance the sequence of scenes before, during and after Alain’s father, Adonis, is pure gold. Firstly I love that Takeru met him first and treated him with so much respect. Then Alain questioning what he has been doing with his life is a great moment in regards to where Alain is going and finally his total breakdown at his father’s death was extremely heart-breaking. On top of that Takeru’s anger coming out while he is defending Alain and the fact that he cries for Adonis’s death just shows how kind and wonderful Takeru is as a character.
It’s moments like this where Ghost I feel really shines. With this sequence we see how strong, well done and complex all these characters are. With Alain we are seeing him questioning all he has done, which is breaking him down for him to hopefully be built up again to be a true hero. With Takeru we are seeing him finally getting back to his old self where he would sacrifice anything for his friends and truly being one of the most empathic and emotional-in-a-good-way Kamen Riders we’ve seen in a while. Hell it’s great seeing a main Kamen Rider crying/being in tune with his emotions; usually they are the generic stoic type, but here we see a genuinely caring Kamen Rider.
Another great, albeit brief, moment was the interaction between Onari and Javelle. I really liked this moment because, firstly, it made Onari out to be more than just a joke character; he was kind, understanding, mature and felt like a real person rather than a clown. He reached out to someone who ostensibly has only tried to kill him in previous interactions, but here he is helping him out. On top of that, it’s also showing that Javelle might be developing as well since this does indeed look like the beginning of his change in attitudes and sides. Additionally it’s quite emblematic of another thing Ghost is doing well: its secondary characters.
Something that has always been remiss, at least in my eyes, in the Kamen Rider franchise is the way they treat secondary characters. Now Drive did this quite well too, but the series from Kabuto to probably Wizard (excluding Fourze) really comes to mind when talking about this. With Ghost, the secondary characters are not limited to just jokes, but get arcs and development and are not just two dimensional. I really love that about Ghost and I certainly hope Onari and the rest of the cast get even more development as well.
So with the episode ending on Adel and Ganmizer Fire about to attack Takeru and Alain, Makoto gaining Deep Spectre and what was shown in the preview, this cliff-hanger doesn’t feel cheap, but rather quite effective. Because Deep Spectre is most likely going to debut closer to the end of next week’s episode, Ganmizer Fire is definitely not going to be defeated in the opening scene of the episode, thus leaving some tension since Takeru is not going to be able to defeat it. On top of that Alain is in no state to fight, thus leaving him out of the fight. This is basically how I want Ghost and the Kamen Rider series on the whole to do cliff-hangers from now on: have a mini-conclusion beforehand and also make the threat at the end of the episode substantial enough that the problem won’t be solved within 5 minutes of the next episode starting.
As for the rest of the episode, well it was quite by the books. The moments with Igor and the now apparently resurrected Music Ganma were probably the worst parts of the whole episode; they were distracting, jarring and really didn’t do much for the episode. The fight scene with Takeru, Ryoma and Himiko was great, mostly because I love Ryoma, but also the whole summoning the Parka Ghosts is quite a nice and unique idea that really changes up the fights. I find it interesting that the Ganmizers have taken on the form of Adel, but apart from that there is nothing much to say on the matter apart from the fact that we will see Adel die about 17 times.
In all honesty this episode was good and entertaining, just not the best episode in the world. It was a string of good moments stitched together to make a Frankenstein’s monster of an episode. If the episode had more of a focus I would have praised it far more, but I’m not expecting that since this episode was the same formula and structure that Kamen Rider usually has. So it did its best, but is not as fantastic as the more focused episodes of Kamen Rider have been.
