beyond the bugmen, part VII

BEYOND THE BUGMEN: A KAMEN RIDER OVERVIEW SERIES

PART VII: A Man Who Is Already Dead, Ghost

Okay, honesty time. Kamen Rider Ghost (October 4, 2015 - September 25, 2016) is the only recent Kamen Rider series I have NOT finished. I got about twenty episodes in when it was airing, and fell off of my watching schedule. I've heard of what happens, though, and I...am honestly a little unimpressed. It's a shame, too: just like Wizard, the designs for Ghost are fantastic.

I mean, look at this! It's even based on a firefly, which represent the souls of lost soldiers in Japan.

Personal feelings aside, I'll at least contribute what I can to talk about Ghost. The series follows Takeru Tenkuji, an eighteen year old who wishes to become a ghost hunter like his father before him. Within the first few minutes of the first episode, we see his temple attacked by the Ganma, a race of spirits that invade this world. To defend the temple and the ones he cares for, he confronts the Ganma, and loses. He is killed in the first ten minutes of the first episode (this becomes a thing). Another spirit brings him back to life as a ghost, giving him 99 days to retrieve fifteen souls of "luminary figures". This seems to be a blanket term for various historical figures of significance, from Musashi and Beethoven to Edison and Billy the Kid.

Some places translate it as "legendary heroes", but when you see Billy the Kid among them...

Being that I have not finished the series, a lot of my analysis is going to be based on the initial story arcs and character development. The major thing that seems to be prevalent at first is a sense of science versus religion. Takeru uses the Ghost Driver and is essentially between the two, but he has two friends that help in his quest: Akari, a brilliant scientist, and Onari, the head monk at the temple he lives at. They are often at odds (again, from what I have seen) about whether the solution to the Ganma problem is based in science, or in spirituality. They do begin to adapt to each other's ways of thinking, however - Akari can believe spirits exist, and Onari learns to let science and gadgets take over when meditation and prayer cannot.

Apologies for the lateness of this segment, and for how brief it is, but I couldn't get into Ghost nearly as much as other Rider series. Next week will be the conclusion of the main part of our series, with the currently-airing series, Kamen Rider Ex-aid. Have ideas for what I should cover next? Leave them in the comments.