Recap: Kamen Rider Ghost, Episode 48 – End! The Chain of Sorrow!

Ghost 48

It’s time to jump through the monolith Gate. But everyone wants to go on the little road portal trip. Takeru and Makoto allow Akari, Kanon and Onari to come along but Onari orders Narita and Shibuya to stay behind.

Grampa Sennin welcomes them to the G World and brings them to Adel. But they are stopped by Igor and other Ganma. cloneMakoto tells Takeru that he’ll take care of this while Takeru does his business.

Ghost 48

cloneMakoto henshins while Onari, Akari and Kanon easily dispatch some of the basic Ganma. Yurusen drags Sennin away as two Ganmaizer appear. That’s when the real Makoto runs in and henshins as well.

The zombiefied Igor approaches Akari and she decides to slap him repeatedly until he snaps out of it. Igor is back to his old self, amazed by the strange sensation the slaps give him. Onari says it’s “love.”

Ghost 48

A basic Ganma tries to sneak up behind Onari and Akari, but Igor jumps behind them and takes the slash across the chest. Akari holds him in her arms as he dies.

The Makotos tell Onari, Akari and Kanon to run off as they go Deep to finish off the Ganmaizer.

Ghost 48

Alain arrives in the round room. He runs to his sister who morphs in and out of Adel. Adel says he and his sister’s bodies have become one. Alain will not take it anymore. Takeru taught him that people’s hearts and feelings can connect.

Alain remembers their father’s words and concludes that Adel doesn’t have a heart. Adel says Daddy Adonis was a failure who threw his ideals away. That enrages Alain and he henshins.

They take their fight out of the round room as Adel just laughs at Alain’s futile attempt at defeating him. Alain is ready to give up his life as long as it ends Adel’s as well.

Ghost 48

Takeru arrives and watches the scene as Alain is about to kill himself, only to back out at the last minute. He can’t kill his brother whom he loves so much. Adel kicks his face.

Takeru is now enraged as well and goes Mugen. He wants revenge for attacking his BFF Alain and also for killing his Papa Ryu.

Onari, Akari and Kanon arrive and they run towards Alain-sama/dono who screams for Takeru and Adel to stop. His heart is telling him to save his brother.

Ghost 48

Takeru dehenshins and says he wants to connect Adel and Alain’s hearts because they’re family.

Adel is about to kill Takeru, but Makoto, the real one, steps in front of the attack and absorbs it. Adel slams Makoto against the cement post. But before Adel can turn his attention back to Takeru, all the luminaries fly out of Takeru’s cloak and drive Adel into the corridors.

Takeru and Kanon run over to Makoto-niican who is dying. Makoto says this is for the best. He apologizes to Kanon as cloneMakoto appears.

Ghost 48

realMakoto tells cloneMakoto to become him and to take care of Kanon and Takeru. cloneMakoto says that they are the same person and asks realMakoto to follow through on their hopes and dreams and also protect Aria-sama.

cloneMakoto inserts himself into realMakoto’s body. The merging heals Makoto of all his wounds and he’s good as new.

Ghost 48

Kanon tightly hugs her oniichan.

Everyone gets up to leave, but the Deep Specter Eyecon falls out of Makoto’s butt and starts glowing.

A pissed Takeru walks toward Adel. The luminaries join him and they continue fighting the Ganmaizer. Takeru wants to make Adel understand what is going on, so he hugs him.

Ghost 48

The hug releases Aria from Adel’s connection.

Takeru is inside of Adel and while they hug each other tightly, they flashback to nicer times with the monolith and their family. We see how Daddy Adonis first created their world then how Aria Mommy Adonis died.

Ghost 48

Adel remembers Daddy Adonis leaving the room for a minute during Mommy Adonis’ viewing. And that is the moment Adel feels his father turned his back on him and hated him and left their family to collapse.

Ghost 48

But Takeru says that’s not true at all. He shows Adel moments where Daddy Adonis talks to Edith Sennin about wanting to create a wonderful world for his children where there is no death or hunger or war.

Ghost 48

Takeru tries to say Daddy Adonis and Papa Ryu were good guys who wanted to have happy families. Adel does not agree since he thinks their father is an asshole who abandoned him.

Aria says he’s crazy and shows Adel their father telling her how awesome Adel is. They all exit Adel’s body. Adel loses his Ganmaizer outfit as Alain joins his sister.

Ghost 48

Adel falls to his knees, shocked by the fact that people loved him, they really, really loved him. Even more, their father was pretty cool. Takeru plays a psychiatrist and says Adel only wanted to be protected by Daddy Adonis. That’s why Adel killed Papa Ryu because he was jealous or his relationship with Takeru.

Takeru thinks Adel is pitiful. Adel feels pitiful. But Alain and Aria want to be with their dear brother again. That he still has a chance to be a happy family with them. Adel bows and apologizes.

Adel ejects the Ganmaizer from his person, but the Ganmaizer begin to act on their own free will. They want to set their plan of replacing humans in motion, so they engulf and control Adel’s body.

Adel pleads for them to kill him which would then destroy the Ganmaizer.

Takeru goes Mugen. They take the battle outside. Takeru says he can never forgive Adel, but that his siblings will carry on his will.

Takeru easily defeats Adel and the Ganmaizer and proclaims his soul will live on.

Ghost 48

Adel’s ghost thanks Takeru. He also tells Alain to start his own family. And to Aria, thanks for everything.

Ghost 48

Adel fades away.

Alain thanks Takeru for allowing them all to connect. Aria says Adel has been saved from his sins.

Onari declares that all their troubles are over and the only thing is to bring Takeru back to life.

BUT!

Everyone casually heads to the round room to find Grampa Sennin chained up and the creepy girl floating in the Great Eye on the ceiling. She explains that the Ganmaizer are trying to take over the Great Eye. The Ganmaizer had been stuck inside the Deep Specter Eyecon.

Ghost 48

The Ganmaizer engulf the girl and debut a brand new form.

Ghost 48

Episode Thoughts

This was a nice climax for a story that barely existed.

There were just so many different things going on in this episode that it highlighted how fractured and disconnected this season has been.

I started going through the random clusterfrak of stories this season, but I’ll save that for next week, which appears to be the finale-finale.

But back to this episode first. It was all about Adel’s redemption. But it would’ve helped if Adel was actually a character that would need redeeming. Yes, he killed his father and wanted people to come inside his body. But there was absolutely no explanation or even any hint as to why he was doing what he was doing. For much of the time, we didn’t even know what he was doing.

This episode, however, reveals that he was just upset that no one loved him. Okay. That would’ve been a nice story. It’s a pretty typical villain background. But other than Adonis once telling Adel not bother him while praying, we don’t even see why Adel would feel unloved. And that’s odd considering we saw his siblings Aria and Alain plenty of times throughout the season.

Alain’s story, maybe one of the only ones that had any logical development, feels like the story that the Ganma should’ve been focused on. That is, the Ganma are living under a false utopia and have been brainwashed only to find out that there’s more to life and the world than just darkness and a red motif.

Javert also started following that same story path in the last third of the season, questioning his existence and what he was doing. But he’d only appear in two minute bursts every couple of episodes. Cubi was another Ganma who learned the joy of painting beautiful, colorful things instead of sitting in the bowels of some huge concrete castle.

The simpler story would’ve been just that. The Ganma (who may or may not have human features) learn the meaning of life. There’s more to life that what’s spoon-fed to them. And when the enlightenment happens to some Ganma, hardliners like Adel want to put a stop to it. And of course, that would lead him to that “Absolute power corrupts” path.

That meaning of life story by the Ganma would then fit in with Takeru’s supposed story of tackling life and death. How lives are special and precious and must be saved, no matter what. Things like not realizing how important certain people are and certain moments are until they’re gone.

But nope. That’s not it at all. Takeru needs to collect toys to live and Adel wants friends.

At the very least, the show remembered Takeru’s Super Hugs. I was wondering if we’d ever see that again. And thankfully(?) we did see that this episode. In the early episodes, Takeru’s hugs cured everything and everyone. And all Adel apparently needed to snap him out of his self-pity was a nice hug from a cute 18-going-on-19-year-old dead teenage boy.

Hayato Isomura sold those scenes though. Alain has gotten the most and meatiest material this season and has done very well. (Do you remember when he dressed like a homeless person? Now there’s another inexplicable detail from this season lol)

Elsewhere in nitpicking. Takeru thinking Grampa Sennin was Argos. How can TV-only watchers know who he is? Even from what little we’ve been teased of him.

Akari, Onari and Kanon are suddenly amazing fighters who can finish off basic Ganma. Sure.

Makoto and cloneMakoto could’ve easily been another aspect of that “Meaning of life”/Ganma-to-human transition story.

That Akari-Igor “love” moment. WTF. Seriously

And because this season had no clear Big Bad, they have to pop one out on the penultimate episode. (Because I assume Episode 50 is the crossover epilogue?)

Oh Ghost.

2 thoughts on “Recap: Kamen Rider Ghost, Episode 48 – End! The Chain of Sorrow!

  1. I. Have. No. Idea. What. The. Hell. Is. Going. On.

    I just can’t imagine how my comment oh so may episodes ago about the show trying too many things at once is now coming back to haunt me. The show tried way too many but never got to finish anything. It was like three show’s worth of premise that they threw in here. And while Hayato Isomura did manage to pull off the drama, this one as a whole is one hollow melodramatic shenanigan.

    And no, dear Ghost writers, Adel is not Citizen Kane. Them shoving his “backstory” (that should have been seen and explored earlier) here in a 2-minute exposition feels like a desperate attempt to save the character and pull out last-minute melodrama.

    Also, “Makoto vs. Makoto” rivals Demia as the most pointless plot this season. It just comes and goes without us knowing why it is even there in the first place.

    Man, this sadly just turned out as worse as Drive.

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