Series Review: Kamen Rider Ghost

Kamen Rider Ghost [2015-2016]

"I will let my life burn bright!"

Ah, and here is the black sheep of the phase 2 Heisei shows... Kamen Rider Ghost. Phase 2 Heisei is always noted to put a significant amount of focus on collectible gimmicks and tended to have a fun, more comedic tune even in the direst of episodes, in an attempt to emulate the styles of shows like Double and Den-O, two of the most well-received shows throughout the franchise's history. 

And for the most part, even if there are relatively weak entries in Phase 2, like Wizard or Zi-O, they have mostly been relatively shrugged off as "it's problematic, but ultimately still kind of fun". Ghost, though, is... it's honestly bizarre. It is easily one of the more controversial shows. You either really like it, or you either really dislike it. It's not quite a lukewarm show like Wizard or Kiva. And part of it is due to Ghost's problematic writing. Halfway across the series (which is where the show tended to be noted to go utterly downhill and burn any potential it may have had) the studio producing the show ended up have to split their budget with the side-series Kamen Rider Amazons with very little announcement, and apparently this got so bad that the reason Ghost's final form had such a bizarre and anti-climactic introduction was because they literally ran out of budget because the suit-making company were making Amazons suits. Apparently there are also significant rewrites and arguments among the writers on the direction of the show, too. But what about the final product, though?

Overall, Mostly Spoiler-Free Series Review:

Overall... Ghost honestly starts off in a genuinely lukewarm manner. I was introduced to the Ghost cast through crossovers while I was watching through Zi-O and Ex-Aid, and thought that even though the Ghost Driver is one of the most annoying noises in the franchise's history, the characters are charming enough. Even if it's not going to be my favourite character, the concept is... it's intriguing, right? Our main character dies, becomes a ghost, and lives with a group of paranormal investigators in a temple, sort of forming a distinctly Japanese-flavoured Ghostbusters. Sure, the hoodie is kind of silly, but the black-and-orange colouration ends up for a pretty nifty-looking suit, and while I did not expect much, the idea of befriending and channeling the powers of the iconic heroes of history is an interesting one. Perhaps in a very short list of shows where the power-up gimmicks are explicitly shown to be sentient (alongside Den-O and Drive), the many collectible gimmicks are potentially fun characters-of-the-week at worst, and a genuinely likable cast at best.

And, honestly, the show starts off in... in a pretty bland, lukewarm way. Our hero Tenkuji Takeru is a good boy, one that's all happy and hopeful and stuff. He's likable without having too much uniqueness to him other than the fact that he straight-up dies and becomes like, oh, Danny Phantom or something in the first episode. He's told by an enigmatic old man ghost that he has to gather the Ten Dragon Balls Fifteen Heroic Eyecons to bring himself back to life. He's joined first by his two good friends, the "the mystic is real!" hammy monk Onari and "SCIENCE" sassy best friend Akari.

Okay, it's a bit derivative, perhaps, but I've seen other series that felt generic in the beginning end up becoming some of my favourite works of fiction. Not quite so for Ghost. Slightly spoiling the structure of the series a little, the pacing of the series is perhaps my biggest problem with everything that's going on. The first 11 episodes move at a breakneck pace to introduce the main 15 Eyecons, which honestly felt like it's to the show's betterment. I've always felt that shows that quickly do away with the "we need to introduce all the toys on sale at the moment" sequence and quickly go and focus on the actual story they want to tell tend to be the best way to incorporate these dang toys into the show. We're also introduced to the 'rival' character, Kamen Rider Specter, as early as the fifth episode, and while the early episodes do feel very episodic, the fact that these are episodes-of-the-week instead of stretching most of them into two-parters felt like the show moved pretty quickly, slowly building up the bunch of mysterious, ominous villains in the background and hints of a greater conspiracy.

And then, in episode 10-11, the fifteen Eyecons are gathered, with some literally just being in the bad guys' possession all along, and a wish is made to Shenron The Great Eye, but then it just zaps and kills one of the built-up villains (for the remainder of the series, too, until the spinoffs do something with him) and our hero, Takeru, ends up wishing for Specter's sister to be brought back to life instead, resetting the 99-day time limit... just because?

And then from episodes 12 to somewhere in the late 20's, we basically get a repeat of the same thing of Takeru and company re-collecting all the 15 Eyecons, only this time he has to 'reconnect' with the souls of the heroes inside, which tends to fluctuate very wildly in quality. As we get more and more hints of the enigmatic extra-dimensional plane called the Ganma World, the Prince of All Saiyans Prince of Ganma, Alain, shows up, and acts as the antagonist. All the while some bizarre mystery in the background continues to play about the royal family drama going on among the Ganma race. It's... it's another one of those things where it really feels like it could potentially be great. I'm not expecting Game of Thrones level of intricacy or bloodshed or anything, but it's honestly just ultimately muddled foreshadowing with very little payoff.

Throw in the fact that it's around the 20's that the budget clearly got sucked away by other projects, because while the show initially had pretty neat fights showing Kamen Rider Ghost floating around like a ghost, or passing through walls or whatever, by the time the show reaches this point it's clear that the budget's sort of cut. Sure, the special effects of the parka ghosts zipping around are still there, and you get the bare minimum of people in suits punching and shooting each other, but everything just ends up being so utterly generic, lacking all of the things that the series had initially promised to be unique. Sure, we get a bunch of mid-season power-ups, but... they're just ultimately forgettable, just forms that our heroes will pull out in the third act of any given episode. The show itself forgets that its main characters are supposed to be ghosts most of the time, too, and other than lip service to "oh yeah, we need to revive Takeru as our end-goal", the show lacks any sort of urgency to anything it does.

Episode 31 towards... basically up until the series' end at episode 50, the series just languishes in its own special blend of trying to tell its story and repeating the same old plot over and over again. The series tries to get through the fact that Takeru needs to connect with the heroic icons he hasn't done so with in the previous episodes, which leads me to wonder why the show wasn't better structured in the first place since it's utterly messy when a hero we've ignored for literally since the show was in single digits (like Beethoven) ended up randomly being the focus of a single episode, but quickly discarded again.

There is also the main villain, Adel, who... who's just not that interesting. Sure, the concept is neat, an egomaniacal prince who thinks he's a god, banishes the likable siblings and ends up trying to create an utopia where no one will die, is... it's an interesting villain if done well, but it's not. Adel has less personality than any given villain-of-the-week in this show, and he drags on and on for upwards of twenty whole episodes as our main villain, sending in the weird Gammaizers -- robotic clones of Adel that are supposed to embody the opposite powers of the 15 Eyecons... ends up being easily the most boring segment of the show. The Gammaizers literally have no personality, and the budgetary reasons actually meant that more than half of them never got showcase episodes (they just turn into balls of light that power up the ones the show has budget to make suits for) while ones we've already seen kept making repeat appearances. Also extremely tiresome is the "Copy Makoto" subplot, which was dragged on for ten episodes despite it just amounting to "Copy Makoto will find the real one, fight and then bugger off while spouting the same ominous crap". The entire secondary cast honestly just stopped being relevant halfway across the show, and the humans are just there to add comedy (which gets tiresome fast) and the two other Kamen Riders feel far more redundant compared to secondary riders in other shows. Alain does get a whole lot of character work, but also fades into the background after they finished telling that story. Again, all sorts of pacing problems.

All of this ends with an utterly mundane resolution and, just like Wizard, a more interesting main villain is taken out near the climax and replaced with a far less interesting one, except in both cases, Wizard's two final villains are so, so much more interesting than Ghost's. The show's also infamous for basically killing and bringing back Takeru so many times that it's honestly a running gag -- Takeru's probably been through the revolving door of life and death more times than Krillin has. It's something that ends up honestly being quite laughable after a while. Also problematic is the handling of the Ganma World. Initially just implied to be a child-friendly afterlife (it's an alternate dimension, after all), the whole backstory and exploration of the Ganma World society ends up being simultaneously convoluted and overtly simple. Throw in the genuinely awkward storytelling, and I just honestly end up being particularly indifferent to this.

Throw in some side characters that are utterly wasted, a pretty piss-poor resolution to the whole "backstory mystery" about Takeru's enigmatic sponsor, and some major plot points that would make no sense if you don't watch the supplementary material... yeah. The 30's and 40's episodes also end up being very formulaic and bland, and a lot of the plotlines being built up for the entire series end up whizzing out in very disappointing ways.

There are some nice themes being explored in the show, of course. Revolving around an eternally-optimistic kid who's struggling between "should I fight for myself and my friends who care for me?" and "should I sacrifice myself for the world?" is an interesting topic brought up multiple times, and I do like that at least that the show doesn't cheapen the death of Takeru's father, and that remains as the huge "death is a part of life" theme. Learning from the past, the power of emotions and friendship, and that you should appreciate people who care for you and not hurt them by sacrificing yourself... there are lots of good things going on, and the show's cast tends to be charismatic when they are allowed to be, but the show is so problematic and mired by terrible pacing and repeating the whole "INFINITE POWER OF HUMANITY!!!" catchphrase in the second half of the episode that it honestly feels like a huge, huge waste of what could definitely have been great.

Characters [Spoilers Ahoy]

Tenkuji Takeru is... he's... he's all right, I guess? The actor that plays him is charismatic enough, and we do get some genuinely earnest acting from him at various points in the series as he reacts to death and sacrifice. And that's what makes him far more interesting to watch compared to other more stoic protagonists, I guess -- the drama that Takeru goes through, and how much he struggles with whether his efforts and little crusade matters, as well as topics of sacrifice and leaving things behind, are all genuinely well-done. Being a superhero who puts more focus into not killing and redeeming his enemies is cheesy and sometimes annoying, but it's done relatively decently. Unfortunately, as I note in my main review, Takeru's characterization is also bogged down by horrid pacing and a genuinely unengaging plotline. He's a good boy and he tries his goddamn best, but the show's just too problematic for him to truly shine. 

Honestly, I've always actually felt that the best writing for Takeru tended to be when he's allowed to interact with a less-dry cast in crossovers, making Takeru join the pretty small club that comprises of him and Decade where I like the character and how he relates to the larger mythos, but am extremely lukewarm about the show. 

Fukami Makoto, a.k.a. Kamen Rider Specter, is... he's done well for the first arc of the series, introduced as an asshole rival with mysterious connections to Takeru's past, revealed to be his long-missing childhood friend. Specter is hunting for the 15 Eyecons himself, in something that we later learn is to resurrect his dead (well, trapped-in-an-eyeball) little sister. He does give us some pretty great angst and drama early on, but after Takeru chooses to revive his sister, Specter ends up being... I wouldn't say completely irrelevant, but he's sort of like Dragon Ball Z's non-Saiyan cast, since we're already using a lot of DBZ comparisons in this review.

He gets mind-controlled by Alain for a while, then just hangs on as the dude that helps to beat up the grunts, and then languishes a lot through the utterly problematic Copy-Specter arc... honestly, I really got the feeling that the writers didn't really know what to do with Specter after his whole dilemma about choosing between Kanon and Takeru is over, and once his buddy Alain ended up being converted to the good guys, Makoto ends up just being mostly pointless. There was some talk about the whole Deep Specter thing having after-effects, but ultimately his character tends to feel like a waste. Even in the Specter V-cinema movie that's supposed to tie up some loose ends about him seems to just be an attempt to shove in a convoluted backstory for no real reason. 

Alain (pronounced Aran, but spelled like that for some reaso), a.k.a. Kamen Rider Necrom, is perhaps the most interesting character in the series. He's also the least-relevant Kamen Rider in the show, never actually getting any sort of power ups and constantly gets laid down upon his ass. Starting off as an antagonist to replace Makoto, Alain starts off as a pretty nasty entitled prince who's angry that his 'friend' was converted to humanity's side. There's some genuinely well-done character moments for Alain in the show, from his initial portrayal as a bratty, possessive little shit to someone who realizes that all the propaganda in the Ganma world is piss-poor, and then he gets a pretty heartbreaking character arc as he realizes just why these mortal humans fight so hard, and that whole sequence where he ends up befriending an old takoyaki seller before learning about death... yeah, that's great. Throw in a genuinely good spin-off series, "The Legend of the Hero Alain", and while not perfect, Alain's character development is pretty well-written, and that moment when he fights a bunch of bad guys in the horrible poncho-suit that the old takoyaki grandma knitted for him while eating takoyaki is easily one of the better scenes in the show. 

Honestly, while I didn't really think much about it, Alain is probably my favourite character in the show, and maybe in a completely different story that just stars a ghost prince befriending humanity, Alain could've easily been a pretty interesting protagonist. Instead, after that admittedly pretty wonderful takoyaki character development... he just ends up being Punch Bag #2 after Makoto. Which is bizarre, since the scenes where Necrom was the main villain had him use some really wacky Ghostbusters powers, but they just forget (or probably didn't have the budget) for Necrom's slime or dematerializing abilities. 

Onari is probably the most controversial character in the show, being insanely over-the-top in his hammy deliveries, perhaps only matched by Kuroto from Ex-Aid and Gentarou from Fourze in his sheer ridiculousness. And people hate him so much for that. I... I actually like Onari, because his nonsense ends up being so stupidly over-the-top that it actually brings levity to the otherwise pretty bland show. His protectiveness over Takeru like a big brother is eventually redundant as everyone basically feels the same thing over Takeru, but eh. I dunno. I like Onari, even if he's just a walking joke delivery system. 

Tsukimura Akari is Takeru's best friend, initially introducing just arguing with Onari over science-vs-magic and... and sort of never really develops all that much? She's likable, for sure, just as most of Ghost's cast is, and manages to be surprisingly relevant with her DIY glitter ghost-revealing leaf-blower thing and slaps one of the recurring villains a couple of times, but ultimately while she does end up faring a lot better than some of the side-casts of other Kamen Rider shows, I really don't have much to say about him. She's all right, but I compare her to a lot of better-written, non-transforming characters from Fourze, W, Ex-Aid or Build and she honestly just doesn't stack up. She's at least memorable, though, which is more than I can say for... 

Fukami Kanon sort of rounds up the main good guy cast, and I say 'sort of', because she is utterly irrelevant. She shows up for 44 out of the 50 episodes, but ask me to tell you anything about her, and I can only answer with a confused shrug. She's the sister that Makoto wants to bring back; she's the lady that end up being Alain's girlfriend and wife; she's the one that Takeru ends up chosing to bring back to life. Her personality is generically sweet, and that's about it. It's one of my biggest problems with Ghost, too, where the side cast ends up being so utterly static and forgotten. In the first half and middle half, at least Makoto and Alain had stories. Near the end, everyone sort of just hangs around with Kanon and are just this huge ball of irrelevancy. 

Oh, yeah. These two exist. Shibuya and Narita are constantly counted among the main cast, but honestly, replace them with two planks of cardboard and you'd probably get the same amount of reaction from me. 

"Sennin", or the Sage, or Edith, or Kamen Rider Dark Ghost (for all of twenty seconds) is the mysterious 'sponsor' that gives Takeru his powers, and we learn around halfway to the series that he's sort of affiliated with the Ganma World as one of its biggest lieutenants, while also being part of the cabal of people trying to rescue the human world alongside Takeru's dad. Kamen Rider is no stranger to enigmatic old men that seem to have odd goals. But the Sage is just handled so utterly poorly, with him reverting utterly into bland, boring comedic routines. When the huge revelation of his ultimate plan (which turns out to be a sobbing "the plan's gone off the rails, I don't know what to do now") ends up being told to the cast and audience, it's a very anticlimactic collective shoulder-shrug, and Edith just continues being a pretty bland and uninteresting excuse of an enigma. The actor's great, but the way the character is handled is easily one of the worst part of the show's pacing and writing.

Oh, yeah, Yurusen! She's... she's cute. Clearly a puppet that is just there to be the mascot of the show, Yurusen is charming enough, and such a sassy asshole that I genuinely do like her a fair bit. She's honestly utterly irrelevant, but I do like her when she does manage to show up. She's no Ankh, but even if she does turn out to be utterly irrelevant other than helping to summon the bizarre Captain Ghost, it's still a nice little sidekick.

Oh yeah, Captain Ghost! Basically, for whatever reason, this ghost-themed Kamen Rider has an iguana that transforms into a pirate ship, and in the first couple of arcs where they have the budget, Captain Ghost will have to help to fight giant CGI monsters. It's... it's kinda terrible, honestly. 

I guess I've been putting off talking about the main villain, so here is Adel. Who is... Alain's brother. And he's power-hungry, and he's got a god complex. And that is literally all we get from him. He just alternates being a smarmy ass-hat and very subdued monologues and killing people, and he's just utterly not all that interesting. It's such a shame since it could've been a fun comparison between Alain and Adel as two different power-hungry royal immortals who go about things in a different way, but Adel is so bland, repetitive, and drags on and on. There's a brief amount of drama on whether Takeru should go for the kill or forgive a man who was responsible for the death of Takeru's dad, but... I genuinely never really gave a shit, and Adel's just so unlikable that I was championing for the show to kill him. The show also took the coward's way out too, having their cake and eat it, by having Adel be redeemed in the penultimate episode, and then instantly getting killed and absorbed by the Gammaizer AI that went rogue. 

I talked a bit about the crappy Gammaizers before, but they're basically a series of basically artificial intelligence meant to guard the "Great Eye", the enigmatic god-like entity (that's never actually explained). And they just... keep regenerating after they are defeated, and have absolutely zero personality beyond saying robotic things. It lets Adel's actor play a bunch of characters at once, but the Gammaizers merging with the Great Eye and Adel, and eventually becoming just "that one final monster" or Takeru to defeat, has always felt disappointing. They genuinely have no personality, and are repeated so many times that it's genuinely hard to say anything positive about them. 

Jabel is one of the earliest recurring antagonists, a Ganma-world commando that menaces our heroes early on, and just sort of latches on as this recurring antagonist and later good guy. There's so little focus for Jabel, even in episodes that's meant to focus on him, that he honestly feels like a poor man's Gentoku Himura (his fashion sense and beard doesn't help). He's by default more interesting than any of the other villains in the show because he has an actual character arc, but he's so under-utilized I legitimately forgot he exists until looking at the cast. 

Igor is a typical crazy mad scientist villain that I am genuinely surprised that he lasted more than a couple episodes. He's basically a recurring lackey for a vast majority of the series' second half and... he's annoying, but at least he's memorable thanks to his sliminess and just how much of an asshat he is. I would probably go as far as to say that Igor's far more interesting of a character than Adel is. 

Saionji Chikara is the aforementioned main villain that gets removed pretty abruptly in the first 10 episodes, despite being built up as the Ganmas' main agent in the human world, and noted to be the person that betrays the whole group built by Takeru's father. It's a far, far less interesting subplot since everyone involved is kinda dead, and while Saionji plays a pretty fun villain, he's utterly under-utilized. 

Copy Makoto. Oh yeah. This shit exists. Copy Makoto is utterly irrelevant and he (they?) is just there to take up five to ten minutes of every episode by taunting Makoto, saying generic "are you sure you are the real Makoto?" nonsense, and being ultimately killed off and absorbed in a pretty anticlimactic manner. It's the most bland and banal evil clone I've ever seen in fiction. Sure, the Specter V-Cinema does give some... interesting implications of their backstory, but it doesn't make me forgive any of the episodes that's dragged down by this completely unnecessary plot device. 

Alia, or Dark Necrom Pink, is initially introduced as the stern-but-kind big sister of Alain, and seems to potentially be another player in the Ganma world politics, but ends up being completely irrelevant. Kamen Rider has not been historically good at handling female characters, but Alia ends up being turned utterly irrelevant after her first couple of appearances, just hanging out and calling Adel out on what a shit he is. She transforms into a rider for quite literally 15 seconds before her transformation item is destroyed and she ends up being basically a wallpaper decoration for the rest of the series. 

"I am Edison. Edison! Are you Edison? No you're not!"

The fifteen great heroes... don't really do much beyond be relevant for one episode or two. Musashi gets the most screentime due to being the hero Takeru idolizes the most, but they all just say generic mentor stuff. Edison's great, though, because he wants you to know that he is Edison. 

Cubi-chan is a happy little Picasso Ganma who wants to draw, and he doesn't show up a lot, mostly just being the token good guy Ganma monster, but I love him. 

The monsters of the week, the Ganma -- especially early on -- are also based on historical characters. Not all of them are obvious, and some look pretty generic, but my favourite include this little Cubi-chan (Picasso), as well as the ones based on the Red Baron, Lewis Carroll and Leonardo da Vinci. That last one is a movie-exclusive villain, though. It's a shame that these unique looking Gnama end up quite literally tossed aside in favour of the utterly bland Gammaizers. 

Steve Bills is a human businessman who is controlled by the Ganma, and I mostly love him for his ridiculous name. The Deep Connect subplot was stretched out for a large portion of the show, and it ended up being kind of a dud episode-of-the-week, and it's honestly kind of disappointing. Bills was kinda fun, and probably a rare example of a foreigner not being played up for comedy in these tokusatsu shows. 

Gimmicks, Costumes & Power-Ups

The Ghost Driver is one of the noisiest drivers ever, and I'm of two opinions about it. I absolutely dislike the "bachiri minaaa bachiri minaaa" song that plays on for quite a while while Takeru and Makoto do their henshin poses, but I absolutely love the almost rap-like way that it announces actual power ups when they plug in the heroic Eyecons. My favourite jingle has to be the ones corresponding to Tutankhamen, Billy the Kid and Beethoven. Also, hearing the belt announce the names of these names is pretty hilarious. Necrom uses the Mega Ulorder (a pun that only makes sense in Japanese), which is pretty cool looking, particularly because it's mounted on the arm.

Eyecon, by the way, is the best pun in this series. I'm completely neutral about them... they're spheres, and not quite boring enough to mock, but not as hilarious as some other transformation gimmicks. As I mentioned above, the concept of the souls of heroes living in these Eyecons is interesting, and while the show does something with it... it's not really all that much, y'know?


I tend to not talk too much about weapons, since they're invariably just clunky-looking upsized toys that I've long tolerated since it's... well, y'gotta sell the silly transforming gun-blade toys. But the Sunglasseslasher is hilariously stupid, and probably one of my favourite gimmicks in this series due to how off-the-walls dumb this thing looks.


And let's talk about the suits! I... I really do think that for all three main riders, the base forms are genuinely the most cool-looking. Sure, they do tend to swap hoodies for the little collectible gimmick forms, but those tend to be pretty neat. The hoodie forms also change the faceplates, which I always thought look pretty cool. Pictured here next to the main base suits are Ghost in Robin Hood, Beethoven and Billy the Kid form, as well as Specter in Tutankhamun form, which are probably my favourite hoodie forms.


But when we do get to the super forms... Takeru's first death activates the Toucon Boost form, which changes the entire undersuit into a very, very bland red form that I just don't really care for, and actually clashes a lot with the hoodies he wears. Three of the hoodies are associated with the Toucon boost form, and neither Goemon, Ryouma nor Himiko looks particularly good with the red understuit. Grateful Damashii is interesting in concept, but pretty bland in execution. Mugen Form is... it's a lot less dumb looking in motion, but it's also a pretty bland white-and-rainbow final form and one that I find to be a lot less interesting and far more cluttered compared to other 'final white' forms. Deep Specter, meanwhile, looks... tacky, and like a deer. Spinoffs would give these guys alternate final forms, with Specter getting the Sin Specter (basically similar to Mugen Ghost), and Necrom getting the also-pretty tacky Yuujou Burst.

It's a bit of a shame, really -- I started off really enjoying the look of the hoodie ghosts, but when we finally get to the super forms, everything just looks so messy and cluttered.

Movies & Specials:

=
• Kamen Rider x Kamen Rider Ghost & Drive: Super Movie War Genesis: Wow, this is a fucking long title, huh? Ghost & Drive is actually a decent movie that ties in the Ghost and Drive casts pretty well. Leonardo da Vinci is a bombastic villain, we get some genuinely great acting moments from Ghost, who plays of the more mature and older Drive very well, and a fun little conclusion for Drive's story. It's a shame that they injected in a bizarre time travel subplot just to have Takeru's dad show up, and the climax is pretty bland. This movie also has a bit of a continuity snarl in that the way Takeru's dad dies contradicts what happens in the show. 
• Kamen Rider 1: One of my all-time favourite movies, and I am not even familiar with the titular Kamen Rider Ichigo! Only mostly knowing him as "the first one", Ichigo tends to be near-deified as this ultimate hero and the first hero, and this movie ends up being a surprising crossover done in response to Ichigo's poorly-received portrayal in the Showa-vs-Heisei movie. Featuring the original actor and a new, bulky suit, the plot is very Ichigo-centric and the Ghost cast honestly just feel tacked on, but having Ghost be very inspired by Ichigo's story, and how Ichigo is handled throughout the movie, is honestly pretty solid all the way through. This is a year where the normal "Kamen Rider vs Super Sentai" movies are eschewed in favour for an actually good, solid movie. 
• Kamen Rider Ghost: 100 Eyecons and Ghost's Fateful Moment: Ghost's solo movie and... and it's all right? It's very standalone, and has the interesting concept of a village created for the Eyecons of 100 heroes, and also features a fair amount of tie-in with the series, featuring an unseen royal sibling. I do like how much this seamlessly fits into the continuity of the show, particularly considering it covers aspects like Makoto's father and the firstborn son of the Ganma Royal family. The execution is admittedly very bland, with none of the new characters really bringing anything genuinely new to the table. There are some decent moments in this one, but it's ultimately sort of bland. 
• Kamen Rider Ghost ReBirth: Kamen Rider Specter: The Specter V-Cinema released a lot later that sort of acts as an epilogue to the Ganma world plot. Actually probably one of my favourite specials, and it features a lot of things that I think they wanted to do with Makoto and Alain, but just didn't have to. Features a bizarre retcon/revelation to the Fukami siblings' backstory, which I'm not the biggest fan of, and a good chunk of the V-Cinema is introducing the Sin Specter and Yuujou Necrom forms, but I did like this a fair bit as a good epilogue chapter. 

Specials:

• Hyper Battle DVD: Ikkyu Eyecon Contention; Ikkyu Intimacy. A series of two tongue-in-cheek hyper battle DVD specials that is supposed to tie into the 100 Eyecons movie, but ultimately utterly throwaway and mostly irrelevant. This features Poppy Pipopapo's actress, Ruka Matsuda, in a pre-Ex-Aid role, though, which is unexpectedly fun. 
• The Legend of the Hero Alain: A series of four episodes as 'special' bonus episodes in DVD sets, which really gets into Alain's mindsets at different points in the series, and actually develops a 'fate brought us together' mentality and reveals that Alain met the takoyaki grandma in her youth. Genuinely heartwarming, and easily one of the better material out of the series as a whole. 
• Kamen Rider Ghost: Legendary Riders Souls: A seven-part series of web shorts that take place after episode 20, and briefly ties into the Kamen Rider 1 movie. Mostly an advertisement featuring "Legend Rider" forms where Ghost and Specter don hoodies based on previous Heisei riders. Features some fun cameos of the ghosts of older villains (White Wizard and Terror Dopant's cameos are particularly decently-written), but is mostly a toy advertisement. It is one of those specials that actually ends up tying into the climax of the final episodes without any in-show explanation, though, since this is where the avatars of the Great Eye first show up. 
• Kamen Rider Ghost: Truth, the Secret of Heroes' Eyecons: Sort of a sequel dealing with Saionji's ghost and Leonardo da Vinci's ghost, two villains from the series and the movie. A bit convoluted, but a nice little coda for Saionji's character and ends up being a stealth prequel to the Specter V-Cinema. 

Ghost would also co-star in a crossover movie with Ex-Aid and later on with Build, as well as in a two-parter in Zi-O.