Neither were the head writer, though; that was the Gurren Lagann guy.

watched Drive 7 and 8 last night. While it may not be the most rapidly moving show in the world, I don't think it's so slow to the point that it's boring like some people seem to think. The only thing I don't like is the fact that the shift cars seem to pop up out of nowhere, allowing for some crazy deus ex machina. Oh, the steel beam is gonna fall on the dude? Better use the shift car ability that will be perfectly suited to this situation even though I've literally never used or even mentioned it before.

Watching this immediately following Ghost definitely shows a lot of what people were saying is wrong with Ghost. Specter and Chaser are pretty much the same. The shift cars and the eyecons are pretty similar too (as well as, from what I can tell, the lockseeds in gaim). However, I feel like Ghost may have handled some of it better. The Eyecons all had to be earned in Ghost, and we knew what abilities he had as he gained more Eyecons. Drive seems to just pull them out of thin air whenever he needed a new power. I also felt like Specter was an improvement over Chaser. He clearly was causing issues for Ghost and posed a legitimate threat. Meanwhile, Chaser seems like more of an annoyance, and Drive seems to feel the same way as well. Perhaps that's because of the 99 day limit - every time Specter showed up, Takeru got further from his goal but closer to death.

I can't help but wonder how differently I'd feel if I had watched Drive first...

Probably the other way around because I can't relate to anything you're saying here :lol

Chaser was pretty bad early on; all he really did was show up to artificially pad out two-parters by distracting Shinnosuke just enough to add 5-10 minutes to the story. Trust me, though, when I say that by the end of the series Specter will have nothing on Chaser.

Their interest factor is kinda reversed. Makoto starts out strong but after he becomes an ally he’s basically worthless and doesn’t get much love, Chase is a boring enemy at first but as soon as his past becomes clear and he starts to grow out of his Mashine Chaser role he becomes really interesting.

I can see that. Then they decided "let's do the same thing with Alain and then focus on him instead." Hopefully the next episode of Ghost shows Makoto a bit more love.

Yeah, I'm simply talking about at this point in the show. Specter was a formidable opponent, while Chaser just kind of shows up and fights.

Chaser was really overused, so much so that it basically negated his threat potential. If he'd only show up occasionally, then I think he would have been much more intimidating, but having a Chaser fight every episode really wore down the ability to view him as a legitimate danger.

Having finished Kamen Rider Hibiki recently and still having an itch to watch some toku I want to know what to watch next.

I've already seen Ryuki, Hibiki Kabuto, Decade, W, OOO, Fourze, Wizard, Gaim, Drive, what's out of Ghost, and what's out of Amazons so far.

So that leaves me with the showa era, Kugga, Agito, Faiz, Blade and Kiva.

I like Faiz a lot personally. *hides* Kuuga is pretty nice and well made though, definitely worth checking out if you're feeling more sane.

Black seems to be the obvious choice.