The Genesis Driver exists because it's the next step in Ryoma's driver technology. Gaim is doing the thing Blade did where a lot of reason why he can keep up with the energy riders is his natural compatibility.(Or in Kaito's case, an insane amount of training) Ryoma notes about how Gaim is doing so well with the core, mind you, this is coming from the guy who's friend (Takatora) has been using Drivers longer then Kouta has and is a professional. It was unexpected to get the same results to get power from the Sengoku Driver in the same ballpark as the Genesis driver.

I still think it's all a little contrived if you ask me, and unnecessarily convoluted, especially for such an otherwise well written show. So far the Drivers in this show make about as much sense as the Faiz Gear which is ironically another show which focussed on a lot on the belts without actually making any sense of them.

Outside of the Genesis core and Sagara magic, I think the drivers make perfect sense. My problem with the core is how does an older driver get new abilities (super speed and super senses) out of a type of lockseed that the Genesis driver was made for? Kouta's own compatibility is completely separate from that issue.

LOL, the Faiz gears made sense, but there was a lot more dumb gray areas with those. What I interpreted those as, was that each Gear had its own set of advantages and drawbacks, but a lot had to do with the person's compatibility. The Orphonchs don't seem to have this compatibility issue but the humans that use it seems to have radically varying effects. (Which leads the writers to do whatever they fuck the wanted with the main characters).

Maybe those abilities comes from mixing with Orange lock seed. That's how I see it, but it might be totally wrong as well. I would only imagine 2 lockeeds together would allow you to gain some type of new ability. Kinda like how W memories work, if you mix and match the gaia memories you tend to get a different Maximum Drive move.

They're probably future proof. You see that sort of thing all the time in modern technology, so it's not completely out of the realm of possibility. Though this still raises the issue of how Ryoma would be unaware of that facet.

Okay, Driver problems aside.

I have a minor problem with Gaim's middle. Everyone is praising it for not slacking in the middle like other series. And while I think that it is doing a better job, its still slacking.

Its the same problem I have with Faiz's middle section, where most of the plot just goes around in circles with some plot developments sprinkled in. While Gaim's "bad" section isn't as long as other Rider shows, it still is there. Over like the course of like 10 or 12 episodes the plot has been, "Oh my ideals somewhat align with yours let's be allies" and then backstabbed. The reasoning for some of the midseason alliances are flimsy at best.

Least favorite part of Gaim for is the humor bits. Maybe it's a cultural difference thing but I don't find all of antics of Bravo that funny. They also feel out of place when compared to the rest of series.

Although I wouldn't say Gaim is flagging, I do think the cast is a bit too large so to that extent I do think some of the developments have been pretty flimsy also.

At this point about the only well realised character is Kouta, everyone else is being juggled around everyone else as every episode crams in a back up story to another back up story. And it's all fine and good in the moment, but seemingly interesting characters have deflated to almost cartoon like dimensions by this point because they have no proper room to grow. The show is bursting at the seams with characters while trying desperately to make every character seem as relevant as the next.

It's a valiant effort, and I love how nothing in this show is played safe but there are so many characters by this point that could have been removed from the start, barely made a dent by being gone but would have given much more important characters more breathing room.

The only character that hasn't been full realized YET is Minato Yoko. All we know about her is that she's tagging along with Ryoma's plans, she likes hitting on highschool kids and might have the same natural potential as Kouta.

I'd disagree with that thoroughly. Kaitou constantly shouts 'STRENGTH' but the only thing we ever seem him do on screen is get creamed.

Takatora turns out to be a good guy, but Takatora really has done VERY little on screen other than provide novelty 'shit got real' moments to really justify this character arc.

Honestly pretty much all of the Yggadrasil dudes are unjustified in how they are played. Ryouma is evil because...fuck it. Sid is entirely defined by being shady and beyond being shady we know nothing about him.

As much as I like Bravo, I would rather not have comedy with him and Oren, so then at least we could have Sid do more than dramatically stand with his hat. Or for Takatora to do more than be betrayed. Or for Kaitou to actually justify his completely unclear motivations. And so on.