What are your issues Drive?
 

I see many complaints what are the main issues?

I'll just drop this here.

Kamen Rider General Questions

I just feel like the show sacrifices character development and plot progression for comedy....and the comedy isn't even done that well.

We're 18 episodes in and I honestly can't tell you what has changed since the start of the show except for Otta not being stupidly skeptical and Gou now being a main cast member.

As much as it tries to interest me with revealing Chase is Proto Drive, introducing Gou and whatnot, it is not as exciting as the other rider shows we had recently. I still like this show but the WOW FACTOR is not there. Only gripe I have is how much dead heat looks awful... Mach got a duck bill and Drive got a mouth piece for a power-up which in return gives them the power of 100 gallons of red bull.

the issues I got is, the point of doing drive as a secret identity, especially around Tomari's workmates.
I mean did you guys not see what kind of car he's driving, or the painfully obvious strange looking watch he's wearing.
Even in the recent episodes, The Roidmudes is still trying to know drive identity, what??? Did chase not letting you guys know?? or is it so hard to point the guy driving a painfully obvious weird looking car??

And Chase, the "cool guy" in the show,, you know if you're keep fighting drive in every episodes, the charm kinda goes away,, the thing about being a badass villain in a rider show is making the appearances count
For example: shadowmoon, the guy brooding, standing still most of the time, but when he appears and fight black, you know he means business. Now imagine if shadowmoon attacking black every episodes just to runaway, or letting black escapes??

I know, I know, I'm putting logic in a kids show, but dammit this is a simple logic TOEI,, you're doing Gaim last season really well,, owh well enough with the rant..

Yeah the car thing did bug me too, and for Chase..he's no longer as intimidating as he was in his first appearance. It would have been better if he only fought every once in a while curbstomping Drive every time until Shinnosuke gets stronger. (like Takatora ) As for the moment Heart actually feels more like rival to Drive compared to Chase.

And Urobutcher did write Gaim so story and character development was pretty good. I'm gonna guess that the reason they say toy sales were low was because parents won't let their kids watch Gaim lol because you know.. Urobutcher.

Unlikely. Rider always had some really gruesome shows like Kuuga or Agito. Gaim had alot of deaths but was actually pretty tame compared to those shows.

The thing with Gaim is that it was just too complicated for kids to follow over a year. Only a very small percentage of kids watches Rider every week and its not hard to imagine that most kids that tuned in couldnt follow the story anymore because they missed alot of the episodes.

As with the toy sales thing. Rider and Sentai lines usually drop in terms of sales after the first quarter. With Gaim it was probably also a mistake to market the second quarter on the energy riders alone. Villain toys dont sell as well as Hero toys and the second quarter was nothing but villain toys. Which is probably why Baron got a Genesis Driver. He was very popular with the kids so they used him to get kids to buy the Energy Rider merchandise.

Yeah I'm aware of that I was just being a little sarcastic

Its only Kamen Rider in name only, it shares none of the original ethos of Kamen Rider.

So does Gaim.

Eh, I don't get this. Ever since Kuuga, Agito and Ryuki, the entire Heisei Era has been redefining the concept of Kamen Rider and what that actually entails.

Yes, to an extent that is true. Kuuga definitely changed a lot of aspects of Kamen Rider, such as Rider's relation with authority and the use of violence. Of which then Agito went to deconstruct in its own show, and then had its own conclusion deconstructed in Ryuki, and etc.

But one thing Rider has been for the longest time has been the idea of it being 1. One against the majority 2. ruling authority system being flawed at best, adversaries at worst.

Whether it be the original with Shocker being direct results of oppressive system, or symbolically being implicitly and/or explicitly coded with that of a dominant ruling structures (such as G.O.D, Gorgom, ZECT, or Smart Brain), or in Agito's case, literally positioning God, the ultimate authority figure, as being an oppressive presence.

Sure, some Riders vary in their setups. In Wizard, the enemy are symbols of depression and self-destruction, or Kuuga where its the ugly parts of humanity, etc. Nevertheless, these all still fulfill the idea of an adversary bigger than the Rider, or anyone else for that matter.

Drive however, is the first time where Rider is now very explicitly part of the authority. Kuuga was allied with them, which Agito later implicitly frowned upon with its negative light on police authority in general, but Drive literally is a police officer and does not attempt to really do much to disassociate him from the rest of the authority he represents.
Roidmutes themselves too, are also not depicted the same as the others Rider villains.
Powerful than normal humans in-universe, sure, but in their thematic position they as of yet have not turned out to be representative of any larger-than-us power. And unlike for example Dopants or Zodiarts, their source is also not any kind of ruling power (Dopants being run by an aristocracy and amoral weapons traders, and Zodiarts essentially Baby Boomers). They are simply put, not enemies bigger than the Rider is in any thematic sense. They are subversives, which is the position that Rider represented before, being the rebel that escaped from the villainous organization.

And there's the fact that Drive predominantly rides a car. So there's the visual element as well

My main issue with the show is after 20 episodes NOW we're starting to approach a real plot with Heart and Brain's plan to replace the human race?

I feel we lost time focusing on comedy more than plot. It worked for Fourze but Drive's narrative is suffering due to the lack of fleshing out its world.

For me, it's the fact that Drive is heavily toy oriented, more so than previous Kamen Rider series but it's painfully obvious here.

This is a big issue during fights because it seems that he's completely useless without some sort of Shift Car or gadget to bail him out during a dicey situation.

Other than that my opinion pretty much echos what everyone else in this thread is saying about the show.

Mach is another issue as well. The secondary Rider is usually suppose to shake up the dynamic of the group or status quo of the series but with Drive being a comedic show and Mach being a goofball character in a show that REALLY didn't need any more goofballs, he kind of just blends in with his surroundings.

Thats a thing that really screams missed opportunity. Putting aside if someone liked Gou when he first appeared he did bring desperately needed conflict into the show. But after two episodes this was already gone and we were back to square one.

I get what you mean, this was actually a pretty interesting read! Although depending on how Drive plays out (although I honestly doubt the show is smart enough to do this) it could very well be a cautionary tale about the dangers of technology, which could very well be seen as a form of authority in our current age.

But like I said, Drive doesn't seem interested or smart enough for that angle at all.

Nature vs. Technology is undeniably a major part in Rider, the original manga used it to illustrate the environmental damage caused by Japan's rapid industrialization.
Though, considering everything, I'm not exactly keen on the idea that Roidmudes would in turn be a message for that, when the hero and the villains roles have been so utterly inverted.

same here, i mean if you watch ninninger, you can tell how better that show is when they are not throwing toys at every episode, i mean we are going to eventually have zord upgrades, that's not a big deal and it's not like drive where they are throwing toys at everything.

it makes things repetitive and not fun at all when it comes to drive especially when they are not focusing on the characters. they can make the show fun without throwing toys at everything, if the writers can come up with funny ideas for every episode and focusing on the relationship of the characters, i would say drive would be just as good as ninninger.

that's why i liked kuuga and agito because the stories were focused on the characters and not gimmicks, when they started throwing gimmicks in ryuuki, it just became unwatchable.

I think you're looking too deep into a message that isn't really there.
Almost any conflict can be extended into a deeper message when you look at the bigger picture, but judging by the direction Drive is moving it, I doubt it will be explored. I believe it's more coincidental than anything.