[EpsilonX]

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...