[MaskedRiderAsakura]

I hate to compare Drive to other series because I feel like every series should be able to stand on its own.


But I can't help but think of other series that were already getting the ball rolling at this point. Even if you want to blame that on the 2-parter format, W and OOO, and (from what I've seen of) Fourze, they had some legitimate character development or at the very least we learned about what makes the characters tick.


What more have we learned about Shinnosuke that we didn't know from the first episode? What more have we learned about Kiriko? Since Gou's introduction, we know Gou hates the Roidmudes but we can't even speculate on why because the show gives us nothing to go off of. We had Chase for a while, but the show quickly squashed that almost as soon as it came. And of course, we have the other support characters who, minus Rinna, we don't know a single thing about except the fact that they like to make funny faces at cameras and that one of them has an obsession with dolls. Whoop-de-doo.

As much as some people don't like Akiko (and I beg to differ), she was at least an actual character and not just convenient comedic relief they could pull out of their ass whenever they wanted the show to stop being serious.