[Jkin62]

So I've been doing reviews of KR for quite awhile now. In the past year I've reviewed most all the Neo-Heisei Riders and been posting it on another site. I've decided I want to post em here as well since there's a slightly bigger audience for them.

If you'd like to share your thoughts I'd appreciate it if no spoilers are given. Otherwise feel free to share your thoughts on the season with meh and follow me as I go through KR one season at a time.

Without further ado I now present...

Kamen Rider Drive Review

Eps 1 - 10

Plot
The story here is relatively simple compared to other seasons of Kamen Rider. Shinnosuke is a kinda lazy police detective who gets powers from a partner of his to fight the Roidmude, a group of villains that want to use humans to evolve and take over the world (of course!). The story here is bare bones, not much was needed and it delivered just enough. I drew the comparison of the story structure to W. Yes it’s a detective story but unlike other shows where it’s centric on who did it, this is more centric on why they did it. It’s a good structure and it gives the one-off characters time to shine like in most every other KR season. Bare bones and basic, but effective.

Characters
Drive’s strongest point are it’s 2 leads, Shinnosuke and Kiriko. Both are very enjoyable and their chemistry onscreen is always nice to see. The Driver, or I guess Belt-san, is also cool too. I like how he’s a character in addition to being the Driver. All 3 are what make the season enjoyable.
But here’s where things get a bit negative, while I think those 3 are enjoyable everybody else is subpar. The Special Investigations Unit is completely filled with wacky characters with Rinna being the only tolerable one outside of our 3 leads. I hate to draw another comparison to W but with that season the only wacky character was Akiko. Granted we had Santa-chan and the officer with the back scratcher too but they were minor characters and were there for like 30-45 seconds tops. I’m not a huge fan of them and I only like them when they’re getting stuff done. Case in point the chief. I don’t like him a whole lot, he’s annoying and too wacky. Something I did like though was during the episode where Shinnosuke was injured and had to be helped to the hospital. During that ep there was a whole dilemma of humans being untrustworthy since there were smuggled explosives in some food trucks. But then he gives Shinnosuke the number of the man who saved his life and reminds him not all humans are bad. That was a nice moment and really tied into the episode. Unfortunately that’s one moment in 9 episodes so meh.
The villains are also pretty uninteresting. The Roidmudes just come off as boring, I mean the fat guy was memorable but I don’t even remember much about who the villains are except for Chaser. All of em are evil for the sake of being evil. Sure they’re setting up their characters for use later on down the line (hopefully) but they don’t stand out. In W the villains were a rich family living in a mansion, in OOO they all had their own core medals and were color coded, even in Fourze we could tell because they all had distinguishable personality traits. Here, the same problem I had with Kuuga persists, the villains might tie into the theme of the season but evil is their only personality trait. That being said Chaser is the exception here. There’s just enough about him that makes him interesting and he has some memorable moments in this particular batch of episodes.

Favorite Moments and Random Observations
Surprise Drive is awesome
Kiriko, I don’t think keeping drawings of Shinnosuke and his habits are gonna help with your tolerance of them…
Oh of course everybody at the Special Investigations Unit is wacky
Not a fan of car themed suits but Drive’s is cool
Looks like Eiji let the PuToTyranno medals consume him, now he’s going by “Chaser” these days...
Driver Voice Rating: 6/10
Henshin Rating: 4/10
Kiriko is my new Toku crush at the moment
Civilian Kiriko is <3 <3 <3

Overall Theme/Moral of the Season
Like Fourze with friendship, OOO with Greed/Desire, or Wizard with Hope, every Kamen Rider season has an overarching theme. And for Drive we have…
…
…
Um… policeman’s work?
From what I’ve been able to draw thus far, I believe the overarching theme of the season is being a Kamen Rider. Not just that, but being a hero in general. Shinosuke has to deal with the fact that being a police detective means he’s gonna deal with some bad people.
The preview I saw for this season hinted that the season is about changing fate maybe? Perhaps the trauma Shinnosuke experienced during the Global Freeze will tie into that.
Point is if there’s a theme, it’s not clear cut and obvious to me like the previous seasons.

Ruling
I was not expecting Drive to get me hooked at all. At first glance this season came off as boring with nothing new. But through the writing of the two main leads this show is instantly better as a result. It’s not amazing sure and I can count a few slow moments overall, yet I can’t stop watching. Judging by that, this season has made a good first impression on me so let’s hope things go up from here.

Kamen Rider First Impressions Rank
W
Fourze
Gaim
Drive
Decade
Den-O
Wizard
OOO
Agito
Kuuga

Now my second favorite part of a KR season behind the finale, we backtrack and go at full speed with the all our favorite fruits.
Next Time: Kamen Rider x Kamen Rider Drive and Gaim: Movie Taisen Full Throttle