[Fish Sandwich]

Well today I'm in the mood to sing Drive's praises, and you're all coming along for the ride!

So after Gaim wore out its welcome for me, I was actually quite hyped for Drive after every little bit of information about it and hoo boy, let me tell 'ya, those first couple months were like falling in love with Kamen Rider all over again.

I remember a lot of people who felt a show about a detective Rider written by Riku Sanjo was a little redundant given that W already existed, but there's an extra layer to that comparison to me because much like W was a breath of fresh air for people who felt Decade was a promising show that grew into a nightmare, Drive and Gaim were... well, exactly that for me.

It almost felt like a gift-wrapped apology directly to me because so much of it conceptually is right in my wheelhouse. Like, just as a main character, Drive:
Is a cop - Sweet!
Has a rad car - Hell yeah!
Has a secret identity - Cool!
Does not have a secret identity - Awesome!

...And so on and so forth. It was really everything I could have asked for, and so much more. If Wizard is my favorite Kamen Rider show, Drive wins the silver medal no contest.

I hope nobody minds if I eat up most of a page with one post, because I still have stuff to say, so maybe grab another drink.

First off, the three Riders are all really cool characters, so one at a time here:

- Shinnosuke is my homeboy. I just mentioned the whole "gift-wrapped present" factor Drive has going for me, and Shinnosuke's whole character feels like a direct contrast to the complaints I had with Kouta. It was so nice to see, 2 episodes in no less, him deducing Belt-san must have some connection to the Roidmudes all by himself and then complaining about him keeping secrets, and even nicer to see him hating secrets become a consistent character trait. Not that it's unusual for a detective to be inquisitive, though. Which is the other thing. On a less personal level, he's just a fleshed-out, well-rounded main character. He's a professional who's smart and dedicated to his job (both of them), but he's also kind of lazy and hot-headed. It gives him flaws to overcome and makes him fun to watch because he's not just in one mood all the time. On the subject of being fun to watch, he's an expert snarker in fight scenes. "What do I look like, the pizza guy?" comes to mind.

- Gou is also my homeboy. If Shinnosuke is negative Kouta, then Gou is reverse Kaito. He's just an excellent second Rider with a cool suit, a cool bike, some cool catchphrases, and a surprisingly cool character arc. I love the way the show constantly makes it look like he's riding some kind of line, only for it to always turn out he's just as heroic as anybody else. Picks a fight with Drive an episode after he shows up? He's just messing around. Becomes jealous of all Drive's shiny new toys? Well timed pep-talks from his friends and family remind him he doesn't need fancy stuff to be cool. Teams up with the bad guys? He was just playing the role while acting as a double agent, and he feels super guilty when Shinnosuke dies while he just stands there. Blatant racism? He mostly didn't really mean it, and is devastated when Chase dies.

- Chase is also also my homeboy. As Machine Chaser, he's a great "honorable bad guy warrior"/"evil counterpart" kind of character ("You're the real Grim Reaper here, Kamen Rider!"), which, again, is really my kind of villain, and (Do I need to spoiler tag this?) as Kamen Rider Chaser, he replaces that with compelling growth as he learns what it's like to be human, quelling the fears I had he would become boring as a good guy. Again, just a generally well-executed character who's tons of fun.

Moving into more disorganized thoughts:

- Belt-san is everything I wished Kivat would have been. I really hope they get around to a CSM Drive Driver soon so they can do him justice with actual voice clips. I'd never own one, but just knowing it exists would be cool.

- The supporting cast is another thing that was nice to see since it's a big part of any Rider show that Gaim sort of skipped since it had so many Riders to deal with. They're pretty much all helpful and the less helpful they are, the less attention they get. Kiriko in particular is obviously amazing, but I'm also really fond of Otta's whole arc where he gradually becomes a more competent part of the team over the course of the show.

- The Roidmudes are nice enough villains in general, and I like how the show gives you a sense of the sort of "society" they have, but in particular, I think Heart was a fantastic villain, with some proper depth, and a code of honor that justifies a lot of common TV villain behavior, like why he doesn't just kill Shinnosuke while he's on the can or something.

- The show's treatment of the title "Kamen Rider" as something with meaning is the best it's ever gotten. From the second episode, it's established that he's basically the Roidmudes version of the Boogeyman, and Shinnosuke and Chase see the name as an important reminder of their dedication to protecting people.

- "Surprise Drive" is a super catchy theme, a master-class in effective incorporation of English into a Japanese song, and most importantly it works great as an image song for Shinnosuke, which is good, because it pulls double duty as the insert theme for the first 11 episodes.

- Speaking of which, while episodes 12-24 are admittedly a little rough in places, I stand by the first 11 episodes as being basically perfect Kamen Rider. They're just full of great moments, but since I'm running long enough as it is, I'll just point out that everything builds up to a two-parter where Drive more-or-less has to save Christmas, which is, once again, extremely up my alley.

...Whew! Really hope I'm not boring anyone to tears with these long posts, but even after all that, I could still say more. At any rate, thanks if you actually read all that!