[Jkin62]

Straying away from all the 555 talk, I just got done with Drive. I felt it was very similar to my opinion of OOO.
The first half was boring but each respective spring movie was painful. The second half is when it really began to shine like OOO did for me.
Going on with the comparisons I can sum up both as so:
When it's good, it's great! But when it's bad it's terrible.

Drive I will say is most certainly a back to basics KR season. The producers probably thought Gaim was too radical a change and just in case it ended up doing subpar all around they'd have a "safe" season to air the next year. It doesn't feel like it took very many chances until the second half and felt very run of the mill. I will say though, Drive's biggest strength is definitely the 4 main characters. Shinnosuke, Go, Kiriko, and Chase. Hell, even Heart, Medic, and Brain really grew on me. I absolutely loved Brain's death and his little arc before he died. Medic treated him like crap and yet he couldn't help but feel sorry for her when she was "brainwashed". Then he took the death blow for Heart, Medic, and the Riders. A bit off topic too, I'm not the only one who saw his character and thought "This is basically if Jonoichi from Gaim was a full fledged bad guy."

Go and Chase had an interesting relationship in the second half once Chase became a Kamen Rider again. With the way Go treated Chase, I could see the ending to the arc coming from a mile away. But goddamn it was still sad as hell when Chase sacrificed himself for Go. That made me get watery eyed. The second the 000 disappeared onscreen... whoo, that was tear jerking.

Overall it was an okay season. It's definitely my least favorite Neo-Heisei season but that's not to say it was bad. It has it's strengths and it's fanbase so I'm for what it's worth, I'm glad it existed. I just wish the first 1/2 was better handled.

Now onto Ghost... man, with Neo-Heisei KR it seems like unless you're W, OOO, or Gaim it's generally a season with a mixed or polarizing reaction from what I've seen. Decade was mixed, Fourze was polarizing, Wizard was mixed, and Drive was polarizing. Ghost is probably the in the mixed to meh category since I've yet to see anyone claim it's their favorite season. I'm afraid guys. 😂