[Switchblade]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dr Kain

So without spoilers, was the finale worth starting the show back up at 23?

Yes, and I say this as someone who thought Drive was on course to be the worst Rider series ever before the halfway mark.

I like to think of Drive as a reverse-Hibiki. The first part was a total mess, but the second half really pulled itself together and presented a good story with engaging characters, although there were always still some lingering vestiges of the things that made the first part unbearable (mostly the over-the-top slapstick, which still popped up once or twice an episode).

[Sanddeath]

Watching the overtime subs, was the ending "where are they now" thing in the credits originally in japanese? Or was it in English? Cause I know overtime had it as a straight-up block of English. I'm thinking it was edited with English over, Japan is never that good with grammar.

[Switchblade]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sanddeath

Watching the overtime subs, was the ending "where are they now" thing in the credits originally in japanese? Or was it in English? Cause I know overtime had it as a straight-up block of English. I'm thinking it was edited with English over, Japan is never that good with grammar.

Japanese. I rewound breifly during the credits to reread one and it was in Japanese characters until MPlayerX re-synched the sub file.

[Suzu]

It was in Japanese, I've seen the broadcast. I guess they just added a black box as a background to the text that covered the original Japanese characters.

[Tokumonkey]

Nearly perfect, so I'm very worried about the next episode. What I enjoyed most is that everybody did not, in fact, live happily ever after. There's a tragedy at the heart of the show: we've known since the earliest episodes that Roidmude aren't necessarily evil. I'd hoped that some of them could be saved, but I can enjoy what's essentially a somewhat sad ending, too.

This series seems to have followed in the tradition of Gaim and Wizard, in which what I think of as the true finale happens before the last episode to air. I'm just hoping the final episode won't do something stupid to undercut everything that happened this week. I'm already concerned because clearly, there will be more in-suit antics next week, when this week's story strongly implies that there should be no more suit scenes. We saw something in the "next week" preview that I may have a real problem with.

But yeah, this isn't the first Drive episode to have me on the edge of tears. I'm a little surprised that the series managed to recover from the mediocrity it had been wallowing in. Then again, didn't the head writer work on W?

The Ghost cameo worked really well for me.

(On another note: guys, seriously, OOO spoilers in a Drive response thread? We're a community that will always have people who are still catching up. I'm on OOO 36.)

Still, nice drive. Turns out all we needs WAS Drive.

[barnstenchfartface]

The longer I think about, it the less satisfied I am with Drive's ending.

I mean, I think it was done very well and everything, but the way Heart's character arc ended up was just underwhelming. I understand why Gou was the one who got to take down his father--he was his father. But in the end, the one who was hurt by Banno the most was really Heart. But instead of him getting a satisfying final showdown with his creator, making good of his pledge to take down Banno himself after Brain's sacrifice...he just...doesn't.

Gou and Chase get the good stuff with Banno, while Heart (and Medic) end up in what was really a very impersonal fight against a non-character, Sigma. I guess Shinnosuke did too, but he got his time to shine in earlier arcs. For the Roidmudes, this was the time for them to really get the spotlight, and all they got was...no real resolution to their arcs in relation to Banno, their malefactor. They did help foil his final plan, but honestly, whatever. There's not really that much emotional weight to that.

I think I would have liked for Gou and Chase and Heart and Medic to have switched. The Roidmudes stay behind to fight Banno, Medic sacrifices herself, Heart takes revenge on the mad professor but ends up fatally wounded as a result, while the three Riders go to stop Sigma. Chase sacrifices himself for Gou (which I think would have much more weight in the context of this fight than Medic's did) and blah blah blah. Gou doesn't get to stop his father this way, but that was merely half of what made that part of the ending so good--the other thing was finally accepting Chase, which would have still been possible. I think I would have liked this more than what we got.

I still really liked the ending, but Heart was by far my favorite character in this thing, the fact that he got no real closure with Banno before the end really grinds my gears a bit.

[RiderIxa]

The series has been a wonderful ride. Though some stuff really screwed with me such as that guy who killed Tomari's dad. I was really, I mean REAALLLY hoping hed get screwed up bad. The way he acted really pissed me off haha. Loved everything else though. Sad it's finished BUT I'm super excited for Ghost!

[ElConvoy]

Quote:

Originally Posted by barnstenchfartface

The longer I think about, it the less satisfied I am with Drive's ending.

I mean, I think it was done very well and everything, but the way Heart's character arc ended up was just underwhelming. I understand why Gou was the one who got to take down his father--he was his father. But in the end, the one who was hurt by Banno the most was really Heart. But instead of him getting a satisfying final showdown with his creator, making good of his pledge to take down Banno himself after Brain's sacrifice...he just...doesn't.

Gou and Chase get the good stuff with Banno, while Heart (and Medic) end up in what was really a very impersonal fight against a non-character, Sigma. I guess Shinnosuke did too, but he got his time to shine in earlier arcs. For the Roidmudes, this was the time for them to really get the spotlight, and all they got was...no real resolution to their arcs in relation to Banno, their malefactor. They did help foil his final plan, but honestly, whatever. There's not really that much emotional weight to that.

I think I would have liked for Gou and Chase and Heart and Medic to have switched. The Roidmudes stay behind to fight Banno, Medic sacrifices herself, Heart takes revenge on the mad professor but ends up fatally wounded as a result, while the three Riders go to stop Sigma. Chase sacrifices himself for Gou (which I think would have much more weight in the context of this fight than Medic's did) and blah blah blah. Gou doesn't get to stop his father this way, but that was merely half of what made that part of the ending so good--the other thing was finally accepting Chase, which would have still been possible. I think I would have liked this more than what we got.

I still really liked the ending, but Heart was by far my favorite character in this thing, the fact that he got no real closure with Banno before the end really grinds my gears a bit.

I get what you mean but I was personally not bothered by it. I saw Hearts storyline less as him specifically being tormented by Banno but Banno being a representative of humanity as a whole. So what heart hated wasnt Banno treating him like shit but humanity treating him like this. Which is why he even took part in trying to get rid of humans etc.

And this is why I think the ending works really well for his character. Through most of the show he absolutely despised humanity and saw them as the biggest evil out there. But in the end he learned that not all of humanity was like this. So making him the one to defeat Banno would be counterintuitive to this point I think. He would have gotten his revenge and his hatred over Banno/Humanity would have won in the end. Instead he learned to accept them and see the good in the same humans that treated him badly. In the end spending his last moments making one last friend, his first human friend.