Kamen Rider Drive Ep 4 - "What is That Prideful Chaser Thinking?"

[Undrave]

I get the impression that Bandai thinks "if fruit sells well, anything equally stupid can sell well," not giving the least bit of credit to Toei.

Personally, after Gaia Memories and Lockseed I really dislike the whole 'physical DLC' type of gimmick where the sounds are ALREADY there in the driver but you need to buy a bunch of things that don't do anything on their own. When I was over in Tokyo I bought two DX lockseed, a candy toy lockseed and a gashapon lockseed, despite not having a Driver and I didn't mind because I got sounds out of it anyway. You can collect these toys without the expensive driver and I think that really helped boost sale of the Lockseed toys.

Heck they're style making Gaia Memories to this day! I got a Fourze Cosmic State memory from a gashapon machine during that same trip!

But the Shift Cars don't do squat. They roll and that's it. As toy cars they're kinda cheap looking since they're mostly two plastic color with one paint color (if you don't count the parts for the use in the shift brace). Even in the show their effect isn't that impressive compared to the likes of Fourze modules. So in the end I'm really not interested in buying these things.

 

[kuroihikari]

In this respect, I wonder if part of this may be our "fault," so to speak. Simply put, Toei is primarily making these shows for kids - viewers who haven't seen all these shows. Really, any "new" product in a long standing franchise is like that. You can't make it only for existing fans, it has to be just as (if not more) accessible to potential new ones, or your fanbase is going to shrink rather than grow as those older fans grow and move on to new things as people simply tend to do.

In this respect, maybe part of the show's "problem" isn't that it's been done before, but that we've seen it before. If that makes sense.

To make an analogy, people say the survival horror genre of games is dying, but having never experienced the genre before until recently, I have to think that it's not so much that it's dying, but that longtime fans of it have just been desensitized to it - it's harder to scare them when they've seen it all and know what to expect, basically. The same principle might apply here.

Frankly, that's my opinion on it. That it's our fault. When watching new Sentai, I've started criticizing some shows as "I've seen this before". But then I realized that it really shouldn't matter.

These shows were not written with my viewing history in mind, so I think it's BS criticism.

 

[Ice Ixa]

I've not seen anyone who actually likes it lol. I'm sure there's a few out there.

I have a friend who refuses to complain about anything in a show he likes, no matter how stupid it may be. He gets pissy when I complain about the bulk and throws fits at me.

 

[Artisan]

I'm like, if you have a talking belt, why aren't the cars talking individually?

Are they on such a tight budget that they can't hire Seiyuu?

I thought it was manageable in Abaranger and Go-onger because both series have a finite number of mechs to make sentient and give personalities to (and hire seiyuus for).

We don't know how many cars Drive will have, and we're already swamped with them just four episodes in. Bandai is easily ambitious enough to up the quantity no matter what, regardless of how silly and impractical they would look utilised on a live TV show. Logistically speaking, would anyone want to bother giving every single of them a voice and personality, even if they repeat the use of actors for several cars?

But the Shift Cars don't do squat. They roll and that's it. As toy cars they're kinda cheap looking since they're mostly two plastic color with one paint color (if you don't count the parts for the use in the shift brace).

Nor would I, but the creative team at Bandai have got their potential market nailed. These crappy looking cheap but colourful toy cars don't necessarily have to be Kamen Rider merchandise and treated like them. They can easily be ordinary toy cars in their own right, easily attainable, don't crash the bank, can be brought to the playground to roll around, play swapsies with, and invade their dads' old Hot Wheels race tracks (or whatever the Japanese equivalent of a toy Hot Wheels race track is).

A non-KR audience probably wouldn't be able to do the same if I gave a bunch of Lockseeds or a big Astro Switch with what looks like a red nuke button to them if they lack the sufficient context behind the toys. But yeah, an interesting turn of events. A gimmick that's relatively ordinary within the toy industry does not translate well into a live-action TV show, while a seemingly bizarre or unconventionally-derived gimmick idiosyncratically designed for a particular Rider series does work moderately well.

 

[ferosaki]

I get the impression that Bandai thinks "if fruit sells well, anything equally stupid can sell well," not giving the least bit of credit to Toei.

is that really true that fruit gimmicks sells more till now ?
i always think that maybe kids will love a cool looking gimmick like cars than the silly fruit..then again, i don't really know how well acepted those two gimmicks in japan :anime:

 

[lazycoconut]

In this respect, I wonder if part of this may be our "fault," so to speak. Simply put, Toei is primarily making these shows for kids - viewers who haven't seen all these shows. Really, any "new" product in a long standing franchise is like that. You can't make it only for existing fans, it has to be just as (if not more) accessible to potential new ones, or your fanbase is going to shrink rather than grow as those older fans grow and move on to new things as people simply tend to do.

In this respect, maybe part of the show's "problem" isn't that it's been done before, but that we've seen it before. If that makes sense.

Frankly, that's my opinion on it. That it's our fault. When watching new Sentai, I've started criticizing some shows as "I've seen this before". But then I realized that it really shouldn't matter.

These shows were not written with my viewing history in mind, so I think it's BS criticism.

I agree with that? It's why they get away with, for instance, recycling the two-episode format every year or why writers like Kobayashi and Inoue can re-use the same stock plots and characters over and over: because the target audience is very young and probably doesn't watch for that long. Most of the kids watching now wouldn't remember Den-O or W and maybe not Fourze either ...

(IMO it's even more absurd when people make complaints like "Kyoryuger copied GaoSilver's entrance!!" a show that aired thirteen years ago, while Sentai's target audience is preschool-aged. But that's getting somewhat off-topic)

I'm surprised Paint was keeping around the person he based his body on. I wonder if Heart and Brain's are still kicking around?

Heart probably just killed his, like he killed the guy Mr Belt used to be. I know we haven't seen them do much yet but I really get the feeling that Brain seems like the tougher one yet is more vulnerable (he gets anxious about stuff), while Heart seems genial but is more ruthless.

 

[SentaiRiderFan]

is that really true that fruit gimmicks sells more till now ?
i always think that maybe kids will love a cool looking gimmick like cars than the silly fruit..then again, i don't really know how well acepted those two gimmicks in japan :anime:

It didn't sell well because it was fruit, it sold well because of all the different items and weapons to collect, the fact that there were no one-off lockseeds (Kiwi aside), and the fact that Gaim was such a good show (kids might not have watched the whole thing, but they clearly watched enough to want all the characters). Not that Bandai cares.

 

[Black Fang]

I agree with that? It's why they get away with, for instance, recycling the two-episode format every year or why writers like Kobayashi and Inoue can re-use the same stock plots and characters over and over: because the target audience is very young and probably doesn't watch for that long. Most of the kids watching now wouldn't remember Den-O or W and maybe not Fourze either ...

What about 80s Sentai (and Fiveman), when there was a relatively older audience + more adults, it being aired on prime time? Almost every show had a "villain has big secret that's revealed in the end" plotline.

(IMO it's even more absurd when people make complaints like "Kyoryuger copied GaoSilver's entrance!!" a show that aired thirteen years ago, while Sentai's target audience is preschool-aged.

It's more that it was essentially a clip show version of GaoSilver's entrance with little to nothing new or different added (right down to a Pteradeinoh Evil and a dark version of the Pteragordon Zyudenchi), and things went back to the status quo soon after (Much like all of Kyoryuger's story arcs). That KyoryuGold bares any similarity to GaoSilver isn't the issue.

 

[Undrave]

Man, no episode this week means we're gonna be SPINNING OUR WHEELS for the whole week retreading old ground... I hate when that happens.

Nor would I, but the creative team at Bandai have got their potential market nailed. These crappy looking cheap but colourful toy cars don't necessarily have to be Kamen Rider merchandise and treated like them. They can easily be ordinary toy cars in their own right, easily attainable, don't crash the bank, can be brought to the playground to roll around, play swapsies with, and invade their dads' old Hot Wheels race tracks (or whatever the Japanese equivalent of a toy Hot Wheels race track is).

I don't think they would fit a Hot Wheels track. While I haven't seen actual size comparison with regular toy cars they look much bigger than hot wheels to me.

 

[ferosaki]

It didn't sell well because it was fruit, it sold well because of all the different items and weapons to collect, the fact that there were no one-off lockseeds (Kiwi aside), and the fact that Gaim was such a good show (kids might not have watched the whole thing, but they clearly watched enough to want all the characters). Not that Bandai cares.

is there any source of that, gaim collectibles sold well out there in japan ?