Is Shinnosuke a "bad character" or a character with no development

[Byg4299]

Of all the problems people have talked about Drive, the one I'm most perplexed by are those towards our main rider, Shinnosuke. As the title of the tread implies, do you think Shinnosuke is a poorly written character or do you think the show is just not doing anything with him? I personally fall into the latter. I like Shinnosuke himself; He's heroic, you can relate to him and he can deliver during both the serious and both comedic moments. But like alot of people have said Shinnosuke hasn't grown past the traits we saw from him since the first episode. From the Kamen Rider Shows I have watch , the events that happen in the show usually forces our main character to either question their own beliefs or rise back up from physical/emotional beatdowns that will help them grow as characters. We're 20 episodes into Drive and the show really hasn't done any of that whatsoever to Shinnosuke. That is what I think the biggest problem here. There's hasn't been any arcs or story elements that personally relate to Shinnosuke thus making him feel very distant from plot. Now one of the previews for a future episode mentioned that Shinnosuke's dad is going to show up and the recent scans have shown that Shinnosuke is apparently going to reveal his identity as Drive to the media so hopefully the show is going to eventually fix this issue.

 

[SentaiRiderFan]

You're right on the money, Shin's got a decent set-up for a good character, but the writers seem more interested in telling Chase's story than anything else. That's a shame too, as I WANTED to know more about him at the start. It's made no better by the fact that his personality seems to depend entirely on what the writers need him to do at that moment. If he's in a comedic scene, he acts like a "comedic" character. If he needs to have a badass moment (or give a speech), he acts like a badass character. That's really bad writing. Unless the show get's a big go-busters-style retool at some point, I don't see it changing.

 

[lazycoconut]

My main issue with his characterisation is that at the beginning of the show he was portrayed as a slacker who needed to grow up a little, then when Mach arrives, suddenly he's all "I'll be your brake" and becomes the responsible one and that's it, there's little in the way of transition. I do like him, though. I think he just gets heat because people tend to view nice-guy heroes as "boring". In terms of Mach/Chase getting more focus than him, the show is just following the same format as the other two series Sanjo's worked on: the first arc sets things up, the middle one tells the story of the secondary Rider (or in Drive's case, two secondary Riders) and the last switches focus back to the protagonist.

I've also seen the suggestion that Sanjo is trying too hard to make Shinnosuke perfect like Daigo, and I don't agree with that. Shinnosuke doesn't have a hundred and one talents like cooking, art, babysitting etc, he doesn't have a bunch of love interests, other characters don't keep talking about how great he is ...

 

[kuroihikari]

My main issue with his characterisation is that at the beginning of the show he was portrayed as a slacker who needed to grow up a little, then when Mach arrives, suddenly he's all "I'll be your brake" and becomes the responsible one and that's it, there's little in the way of transition.

His character is that he's laissez faire, but he'll step up when he's needed. When he wasn't Drive, he was just slacking off, but when he was given the responsibility of being Drive and Roidmudes started wreaking havoc, he started to own up to his role. When Gou is responsible, he takes a step back and lets Gou do the work. With Gou totally out of control, he takes a role to be his brakes. When Chaser isn't harming humans, he sympathizes with Chaser, taking a support to Kiriko's desire to reform him. When Chaser starts attacking humans, he vows to destroy him.

He switches on a dime, just like how he shifts to top gear almost instantly.

Drive gives him a purpose. It's his drive. I'm guessing his development in the future will be finding his purpose as himself, and not as Drive.

It does seem that we're going to get a lot more background with Shinnosuke soon.

 

[Green Mario]

His personality is like a car. It shifts.

 

[shamrocknroll]

Isn't a bad character one with no development? That is unless you mean static character

 

[Byg4299]

Isn't a bad character one with no development? That is unless you mean static character

Static character.

 

[Hangyakuno]

His personality is like a car. It shifts.

Agree
Cartoon car with illogical adaptation skill.
I think that is his weakness. There is too many traits lumped together make it difficult to recognize his personality.
The only thing that catchy about him is his top-low gear talk and even now i'm still not sure how it work.

 

[Kamen Rider IXA]

Shinnosuke just plain and uninteresting character.
His "character traits" are simply annoying.

 

[Undrave]

The problem is that he is too detached from the fight! Sure his partner was hurt in the global freeze, but so were a TON of people. He didn't even encounter any Roidmude during that event! Chase, Kiriko, Steinbelt are right there at the center of it, even if Kiriko's own link isn't that much better! At least she saw the monsters and the Rider.

It's just not personal enough for Shinnosuke. I'm not opposed to the idea, he's a cop he should be used to fighting for people he doesn't know, but story wise they should adress it so the audiance can better understand him.