Why is Drive so fantastic?

[TheLastBlade]

Time to get this out of the way: I don't get the Monster of the Week format.

It's like.... The Pokemon and the foot high shrubs concept. Sure it's traditional, but in the long run, it's starting to become annoying. I especially don't like the way Drive did things with it. There's the idea of trying to coexist with the Roidmudes (now that's something beyond pretentious), but that got thrown out the window once Chase became good again. I dunno.... I'll never understand certain Tokusatsu things....

 

[Shynilyte]

Monster of the Week isn't a thing exclusive to tokusatsu or even Japan, really. I think the format started out on anthology shows like The Outer Limits.

 

[kuroihikari]

Twilight Zone, too. And the whole lot of American procedurals and sitcoms. It makes ratings easier to manage because people can jump in any time (the best rated shows in America are either procedurals or sitcoms).

 

[Xtreme RX]

Late to this thread, but I have to agree: Drive is amazing.

It reminds me of Double, in that I found it so underwhelming to start that I stopped watching for a bit, only to marathon it when it got interesting again. At the end of the day, it became one of my favourite Rider shows and the only neo-Hesei series I've rewatched twice in its entirety.

Drive is turning up the same way.

The whole arc with 001 is evidence enough of Drive's quality. Fast-paced, well-directed and full of twists. A great cop show, but a better Kamen Rider show.

At this rate, it'll end up in my top 5 Rider series.

 

[Zensrive]

W and Drive has the same writer (CMIIW)

 

[Kai Yamato]

Maybe not with Toei's stuff, but Garo has some actual experimentation with visual styles (see Soukoku no Maryu for how far they take that). And some Ultra shows convey genuine honest thoughts from the creators.



Gaim also had the Kikaider episode. It still tied in with a movie (albeit not a Rider movie) and had basically no relevance to the show's story.

W and Fourze technically had a "tie-in" of sorts in a form of mentioning events that happened in the movies. So I expect it to be the same for Drive.

 

[TheLastBlade]

I guess having Monsters of Week is an ok idea… Just don't be like Kabuto… Seriously, no one should feel bad for a monster that went on a killing spree and then starts being "human" before they die.

If there's one thing I'll agree with Captain Shark on, it's tokusatsu like Blade and Kabuto were pretty damn pretentious.

 

[HurricaneDragon]

I kinda think this has it backwards. Gaim was consistently good from start to finish barring only some minor hiccups, but overall I'd say it's easily something to call fantastic. Drive... Drive is something I can call "good" now, but it's had way too many stretches of episodes that were just really lacking, with a lot of really forced/overdone humor and slapstick (thankfully they've dropped that now for the most part... or rather, shifted it onto Nira, so no, they haven't really), and the current, and perhaps ENTIRE, plot of the show now feels like it came completely out of left field whereas all of the things the (admittedly just plain abysmal) early episodes established have been abandoned. Kiriko's personality did a 180 without ever going through any kind of character arc, Shinnosuke's character development got thrown out as soon as they shoehorned in the father plot that couldn't have existed in the first part of the story since it would've given him motivation not to be a slacker, etc. etc. etc.

It's become a good show, don't get me wrong, but there have been way too many times when it hasn't been. Wizard at least had a consistent "okay" going for it that made waiting through for the really good parts worth it to an extent, but Drive's lows can be really... really low. The pre-30 episodes and the first few episodes in particular man. I'd say it's something I might recommend over Wizard when all is said and done, but not one of the shows post-Decade I'd jump to recommending like W or Gaim.

 

[TheLastBlade]

Well, people seem to have an opinion on even the worst of Kamen Rider series (*coughs* 555). One thing that always bothered me about Drive, however, was the joke about Kiriko having no personality. That joke died pretty fast. If there's some lame plot device regarding that, then I'll be pretty pissed… Still, I'm currently taking a bit of a break from Drive. I think I stopped at the time when it was at least decent.

I think anyone can agree that it'll at least be more watchable than Kabuto. Kabuto had one of the worst endings EVER. It was like the hugest freaking cop-out in a tokusatsu. I mean I hated Kabuto since the beginning, but the ending made me despise it even more! That's why when any Toku reviewers recommends me Kabuto, I just disregard it.

 

[Solari]

Well, I've heard that they had to rewrite Kabuto somewhat in the later half of the show due to the poor health of Hiyori's actress...

I don't feel that the part on Shin's father was shoehorned in. It's a pretty common trope in cop shows for the protag's father to also be a cop and involved in an old case which the protag has to re-open and re-investigate.
Shin actually mentions that his father was a cop in episode 2, so I've since always felt that an old case involving his father would definitely pop up sometime.

Shin lost his motivation due to the events of Global Freeze where Hayase got injured.(self-blame, guilt etc) Before that, he was part of the elite...