ADACHI WHY HAVEN'T YOU STARTED YOUR ENGINE

[Akurei Nagisa]

I'M NOT ENTIRELY SURE YOU'RE WRONG. @_@

[MasterDJ]

>_> I love these updates. Let's me know I'm not missing a damn thing.

[Yoshino Shurensuki]

I've been trying to find you Drive on YouTube and other places.

I can't find English Subs.

And there's something hilarious about when I look for "Kamen Rider Drive" on YouTube it's all "You were looking for Kamen Rider Decade, right?" >_>;

[MasterDJ]

A sign from above that I do not need to watch this.

[Crescent]

Maaaaaan, you know things are pretty dire when Gordon "I Watched Goseiger" Scott is basically washing his hands of all interest in a year's Sentai or Rider >____>

[Yoshino Shurensuki]

Riiiiiiiight?

[ Post made via Android ]

[MasterDJ]

Hey, HEY. It's BECAUSE of Goseiger (I didn't even bother to finish that one) that I know a lemon season when I see it.

[Crescent]

I think Drive's problem is that the gimmick just doesn't work. I wouldn't say it's a total failure, but it needs an actual cool spin to make it work. And that cool spin is not fucking matchbox cars that zip around poorly.

Kabuto's execution had its shortcomings, but its main gimmicks were basically the coolest fucking thing ever.

Kiva had a fucking ton of shortcomings, but had plenty of cool gimmicks, designs, and (undelivered upon) concepts.

W's gimmick wasn't inherently super cool in itself. He has a nice, simple design and that's added to with some nice flair. The style, writing, story, and characters compliment things tremendously.

Gaim, of course, was all sorts of fucking awesome thanks to based Urobuchi - but even apart from him, the fruit samurai gimmick is catchy and the different Arms changes and stuff are cool.

But now Drive has the most non-interesting KR Gimmick ever. And its kinda weird comedy and other stuff can't seem to find a way to rectify that.

[Akurei Nagisa]

It didn't deliver. Which is a funny thing for me to say, because we're talking about an episode involving delivery trucks! Ha ha! Lololololololol

The plot of this episode is Really Fuckin Dumb | +

Delivery trucks that for some reason were smuggling explosives! Uh oh, Shinnosuke, you protected Bad People along with good people! D8 OH~ NO~!!!

More Roidmudes being totally fucking dumb--today Crush, the stupid goddamned fat guy from last episode's cameos, took center stage, with his insufferable henchmen, but we also got to see Brain hamming it up like there was no goddamned tomorrow, and no. Insight. Into their agenda. at all.

See, Drive, you're not like Fourze! You can't just be like "OOOOHHH MYSTERIOUS WHAT DO THEY WANT???" like Fourze did with the Horoscopes, because we have no fucking clue what most of the footsoldiers want, either, whereas with the Zodiarts it was always fairly clear what they were after, because at their core they were wronged or damaged children, whereas the Roidmudes are all...WHATEVER THE FUCK ROIDMUDES ARE. We don't KNOW. You won't even give us a hint besides floating goddamned NUMBERS, and frankly I've lost patience with it. This isn't teasing anything, this is withholding information.

(Granted, it turned out Crush wanted to drink explosives because explosives...uh...taste great? But we had no idea of that till the end, and "I want to drink explosives" isn't the same kind of motivation as "I want to kill the sneaky, selfish little fuck who ruined my hand and fencing career", here. I mean, shit, that ranks lower than "my Contractor asked me to" or "I'm a Fangire".)

Rinna is working with some other guy in Police HQ. Hey, out of nowhere, the science lady turns out to probably be a Roidmude, or have been replaced by one, because if the other guy she's working with, who had secret info on Roidmude movements, wasn't a Roidmude, I will be fucking shocked.

More Chase being overdramatic and making grim proclamations about the evil of man. Awesome. You're Proto-Drive, we get it, you're telegraphing that really hard, along with the previews for Episode Zero. You're probably going to be Mach, too, once you see the light for whatever reason, and then we'll have to square that with your 20+ episodes of SUCH DARKNESS, MUCH BITTER, WOW. Probably it'll turn out you were brainwashed. You'll probably hook up with Kiriko because that's a goddamned rule. Gotta hit the tropes!

Rumble Dump was dumb, it turned out you didn't even form change, two-ep format hella confirmed, stupid investigatory twist, wasted goddamn time. Shinnosuke's character evolved some, yeah, and I kinda like his wit, but at the same time it's also reminding me of fucking Spider-Man at times, where he's gotta toss off a quip or you won't know it's Spider-Man and we Cannot Have That. Also, sitting down in the middle of the end of episode fight because you're depressed that a guy who seemed nice is a jerk? Really? Like...fucking really?

That and just...the stakes. They're so low. GOTTA STOP TRUCK ROBBERIES. The Roidmudes are coming across like a gang of misunderstood robot??? kids that Drive summarily executes for minor crimes, with some outliers like Paint who're actual scumbags, but STILL. It's just....augh. It's just fucking dumb. It's dumb and I give up. I don't want to watch any more. Maybe I'll finish this ep arc so I can see the pile of crap that is Type WILD? I dunno. Ugh.

[MasterDJ]

I am willing to pay you to keep watching if only because your synopsis are hilarious to read. >.>

[Crescent]

Maaaaan you probably didn't catch Graham liveblogging his first viewing of Madoka on facebook last year >_> That's what shit was about

[Akurei Nagisa]

A shameless and spoiler filled plug to the time I watched Rebellion Story.

Then there was that time I had some special oregano and watched Ep 3

[Akurei Nagisa]

No seriously, that's like half the premise of this fucking episode, was that the SCU were only pretending to be a bunch of dunderfucks. WELL YOU GUYS SURE DO A BANG-UP ACTING JOB, I WOULDN'T HAVE BEEN ABLE TO TELL YOU FROM ACTUAL DUNDERFUCKS.

The episode also unhelpfully cockteases us about Roidmude backstory and then turns it into an Alfred Nobel reference, which while minorly clever DOESN'T MAKE UP FOR US NOT KNOWING FUCK-ALL ABOUT THE ROIDMUDES, DRIVE >_____< SERIOUSLY, GIVE US. SOMETHING. ANYTHING. I just can't even with this.

Also, Drive, a police drama, you know, mixes investigation with the plot, it doesn't just have the police SUDDENLY SOLVE EVERYTHING IN THE LAST THIRD OF THE EPISODE. But I suppose my EXPECTATION BAR was just set too fucking high for an episode that also had the most trite morality tale in the history of man on the nature of good and evil. Seriously, that was just--I know this is a kid's show but come on, six-year-old me would have rolled his eyes, and I was pretty fucking idealistic then. 9_____9

Oh BTW Rinna's not a Roidmude nor evil, the plot hints turn out to be uninteresting | +

RINNA WAS DRIVE'S MECHANIC ALL ALONG. No really, that's the plot twist, and she was just pretending to work with the suddenly-corrupt superintendent guy to out him as part of the smuggling HO HO HOW CLEVER AND LOOK HOW WE DIDN'T HAVE TO FORESHADOW IT AT ALL! You don't need foreshadowing when you pull a resolution out of your bum!

If there were two bright spots in this sea of terrible it was that Mad Doctor is a pretty good analogue for Helga and Kiriko's complete failure to smile when Rinna proclaimed her and Kiriko to basically be Drive's Official Harem. That was funny. Also calling Belt-san a "shifty belt" was pretty good.

But Chase jobbing like a bitch was pretty dumb, Type Wild looks genuinely fucking awful, there is the absolute worst possible homage to Kamen Rider Ouja ever in here, aaaaaaand hey you know what's worse than shitty CG roads, Justin? When the Shift Car shows up represented by a POV camera shot and then he has it >________________>

GRADE: -3/0

[Yoshino Shurensuki]

Shinnosuke does keep... shifting gear. >_>

[Akurei Nagisa]

*PUTS YOU IN WORD JAIL*

....>_____< AUGH THAT'S PROBABLY WHY THEY'RE DOING THAT TOO WHAT WITH THE TOP GEAR AND THE OUT OF GEAR AGAIN AND THE SUHSSYSBSG SGVUF UAAAAAAAAA

*MAXIMUM SECURITY WORD JAIL FOR YOU*

[Yoshino Shurensuki]

Ha ha ha ha.... Car puns.

[Akurei Nagisa]

Oh speaking of which, our new Rider catchphrase is "AND YOU'RE COMING ALONG FOR THE RIDE" >____> Everyone enjoy that

[Yoshino Shurensuki]

............oh right! My guess is they didn't have the budget for the "shitty CG roads". They blew it on the snake. >_>

[MasterDJ]

..I'm going to have a blast with this episode once dailymotion gets it, huh? Jess, keep me posted on when the episode is up, though I may start going against my download rule on this computer and just DL, watch, then delete.

Drive is... wow. After watching the first five episodes I can't stop watching it. It's so... BAD. I mean... WOW. This is like, mid-point of Den-O mishandling. 80% of Kiva mishandling. DECADE mishandling. There are so many good ideas in this show that I will so rip for DU, it's that good in CONCEPT, but the execution is worthy of being likened to chimps with type writers on crystal meth.

[Yoshino Shurensuki]

I left you the link on AIM, but if you'd rather me send it in a PM, I can totally do that. >_> 8D