ADACHI WHY HAVEN'T YOU STARTED YOUR ENGINE

[MasterDJ]

DO IT. I can watch during lunch.

[Yoshino Shurensuki]

I sent it! And learned that the media tag works for dailymotion! Aw yeah. 8D

[Crescent]

http://i.imgur.com/zgNxF0U.jpg

;____;

[Akurei Nagisa]

"I came back from space for THIS?"

[Crescent]

Chase ain't Mach. Mach is Kiriko's brother >_>

[MasterDJ]

..What? O_o;

...Wait...WHAT?

I mean, thank the code it's not Chase because that is a waste of gimmick. But how can Belt explain how horrid Mach's suit is?

[Crescent]

A simple, mostly white design. With a scarf!

I want to love the shit out of this.

.....And yet ;_;

Maybe because it's Pixar Evel Knieval >_>

[MasterDJ]

....I want to like this. I kinda do.

...But that helmet is such a goddamned cheap design and fuck that scarf, a simple red one would have worked better, or even a yellow one. Yellow, actually, for the sake of some goddamned balance and the fuck is with that driver who in the FUCK was the costume designer this season? >.O

I KEEP WANTING TO LIKE DRIVE MORE THAN JUST A LITTLE BUT DAMMIT THESE DESIGN DECISIONS ARE MAKING THAT A HERCULEAN TASK.

[Akurei Nagisa]

Hey, remember when Drive had great design decisions?

Oh wait hahahhahahhahahhahahhaaaaaaa

anyway hi Type Formula, I think you're even worse than Dead Heat and that's an accomplishment ; 3;

[Crescent]

Yep ; 3;

[MasterDJ]

....

*can immediately think of multiple ways this works better on a robot or Digimon and ways I could fix it, including first off WHY IS EVERY SHIFT CAR IN SOME FUCKED UP GRAPHIC WRITTEN ON-*

Wait... are the car names on there supposed to be like how formula racers have sponsors all over their damn cars?

.... . I can't defend this.

[Yoshino Shurensuki]

It's called Meth.

There's still time.

Call a helpline.

Type: Ambulance.

*SHOT*

[Akurei Nagisa]

Type-Tridoron is a punishment from God for the sins of this world. This is why it takes the form of Decade: that we may know, in the end, we are the destroyers of our own dreams.

Seriously, this is the worst thing I've ever seen from Kamen Rider, hands down.

[Yoshino Shurensuki]

I think I like that it sounds like the guy who does the announcements just can't be arsed anymore. He literally sounds like he's given up. >_>;

"Full Throttle... whatever, where's my coffee?"

[Akurei Nagisa]

You know, in the Drive interim (because who kept watching that shit? I think Cam held out the longest) I got caught up on several more Rider series (we're currently knee-deep in Faiz, and have completed OOO, Wizard, Jess managed to finish Fourze and even Decade, which she liked decently), along with pre-Drive completion of Ryuki, Den-O, Kiva, and naturally Gaim. So I've noticed some things about Kamen Rider.

We watched the final episodes of Drive together, 46-48. (though 48 was more an episode of Ghost than of Drive)

In pretty much any other series, watching the final episodes with limited context, even with resources like the Kamen Rider Wiki, you end up with confusion and a desire to go back and view the rest of the series.

This wasn't the case with Drive. I mean, part of that could be that the real villain didn't even fuckin' show up till what, episode 42? And was a recolor? But...it just didn't feel like we needed to. It was the same tone we started the series with, just now Chase is a Kamen Rider again (LIKE WE ALL KNEW HE WOULD BE) and oh here's Mach.

And along with that tone came dramatic moments that, while sincere, fell on their face and kind of inspired inappropriate laughter (probably part of that was the IMMENSE AMOUNT OF CAR HORNS). The only finale death that made me sad was Heart, because it seemed actually appropriate.

And then there was the final threat, Sigma. I mean, Sigma was cool design-wise and power-wise. It was really well-done. But...

In Kamen Rider, usually the final threat is personal. Like...OOO? Dr. Maki. Fourze? Sagittarius. Gaim? Kaito and his Inves faction. They're deeply rooted in the story.

...Sigma wasn't. Sigma literally could've been anyone's. If Medic made it, or Heart, or fuckin' Brain, it would've been as much of a threat. It was a plot device in the truest sense.

And I think that says a lot about Drive. You can see the plot devices, the tropes, the toys on parade, in other series, because of course you can. But you don't mind them. They're not...offensive.

Drive? They were. They killed the magic. And then at the end they all went underground For Reasons. I...

God. What a disappointing series.

[MasterDJ]

The reason for the underground was to protect the technology from falling into the wrong hands, most likely to be reawakened in the future so Tomari's son would become the next Drive.

That said, that plot point, though interesting to me because time travel and destiny as story elements interest me, requires knowledge of the movie, and when an entire plot point relies on a MOVIE... there are issues.

For example, Double had information you needed to see the movie for, but they built up to the movie in the show, gave you enough information from the movie to work off of, and only referenced it as the series neared the end, only relying on the movie until the side story movies, which came out on DVD AFTER the movie came out on DVD.

Drive on the other hand hung off of "Surprise Future" to explain all character motivations going forward without ever trying to catch up the viewer who may have missed it in theaters and now have to wait for DVD/Blu-Ray release. It demands a wiki walk which is in itself a sin of storytelling.

...I feel like I came onto this to defend the show but aside from some design points Drive is at best a curiosity. I feel like after Gaim this was a massive misstep. And not like say what Go-Busters was in terms of it was a glorious step the unwashed masses weren't ready for, but that misstep like Goseiger or Go-Onger were compared to the series that preceded them Gekiranger and Shinkenger. Such great runs in storytelling and suddenly formula for formula's sake.

The problem in the writing for Drive was that it tried what Double did and failed. Double had mystery to it. It was a detective story after all. There was a mafia, corruption, and people in desperate need.

Drive's problem was politics. Which you would think would mean less shit with a mad science division. T_T; Or an investigative reporter with the ability to cause time fuckery. There were means to make this interesting and even cathartic that did not play out.

...Why did I give this show a chance? Right, designs.

[Yoshino Shurensuki]

See, you say "designs", but I recall screams of, "I'M REALLY TRYING TO LIKE YOU, DRIVE, WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO ME?" ...which I'd always interpreted as/heard after new designs were revealed. > 3>;

I actually kinda get a reference in Kamen Rider Pixar Mach's design, I'm just not sure if it was intentional, but it might've been. I recently saw a pic of the Mach 5 (Speed Racer/'Mach Go Go Go!') [I have the song stuck in my head now. D: ] again and went "OH YEAH, THAT SCHEME." I wonder now if they didn't see the success they had with ToQGer and the Train Theme and tried to replicate it, but dropped the ball somehow. Drive's car theme was unique, but the series didn't have the same charm that made ToQGer what it was. I do wonder if there were some other references in Drive's designs that I'm just not getting. But overall, I thought they were kinda terrible. X_X I do agree that without the tire worn as a sash, Type Speed wasn't terrible, but it only got worse from there. ;_; If I did have to pick a design, I'd probably go with Mach. I love purple, but I just couldn't even with Chaser... >>; (Like a little part of me wanted to, but... Anyway. My love of puns probably wins over Mach's name being 'Gou' 「マッハ号」 and the entire character reference to Speed Racer. >_>; ) Fuck, I dunno. Maybe I'm actually giving them more credit than is due. >>;;; Also, if you think about it, Krim did a lot of the Driving rather than Shinnosuke, so technically, he was a Kamen Rider. (lololol. >>;;; )

ANYWAY.

So like. I'd kinda written a whole thing recently and I realized like... how I really got into Toku. I never really HATED the genre, I mean... Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers were my entire childhood. >_>; If you weren't clear, Gaim was actually the first series I was all over... and I absolutely loved Gaim. o 3o I remember Cam had tried to sell me on Wizard before Gaim ever aired, but... Okay, admittedly, my problem then was I just absolutely couldn't get past the ridiculous singing Driver. >_>;

It was because of discussions of/mentions of Ryuki having inspired Urobuchi came up and had me curious. (Also, mirrors and cards, yes. I'm also aware it was only a part of his inspiration, but it had elements that interested me enough to try it.) The next series I watched was actually Den-O, as there were a lot concepts from it that had inspired some of DU, so I was kinda curious about their origins. I also liked the idea of a Rider who wasn't very sure of himself and of the whole possession aspect. I really liked Den-O, and of course, at the end of the series, I saw the previews for Kiva. "Well, shit, I like vampires," I said. "You know Kiva was some of the inspiration for Stability, right?" I was then told. "Well, damn, now I have to watch it."

Kiva was not my first series, nor was it the first one I went back to watch. It was, however, was the first time I fell super hard for an actor in the series. *>>* I absolutely adored Seto Koji as Kurenai Wataru. He was adorable, clumsy, shy, and seemed to be the right balance of confident and unsure. It wasn't his skill as a fighter that he was unsure of, it was his reason for fighting and what good it could do. Kiva's story was good at its base and the characters weren't shabby. The theme of the supernatural was also exciting for me, even if; in the end; I still have questions that were kinda never answered due to a few ball drops along the course of the show. As mentioned, I loved Seto Koji... but then I heard him sing. *fans self* I have the TETRA-FANG album. I learned long ago that music plays a big part in whether I can get into a show or movie, and it became that much more true with Kiva. Music was such a huge part of the series and it was woven in so very well that it still rests in a special place in my heart; which was probably why I recently wanted to rewatch it so much. (Ghost Hype helped, i'm sure. >_>)

So, enjoying Gaim and ToQGer and Makai no Hana, I wondered what else I should go back and watch. Graham expressed an interest in checking out W. (Which we have yet to actually sit down and go past ep 2. XD; ) As you're all aware, I rather enjoy angst and despair, personally, so I wanted to watch 555. What we ended up watching first, I believe, was actually Fourze. It had two different groups; Over-Time and Aesir; that had subbed it. We actually watched two different versions of it. Graham watched O-T's, I watched Aesir's... all because of the difference between "(It's) Space Time!" and "Blast Off!"... (and comic book references ahoy) the subbing of which turned out to not really affect much of anything in my opinion, and~ I was actually kind of surprised that I liked Fourze since it had looked so ridiculous. ^^; I did start to watch Wizard, forcefully pushing aside the singing Driver to try and give it a fair shot. I actually made it 21 episodes in before I just couldn't anymore. It was boring enough that it kinda overrode any enjoyment I was getting out of some of the aspects of it. I even liked Haruto! I just couldn't keep going with the show anymore. I'd also avoided Decade because I heard nothing but "It's absolute shit, don't waste your time on that one," from like... whoever I asked about what I should watch next. >_>; Graham and I ended up watching OOO then, and we're about halfway through Faiz; since I really want to watch it with him and his work schedule is shit. > 3>;;

So. Then... like... Gaim is ending and... along comes Drive. After 4 episodes, I think it was, I dropped it like it was literally on fire... and I hold no regrets. I believe we'd all dropped out of the race by the halfway mark. (Pun not intended, but accepted.) But, like, even with ToQGer and Ninninger, I actually got bored without a Kamen Rider and kinda wanted to watch one. (Just... not enough to trudge through the mess that was Drive, no.) I did start watching Goldstorm in April, and at some point, I actually went back to Wizard to give it another shot. This time, I actually finished it! I still felt like it was sort of boring, and I still had a hard time with the singing Driver, but somehow I enjoyed myself enough to finished the series. (I do like magic, but that can only go so far.)

Then the Ghost Hype Train shot off at full speed down the tracks and I was right there with it... It made me excited because it meant Drive was ending. I was excited because Takeru looks adorable. I was excited because the premise seems honestly interesting. I was (and still am) excited for so many reasons. I was (and still am) super-excited for Ghost's beginning! But at the time, it was like a month away, at least... I really really wanted to watch something to take my mind off how long it was going to be... As mentioned, I was watching Goldstorm along with Ninninger each week. "Wasn't Masahiro Inoue in a Kamen Rider series? He is absolutely FANTASTIC as a villain... I wanna see more of this man's acting," made me go dig up Kamen Rider Decade. Despite the apprehension of, "This is going to be shit," I actually rather liked Decade as a whole. It held my attention, I was curious about things, I wanted to keep going. It wasn't the greatest, no, but as I told Justin, "I don't see what the issue was, Decade wasn't all that bad." In response, he just said "Well no, not when compared to Drive."

I'd like to argue, but I cannot, for I can say "I went back and finished Wizard, which bored me to death, rather than watch Drive," as well as "I watched Decade rather than watch Drive," both of which used to just be jokes. >_>; This is where I am. Graham has not watched the end of Fourze yet (I thought he had, oops,) he didn't really watch much of Wizard or Decade. Blade's probably next for me because cards. >_>; Decade actually showed me enough of the basic idea of the show that it was the next one I felt remotely interested in. *> 3>*

Besides Kamen Rider, I mean, there's other Toku. Super Sentai is paired with Kamen Rider like curry with rice, so it should be no surprise that I enjoy it as well. I mean, we had all seen previews for Ressha Sentai ToQGer that would begin airing with Gaim, and I remember that it looked so ridiculous we had decided to give it a shot; even if only to laugh and make fun of it. However, ToQGer was; as I mentioned above; just so charming. It also ended up having a pretty good story! I adored them all and I don't regret keeping my files. > 3>; Of course, I also like Shuriken Sentai Ninninger. 8D!

Now, I admit that I had a huge crush on Jason David Frank/Tommy Oliver (and I kinda loved Johnny Yong Bosch/Adam, yeah.) from the time he was the Green Ranger, and, yes, he was the reason I watched Dino Thunder when it aired. *>_>* It might be interesting to note here that it was actually Dino Thunder that had made me curious about Sentai in the first place. I'd learned with Sailor Moon and Digimon that we pulled shows from Japan. (Speed Racer hadn't registered back then, but did later when I found the OP and ED for it as I did with many anime via Kazaa. >_> Remember that?) Anyway, I learned that we did the same thing to make Power Rangers, and found the current season's Sentai equivalent, but it was so hard to find anything at the time that I only really found clips of openings and endings, (again, on Kazaa,) and I think a few transformation sequences. I had the ED stuck in my head for the longest time, and I knew what it was called, (Bakuryuu Sentai Abaranger,) but I wouldn't actually watch the whole series until about two years ago when I was going after Kamen Rider series to watch.

I had watched Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon back in 2003-2004, even though subs were a little slow to be put out, and often I'd have to watch the raw and read the script a translator provided if I wanted to understand what was going on before the subs might come two weeks later. I liked it then because it was Sailor Moon. I've been rewatching it again, recently, and it has a whole new charm for me since I've gained a fondness for tokusatsu.

I got into the Garo universe via Zero: Black Blood. It was subbed and released by Over-Time, who was subbing ToQGer, so I saw the release announcement for the miniseries. I also saw that it had the actress who played Mio in it, so why no-- "Oh my God who's this lovely boy in a trenchcoat? Eeee, and he dual-wields~! " I fell pretty hard for Rei, yes. *>>* It was a similar feeling I had from seeing Wataru in Kiva. I misunderstood that the Zero special was based on a character in previous series, not the upcoming Makai no Hana. I might've thought he was to play a role in it (bigger than the one episode,) but it didn't matter, because I liked Makai no Hana and Saejima Raiga. I liked Garo. I wanted to see more. I've now gone back and watched all the movies, as well as Garo, Makai Senki, Yami o Terasu Mono, Honoo no Kakuin, and of course, I just finished Goldstorm. I'm really eager to see the Goldstorm movie and will be watching the new anime Guren no Tsuki. ^ o^

Also, Garo's Theme, "Savior in the Dark" is really hard not to feel anything for after all that. Just the first few notes of that song and you know shit's about to get real. >_>

*cough* Erm. Anyway. <_<;

We recently grabbed one called "Shokugeki Gouraigan", but haven't started to watch it yet. We saw some goofy faces from it on the "Tokufaces" Tumblr and looked it up. It was another show made by Amemiya and... well, I mean, we liked Garo. >_>

I got a little carried away, but... yeah. >_> Like... of all the series I've seen so far, I can't bring myself to want to watch Drive. Maybe in the future there'll be an even shittier series so that I'll go back and be all "Okay, Drive wasn't that bad." "Well no, not compared to Kamen Rider Soap, no." >_>

Relevant, though slightly off-track, I did find that our next Sentai seems to be "Dobutsu Sentai Jyuuouger" (動物戦隊ジュウオウジャー) You can distract yourself from Drive thoughts here: Tokusatsu Network

It'll probably end up with its own thread, although we never really started one for Ninninger. XD;

*FLEE!*

[Akurei Nagisa]

Was the problem/central conflict of Drive "politics", really? Was that what it came across as to you? I'm not trying to sound weird or passive-aggressive here, I'm genuinely curious. ^^;; >_>;;

For my part, it felt like Drive didn't decide on its central conflict. At all. I mean, it had conflict going from the get-go, sure, but it was superficial conflict: trouble that had to be solved by Drive for that set of two episodes, which is common to every Kamen Rider series. It comes back to the problem I kept mentioning, but it's a really big problem: it's unclear for the longest time what the deal with the Roidmudes is. They seemed to decide, near the end of the series, that they were sad little abused A.I. who'd been manipulated into evil by the fault of the darkness in human hearts. Which is, uh. You could've made that clear, oh I don't know, ten or twenty episodes earlier?! But no. Instead, for the whole first arc, we don't really know:

-what the Roidmudes really are (robots? A.I.s without bodies? a combination of the two? floating numbers made of Digicode?)
-what they want (PROMISED NUMBER! EVOLUTION! PROMISED NUMBER?? KILL EACH OTHER)
-what they plan to do to get it (a lot of internecine murder and fucking around?????)
-why we should care

And this is actually really fucking important, because in a story, in any story, the villains are as important as the heroes. They're the protagonists of the opposition. Without knowing enough about them, we can't set the stakes for the conflict.

And that is vital. That's Storytelling 101: A conflict without stakes, without meaning, might as well not be a conflict at all. And a story that has no conflict is dead: without conflict, nothing happens. (Which, besides the reasons of waiting to meet Shinnosuke's son and because the incredibly poorly-named Core Driviars are too dangerous for humanity, is the other reason for Krim to seal himself and the Matchbox Twenty--the conflict is gone, ergo the story is over.)

I understand part of why they tried to be enigmatic about the Roidmudes; they wanted a more sympathetic villain set. Which is reasonable, after the Inves and Helheim: you don't get much more aloof and alien than an extradimensional forest straight out of the Cthulhu Mythos that devours whole planets and its monstrous spawn. They wanted something more like the Greeed of OOO, who were incredibly sympathetic.

But the thing was, right off the bat, we understood the Greeed. They were creatures--homunculi/golems, of a sort--made from the Core Medals and from human desire, and they wanted their medals so they could be complete again, so they could feel whole. Who wouldn't understand that? That drove their creation of Yummies, their scheming, all their mischief. And later, through Ankh and Eiji, we were able to understand that it cold sucks to be a Greeed. They can't feel properly--they can't taste--they can't even really live, and in their living they're unable to ever be happy. As much as they need to be defeated, you feel for them. This also fed into OOO's whole overall theme: desire, its nature, and the effect of human wishes on the world.

If they'd made it clear that the Roidmudes wanted to surpass humanity from the start--if we'd had even little lines about how they were "almost perfect" when dying or if they boasted, Shadow-like, that they'd truly become the humans they copied--we'd have had that much more to go off of. If Chase had ever actually seemed like a Roidmude rather than a brainwashed Proto-Drive, maybe he could've acted like our Ankh. But we didn't get that. We didn't get much of anything until they sorted things out, and it was too little too late. They cobbled together stakes and a theme at the end, and it was all "uhhhh it turns out it was all the EVIL OF MAN!!!" (Look, if I wanted to watch a story about the evil in mankind's hearts, I'd go marathon a GARO series, the weakest of them do it a loooooot better.)

I still can't imagine going back and watching Drive, giving this series a fighting chance, without feeling tired. Watching a Kamen Rider series shouldn't feel like a chore. Even knowing Kiva's flaws, I'd watch it again; the charm outweighed the wasted potential. Drive? I just...I don't want to think about it. And if I sound rant-ish, it's because I feel a little crazy, since everyone else lapped this shit up. O-T loved it, toku forums loved it, people reviewing it thought it was at worst "a decent series" and I'm just...what? What were you watching? What did I miss?

ANYWAY. I'm...I'm glad it's over. Time for Ghost. And also probably time to get GARO its own thread, since everyone loves the Golden Knight and his NBA Jam Fire. >_>

[Crescent]

BOOM SHAKA LAKA

I mean--

End Boss problems aren't unique to Drive. Den-O, for instance, pulled its final villain out of its ass in the last stretch of episodes.

Also, Jess, I'd say that Ryuki should be compared to Madoka more than Gaim > 3> Urobuchi wound up drawing more from Black for Gaim (Totes called that one >_>).

Check out Kamen Rider Kabuto sometime if you like reaction faces u 3u It's secondary lead/rival character is all about them. Plus Kabuto itself has the coolest gimmick/system of any Rider series > 3>

Aaaaaand that's it >_> I ain't ranting on why Drive was bad.

[MasterDJ]

Politics as in police. A lot of late game issues came from shit from above the Riders..which could have been solved had Drive or Mach used their own time slow powers. Gou as a reporter was wasted on him never trying to use those powers to totally Peter Parker things up.