So I’ve put off writing this post for a bout a week, because I wanted to take the time to really think over my opinions and not let my first-watch hype color how I present the first episode of Kamen Rider Drive. I watched it last Monday, first thing in the morning, and I was a mess of joy and happy girlish screams, but figured that to present this from an analytical standpoint as I’m doing here on BNLS, I want to take the time to calm down and look at things bit by bit and present the good and bad and form a more solid opinion. I’m going to kind of do a play-by-play of the episode along with my opinions, which I don’t intend to do every week, but because there are so many concepts and characters to be introduced to in episode one, I feel it’s a bit necessary. so just bear with me as I make my way through.
None the less, I want to start off saying I was thrilled by this episode, and I’m looking forward to what this year is going to bring. I’m looking forward to Drive and the thoughts I am bound to form and share about it here with you all.
Our cold open gives us a lot of the set up we saw in the trailers with the Global Freeze, but brings in a lot more of the specifics of how it affected Tomari, with his accidentally causing his partner’s injury/death (At this point, I’m not sure which it is.), and the introduction of a previous Drive as well as the t that the Shift Cars themselves have some form of agency and sentience. This is a little unexpected, as none of our pre-premiere material seemed to suggest that the Shift Cars themselves were alive. I’ve heard mixed opinions on the little roads the Shift cars drive on, but personally I like them, tiny streetlights and all. I think it makes it much easier to follow the action of tiny things zooming around wide shots, especially for young children (who are the target demographic). All in all our cold open, taking place 6 months before present-canon, sets up a very engaging world for Kamen Rider Drive to take place in. We have a global disaster, and a hero who helped fight the situation. We don’t yet know what happened to Original Drive but I’m sure that’s a mystery we’re headed toward.
We then jump right into 6 months later with Tomari driving around in the Tridoron expositing on how the Global Freeze has affected people’s lives and the day-to-day culture of the world. there are posters that describe the affects of what people have come to know as “Slowdown”, and phone apps where you can check if there’s been Slowdown or report is the way you would with traffic accidents. The Global Freeze is something that affected people’s lives and is something everyone is aware of, which is rare in contemporary Tokusatsu and really gives it the feel of very early Heisei such as Kuuga and Agito. The dire situation our Rider fights is not a secret, which is something that always bothers me when it is. These attacks are always major and always affect people’s lives. why in shows like W, Den-O, and OOOs, are people not more afraid of these things when they’re shown to keep happening? Why does the news never report on it? It’s nice to see Drive taking the alternate route of it being a well-known event that has changed the way people live.
Tomari then immediately connects their fear to his own. The Global Freeze cost him something and he still doesn’t feel right. the first line we hear him say out loud, instead of in voice-over, is “That’s enough. I’ll stop thinking about it.” Going over the show multiple times, and realizing that the central focus of Tomari right now is his guilt over what he couldn’t do, this is an amazing line. I’ve heard a lot of people complaining that they don’t like that Tomari is sort of a slacker, but I think this behavior is really interesting. Tomari is lying to himself. Tomari is pushing it down. He can’t push it away. It’s clearly haunted him for six months no matter what he’s done, but he pushes it down to pretend it’s not a problem. This isn’t the first time we’ve had a Rider using pretty unhealthy coping mechanisms. This isn’t even the first time in recent years. (Actually, it seems to be pretty common in post-Decade Heisei.) But I think this might be the first time it’s centered around guilt instead of loss. there is Eiji in Kamen Rider OOO, but I’m not fully on board with how Eiji was handled. A post for another day. None the less, Tomari is putting it out of his head, as if that can change anything, and at least telling himself that if he doesn’t think about it, he’ll be fine.
And it’s at that very moment, when we’re introduced to Kiriko. Tomari sits up to stretch, and Kiriko sneaks in and handcuffs him and demands that he come in to work. Tomari tries to escape, and she hurls her shoe at him, subdues him by taking out the back of his knees, and puts him in a lock. She apparently keeps very meticulous notes of Tomari’s habits and where he runs off to (complete with very cute drawings) which she claims is part of her job. I’m hoping that Kiriko has notes on the shift Cars and Mr. Belt too. I want to believe she has a series of notebooks on everyone like this. We’re also told that both Tomari and Kiriko are Sergeants, which in context, puts them on equal ground. I expected Kiriko to be a rank or two lower to present the joke of “I’m technically your superior and you can’t boss me around.” from Tomari, so I’m really glad they made Kiriko his equal to give her more legitimacy.
Kiriko then brings Tomari to the office of the Special Crimes unit (Which seems to be in a driving school instead of a police station for some reason.) and we’re introduced to the rest of the Special Crimes Unit. Honganji, the unit chief, and Saijou, the network specialist, still seem like awkward caricatures to me, and I’m not really on board with them yet. They just seem like weird silly gag characters and I’d really love to see them grow into something more relevant. they do, however, set up the plot for the episode, describing a series of murder cases that Special Crimes is going to help investigate. These crimes are tied to the Slowdown, which Rinna, the unit’s electrical physicist, has renamed the “Density Shift Effect”. Rinna seems to hit a great balance between Enokida from Kuuga and Midori from Hibiki. Rinna clearly takes her job seriously, but we later see her teasing Lieutenant Otta, who we’re shown has no interest in the Global Freeze to the point where he refuses to even believe in it, showing that Rinna still has a sense of humor about things and likes to remain light-hearted when she can. This is a character type I’m really into, so I have very high hopes for some good story involving Rinna.
We then cut to Tomari, out in the Tridoron again, talking to himself about how maybe a case will help him move on, meaning he clearly hasn’t out it out of his mind at all. Even though he said he would stop thinking about it, he never did. He has a short flashback, which he has to shake himself out of, and he tells himself that lie again. He won’t think about it anymore. He’s clearly going to keep thinking about it, but as long as he tells himself that he wont, he can pretend it doesn’t bother him. And at this moment we’re introduced to a disembodied voice inside the car, asking Tomari if he’s decided to become a warrior yet. Tomari calls the voice persistent, indicating they’ve talked before, and the voice exposits that he had the Tridoron given to Tomari, and had him transferred to Special Crimes, supposedly to become this “warrior”. We see more of Tomari’s guilt surface as he calls himself a lazy washout, clearly trying to joke about his own guilt, but the voice doesn’t buy it. Tomari finds the Drive Driver in the console, deducing it’s where the voice was coming from, and we see the first glimpses of the driver and Mr. Belt before he attaches himself to Tomari and Kiriko reappears to inform Tomari that there’s been another murder and they need to go. For some reason she’s in another car? I guess this is to hold off on the fact that she already knows about Mr. Belt. Tomari refuses to go, until Mr. Belt explains what’s up with him, and Mr. Belt decides to just drive the car on his own. I find this relationship fairly amusing, and a little reminiscent of Wataru, the reluctant hero, and Kivat, the talking belt-partner who sassed him around a bit but genuinely cared for him. Right now there’s still a lot of mystery behind Mr. Belt, and I know a lot of people have different theories. I’m personally going with a Mr. Voice theory, that there is someone communicating through Mr. Belt with Tomari and Kiriko in some way. None the less, I’m curious to see how Mr. Belt plays out. He makes so many cute faces though that it really makes me want to buy a Drive Driver. Well played, Toei. Well played.
So at the crime scene, we’re introduced to Lt. Otto, who is a big grumpy stick-in-the-mud who doesn’t believe in all of the supernatural junk going down even though it is, as mentioned, a world-wide crisis. But okay, man, whatever you want to do. Talking about this on UnKamen-Cast RX earlier today (though this post will likely go up before the podcast episode), it was mentioned that he might be used to kind of explore toxic over-masculinity and kind of displays of obsessive control through denial and that would be an AMAZING subject to explore, but I don’t really trust Toei to go through with it. As I said on UnKamen-Cast, the last time they tried that was with Shun in Fourze, and look how that turned out for us. but Tomari and Kiriko show up in a ridiculous helmet with a radar (designed by Rinna) that is supposed to help detect particles left behind by the Slowdown.
We see the body, which is a bright red color, and apparently still alive though in a comatose state. the four other victims are said to be the same way. We see one of the Roimyudo cause this later in the episode, but it’s still not clear what exactly has been done (which I assume will be cleared up in episode 2, as Tomari and Kiriko investigate). Otto basically dismisses Tomari and the Slowdown, and Tomari continues his investigation, finding a shred of paper that he believes to be a clue. He later finds a small bit of foil, and bags that as well. I’m really curious as to what he believes these mean, especially since he’s able to put together a composite of the criminal’s face and get an identity fairly quickly.
Another slowdown happens and we get a look at our first Monster of the Week, 029. With everyone stuck in slow motion, Mr. Belt calls on the shift cars to distract 029 and get the action moving. It’s amusing how the Roimyudo don’t really seem to know how to fight the Shift Cars, as they’ve otherwise been running unopposed after the Global Freeze, so 029 fumbles a lot and the Slowdown is broken.
We cut back to the investigation office, where Rinna is interviewing Otto about his encounter with the Slowdown and 029, which he still refuses to believe happened even though he was there for it, and Tomari compiles a composite of the suspect. We then get this season’s signature mark, Tomari straightening his tie, and Kiriko declares that it’s a sign that Tomari has gotten serious — Possibly serious enough for his “engine to start”. He catches up to 029 close to a gym. Apparently he’s identified a person who looks almost exactly like 029 that went to that gym. 029 attacks a gym patron, a friend of Matsuda, the man 029 looks like. This seems to imply a very Worm-like appearance-stealing on the part of the Roimyudo. the fact that they can slow down everything around them, is also similar to how the Worms could speed up themselves to attack. and much like the Riders in Kabuto could Clock-Up up match the Worms’s speed, the Shift Cars allow Tomari (or anyone holding them, as Kiriko is also unaffected by the Slowdown while she has Funky Spike and Midnight Shadow) to be unaffected by the Slowdown. Apparently one car isn’t enough to handle more than one Roimyudo causing a Slowdown, though as two more show up and Tomari is stuck again. Theoretically, one car can overpower one Slowdown. This is actually pretty nice, as one car canceling all Slowdowns seems a little broken for his early on. though once in suit, he seems to be unaffected by any amount of slowdown entirely. Tomari struggles as he watches 029 do… whatever it is he is doing to the civilian until Kiriko shows up with the remaining two shift cars, able to fend the other two Roimyudo off with just her handgun.
It’s really nice seeing the police be effective against the monsters again this year. I’m hoping that over time, the rest of Special Crimes will become aware of Drive and that Rinna will follow in Enokida and Ozawa’s footsteps to develop weaponry for Kiriko to use to fight the Roimyudo herself. But man, Kiriko’s throwing herself into the fight, I thought was great. She was unafraid. There was never even the slightest hesitation from her in protecting Tomari, and then demanding to know why he isn’t fighting himself. She knows the gravity of this situation, and she knows that Tomari has to be the one to fight (even though we don’t know why it has to be Tomari yet) so why isn’t he fighting? Prior to this scene, Kiriko was very serious and reserved, and int his moment we see her break the “robotic” label that pre-premiere press gave her. I’m glad to see we’re doing that right away. I’m so glad to see Kiriko have emotions instead of just being cold and blank. Kiriko fully believes in the mission, and what has to be done, and in Tomari and if he isn’t living up to her expectations she will make it clear. She’s been reserved but leading up to this we’ve seen little moments of anger and excitement, and then this scene brings it all together with her fury and desperation and annoyance. I hope to see more of this from Uchida Rio.
Mr. Belt explains that Tomari has to transform, and how to do it, as Kiriko activates the belt for him. Mr. Belt gives a motivational speech that is very much punctuated by Kiriko watching Tomari with full confidence. Tomari decides that if he can save this person being attacked by 029, then he’s not going to think about the past and he’s just going to do it. It’s the third time we hear the line “I’m done thinking about it.” from Tomari this episode, and I think it’s the first time he really means it. Hayase will still haunt him, but this isn’t the time or the place for it. Someone needs him right now. So Tomari transforms and we get our first fight of the season, set to our opening song, “Surprise Drive”. We then have the different tire types shown off, Max Flare the fire type, Funky Spike, the close combat type, and Midnight Shadow the ninja-based projectile type. The Type Speed tire i think is pretty okay, but these other three seem very “plastic” and very much just an accessory swap toy gimmick. Yes, i know all Riders are a toy gimmick, but at least make it look decent. Our previous five Riders (as much as I dislike Gaim from a story perspective) at least had very cohesive suit changes for their gimmicks, where Flare, Spike, and Shadow all seem to not really fit Drive at all. though I do like that when Drive shifted to Flare, not only did Speed fly off and hit the monster, Tomari ducked out of the way of Flare the first time it tried to land on the suit, because who WOULDN’T duck away from a giant flaming wheel flying at their head? Very nice touch.
My one major complaint is that there doesn’t seem to be any consistency as to what will completely kill a Roimyudo, and what will just reduce one to being a floating number. 042 and 088 were killed by base attacks (088 almost immediately after it was reduced to a floating number, 042 several minutes after it became a number), but Tomari’s big showy final Rider Kick wasn’t enough to bring down 029 completely. Is there a difference in power between 029 and the other two? There wasn’t one that we could see. I’d really like some kind of light shed on this because it did bother me quite a bit. the Rider Kick though I thought was very cool and exciting, and I was glad to see Tridoron be part of it, since aside from Wizard we haven’t really had the Rider’s vehicle be all that involved in quite a while.
Killing 029 not only saved the partially red victim, but was enough to apparently revive the other four who had fallen under whatever the attack was. the look on Tomari’s face when he saw the man from the gym return to normal wasn’t relief or pride or excitement, it was clear disbelief. He couldn’t believe that he actually managed to save someone. After such a massive, damaging failure in protecting Hayase, Tomari really couldn’t believe that his actions had really saved this man. Takeuchi Ryoma really played that scene well and used just the right expression. I’m looking forward to seeing how he continues to handle Tomari.
The episode closes with Kiriko taking Tomari to this year’s secret base, the Drive Pit, essentially a bat-cave under the driving school/Special Crimes office. Kiriko wheels Mr. Belt out on some kind of… I’m not even sure what, that puts him on eye level with she and Tomari. Kiriko reveals that only she and Mr. Belt know about Drive, and not even Special Crimes is aware of them. Again, I really hope they become aware, one by one, and that we get a sort of KRC-like “Team Drive”. I think that would be good and provide our B-List cast with some very much-needed relevance.
So after Tomari decides to revisit his little scraps of evidence, we cut to little goopy 029 flopping around helplessly on some stairs in the Toei Combat Warehouse like an uncomfortable jello mold or something from a credit score commercial, and Heart, the first of our three Boss Level villains, arrives to offer him a new body via what appears to be a black Shift Car. A theory we came up with while recording for UnKamen-Cast today was that perhaps the Shift Cars are former Roimyudo, and that Tomari will be able to sort of “Catch” them to gain new power-ups. It’s an interesting theory that I really like and I’m really curious to see how this plays out.
So all in all, I’m really pleased with the first episode. It raised a lot of questions in a way that promises future answers, and it hit a lot of the notes of a standard police drama that I really like while still bringing in the fun and excitement of a Kamen Rider show. We have great female characters in practical outfits,an interesting main rider, and a generally pretty neat gimmick. I’m very very excited for what this year will bring.
Brand New Love Song 
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