REVIEW: Drive 34
Despite starting really slow, this week’s Kamen Rider Drive really picks up near the end to some really fascinating twists and turns. Hopefully Drive will keep the breakneck pace that it has seemed to have been maintain, despite hitting a really high peak last week; let’s hope that the show’s engine doesn’t stall out before it crosses the finish line.
As mentioned earlier, the episode begins on a more relaxed note opening on a familiar but recently absent image: Shinnosuke shirking off work at the park. Predictably Kiriko finds him and drags him to their new case, where a Roiimude has apparently stolen documents from the forensics lab of the police force. I kinda have mixed feelings about this: on the one hand, structurally it feels quite weird to start off on a slower and more relaxed pace considering the breakneck speed we have been going at for the past few weeks. It causes quite a tonal whiplash from last week’s events. However what else could they have done? They wrapped up that arc as much as they could, so anything would have felt tonally dissonant; so I really can’t fault it or be mad at it.
As Shinnosuke and Kiriko investigate the crime scene, they are notified by the Shift Cars that the Roiimude, called Thief, has been found. Now with this Roiimude, I really don’t like the design. It’s too generic and boring in all honesty: It really doesn’t fit it’s motif of stealing things. Now its actions do, such as when it steals the Steering Sword from Shinnosuke when they fight, which I really like, but the design still really doesn’t fit. During this fight we get another Tire Combination: People Saver, a mix of Justice Hunter, Mad Doctor and Fire Braver. These three are an obvious combination, but it’s still nice to see the production team really thinking about the gimmicks and using them to their fullest and logical extent. Another great moment from this fight is that as soon as the Roiimude attacks some civilians, Shinnosuke stops fighting Thief and saves the people, thus yet again showing how much of a hero he really is.
Cut to Brain chewing Thief out for being a “treacherous… creature”, which is later revealed to be quite a good piece of foreshadowing and ends up being quite a natural piece of writing based on hindsight. On top of that we see more of his obsession with reaching the ‘promised number’, a concept I’m quite excited to find more about. On top of that it really seems like Brain is being set up as the final villain of the show, which could lead to some very interesting drama later on with Heart and is a logical plot development in all honesty. At the same time the Special Crimes unit find what went missing were in fact case details from 12 years ago and on top of that Shinnosuke also learns that what he recovered from the Thief Roiimude was evidence from his father’s case.
What follows is even more exposition around the fallout of 001’s death. Again the show seems to be suffering from over complicated plots that just hinder episodes on the whole since these scenes just drag the pace to a halt. However we do get a nice moment where Honganji warns Shinnosuke to be careful with the life he got back. Additionally Nira gives Shinnosuke some help which really shows that he can be reasonable… but again later on that kinda changes in a magnificent way. When Shinnosuke and Kiriko arrive at the first location on Nira’s list, rather than finding the kidnapped forensics chief, they instead encounter Heart who fights Shinnosuke. Now this fight is quite good since not only does Heart get more powers, namely being able to use a Hyper Density Shift, but Formula still has a place in the show since it’s the only Type that can be fast enough to go through it. It’s nice to see this since it was made such a big deal of and Type Trideron made it sorta redundant.
Chase again saves the day and we also learn that Gou has been rather absent from the crew, despite not really being brainwashed. Now this does two opposing things for me in regards to Chase: firstly this little moment shows us that Chase still indeed cares for Gou, since he believes Gou will do the right thing, and so makes him out to be quite a three dimensional character. On the other hand however, that’s all he does this week and has seemed to be for the past few: turn up and kinda help and have not much happen. He definitely deserves better in regards to how he is written and I hope his conflict over being a Roiimude comes back in a good way. As for Gou, I hope he re-joins the group since I’m really concerned for his wellbeing, which shows that his characterisation and arc are being well done.
Kiriko and Shinnosuke discuss how out of all the locations on the list Nira gave them, Heart was able to intercept them on the first one they visited. Cut to Thief Roiimude, Brain and the kidnapped forensics scientist where he is forced by the two Roiimudes to reveal where the real gun that was used to kill Shinnosuke’s dad is hidden. As this happens Honganji interrupts them and reveals that the ‘new’ serum for Freeze’s brainwashing that was given to Nira earlier was in fact a tracking device, thus revealing that not only is the Thief Roiimude Nira but that also Nira is Shinnosuke’s dad’s killer.
Now I think this is a fantastic twist in the story: we were never sure of Nira’s allegiances, since he seemed like such a comedic character that was just annoying. However now that he’s been shown to deeply resent Shinnosuke’s dad, thus leading him to kill him, Nira has become a three dimensional character; something that I have to praise Sanjo for doing well on a majority of the characters within the show. Thus using Type Trideron and Construction Site, a combination of Rolling Gravity, Rumble Dump and Spin Mixer, Shinnosuke defeats Nira/Thief. Kirko and Shinnosuke return to try and find the gun that killed his father; however it had already been taken by the Roiimudes. Thus they resolve to investigate the crime scene to finally take down Nira. Meanwhile Brain embraces Nira since he displayed so much jealousy, enough so that when the two fuse Brain morphs into his Ultimate Evolution.
So I think I’ve figured out what I haven’t liked about Drive: it tells too much instead of showing. Its greatest moments are when it shows us what the mystery is and what is happening story wise; While the show is at its worst when it grinds to a halt to throw exposition at the audience. But the overarching plot seems to be picking up quite a lot, so there may in be a rise in quality with the lessening of the exposition. So I’d say this episode starts off slow and dull, but ends really, really well with all the stuff with Nira; it’s definitely worth a watch.
