Recap: Kamen Rider Drive, Episode 23 – Who Can Stop the Mischievous Smile?

Heart and a crying Brain are mourning their good friend Chase. Brain says if only a more skilled person reprogrammed him, this wouldn’t have happened. Medic pops in. “And who would that be?!” she asks smugly.

She coldly tells Heart that it’s okay since Chase was not one of the Promised Numbers. He was bound to fall anyway, so it happened. Big deal.

Heart says it is a big deal because when you lose a friend, it is an indescribable heartbreaking feeling.

Brain pushes Medic out of the way to sit next to Heart. “It’s okay Heart, we’ll definitely get our revenge.”

Meanwhile, Kiriko is walking through an abandoned hospital. She has Mad Doctor with her and tells him they must keep this a secret.

She enters a room and inside is… Chase.

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Kiriko inserts Mad Doctor into Chase’s Break Gunner and shoots it into Chase, hoping it will help.

Otta is briefing Shinnosuke and Kyu about a serial bomber that is attacking the city. Though the First Division is on the case, Otta believes the Koinyoubou Roidmude are involved since the explosions always happen after the locations had already been searched. So if they are able to crack this case, the SID’s credibility with skyrocket.

Otta asks where everyone is. Chief Jun is on a business trip while Rinna is focusing on her research. As for Kiriko…

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Kiriko comes running in, apologizing for being late. Shinnosuke can’t believe she actually overslept. Yes, that’s it, Kiriko says to cover her tracks. But Shinnosuke isn’t so sure after she says it.

Otta gets a call about a fourth bomb threat.

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Gou is vigorously working out at the gym, resolved to become stronger. Shin-niisan and neechan come looking for him, hoping he can help.

They head over to the amusement park location of the latest bomb threat. The bomb squad is called off again minutes before the scheduled time when they can’t find anything.

Gou and Shinnosuke are continuing to search, not really sure what they’re looking for anyway,

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But Shinnosuke sees a young guy excitedly taking pictures of the Ferris wheel. Shinnosuke approaches him and asks what he’s doing in this off-limits area. The guy says he just wanted to see the explosion and then runs off.

Shinnosuke looks up at Gou on the Ferris wheel and henshins just as 3pm strikes. A bomb goes off right where Gou is, sending him down to the ground.

Shinnosuke hurries over to Gou when the Shoot Roidmude suddenly appears, upset the Ferris wheel did not suffer any damage. Shinnosuke charges toward Shoot, but he is mysteriously hit, numerous times. He and Belt-san have no idea what is going on. Shoot just laughs, but Gou gets up and uses the Stop Signal Bike to drive the Roidmude away.

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Shinnosuke sees a dart drop nearby and picks it up as he and Gou head back to the Pit.

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Kiriko bandages them both up and says Gou helped stop the explosion from causing worse damage. Belt-san says Mad Doctor could help ease some of their pain if here were here. He asks Kiriko if she knows where he is. She gets up and runs off to find him.

Belt-san asks Rinna who asks not to be bothered. She’s busy trying to develop Shift Cars to help ease the burden of using Type Formula. “For Drive again?” Gou asks, “Maybe Shin-niisan is the only one needed.”

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Gou laughs, just kidding. He tells them to call if anything happens and he leaves. But he has a much less cheery expression when he’s outside the Pit.

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Belt-san asks Shinnosuke what he’s thinking about. Shinnosuke wonders about the position of the explosion between Gou and the Ferris wheel. Belt-san notes that in the past, there was a Roidmude that could destroy buildings using a photo. Maybe this new Roidmude has a special ability to cause explosions.

Speaking of. Shinnosuke and Otta question the young guy from earlier, Mogi Takurou. He is a student at the High School that was the first bomb threat location. But they’ve also found that Takurou was also at the second and third bombing locations too. Takurou says that he was indeed because he wanted to see the locations for himself. He adds that it was a coincidence that he was at the Ferris wheel right as the explosion would happen.

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A frustrated Otta demands Takurou show his Roidmude self and explain what special powers he’s using to blow things up. Takurou laughs, does the police believe in special powers these days?!

A detective comes into the interrogation room to hand Otta another bomb threat. But this time, four bombs will explode simultaneously at different locations. Takurou thinks four bombs at the same time is awesome.

Otta says he’ll stay here and watch Takurou. That’s fine, Takurou says, if it will prove his innocence. He jokes that maybe he can still see the explosions by using his special teleportation powers.

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But that gets Shinnosuke into top gear.

Gou is again working out hard at the gym when Shin-niisan calls him.

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With Kyu’s help, they find Shoot on the rooftop of a location from which there is a clear view of the four threatened locations. Shinnosuke also figured out, using the dart, that Shoot’s ability is to shoot projectiles at a speed faster than humans can see. So Shoot is able to shoot the bombs from a distance.

Shinnosuke goes Type Formula and Gou goes Dead Heat. But Shoot shoots the missiles. Shinnosuke uses Type Formula to catch one of them, toss it back at Shoot and then uses Formula’s high speed to chase after the other three.

Gou takes on Shoot himself and is able to counter the fast attacks.

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Gou uses the different Signal Bikes, but he suddenly reaches the danger level and overheats. That leaves him open for Shoot to attack.

Meanwhile, Shinnosuke is chasing after the last missile, but he breaks down. That’s when three new Shift Cars, the Pit Crew, arrive: Mantarn, Jacky and Sparner. They perform emergency maintenance to help get him going again and after the final missile.

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He first uses Mantarn for Formula Zero One to destroy the missile.

But Gou is in trouble. Shoot manages to hit his Driver and he dehenshins. The Driver is fried.

Shin-niisan arrives just in time. He first uses Jacky for Formula Zero Two then Sparner for Formula Zero Three. Trailer-Hou arrives and Shinnosuke uses Trailer Cannon for a Full Full Formula Throttle Finisher.

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Gou struggles on the ground.

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Across town, Brain finds Shoot aka 091’s core and collects him in his tablet.

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Shinnosuke, Kiriko and Otta watch as they are forced to release Takurou for lack of evidence.

Later that night, Kiriko visits Chase and brings some flowers. She asks Mad Doctor how the patient is, but Chase wakes up and grabs Kiriko’s arm, pulling her close to him.

“Were you the one who saved me?”

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Episode Thoughts

Alright episode. But I still don’t know what they’re trying to do with Gou. He’s so pissed or annoyed that he lets out his frustrations at the gym? Okay, but why? It’s really been a sudden shift in his personality from the happy-go-lucky, “I’m awesome” introduction to a now “UghRoidmudes. GonnabeatyouShin-niisan.”

I mean, he definitely was focused on just ending the Roidmudes from the beginning, but it still feels like an abrupt shift in his mood with nothing really bringing it out. If it really is just Gou wanting to be needed, I think they could’ve eased into that story more smoothly than they did.

But maybe we should be happy there’s any kind of change in the character at this point. Otta probably has gotten the most character development so far while everyone else is pretty much where we first met them. I still enjoy the show of course and it’s definitely still fun, but I still want some good story to go along with the pretty toys.

I was happy to see Brain picking himself up though. I guess Heart actually feeling some emotion towards Chase’s demise is interesting, especially with Medic’s lack of emotion. More villain idol drama please.

2 thoughts on “Recap: Kamen Rider Drive, Episode 23 – Who Can Stop the Mischievous Smile?

  1. Rather than lacking emotion, Medic actually showed a distinct emotion in this episode, what with her making that annoyed schoolgirl pout aftyer being one-upped by Brain. I hope the question of Medic’s emotions, or lack thereof, would play a bigger role later

    But I would agree that the story is starting to tire out. The “case of the week” flot is slowly becoming less interesting and repetitive as time goes by. Heck, there isn’t even anything to talk about this week’s case. I really do hape that they have something better in store past the halfway mark.

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