Recap: Kamen Rider Drive, Episode 12 – Where Did the White Kamen Rider Come From?

Drive 12

Otta is sitting in on the daily briefing where the detectives are currently hearing about a 65 year old loan shark who is now in the hospital after being hit on the head by a small statue. While the others merely suggest finding out all the enemies he’s made, Otta notes that there were reports of the Heaviness at the crime scene. The suspect was able to slip into the house, grab the expensive statue and hit the guy over the head with it.

The other detectives just laugh at Otta’s suggestion that a monster is the culprit. They mock his work with the SID.

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Otta heads back to the SID and vents. Loudly. But Shinnosuke says he didn’t detect any Gravity Shift particles at the crime scene and Kyu says there were no reports from people in the area.

Otta notices Chief Jun and Kiriko are not in. Shinnosuke says Chief Jun is off meeting someone important while Kiriko has the day off to prepare for her brother suddenly coming home from abroad.

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Otta is frustrated and decides to go investigate himself and asks Shinnosuke for a ride. Kyu says Otta is just worked up after being laughed at, but Rinna says it’s nice that Otta now thinks of them as his comrades.

Shinnosuke heads out and Belt-san pops in and decides to help investigate too.

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While Shinnosuke uses Rinna’s detection contraption to search the area, a strange young man takes a photo of him. He’s standing on the roof and jumps down to walk over.

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The guy jokes around and Shinnosuke asks if he’s a reporter looking for a scoop. They guy just laughs and proposes they race to see who can catch the culprit first.

“Special Investigations Division detective Tomari Shinnosuke versus the mysterious cameraman.”

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The cameraman starts doing flips all over the place until he flips right over the wall.

Shinnosuke is amazed by his agility. But no time to marvel, Otta has something. A neighbor saw a man running away during the Heaviness. They are able to identify the guy as Todagawa and they head to his employer.

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But when Todagawa arrives for work, he sees Shinnosuke and Otta and bikes off. They chase after him and follow him up to the top of the factory.

Todagawa grabs a pipe and starts swinging at them. He kicks a pail of liquid at them when suddenly, the Heaviness arrives.

Otta slips on the oily liquid and falls over the railing. A Roidmude pops up and fires at Shinnosuke, also throwing him over the railing. But the Shift Cars arrive to create a track for Shinnosuke to slide down.

Tridoron arrives and Shinnosuke quickly grabs Belt-san to henshin straight to Type Technic. He faces off against the top hatted Roidmude as Otta continues slowly falling down to the ground.

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The Heaviness allows Otta to safely land on his feet, but he faints from the experience. Though he sees Kamen Rider’s face for the first time.

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Shinnosuke loses the Roidmude, but the cameraman is around the corner taking more pictures.

They head back to the SID and Otta admits that the suspect is indeed what Rinna suggested, a Rori Shoujo. Rinna corrects him and says it is Roidmude.

Otta is also excited to have finally seen the Kamen Rider’s face. He draws what he remembers; black legs, red arms and a green head, a combination of the different times he’s seen only part of the Kamen Rider’s body.

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Shinnosuke and Rinna laugh at Otta’s funny drawing.

But Otta is still fired up. He hopes to catch Todagawa transforming into the monster and asks Rinna sensei if the device she’s working on is ready. She excitedly takes him to it.

While Kiriko waits for her brother to call, Kyu helps Shinnosuke research Todagawa. He had been part of the loan shark’s gang before getting kicked out. Shinnosuke still isn’t convinced the Roidmude would choose him though.

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The cameraman from earlier pops up and says Shinnosuke’s got a pretty good lead. He shows them a picture he took of the Roidmude. Kyu wants it. The cameraman folds it into a paper airplane and sends it flying. Kyu chases after it.

Shinnosuke asks about the photo, but the Super Cameraman just laughs. He says Shinnosuke is probably going to lose the race, which is funny for a car-driving Kamen Rider.

The cameraman laughs and Shinnosuke comments that his laugh is very untrustworthy.

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Kyu falls into the water going after the paper airplane. Shinnosuke goes to help and the cameraman walks away on his hands and flips away.

Otta calls Shinnosuke saying he’s found Todagawa’s hiding place.

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The cameraman, meanwhile, hopes on his awesome bike and speeds off.

Otta walks into Todagawa’s hiding place with a brand new contraption on his back. Todagawa turns his bracelet to initiate a Gravity Shift. But Otta just laughs. The Heaviness has no effect on him thanks to this new Pikopiko version 2.

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Shinnosuke arrives and explains how he noticed Todagawa and the Roidmude had different dominant hands when they attacked.

But before Shinnosuke can continue, the cameraman arrives and knocks Shinnosuke’s floating memory videos out of the air.

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The cameraman explains Todogawa is the real person and only attacked the loan shark as revenge for burning his house down when he refused to do his bidding. Otta is disappointed it wasn’t a Rori Shoujo.

While Shinnosuke collects his top gear video memories, the cameraman continues by pointing out that a human was able to control a Gravity Shift. And he did it thanks to the bracelet given by the Roidmude.

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The Roidmude which the cameraman has photos of, both human and monster forms.

Suddenly, the Heaviness arrives and the building is attacked. Shinnosuke runs outside and the Roidmude, a cowboy, shoots before going monster. Tridoron and Belt-san arrive and Shinnosuke quickly henshins.

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While Shinnosuke fights the Roidmude, Kiriko pops up. She says she was told to come here.

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Suddenly, a drumroll. The cameraman jumps onto the roofs of the nearby buildings and begins introducing himself in English. He jumps onto his bike and drives off. A Shift Car follows.

Belt-san recognizes it as Amazing Circus who is supposed to be in the US. Shinnosuke and Kiriko follow as well.

Amazing Circus decorates a stage the cameraman stops at. Complete with fireworks, the cameraman says Shinnosuke was a little too slow at shifting gears.

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He pulls out a belt and puts it on, inserts a Signal Bike and henshins…

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Kamen Rider Mach!

The Roidmude charges toward Mach who is very flashy in taking care of him.

The Roidmude tells Mach to “Go to hell!” But Mach easily avoids the attacks and uses a Signal Bike Signal Change to shoot and curve the bullets around the corner or make a U-Turn.

Saying he’s reaching his time limit, Mach delivers a Full Throttle finisher to finish off the Roidmude cowboy.

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But the Roidmude’s number floats into the hands of a just appeared Medic who does ballet. Belt-san explains that she is a Roidmude commander who can revive her comrades. Medic continues dancing while talking directly to Belt-san and referring to him as Krim. Belt-san shakes in anger.

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Medic says she will take care of Gunman and she disappears.

Both Shinnosuke and Mach dehenshin. Mach smiles and runs over to Kiriko asking if she’s okay.

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He suddenly hugs her much to the consternation of Shinnosuke.

The guy asks Kiriko how his Japanese debut was as he wanted her to see it in person.

Kiriko wants to know what’s going on, “Go!”

“Go?” Belt-san explains that Shijima Go is Kiriko’s little brother from America.

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Meanwhile, at a new hideaway, Medic dances as she resurrects Gunman. He thanks her. Heart is happy and offers to help Gunman with his plans. But Medic tells Heart-sama that he should rest while he is still recovering. She says he should just leave it to Brain and Chase to help out.

Chase comments on Medic only using honorifics for Heart and no one else. But Brain says it’s fine as it shows her loyalty to Heart.

Gunman introduces his little brother.

Episode Thoughts

A fun and very flashy debut for Kamen Rider Mach. I kinda wish I didn’t skim through the unsubbed episode the day it aired so I could’ve been a little more surprised at Go being Kiriko’s brother, even if it was pretty predictable.

Still, I always like family connections on toku shows so it should be fun to see how that will play out.

I really like Mach’s helmet opening up like that. Very cool and different from any of the Kamen Rider seasons I’ve seen. And Go is a fun character so far. It’s funny how Go’s actually not as goofy as everyone else on the show so far either. lol

ToQger’s great villain character development has spoiled me, so I really hope we get to see more character stuff out of the Roidmudes soon. But no immediate follow up on Chase this episode, even if it is the secondary Rider debut, was sad.

This season is definitely printing money with the toys I think. Endless amount of Shift Cars and now likely endless number of Signal Bikes! Jackpot Bandai. lol

And considering how expressive and goofy the characters can be, I am surprised they have lagged behind Gaim (!) in the gif-able reactions game. This episode helped them catch up though. Hehe.

Overall a great, fun episode. Looking forward to more Mach speed hijinks!

4 thoughts on “Recap: Kamen Rider Drive, Episode 12 – Where Did the White Kamen Rider Come From?

  1. I thought Mach had a really great introduction. Interacting with Shinnosuke’s memories was a lot of fun but I was genuinely laughing when he had Amazing Circus put on an elaborate stage show just so he could introduce himself properly.
    I think my issue with the Roidmudes is that they seem very unfocused. We know what their general goal is now, but it’s just ‘Do interesting stuff to become more interesting.’ It gives them a lot of flexibility to run different types of plots but to compare to a similar previous villain group they lack say the interesting in-fighting of the Greeed.
    I’m not saying they need internal dissent, but it might help if Heart and Brain had a little more character. We see a bit of that, with Heart favoring emotional plans and Brain seeming to support logical ones, but it’s not really defined enough yet to give their organization a character beyond an excuse to have different Roidmudes out committing different crimes.

  2. Man, that was one hell of a bombastic introduction for Mach. I LOVE IT!

    But there are a lot of interesting bits here. It seems that Gou can only use the Mach Driver for a limited amount of time. And basing from episode 13 (a bit of spoiler) it also seems that its use is very taxing on his body. Man, why do I have the feeling that Gou is going to be a tragic character here ala Ren Senjyu (of Ultraman Nexus, an older series you might want to check out)? In any case, just a wild guess here: based on the hints they have given so far, Chase will probably somehow inherit the Mach Driver to become another rider.

    1. He’s a great character! I’m excited to watch this week’s episode later. But I definitely hope he sticks around. He definitely fits in very well with the overall vibe of the group.

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