Was Kamen Rider Drive Meant To Be A Robocop Style Kamen Rider Show?

Last year's Tokusatsu year wasn't so good for me with Super Sentai so I really decided to stick through some Kamen Rider. So I'd like to discuss about my road trip with Kamen Rider Drive and how it really affected me as a just flying through Tokusatsu fan.

Hearing that Riku Sanjo would do Kamen Rider AFTER Kyoryuger triggered me the panic button. I felt like that "Oh no! It's going to be a disaster." I've always had some biases towards Kyoryuger and no matter how much its fans think that, "It's the best dinosaur Super Sentai ever." I'd pick Abaranger or Zyuranger anyday. While Kyoryuger was horrid but there was some Kamen Rider Gaim to keep me occupied and entertained so I don't go completely backwards with Toku watching. Then it came, Kamen Rider Drive was one show I wanted to give a chance even after Kyoryuger left a bad taste in my mouth.

Then I took the drive with Kamen Rider Drive after enjoying the sweet fruits of Kamen Rider Gaim. As a fan of police-style Tokusatsu in some way (ex. Janperson and Dekaranger to name a few), I sat through Drive's first two episodes and just wanted more of it. Sure it wasn't really as great as Kamen Rider Gaim's writing with Gen Urobuchi but it was still a fun ride nonetheless. Some may consider it as Knight Rider but I really thought there could've been Robocop vibes into it. If you remembered Jiban's Robocop-like concept with a slain police officer, I thought that Shinnosuke Tomari was the show's version of Alex Murphy. Did the writers of Drive plan to mix Robocop and Kamen Rider before the show started? Can't really say but I had the feeling we were nearly going to get a Robocop x Kamen Rider show but it never got through executives. Instead, it was a Kamen Rider x Knight Rider show... both got the word "Rider" in them.

The whole show felt somewhat silly but I thought that it was a fun ride with Drive actually. So maybe, there were some few shipteases here and there but we had the Shinnosuke x Kiriko shiptease which they would later get married. So I guess Sanjo didn't want to have a cyborg x human concept so maybe that's why Shinnosuke didn't end up as the show's version of Alex Murphy in Robocop or Naoto Tamura in Jiban. For some time, I was really expecting some scene where Shinnosuke would get wounded by a Roidmude then he's being turned into a cyborg. It's been some time since we ever had a cyborg for a Kamen Rider so I thought what if Shinnosuke was meant to be one? The show could have also used the Roidmudes as the show's version of Jiban's Bioron monsters.

I guess that whatever reasons there were, Kamen Rider Drive didn't end up as a Robocop style Kamen Rider. Maybe the producers behind Drive wanted to do a Robocop-style Kamen Rider but the executives may have given a big flat no. Then again, maybe it was never meant to be a Robocop x Kamen Rider show but who knows? It's been some time since Jiban and Janperson both finished their airing so I thought Kamen Rider Drive could have worked out as a Robocop style Kamen Rider.