Riding on!

Author - MrCraiggy

Greetings Ladies and Gentlemen, online heroes and villain alike. I would like to take a moment to talk to you about a long standing Japanese franchise, Kamen Rider.



Kamen Rider is a Japanese "Tokusatsu" (Live action drama, often featuring superheroes) series that started off in 1971 and was created by Shotaro Ishinomori and progressed throughout the years with various incarnations until the late 80's and the debut of Kamen Rider: Black RX, which some of you may recognise the costume from, as we got a version of it over here as the poorly received "Masked Rider"



After RX, there were no official Kamen Rider series, but there were movies such as "Shin" "ZO" and "J" but this marked the end of what is referred to as the "Showa" era of Kamen Rider. Now, my knowledge of the Showa era is patchy at best, having only seen bits of "Black" and "Black RX", and watching "ZO" and "J" with Siddd (I still prefer Sidders) so there's really not much I can say about it.



Sadly, in 1998, Ishinomori died, but during 1997, he had been working on a new project to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Kamen Rider. Upon his death, production was sped up and this led to the creation of the modern age of Kamen Rider. This is now affectionately referred to as the Heisei era of the Kamen Rider franchise.

The Heisei era began with the release of Kamen Rider: Kuuga in January of 2000 with the tag line "A new hero, a new legend." and it is with Kuuga that my Kamen Rider journey properly began. Having only been properly aware of the existance of Kamen Rider for around three years now, I decided that it was best for me to start at the beginning of my generation's Riders, and that led me to Kuuga.



Kuuga continued on the trend of Kamen Riders having multiple forms, first started I believe with Kamen Rider Stronger's "Charge Up" mode and then continued in Black RX with "Roborider" and "Biorider" forms, Kuuga himself having a total of 11 forms!

After Kuuga followed a series called Kamen Rider: Agito, which was the official 30th anniversary show. Agito was the first series to feature multiple Riders within the series, Agito having a total of three, "Agito", "G3", and "Gils". Agito is also a semi-sequel to Kuuga in that the G3 suit was developed as a countermeasure by the police to fight against the "Unidentified Lifeforms" which was the term used for the Grongi, Kuuga's foes. Also, the monsters in Agito are referred to simply as "Unknowns". Another similarity was in the primary rider costumes, Agito's armour looked very similar to that of Kuuga with the bulky chestpiece and crested helmet.

The Heisei era progressed successfully, with each new series bringing in a steady amount of viewers and maintaining ratings. In my opinion, as with all franchises, some series' were better than others; for example, my particular favourite Kamen Rider series to date (Though Double comes close) is Kamen Rider: 555



555's main Rider was called "Faiz", a Japanglish pun on the plural of the number 5, or literally, fives. I could literally talk about 555 as a series all night, but I'll save that for another review. Needless to say, I love it, but even 555 had it's moments of sheer annoyance.

In 2005, Kamen Rider hit the big screen once more with Kamen Rider: The First. This movie was a reimagining of the original Kamen Rider series and revitalised the old Showa veteran with a shiny new look and in my opinion, a great movie. Now, some parts of the movie did seem a little redundant and pointless, but still, some top notch action! This shall be reviewed at a later date, probably with myself and Siddd as this is another of the Kamen Rider areas we've co-watched (He's going to hate me someday for getting him into Kamen Rider) and this was followed in 2007 with Kamen Rider: The Next, introducing Kamen Rider V3 into the movie storyline and following almost directly from The First.

2007 also brought about perhaps the most loved of the Heisei Rider series', which, at first, I could not understand, because upon first trying to watch the series, Kamen Rider: Den-O failed to impress me... I have however gone back and tried to watch it again and must admit, it does have it's charms as well as it's flaws, as with every series. The fact that still to this date, three years on, they are still expanding Den-O as it's own sub-franchise with the new movie triple bill is testament to it's success.

In 2009, Japanese viewers were gifted with the debut of the Heisei era's 10th anniversary show, Kamen Rider: Decade. Now, here's where things get interesting. The whole premise of Decade is that, all of the universe's of the previous Kamen Riders are collapsing in on each other and it is up to Decade to travel between them and stop this. Throughout the series he is heralded as a destroyer of worlds, but then goes on to save the world of whichever Rider featured in that episode. He would then gain the abilities of that Rider and add them to his own repetoire. Now, my main argument with Decade as a series is, continuity... For starters, every single Rider's backstory is changed within Decade. Now, this can easily be cast aside as a temporal distortion caused by the collapsing of the universes, but also, Kuuga and Agito both get their own episodes. Kuuga infact decides to follow Decade along on his mission and travels to the different worlds with him. Now, if Agito was supposed to be a sequel to Kuuga, why do they both have different worlds? Needless to say, this annoyed me. Siddd can attest to how angry I got with Decade as a series, especially with the 555 episode...

Now, our current Rider series is Kamen Rider: W, or Double. Double has taken on a completely new dynamic for a Kamen Rider series, having two primary heroes, Shotaro (A nice little homage) and Philip (His real name's Raito, but go with it) who, when they transform, actually merge to become one Rider, hence the name Double, the 2-in-1 Rider. This series is, quite frankly incredible. I was dubious at first, I saw the promotional photos of Double's outfit and I hated it! But I gave the series a chance and boy was I surprised... Even the costume's grown on me! Double mixes the classic superhero-fights-monsters format of every Kamen Rider series, but also a funny detective story too! I'm sad to say that this series has only around eight weeks left on air before it finishes and we get our next Rider series, Kamen Rider: OOO, or Ozu, again a Japanglish pun of the plural of the letter O, or O's.

Ozu, I can't say anything about yet aside from what the previews have revealed. There seems to be a traffic light theme to the Rider's costume, which I assume is strengthened by the OOO logo, looking like Japanese traffic lights. But there also seems to be some kind of animal theme too, but at the moment, things are still pretty unclear. They've even managed to keep their second Rider hidden and secret, but have revealed all of Ozu's forms already, which is interesting.



So I shall leave you with that, and the parting words of Kamen Rider Accel, the second Rider in the Double series. "Saa, furikiri ze!" or for those without a translator "Now, let's break away!"

This is Mr Craiggy, signing out!

Kamen Rider is currently the property of Ban Dai and all copyrights belong to them so far as I'm aware.