074: SoraRabbit Watches: Kamen Rider

Everyone knew it was coming… I’m watching through every series of Ultraman and Super Sentai and doing posts for all of the various iterations. Of course I would have to cover the remaining franchise in the “big three“ of tokusatsu. That’s right, I’ve finally started my journey through Kamen Rider!

The original design of the Kamen Rider suit. (Credit: Toei Company)

I’ve known about Kamen Rider for some time. Around the time I first started watching the original Ultraman series, a friend of mine was hooked on Kamen Rider 000. She continually tried to get me to watch it, but I never got around to it. If I’m being honest, I actively avoided it. Not because I didn’t think I’d like it— the opposite, really. I had too many shows to watch already and at that point of my life I couldn’t even find the time to watch Ultraman. I knew if I watched Kamen Rider I’d get hooked on it and the way I am with things I like, well… I couldn’t risk another obsession.

My ban ended the middle of last year. I’d gotten a Roku stick and discovered some real gems on the various streaming platforms. One of these was the first series of Kamen Rider. I decided to give it a try and instantly got hooked, just as I anticipated. I ended up watching four episodes that afternoon! At the time I was still deeply into Gorenger and had attempted to get into Ultraseven twice. I ended up watching around 12 episodes of the series before I put it on the backburner to finish Gorenger.

After finishing Gorenger I found myself at a crossroads. I could jump straight into the second Super Sentai series J.A.C.Q. or I could push through Ultraseven, which I had repeatedly delayed. I could also watch Gridman, which is one I discovered recently, and that was a short series, so seemed like a good choice. Instead I decided since I’d hit Ultraman and Super Sentai, it was time to fully invest myself in Kamen Rider. Honestly, I’m glad I waited, as I was able to watch some of the series that came before (Ultra Q, Ultraman) and after (Himitsu Sentai Gorenger, Supaidaman, Thundermask) and get some perspective on this one and its impact.

So I started over on Kamen Rider and got through the entirety of it in about four months. Unlike with Gorenger, I never once tried to delude myself into thinking I would just watch these for my enjoyment and leave them out of the blog. No, from the very first episode of Kamen Rider I knew that I would be not only doing a post for this series, but for all of the ones that follow. (I’ve said from the beginning that I would never run out of content for this blog… I had no idea just how expansive my plans would get, however.) And now here I am, four months later, after taking 20 pages of notes and about 100 screenshots to put this groundbreaking series into blog form.

So, yeah, all of that is to say that apparently it’s the year of Toku here at the SoraRabbit Hole. I need to get back to a couple more series before hitting Ultraseven, but my intention is to do a post for that before 2024 is over. (And possibly Ultraman Kids and Gridman. We’ll see.)

The mid-episode bumper. (Credit: Toei Company)

Kamen Rider was created by manga artist Shotaro Ishinomori. It aired from 1971 to 1973 on Japanese broadcast television and ran for 98 episodes. There were also three theatrical films, two of which were original content. (The third was an adaptation of an episode, which was the style at the time.) This original series, as was the case with Gorenger, was the longest series in the franchise. This series was a commercial success, selling toys, snacks, and accessories— including bikes and the transformation belt used by the main characters. Kamen is the Japanese word for “mask” and Rider refers to him being a motorcyclist.

As I typically do in these posts, I’ll run down the characters and concepts, go over the plot and typical stories, and then give my thoughts at the end. This won’t be an episode by episode breakdown (because that would take forever and wouldn’t be interesting), but I’ll cover significant developments to the plot.

Characters

Takeshi Hongo: This is Kamen Rider 1 and our main protagonist. He’s a combination motorcycle racer and scientist (no seriously) and was said to have an IQ of 600. (Which may have been a mistranslation— I’m still not good with Japanese numbers. Anyway, the highest known IQ in real life is 276.) After a run-in with the evil organization Shocker, he’s turned into a powerful cyborg. They didn’t finish on him before he was freed, so he wasn’t yet conditioned to follow their orders. After his escape, he works with his mentor and friends to foil Shocker’s plans at every opportunity.

…wait did I say “Kamen Rider 1” earlier?

A show this great needs two main heroes. (Credit: Toei Company)

Hayato Ichimonji: Kamen Rider 2! That’s right, there were two Kamen Riders, for reasons I will get into later. While his story was sort of “yadda yadda’d”, Ichimonji is a photographer who was also captured by Shocker with the intention of reproducing their Kamen Rider experiment. He was rescued by Hongo who left the country to fight Shocker in Europe, leaving the protection of Japan to the new Rider. Ichimonji is an expert in judo and karate. While at first silly and stand-offish, Ichimonji proves to be a loyal friend and warrior in the fight against Shocker.

Why is he on a crucifix? Keep reading, I’ll get to it! (Credit: Toei Company)

Tobei Tachibana: This is Hongo’s racing trainer and overall the “dad” of the group. At the start of the series he runs a snack shop, then a racing club, and finally a secret group of child spies. (Y’all, this show goes to some wild places.) He often smokes a pipe and complains about the rowdy kids around him. Everyone refers to him as “boss”, “pops”, “chairman” or “old man”. (Note that when the subtitles say “boss” they’re actually saying “masuta” which is Japanese for “master”. I’m unsure if they mean it as a term of respect or jokingly.) He doesn’t fight much and is kidnapped a lot, but he’s one of my favorite characters. Mostly because he’s played by the same guy who was Captain Toshio Muramatsu in Ultraman. (Cappu!) His character of Tachibana recurs in later Kamen Rider series.

Kazuya Taki: An FBI agent who joins the fight against Shocker early in the series. His job is actually to investigate Shocker for the FBI, although the general public has no idea there’s even a terrorist organization operating on Japanese soil. He often fights alongside the Kamen Riders, although he is never turned into a cyborg himself. (He usually fights the grunts.) In his introduction he had just gotten married, but his wife was never again shown or referenced. He could be considered the third lead of the show with all the screen time he gets.

Is there a second meaning to this? (Credit: Toei Company)

Ruriko Midorikawa: She was an ally of Hongo, although she originally blamed Kamen Rider for her father’s death. She was originally angled as an ally/romantic interest to Hongo but really didn’t have much impact on the show. (So much so that I didn’t bother to get a screenshot of her.) She was written off the show after Episode 13, I’m not sure why but I suspect it was so they could bring on a rotating cast of other girls. Speaking of which…

The Rider Girls: After Tachibana opens his Racing Club, the first applicants are giggly young women who want to learn how to ride. They don’t ever get around to learning any cycling skills, but they do get entrenched in the battle against Shocker and get kidnapped a lot. Over the course of the series there were eight different Rider Girls, and I won’t talk about them much in here. While they were amusing and served as good instigators to move the plot forward, they didn’t really do much or have clear personalities. (Don’t get me wrong, they did have some personality traits. One liked to eat, one was big on dancing, another liked to train kids in martial arts. But overall I couldn’t remember which was which or their names.) One cool thing of note, one of the Girls, (the actor who played Choko) later went on to become a successful wrestler in real life.

Goro Ishikura: A kid who hung around the Tachibana Racing Club. Just like the young boy characters in Ultraman and Gorenger, Goro gave young audience members a proxy into the show and helped them imagine themselves as part of the adventure. Apparently he was the little brother of original Rider Girl Yuri, but I don’t recall them mentioning that. As far as I was concerned, he just showed up one day and never left. (He outlasted his sister in the cast!) Well, I guess he did eventually leave. After a whopping 51 episodes, Goro silently vanished forever, never to be mentioned again. I assume Shocker had something to do with it.

Kamen Rider Kids Corps: By the end of the series the gang decided their best option against Shocker would be to recruit a large group of young children and put them in harms way. Kidding… mostly. The Rider Kids Corps were a nationwide club of kids who would keep in touch with the Tachibana Racing Club using carrier pigeons whenever they saw Shocker activity. This, as could be expected, did not always go well, and the kid’s badges might as well have had targets on them.

Beware of Shocker! (Credit: Toei Company)

Shocker: This is the evil terrorist organization that serves as the antagonists for the Kamen Rider and his friends. If you’ve ever seen one of these shows, you already know these guys: they’re Cobra on G.I.Joe, the Black Cross Army on Gorenger, the Juralians on Chargeman Ken… on and on. They want to rule the world, horde scientific discoveries, sow chaos, hurt people— all that naughty stuff. Throughout the series the identity of the Shocker Leader is a well-guarded secret. He talks to the Commanders through the relief of an Eagle on the wall.

Shocker Combatants: These are the grunt soldiers of the series. They go through several iterations. At first they dress like team rocket: black outfits and berets. Later they get luchador masks, then bone-themed shirts, then fancy purple and yellow costumes. Some of the Combatants are made up of volunteers, but the majority are mind-controlled prisoners. When they’re too weak or no longer useful, they are used for human testing— experimental poisons, gases, etc. The best among them are enhanced into cyborgs. They usually make high-pitched noises and are easy to defeat. Even Tachibana and the Rider Girls were occasionally able to handle them. They often fight with swords. (Note that in this post I call them Combatants, since that’s what my subtitles showed. The wiki refers to them as Combatmen.)

The Kaijin are great. (Credit: Toei Company)

Shocker Kaijin: These are the “monster of the week” enemies. Kaijin is a word that roughly means “humanoid monster” and applies to the cyborgs of Shocker. The Kaijin are usually animal themed (near the end of the series they were combining animals) and are made up of the best of the Combatants. Sometimes Shocker would capture acquaintances of the good guys or just random citizens and turn them into cyborgs against their wills. Many of the Kaijin have the ability to appear human. Kaijin explode when defeated, but Shocker has a method to bring them back to life. (Which they do often.)

One of the things I appreciated when compared to Gorenger was the appearance of female villains. Gorenger only had one female opponent in 84 episodes. (If you only count the Masked Beasts. There were also some female terrorists and an assassin.) Kamen Rider had more, starting in Episode 8 with the Wasp Woman. And prior to that there were several female henchpeople. (Side note, the title of the episode calls her Wasp Woman but both translations I’ve seen refer to her as Bee Woman. She does look more like a bee.)

Shocker Commanders: Just as in Gorenger, there is a series of Commanders that serve as the boss enemies. Since the big boss is shrouded in mystery, the Commanders put a face onto the threat. I’ll discuss them later in the post.

Kamen Rider: Now let’s talk about Kamen Rider himself. Everything here goes for both Hongo and Ichimonji. As Kamen Riders they are identical, although Ichimonji’s suit is a lighter shade of green. The suit goes through some changes as the series goes on. The eyes get smaller, he starts wearing silver gloves (Ichimonji’s are red) and there are just slight tweaks to the design here and there. Kamen Rider’s overall design is based on a grasshopper (which is why he jumps so much) and his helmet is clearly a modified motorcycle helmet. The black marks under the helmet’s eyes are where the suit actor sees through. (Once I noticed this it became very distracting.)

Kamen Rider’s transformation method changed throughout the series. In the beginning he had to move quickly, so he would transform while riding his bike. His belt has a turbine in it that needs to spin to power him. When trapped in a pit he learned he could jump straight up in the air to change, so that became his method from then on. He would perform an arm movement while saying the words “Rider… HENSHIN!”, reveal his belt, and leap up into the air. (“Henshin” is the word for transformation.)

The turbine is both the source of his power and his weakness. It spins to generate wind power, but he can only store so much at one time. It rarely runs out, however, so it’s not like the Power Timer in Ultraman. A big downside is that if he has no room to move, he can’t spin the turbines and so cannot transform. Near the end of the series Shocker realized they could freeze the turbine, preventing his transformation.

As a grasshopper-themed superhero, Kamen Rider can jump high. In one episode it was stated he can jump 15 meters. (Which is roughly 49 feet.) He has super hearing, being able to hear up to 4 km. (Around 2.5 miles.) He can recover ten times faster than a normal human. His main super powers, however, are his strength and fighting prowess.

The speed lines are a nice touch. (Credit: Toei Company)

The Cyclone: This is Kamen Rider’s high-tech motorcycle. It is radio-controlled, so can return back to base even without its driver. Later in the series little wings are installed that allow it to fly for short distances. The Cyclone transforms with him, which is not something that’s explained. I assume Tachibana modified it, as he’s sometimes shown working on it. Although half his name is Rider, the Cyclone did not play as major a role in the series as I expected.

There are few problems you can’t solve with a Rider Kick. (Credit: Toei Company)

Rider Kick: Kamen Rider’s usual finishing move. There are some variations to this, like the Rider Double Kick, the Lightning Rider Kick, the Cyclone Kick, and more.

Along with this, Kamen Rider has many other moves that he uses here and there, like the Rider Punch, Rider Throw, the Rider Wheel, the Rider Headcrusher, and others. He also has the ability to release all his turbine energy in a massive electrical shock, but they only showed him doing this once.

Much of the drama in the beginning of the series comes from Hongo’s tortured existence as a cyborg. He struggles with the changes to his body and his perceived loss of humanity. He has trouble controlling his own strength, seeing his power as a danger to others. (X-Men fans may recognize this as the Cyclops Neurosis.) He blames Shocker for his plight while using it against them like any hero would.

While Tachibana and Taki know he’s Kamen Rider, he does keep his identity secret from the others. (This usually involves having someone take the others to safety before he transforms.) In the beginning of the series, many of Shocker’s plans involved trying to capture Kamen Rider to complete the procedure and bring him under their control. They appear to abandon this after a time in favor of just destroying him. I figure this is because they realized they could reproduce the procedure whenever they wanted.

Batman. No, not ***that*** Batman. (Credit: Toei Company)

As the show goes on, much of the stakes involve innocent people falling victim to Shocker, and their grand plans to destroy Japan and conquer the world. There is always a new Kaijin to fight, sometimes multiple, if old cyborgs have been revived. It’s explained in one episode that Shocker is able to revive cyborgs using a magical ritual and the blood of innocent captives.

Some of the Shocker plots include creating a massive tsunami, kidnapping people to test poisons on, paralyzing people with mushroom spores, poisoning a water supply or even an entire city, splitting Japan in two, stealing diamond mines, blinding people, and other dastardly plans.

Several stories involve scientists coming up with breakthroughs that Shocker wants to steal and misuse: an explosive that can melt any metal, a formula to revive the dead, things like that. It was an easy story plot to pull out and execute, but the thing that bugged me about it was once the cyborg of the week was defeated, Shocker seemed to forget all about the breakthrough they’d wanted so badly.

I love the dummies. Seriously. (Credit: Toei Company)

One of my favorite aspects of the show that bears mention is the use of practical effects. Any time someone falls from a great height, they’re replaced by a very obvious and ridiculous-looking dummy. At times they use models or action figures. It adds a fun aspect of camp to the show and really makes the show better. It never takes me out of the show, just makes me enjoy the episode even more. Simply seeing a toy motorcycle with an action figure on it dangling from a wire or a dummy set on fire and dropped into a lake... It always makes me laugh and delights me.

Now we’ll go over some of the stories in the series. The show opens with Hongo being kidnapped by Shocker Kaijin Man-Spider, and turned into a cyborg. The scientist watching over the procedure is Professor Midorikawa who was forced to work for Shocker to ensure his daughter Ruriko’s safety. Regretting this, Midorikawa helps Hongo escape before the brainwashing is completed. Ruriko inadvertently leads Shocker to her father’s hideout and he’s murdered by Man-Spider. Ruriko sees Kamen Rider crouching over her dead father and blames him for the murder.

Ruriko continues to try to find and bring Kamen Rider to justice for a few episodes before being convinced he was attempting to save her father and joining the side of the heroes.

As with much of the superhero media of the time, Hongo must keep his identity a secret. In the beginning that’s from Ruriko, the friend/romantic interest. The twist is that it’s not to protect her— she’s already in constant danger from Shocker— it’s because he’s ashamed that he’s a cyborg.

And while Tachibani and Taki obviously know his identity, it’s never made completely clear how much the Rider Girls or the kids know. He only ever transforms when out of their eyeshot, waiting for any hostages to be taken away first. They seem to think Hongo contacts Kamen Rider or something, but he’s always right there investigating and getting up in Shocker’s business. They’d have to be pretty clueless to not put the pieces together and realize that Hongo is always gone when Kamen Rider is kicking ass.

His motives for continuing to keep his secret after he comes to terms with his cyborg status are not explained. I think it was just engrained in writers of the time that super heroes needed to have a secret identity. (Heck, even Thor had one back in the 60s.)

This looks like my kind of party. (Credit: Toei Company)

From here the show falls into a comfortable pattern for a bit. A Kaijin attacks, a Shocker plot is uncovered, and Kamen Rider fights to stop it. One thing of note is the introduction in Episode 11 of Kazuya Taki. In this episode, all the best traits of the previous cyborgs were combined into a new Kaijin called Gebacondor. A friend and fellow motorcycle racer, Taki, is getting married before a championship race. Shocker had secretly taken over the church to feed Gebacondor the blood of the brides, and Taki’s fiancée was targeted. After Tachibana and Ruriko went undercover, posing as an engaged couple, Kamen Rider was able to defeat the new Kaijin and prevent anymore bride attacks. (But not before a young boy and his pet dog were traumatized by witnessing an attack. Oh well.)

This episode is notable for another reason aside from Taki’s introduction. See, at this point and for the following two episodes, Hongo was presented in archival footage only and mostly shown in the Kamen Rider suit. This is because during the filming of one of these episodes, Hongo’s actor, Hiroshi Fujioka, who had been doing his own stunts, got into an accident and severely fractured his leg. He was forced into bed rest and there were talks of possibly killing off his character. They decided against this, wanting child fans to believe Kamen Rider was an indestructible hero, so they came up with the idea of Kamen Rider 2. More on that later. The end result of the accident was that Hiroshi no longer performed in suit during the series. It also normalized the use of suit actors in tokusatsu due to risky stunts being involved.

I didn’t notice until Episode 13 that Hongo was always shown in the suit or from a distance, but on Episode 13 it became pretty obvious. He would always show up in costume and in one scene he was racing against Ruriko but was only shown from a distance. He was also strangely quiet while transformed for those episodes. They did a pretty good job of hiding his absence if I didn’t notice at first… usually I notice things like that. (Doctor Who and Power Rangers are shows that come to mind which handled actor absences with much less skill.)

Not all the Kaijin had winning designs. (Credit: Toei Company)

Episode 13 is where the stakes are raised for the first time. In this episode, Shocker brought back all 10 previous Kaijin, along with a new one called Lizardlon, who was created from an asshole soccer player. So, in all, Kamen Rider had to battle 11 Kaijin in one episode. (There were only 11 because Shinigami Chameleon and Cobraman both had two previous episodes each.)

Lizardlon is notable for being the first Kaijin to defeat Kamen Rider, at least temporarily. His Lizard Kick proved greater than Rider’s high jump. Rider had to train to come up with a new move. Tachibana helped by dropping boulders on him. Working to smash the boulders helped him to double the power of his Rider Kick. After his training, Kamen Rider tore through all the resurrected cyborgs and defeated Lizardlon.

This episode also revealed Taki was secretly an undercover FBI agent sent to investigate the activities of Shocker in Japan. Interestingly enough, Shocker was somehow able to remain hidden from the majority of the public (despite their many attacks) but had caught the attention of the FBI.

Ichimonji is a goof. (Credit: Toei Company)

Episode 14 marked many huge changes for the show. First off there were changes to the opening and closing sequences. In the episode itself, Tachibana closes his snack shop and opens a motorcycle club. Three girls join, much to his annoyance: Yuri, Mari, and Michi. Along with them was Yuri’s little brother Goro. A new Shocker Kaijin arrived from Mexico named Sabotegron, who was cactus-themed. He brought with him new Shocker Combatants with luchador-themed masks that became the standard look for most of the series afterwards. Gone forever were the Team Rocket berets and heavy black eye makeup.

The most jarring change came in the main cast. Between episodes, Hongo and Ruriko left to fight Shocker in Europe. (Ruriko was actually silently written off the show and would never be mentioned again. I assume something tragic happened to her immediately and Hongo just never wanted to talk about it.) This, of course, left Japan with no defense, so Hongo appointed photographer Hayato Ichimonji as the new Kamen Rider. Ichimonji was rescued (unseen) by Hongo and is also a cyborg who had been experimented on by Shocker. Ichimonji was transformed to go after Kamen Rider for Shocker, but just as with Hongo, the experiment was not completed before his rescue.

Ichimonji is much more flippant and cheerful than his predecessor. Also, although plagued by nightmares, he’s much more okay with being a cyborg than Hongo was. Also, and this may just be my headcanon, but he appears to be either gay or ace, as he repeatedly shows no interest in the girls of the Racing Club and continually rebukes their advances. One of the first things he says, when asked to photograph one of the girls is “I don’t do women.” I could be reading too much into it, but you kind of had to go by subtext in those days. Of course, it could just be because the main audience was young boys so tokusatsu creators typically avoided romance in those days. Regardless of his alignment, Ichimonji smiles and jokes much more than Hongo and has an older brother protective vibe with any children he encounters.

A great moment in television history. (Credit: Toei Company)

Episode 16 seemed to be a bit of experimentation in the writing. This episode introduced two named Shocker agents: Maya and Hurricane Joe. I feel like their introduction made them decide to have recurring villains in the form of the Shocker Commanders. Sadly Maya and Hurricane Joe only lasted two episodes before vanishing forever.

In this story, Shocker kidnaps a popular wrestler and make him into the Kaijin Pirazaurus against his will, wiping his memories. His little brother is heartbroken when his beloved brother starts acting mean to him, lifts him up and hurls him into the sky. (Don’t worry, Kamen Rider catches him in time. But not before we get one of the best dummy performances of the series.) The second episode of this two-parter contains the sequence which was hands-down my favorite moment in the entire series. Rushing to the wrestling match to battle Pirazaurus, Ichimonji faces insurmountable traffic. So instead of battling his way through it, he somehow drives up the side of the building and jumps across. It’s fantastic and I’ve included screenshots of it later in the post.

Anyway, during the fight, Hurricane Joe was defeated and I’m assuming he was later executed for his failure. Maya, however, had her gas mask removed by Mari and died in the poisonous gas emitted by Pirazaurus. (Soooo Mari killed someone in cold blood and this was never mentioned or impacted her character in any way? Gotcha.) Also at the end, instead of exploding, Pirazaurus changed back into his human form so he could continue his life with his little brother. But he still has cyborg parts and conditioning, right? Don’t worry about it, they never get back to this. And he’s not the only reformed cyborg kicking around Japan by the time the series ends, either.

This guy was pretty forgettable. (Credit: Toei Company)

And now we’ll talk about the Shocker Commanders. In Episode 26 Colonel Zol is brought in to run the Japan branch of Shocker. He sports an eyepatch and a military uniform and everyone’s scared of him. He’s also a master of disguise and his first act is to frame Taki for murder by stealing his appearance. He’s eventually revealed to be a cyborg wolf-man. Zol only lasted 14 episodes before being replaced.

He’s a Dracula. You can’t convince me otherwise. (Credit: Toei Company)

Dr. Shinigami was the second Shocker Commander. Also known as Doctor Death (in my subtitles) and the more literal translation of Doctor Grim Reaper. He was a spooky pale dude in a fancy cape. Essentially he’s a Dracula. While threatening and a very strategic enemy, he’s also a bit frail and often shown sitting down in a wheelchair. He came from the Switzerland branch and is an expert at designing cyborgs. He has the power to hypnotize and teleport. He was also a former Nazi scientist because of course Shocker hired Nazis. In the rare times when he had to battle, he used an enormous scythe as a weapon. In his last appearance, he transformed himself into the Kaijin Ika Devil who had tentacle arms. He was defeated after 16 episodes.

Next up was Jigoku Taishi, Ambassador Hell. He was shipped in from the Shocker Southeast Asia branch and was the longest-running Commander. He had a fantastic armor based on the Egyptian scarab beetle. He used a whip to fight and at the end of his run transformed into the Kaijin Garagaranda who had snake arms that mimic his preferred whip. He lasted for 25 episodes.

There is one more Commander, but I’ll mention him later.

Of course you are sweetie. (Credit: Toei Company)

The identity of the Shocker Leader was a mystery for the entirety of the series. As mentioned, he generally gave orders from a relief of an eagle on the wall. The show teased us with him a few times: in Episode 34 we get glimpses of a masked man in the shadows in the memories of a witness. In Episode 67 there is a summit where they believe they will finally see the Shocker Leader, but of course it turns out to be a trap. The Shocker Leader’s identity is the subject of one of the last (and best) story arcs.

In Episode 39, Colonel Zol transforms into Wolf-Man and then is defeated. He’s replaced in Episode 40 by Doctor Death. This episode is also notable in finally bringing back Hongo!

After his one episode appearance, Hongo returns to Europe, but he comes back when the mission is dire enough to require two Riders.

And now we come to first movie! (Of course I tracked down the movies too!) Technically this is the second movie, but the first one was a theatrical version of Episode 13, and this is original content and part of the show’s canon. Unlike the Gorengers movie, which was episode-length, the two original Kamen Rider movies were slightly longer. (32 and 36 minutes, respectively, compared to the 25 minute long episodes.) They were both much like regular episodes, but with better film quality and presented in widescreen format.

In the first movie, Kamen Rider vs. Shocker, Shocker steals research from a scientist that would allow them to alter the Earth’s axis. The new Kaijin for this one was Flyman, which is exactly what he sounds like. But that’s not enough for a movie! Shocker also revived so many old Kaijin that Hongo had to visit from Europe to help fight them all.

I wonder if this was a trap. (Credit: Toei Company)

Between the two of them, they take out the Kaijin horde and save the scientist’s daughter, stopping Shocker’s evil plans. All in all there were 39 cyborgs in this movie, including the new one. It was pretty impressive and there was lots of action, even though all the Kaijin didn’t battle. (Many of them just ran away, never to be seen again.)

One change that the movie lent to the main series is that the Shocker Combatants suits were redesigned to have a ribcage design on the front.

This is actually something they seem to forget a lot. (Credit: Toei Company)

Episode 52 constituted another turning point. Again the two Riders teamed up, this time to stop the newest Kaijin, Gillcrow, from releasing the awesomely-named “Deadman Gas”. This gas causes all humans to go crazy and kill each other, while all cyborgs would be paralyzed. While Ichimonji stops Gillcrow, Hongo battles Doctor Death. The Doctor gets away and the two Riders stop Gillcrow with a Rider Double Kick. Seems like a pretty standard episode aside from the team-up… however, at the end of the episode with no setup whatsoever, Ichimonji leaves to fight Shocker’s South American branch, leaving Japan in Hongo’s hands.

Also, in the next episode with no explanation, Doctor Death was replaced by his successor, Ambassador Hell. According to the wiki, Doctor Death left to work in South America, which is why Ichimonji followed him. This was not clear in the translation I watched. (Maybe I’ll watch it again when I get better at understanding Japanese.)

Ambassador Hell is such a weird villain. (Credit: Toei Company)

Doctor Death returns to help a couple of times before being defeated. This worries Ambassador Hell, who thinks the boss doesn’t believe in his ability to handle Kamen Rider. This is where we see Hell’s greatest shortcoming is his arrogance. He thinks he knows best and neglects the finer details of his plans, letting his pride get in his way.

Doctor Death finally reveals himself as the Kaijin Squidevil, a seemingly invincible cyborg that traumatizes Hongo before Tachibani (who had been captured to train Shocker Combatants) learned his weak spot was his head.

One episode that amused me involved Shocker’s plan to lure a bunch of kids onto a bus by saying they could catch rhino beetles with Kamen Rider. All the kids were immediately “Hell yeah! Beetles? Kamen Rider? Abduct us please stranger!“

One interesting thing is that after his reappearance, Hongo seemed to have come to terms with being a cyborg. Gone was his constant angst and he smiled more often, even cracking jokes here and there. Mostly, however, he was the stoic silent hero who never gave up no matter what.

Hey, I know these guys. (Credit: Toei Company)

As mentioned, cyborgs can be revived. In one episode we get to see the Shocker Graveyard, where the defeated cyborgs are kept. At first they made it sound like the revival of the Kaijin was a scientific process, but no, it’s magic. For each human sacrifice they make at the Devil Festival, they can revive five Kaijin. Yikes.

This happens a lot in this show. Way more than you think. (Credit: Toei Company)

The second original movie was called Kamen Rider vs. Jigoku Taishi (Ambassador Hell). This one fell between Episodes 68 and 69. After almost getting blown up during a motorcycle race, Hongo and Taki disguise themselves as Shocker Combatants and steal a helicopter in order to find Ambassador Hell’s base. And that was one of the coolest sentences I’ve written. They fight their way through a series of traps and battles, learning that Hell has set up a new stronghold at Mt Fuji with a lightning machine that can unleash destruction on Japan. This machine is called the Super Destructive Light Beam Device. (Evil or not, you’ve got to admit, Shocker knows how to name things.)

Boom goes the secret base. (Credit: Toei Company)

The new Kaijin, Longhorn Kid, leads a group of 17 revived cyborgs. Kamen Rider attacks, managing to destroy the stronghold and the fancy death ray just in time to save Tokyo. Ambassador Hell, of course, escaped.

I thought this one was just as epic as the first movie and a bit less over-stuffed. There was a cool battle against the Longhorn Kid, but it was a little disappointing he didn’t get to directly fight Ambassador Hell. Since his name was in the title, I expected this to be his final battle against Hell.

After the movie it was business as usual. Around Episode 69, Goro disappeared and was replaced by a new kid named Naoki. In one episode Kamen Rider took off his jaunty red scarf and used it to get out of a shock-absorbing pit trap.

Ichimonji didn’t return until Episode 72, when he popped up to help fight a few Kaijin in a series of episodes filmed in location around Japan. And in one of these our old pal Daita Oiwa showed up… well, his actor anyway. (For those of you who haven’t been following along, he was my favorite character in Gorenger, the curry-obsessed Kiranger.) Here, he had a single line and was drained of all his blood. Poor guy. It was nice to see him, though.

I’d totally wear this medal. (Credit: Toei Company)

On Episode 74, the Kamen Rider Kids Corps was formed. Yup, this is where they enlisted kids to fight terrorists. The kids would send out carrier pigeons with their observations to call the good guys into action. That’s right, our heroes have conscripted a network of child informants!

Seriously, though, the organization is a seemingly-endless group of kids who watch for suspicious behavior and report it to headquarters. Like the nerdy ham radio teens in the early Avengers comics. (Now there’s a deep cut!) Really it was just an easy way to put more kids into the show, likely to boost ratings with the younger demographic. Having kids in danger was gold for tokusatsu shows and movies. (It was the basis for the Gamera films!)

In a shocking coincidence, the very day Hongo and company decided to recruit children to help fight Shocker, Ambassador Hell decided he needed a large supply of children’s blood. Oops. The next episode Shocker uses the Kids Corps to lure Taki into a trap. And soon after Shocker brainwashed their own evil Kids Corps. Who could have imagined that forming a child army would go so wrong so quickly?

After the founding of the Kamen Rider Kids Corps, the show pivoted yet again. The Racing Club was no more, instead being converted into the headquarters for the Corps, where all the carrier pigeon messages were intercepted and decoded. The Rider Girls took to wearing color-coded shirts and later dress jackets.

Hell is in trouble now. (Credit: Toei Company)

Episode 78 was the start of an arc that led to more massive changes for the show. A mysterious Kaijin appeared who Ambassador Hell knew nothing about. The new Kaijin tipped Hongo off to Shocker threats. Hell started to wonder about being left out of the Leader’s plans and worries about his place in the organization. Both the Leader and Hongo suspect Hell of being the informant and Hongo is invited to the Ambassador’s trial. Well, they call it a trial but really they just get right to the execution without wasting time on due process. Hongo rescued Hell and brought him back to their base. Hell explained that he betrayed Shocker because the Leader created a new cyborg he knew nothing about— Crabbat. Hell promises to work with them to bring down the Leader, but then, shock! He quickly betrays them.

This isn’t actually Garagaranda… I forgot to get a screenshot of him. (Credit: Toei Company)

Hell reveals he was actually Garagaranda, who tried to poison the reservoir in the previous episode. (Rattlander in my translation.) This wasn’t actually a shock since Garagaranda had a snake head and snake arm that mirrored Hell’s preferred weapon of a whip. Kamen Rider defeats him, but Hell promises to return from the dead for revenge just before exploding. (He doesn’t do that in this series, but I did find out the character returns in later Kamen Riders.) The Shocker Leader announces that he’s disbanding the Japan branch of Shocker and forming a more fearsome organization. We see his Eagle relief explode. As Kamen Rider and Taki walk away, Crabbat rises from the ground.

I do like the new costumes. (Credit: Toei Company)

And this brings us to the creation of Gel Shocker. (Pronounced more like “gell” than “jell”.) Another criminal organization Geldam has merged with Shocker to create Gel Shocker. All the Combatants get fancy new blue, red, and yellow costumes. Some of them abandon their usual swords to battle with double-headed mace-staffs. Their symbol changed from a simple eagle to an eagle with a snake wrapped around it.

The last of the Commanders. (Credit: Toei Company)

General Black was the Commander during the Gel Shocker era. He came from the Africa division of Geldam and became the Commander during the merger. He was a cruel and effective tactician. An interesting thing I noticed about him is that they used the English word for “black” for his name, not the Japanese word “Kuroi”. He lasted 19 episodes.

Tachibana is great. (Credit: Toei Company)

Crabbat goes around and kills the subpar Combatants and all the old bases explode. The new Combatants are highly-trained and forced to take a drug every three hours. If they don’t, they explode. During the final battle with Crabbat, Kamen Rider seemingly dies.

In the next episode everyone cries a lot, and seems to forget they have another Kamen Rider. It turn out that Hongo faked his death to take Gel Shocker by surprise and give himself time to recover.

After Kamen Rider seemingly exploded at the end of Episode 91, fighting Centigerpede (which, again, is exactly what it sounds like), Episode 92 premieres an evil, fake Kamen Rider with a yellow scarf. This Shocker Rider is sent to stop a newly-revealed resistance group called the Anti-Shocker Alliance, who have discovered the identity of the Gel Shocker Leader.

At first the Shocker Rider pretends to be Hongo to trick his friends and try and confiscate the information. But before he can succeed, Hongo reappears. Hongo is nearly defeated by the evil imposter, and the Shocker Rider tricks the heroes again. But just in time Ichimonji arrives, instantly calling out the villain as a fraud. (It was actually pretty funny… moments after arriving Ichimonji asks where he got the yellow scarf and immediately realizes he’s not Hongo.)

That’s a lot of Riders. (Credit: Toei Company)

Things get worse when a second Shocker Rider attacks the Kamen Rider Kids Corps HQ. Soon they realize there are six of them in all, each with a different colored scarf. So here we are, two good Kamen Riders against a squad of Combatants and six evil Riders, with a truck full of hostages and a tape filled with vital information as the stakes.

I love their colorful scarves. (Credit: Toei Company)

Throughout these three episodes, the plot follows an encrypted tape with the information on the Gel Shocker leader. There are many twists and turns, with the tape changing hands, being replaced with fakes, being encoded with killer soundwaves, and ultimately turning out to be a trap. In the process of all this, they fight some new Kaijin, the members of the Anti-Shocker Alliance are killed, and Tachibani comes up with a new move. He trains the Double Riders to run in a circle really fast to create a hurricane which lifts the Shocker Riders up into the air where they crash together and explode.

At the end of it all, the heroes have lost their new allies and the identity of the Gel Shocker Leader. But they have destroyed the Shocker Riders, dealt another blow to Gel Shocker’s plans, and survived the ordeal.

I loved this three-part arc. These episodes were among my favorites of the entire series. They kept upping the stakes, dangling the promise of revealing the Gel Shocker Leader and finally bringing in evil Riders. Shocker has had that technology all along, and it took them until the end of the series to finally use it to great effect.

I’ve always enjoyed when a show introduces an evil equivalent to the hero. (Thundermask did this quite well— what I was able to watch of it. And I have seen enough of later Ultraman series to know there’s at least one evil Ultra.) There’s just something exciting about an evil version, our hero having to battle a similar or identical powerset… and Kamen Rider took this concept to the extreme by introducing not one, but six evil Riders and even brought in Kamen Rider 2 to help in the battle.

Things look dire. (Credit: Toei Company)

And now we’ve come to the end of our journey. The two-part finale. Gel Shocker has revived several previous syborgs that can suck blood, with the intention of reviving an army of Kaijin for a huge invasion of Japan. (And after that, presumably, the world.) To make things worse, in a battle with the new Kaijin Leechamelon, Hongo is frozen in mid-transformation. He’s unable to help as all of his allies are being drained of their blood. Cliffhanger!

Leechameleon battles the Double Riders. (Credit: Toei Company)

In the final episode, Ichimonji appears in the nick of time to save them all. Leechamelon sets the base to explode and flees. Hongo, able to transform again, works with Ichimonji to defuse the bombs and save their friends. The two Riders team up to take down Gel Shocker once and for all.

The last stand of General Black. (Credit: Toei Company)

General Black calls them to the Hall of Monsters at Pal Pal Amusement Park. Not shockingly, all the exhibits are previous Kaijin. We learn that Leechamelon was actually General Black all along. (This actually took me by surprise, although I really should have realized it. All the previous Commanders had second Kaijin forms and since this was the final episode, they would need to deal with General Black.)

While Taki chases the escaping Kaijin, the Double Riders fight Combatants and Leechamelon in the amusement park. There are really cool (and also entirely unsafe) fight sequences using the rides. The final battle against Leechamelon takes place on a moving roller coaster. General Black finally dies, really hamming it up.

Meanwhile Taki tracks the Kaijin to the main Gel Shocker base, which all along was underneath Lake Hamana in the center of Japan. The Kamen Rider Kids Corps are all taken to the Rider Execution Ground to witness the deaths of the heroes. The Gel Shocker Leader lures the Riders into a trap using Taki’s voice. The Riders fight all the revived cyborgs, becoming weakened and exhausted in the process. Still, they invade the base and at long last confront the Gel Shocker Leader.

Of course he’s a cyborg as well. He appears wearing a red robe and klan-style hood. (Because, I guess, he wasn’t evil enough already?)

Okay, turns out he’s actually a bunch of snakes. (Credit: Toei Company)

They remove the hood to find his face is a mass of snakes. They realize this is actually a mask and rip his face right off, revealing what seems to be his true form.

Eww, I guess this is him? (Credit: Toei Company)

Yeah, his entire head is a bloodshot red eyeball. Seeing he’s in danger of being defeated, the Gel Shocker Leader decides on a suicide bomber plan. He blows up the Gel Shocker relief and is caught in the explosion. The Riders evade the blast and find all that’s left of the Gel Shocker Leader is a green eyeball orb. They try to grab it, but the base explodes.

All their friends watch on, worried that the Kamen Riders have been lost. Soon enough, though, both Riders emerge, escaping the destruction of the base just in time.

At the end, Taki is leaving Japan and says goodbye to his friends and allies. Now that Gel Shocker is no more, his job is over. They decide to keep the Kamen Rider Kids Corps in place just in case they’re needed again.

I thought the ending was really cool, the battle against Leechamelon and the revived Kaijin were great. And we got not one, but three designs for the Gel Shocker Leader. I found their showdown with the Leader very anticlimactic, however. They didn’t actually fight him, just struggled with him until he blew himself up. The appearance of the orb after the first explosion implies that he’s still alive in some form, however. They’d already planned the sequel series at this point, so it makes sense, but they could’ve done more I think. I am glad that Ichimonji came back for the end… it would have felt really incomplete without both Kamen Riders being there for the final battles.

And now before I sum up, as I did with Gorenger, I’m going to leave you with a montage. But not just one montage… three! First, here are some of what I thought were the best designed Kaijin.

Hooray for the Kaijin!

And next, some of the insane crucifixions.

As mentioned, there were a lot of them in the series. I counted 27 crucifixions over 15 scenes. So far I’ve seen crucifixions on various Super Sentai programs, Supaidaman, and in this show. It must have been a very common way for Japanese villains to dispatch their enemies.

And, finally, the unsung heroes of Kamen Rider, the ones who did all the dirty work that even the suit actors and stunt people couldn’t do… the dummies!

I think we can all agree that the dummies were the real stars of the show.

Your banter needs some work, Rider. (Credit: Toei Company)

So that was Kamen Rider! I know that was a lot of content to get through, but believe it or not, I abbreviated it quite a bit! Some of my episode summaries were exceedingly lengthy, so I cut them way down to keep things moving, skipping many episodes entirely. I also scrapped a bunch of screenshots. Tokusatsu posts are generally screenshot heavy, as there are always so many great moments I want to share with you all. It was hard to decide which to keep and which to cut.

As for my thoughts on the series itself, I really enjoyed it, even more than I expected to. The overall concept, the design of the Kamen Riders, the creative Kaijin, and the campy Commanders… everything gelled together to create a highly entertaining show that stands out from the other entries into the genre. While there were flaws in the writing and directing, overall I think it worked for what it was. It kept me watching episode to episode, looking forward to seeing what the next twist would be and how it would all turn out.

Casting-wise, I appreciated the choices. Hongo played the role very seriously and wooden. But later on he seemed to have more fun with it and smiled occasionally. Tachibana, as mentioned, was a welcome addition to the cast for me, as I was familiar with him from Ultraman. (He even had his trademark pipe in this!) He’s well-suited to these types of fantasy shows as he brings a steadfast, stoic approach to the adventures, and yet is not afraid to play the comic relief when needed. I did like some of the Rider Girls, but they rotated so frequently and had so little to do that it wasn’t easy to get attached to them.

The performance that really impressed me was that of Ichimonji Hayato. At first he was standoffish and unserious, a bit of a clown. But as his experience grew, he started taking things more seriously until he fell into the role of being the familiar face that swooped in to save the day just in time. So I really don’t have a favorite Rider… I liked Hongo’s later performance after he started acting more human and smiling more. He had a heroic presence that worked well for his character. But Ichimonji was more entertaining in general. They both brought their own personalities to the show and it was better for having them both.

I’m gonna post these around my neighborhood. (Credit: Toei Company)

At times, this was a very artsy show. It utilized interesting camera angles, dramatic use of lighting and symbolism. Some of the direction was creative and unexpected. (Especially on the episodes that took a horror slant.) The music was catchy and fit well with the feel of the show.

Of course, for all the artistic experimentation, there were times the cinematography was not so good. Terrible blocking in some scenes made it hard to get good screenshots. (I had this problem in Ultraman as well.) I assume it’s the time constraints of a weekly show.

There was a lot more variety to the stories than there was in Gorenger. While formulaic (new Kajin appears, battle it, foil Shocker’s plot, rematch with Kaijin) there was so much more to the show than I expected. It didn’t fall into a routine as much as with other tokusatsu I’ve seen. There were also lots of multi-part episodes, which I appreciated. One thing I noticed about Ultra Q and Ultraman is that some episodes were more rushed and would have benefited from being expanded into two episodes. Kamen Rider’s 2 and 3 part episodes were very enjoyable. The final arc would have been better with a third episode, but somehow they managed to squeeze everything in.

The later mid-episode bumper. (Credit: Toei Company)

As a show, Kamen Rider was constantly changing and evolving. From the moment Hongo left and was replaced by Ichimonji, to the ultimate merging of Shocker into Gel Shocker, the show was continually in flux. Whenever it seemed like they were going through the motions and the show was in danger of becoming stale, something would change— the Riders would swap places or the absent Rider would appear for a mission, a Shocker Commander would be replaced with someone more formidable, one of the Rider Girls or kids would be swapped out with no explanation… this show was filled with small changes like that.

In my research I found that, had the show continued, they planned to add a third Kamen Rider, who would likely have been Taki. Instead, they chose to end the series and make a direct sequel to focus solely on the third Rider. (Spoiler, it’s not Taki.)

Ahaha more like Rider Fallonyourass, amirite? (Credit: Toei Company)

Watching through all these older tokusatsu shows, I’m starting to see the progression of tokusatsu as an art form. Ultra Q and Ultraman set the foundations. Then Kamen Rider advanced it. The shows that came after this one seem to take a lot of inspiration from it without the finer eye for detail. Retroactively, I can see so much of this show in Himitsu Sentai Gorenger. Really, in a lot of the shows that I’ve seen: Gorenger, Supaidaman, Thundermask, even Chargeman Ken… the things I saw in those shows as lazy, sloppy writing, were actually shorthand. Presenting heroes with unexplained powers to us, evil organizations with vague plans for world domination and unclear goals, grunt villains and monsters of the week… even the crucifixions! These all came from Kamen Rider, which was immensely popular and in some ways did the legwork in establishing these things as tropes.

In the years that followed its airing, pop culture advanced to the point where audiences weren’t expecting the level of explanation they were given in Ultraman and Kamen Rider. Just slap a suit on someone, give them undefined powers from an unknown source, fight bad guys with ill-defined plans, and you’ve got eyes on the screen. You can shorthand everything because viewers will fill in the blanks themselves. Don’t get me wrong— I love all those shorthand shows that abbreviated everything Kamen Rider put down. They all have their own charms and redeeming qualities. I just find it fascinating to finally understand the full picture, to see why these shows didn’t feel the need to establish everything in detail. Fans of the genre knew all the tropes and didn’t need more than the shorthand.

Kamen Rider became a huge franchise after this series, spawning yearly iterations, mangas, films, toys, and more. As of the time of this writing, there are 1,599 episodes of Kamen Rider over 33 series. Not included in that total are a number of movies, specials, and crossovers with Super Sentai. Aside from a decade-long break, it’s been running for 52 years. While not quite as recognizable as Ultraman and Super Sentai/Power Rangers, Kamen Rider is an enduring and beloved franchise in its own right that continues to redefine itself and evolve.

Aside from all that, Kamen Rider inspired many creators that came after… one of whom was the legendary Akira Toriyama, who cited Kamen Rider as one of the inspirations for his entertaining manga Doctor Slump. (I’ve been reading through that and it’s so much fun.) In Dragon Ball Z, the Great Saiyaman was inspired by the design and sensibilities of Kamen Rider. (Not to mention all the poses the Ginyu Force insisted on doing.) There have been many references to Kamen Rider in multiple manga, anime, and video games. And I don’t have proof of it, but I’m certain that the original Shocker Combatant designs were the inspiration for the Team Rocket grunt costumes. (All black suits with black beret-like hats.)

This show was a huge commercial success and opened the door for many more tokusatsu to find success. Without Kamen Rider there may never have been Super Sentai and thus Power Rangers. This show, in turn, took inspiration from Ultraman. All the different series are unique, but have related DNA.

Poor kid. We’ve all been there. (Credit: Toei Company)

One of the many shows that took cues from Kamen Rider was Supaidaman, a series I’ve mentioned before. This was a joint venture between Toei and Marvel of America, bringing the character of Spider-Man to Japan. (Sort of.) Supaidaman was obviously inspired mainly by Kamen Rider and followed the same basic premise, even down to the main character being a professional motorcycle racer. But where Kamen Rider would strive for happy endings when possible, Supaidaman went super dark with everything. There were several times when I contrasted the two series as I watched Kamen Rider. If a cyborg was returned to human to be reunited with their family or a hostage was rescued, I acknowledged that Supaidaman would have let the character die and then lingered on the crying loved ones mourning their loss. And then ended the episode with the hero riding off into the distance, filled with angst and regret while the narrator drives home the reality of his never-ending battle. (I’m not exaggerating. Every episode ended with that.)

Kamen Rider did have some depressing plots, but it tends to keep them less dark and provides more happy endings. As a good example, in Episode 4 a little boy’s elder sister was eaten by an evil Plant Man. The boy cried a lot and dwelled on the fact that he was now an orphan. His parents had died years earlier and his only source of love and support was eaten on an outing that was his idea. She didn’t even want to see the plants! That adds an extra layer of guilt to what happened. I seriously believe that if this story had been on Supaidaman they would have left the sister digested by the Plant Man and ended on the funeral with the crying child, our hero driving away on his motorcycle, brooding about the evil that could rip apart families. But Kamen Rider took a novel approach— she was rescued and the little boy didn’t have to starve alone on the street!

I know it sounds like I’m being critical of Supaidaman, but I’m really not. I will be covering that show someday as well. I love it so much and I have a lot to say about it.

This show was full of inadvertently perfect moments like this. (Credit: Toei Company)

Some other depressing plots in Kamen Rider include Shocker beating up a sick little girl. A father is mind-controlled and throws his young daughter to the ground, abandoning her. (She, also, has a dead mother.) Shocker interrupts a wedding to punch out the groom and kill the bride for her blood in front of a little boy and his puppy. A kid’s dog is poisoned and then the kid is kidnapped while mourning and almost gets dissolved by acid. The list could go on and on!

A quick side note, in the episode about the kid’s dog getting poisoned, the dog’s name was Dummy. One translation called the dog “Damii” which, honestly, is probably correct. But I maintain Dummy is the perfect name for a kid’s beloved dead dog. It’s the only time I have ever laughed at a little boy praying at a freshly-dug grave. (Hopefully the first and last time, but you never know what you’ll get with tokusatsu.)

His Rider Sense is tingling. (Credit: Toei Company)

Kamen Rider was a very entertaining journey and one I’m glad I finally got around to taking. The series dealt with serious topics, veered into dark territory, but never lost its optimism and humor. Kamen Rider takes very common themes— the never-ending battle against evil and corruption, humanity contrasted with monstrosity, being heroic in the face of overwhelming forces— and transforms them into something new. It is a story of good versus evil, man against machine, light against dark. It doesn’t shy away from the effects of this war, but it is entertainment above all else, somehow managing to keep things light and reveling in the silliness as much as in the grittiness. Actors in garish costumes, over-the-top fight scenes, wild world-domination schemes, talented dummies, and so much camp. But all levelled out to avoid pushing too far into the direction of the ridiculous. And even when it got silly, the show never lost face. It just owned it, laughed, and moved on to the next adventure. And that, I think, is my favorite part of Kamen Rider, and why the dummies resonated so much with me. This was a show that was not afraid to get campy and never lost its identity over its many transformations and reinventions. Death and despair paired in the same episode with crazy monsters and silly effects. Somehow it all worked.

The best way I can think to sum up this series is with what was, in my opinion, the best scene in the entire series. I talked about it earlier and here are the promised screenshots.

Isn’t that incredible? You don’t need context, it’s just that good. I made it a GIF, but it was too big to embed. If you can locate the scene, watch it and you’ll see what I mean. I will treasure the GIF I made of this. I love this moment so much and it’s what I will think of when I think back fondly on the original series of Kamen Rider.

Thank you all so much for joining me at the start of this new adventure. I really enjoyed watching this series and then breaking it down and analyzing it in this post. I’m very much looking forward to getting to the other series in Kamen Rider (especially Kamen Rider Zero-One. I’ve seen a few episodes of that and it’s fantastic.) Thank you for reading, I appreciate you all, and I will be back soon with more fun!