Kamen Raidâ

Rarely was there ever such a hero as Shoutarou Ishinomori's MASKED RIDER in the tokusatsu field before that time. Manga/anime characters such as Kazumasa Hirai/Jirou Kuwata's EIGHT-MAN (the granddaddy of the genre) and Ishinomori's own CYBORG 009 were similar to MASKED RIDER, but the more popular superheroes in tokusatsu was ULTRAMAN, its sequels (notably ULTRA SEVEN) and imitations. Toei producer Tooru Hirayama, attempted to bring back the Masked Superhero genre, but their drafts were unsuccessful, until Ishinomori published a 100-page one-shot comic-book story called SKULLMAN in early 1971. Though the character of Skullman was more of an antihero than his resulting TV counterpart, the comic was successful enough for Hirayama to request changes from Ishinomori, turning Skullman into a grasshopper variant (a design chosen by his then five-year old son Jou) called "Masked Rider Hopper King," which was shortened to just "Masked Rider," and the rest was history!

The show concerns a runaway cyborg grashopper-man who sets out to avenge the death of his teacher and the loss of his humanity (he is, in reality, scientist/motorcycle racer Takeshi Hongou) by fighting the evil forces of Shocker, the Nazi-like organization that transformed him in the first place (he was meant to be the perfect weapon against society). As the "Masked Rider," Takeshi Hongou rides the super motorcycle Cyclone, and with super-speed and super-strength, performs high-flying rechniques such as the Rider-Jump to reach the top of buildings, or his killing technique, the Rider-Kick!

The show began as dark, serious and violent, but many complications (including star Hiroshi Fujioka temporarily leaving the series due to a stunt-related accident) forced the series to change into the more kid-friendly and somewhat comical series that everyone's more accustomed to. However, it's still a fun, action-packed series with plenty of monsters and henchmen that Masked Rider and Masked Rider 2 (a similar Masked Rider, Hayato Ichimonji, played by Takeshi Sasaki, took over from the fallen Fujioka as star for a time) fight each week!

The series ran for 98 episodes, and would be impossible to do a detailed review here, suffice to say that I thought the less-complicated sequel series MASKED RIDER V3 (1973) was even better than the original! Still, MASKED RIDER was the one that started it all for morphing superheroes (or "henshin" heroes) as we all know, and is the most important show in this genre! I highly reccommend the early episodes, from 1-13, but the rest is still fun and action-packed to watch! HIGHLY RECCOMMENDED!!!

Unfortunately, being a newbie of this franchise I though that starting with its first series ever it would have proven the right choice since usually by doing that I've found a lots of gems people tend to not consider because of their age, in both the comic medium and the anime one. This is not one of those gems, except the first 10/13 episodes that are interesting because they show you how originally the series was intended to be, I. E. akin to the american golden age of comics with lots of blood and dismemberment (something I'm not particularly fond when it's done past that specific period except when it has a meaning behind and it's not just for gore's sake). After that, what you're going to see if you stick until the end (something I don't recommend doing) is a progressively kiddified affair that is really, really and I can't stress enough REALLY repetitive and way more repetitive, boring and hamfisted than a lot of classic 100+ or 200+ episodes repetitive animes I've seen from front to end (fillers and recaps included) without being bored once with nothing particularly engaging if we exclude the occasional campy glimpse (provided you're a sucker of camp like me), the nice eye-candy chicks who start by factually fighting the minions and end being treated like nothing more than props and a couple of interesting episodes, in particular episode 84 which is the way I personally like superheroes to be. Other than that there is nothing here for newcomers, so as a newcomer to this franchise myself I can't recommend this to anyone in my situation. Go down on other series of the franchise before this, not on this one.

The first Kamen Rider series, titled "Kamen Rider" is what every american superhero series should be like. It's dark, it's action packed, it has a gloomy atmosphere. All the Kamen Rider movies and shows are like that, but this series went under fire for the excessive violence. This show is great, Hiroshi Fujioka and the rest of the cast do a great job in this 98-episode saga against Shocker, and Gel-Shocker. The action is great, but gets better as the show progresses. Hiroshi Fujioka did most of his own stunts in and out of costume, but got into a stunt accident early in the show, and left for a while. So they brought in a couple new characters, Special Agent Taki, and the next Kamen Rider, Kamen Rider 2!

I gotta be honest I don't even know where to start on this lol. For the most part this series was exactly what I expected, campy/cheesy fun. I couldn't help but be reminded about the 60s Adam West Batman series and the 70s Lou Ferrigno Hulk series while watching this. It has the same charm that those old comic hero shows had. The action, the villains and the plots all have a campy charm to it. I had a blast laughing at how silly some of the villainous schemes were, though I'll admit some of them were surprisingly dark plots.

I really liked that Hongo Takeshi is a calm, tough, intimidating looking guy and at the same time was arguably the most intelligent character in the show. He practically solved about 80% of the issues he faced by himself. Hayato Ichimonji was more of a hothead with a more playful demeanor than Hongo and he took a more simpler approach to things, he wasn't as smart as Hongo but I actually liked that since it ended up with Hayato receiving help from the side characters a lot of the time. Their suits look great in my opinion, I love how alien-like their helmets are (really gives off a great reminder that they were supposed to be Shocker cyborgs), I like how the material of it looks like leather just like what a stereotypical tough biker would be wearing.

While I found some villains bland, a couple of them always had me laughing with how over the top they were, their hammy acting made them very entertaining. As much as I tried I couldn't take the enemy mooks and some monsters seriously thanks to the ridiculous sound that they all make, what the hell is that sound even supposed to be? Lmao.

The show is definitely outdated but that contributes to the fun charm that it retains to this day. It is also very episodic with practically no sub plots going around, it got quite repetitive at some points and left me wondering how many enemy bases ended up being found and destroyed in every episode. Some might dislike the fact that the fights in this series aren't as complex and fast as the ones you see in modern day Tokusatsu shows but I wasn't really bothered by it since I thought the slow heavy combat gave the fights a bit more realistic feel (minus the 20 feet high jump kicks and flips you always see lol). As it goes along you can definitely see an improvement in fight choreography though. It is also longer than it should be in my opinion, by the time Hongo returns I wouldn't blame you if you're tired out, I actually had to take 3 breaks to finish this show. But despite the cons it has I still think it was worth watching and you should try to look past the fact that it is a very old show. It was quite an experience and it's interesting to see how far back some Tokusatsu aspects and formulas go.

I've just seen an episode of Kamen Rider, and i've never seen a Superhero so dark, with such cool and dark villans. For a show made in the 70's,it can still attract newcomers. I think the only american superheroes that can come close to the darkness that is Kamen Rider are Batman, Spawn and Blade. I give this show a 10