Kamen Rider Super-1 (1980-1981) Episode 1 “The Galactic Cyborg’s Great Transformation” and episode 2 “The Time of Battle Has Come! The Technique is the Sincere Shaolin Fist.”
After this series, there was a lull of about five years with no new Kamen Rider shows, so maybe the innovations in this incarnation were not well-received. The story has a lot of very familiar beats, but thankfully also attempts something new and interesting. This time, protagonist Kazuya Oki is an orphan (again—several of the others up to this point were as well), and he was raised in a scientific facility in the USA run by an organization called the International Space Development Program. Because of overpopulation, they are planning a trip to a habitable planet called Super-1, and have developed a process to turn humans into cyborgs to better survive the dangers of interspace travel. Like Jo from Kamen Rider Stronger, Oki volunteers to undergo the augmentation surgeries. An evil organization called Dogma Kingdom sends spies to infiltrate the program, leading to the inevitable murder of Oki’s scientific overseer/father figure Dr. Henry (and his amazing mustache). Oki barely escapes alive, still unable to control his own transformations into and out from his Rider form. The overpopulation theme is a popular one from science fiction around the world, and while its often tackled with dubious plans to create new sources of food that backfire ala Tarantula or Soylent Green, here we have the effort framed heroically, and a Rider created with positive intentions by a reputable international identity rather than via kidnapping or tragedy.
Giving Oki an inability to willingly transform is a unique wrinkle, but not executed with great storytelling chops—for some reason he thinks training in gymnastics will unleash his powers, but we never have an inkling as to what possible connection there might be between turning flips and changing form. Eventually, in the second episode, he masters his transformation by studying martial arts, which has this clever bit where his master opines that Oki needs to experience wind as something inside and a part of his body, mirroring Bruce Lee’s famous comments about becoming like water, but connecting to how Kamen Rider traditionally is powered by a wind turbine. Kamen Rider Super-1 is also equipped with a set of five pairs of “hands” that he can cycle through for different dangerous situations—hands for punching, hands that make him stronger, electric hands, etc. These “power gloves” feel similar to later incarnations of Ultraman where the giant hero could shift from one color-coded set of powers to another depending on the needs of the fight at hand, such as in Ultraman Tiga from the 90s. When Oki manages to discover how to transform in the second episode, he automatically gets the ability to use his suite of hand powers at the same time. Moving on to his design, I do really like the metallic look of Super-1, which seems like a precursor of the Metal Heroes metaseries that would kick off with Space Sheriff Gavan the following year. My main complaint? I just wish they would depart from the “orphan hero made into cyborg, father figure killed” dynamic which arises again and again, preventing some interesting possible relational dynamics in the shows.
Edited to add: One of the most notorious behind-the-scenes details of this show is that the star, Shunsuke Takasugi, was convicted of conning money from his fans, claiming the reason for his deceit was because the Yakuza took his Kamen Rider belt and he needed the cash to get it back. Yikes. Apparently Takasugi is currently a fugitive from the law, having disappeared in 2017 and escaping his responsibility to pay back those he had conned. His reprehensible deeds really cast a pallor over his Rider show if you let them.
Kamen Rider Black (1987-1988) Episode 1: “Black! Transform!”
One of the most popular riders, and even just watching the first episode kicked me in the face! What a show! Embracing a more occultic/magic feel, Black focuses on Kotaro Minami (and his best friend, Nobuhiko Akizuki) as they are kidnapped by a weird tribe of ghostly wizards (they look like Marvel’s Moon Knight). The wizards are part of a group called Gorgom, once again an international evil society, but this time they capture Minami and Akizuki on their 19th birthday and start their nasty cyborg experiments on them to give one (both?) the power of their leader, Creation King. Naturally, Minami escapes (and maybe Akizuki as well…?), and Minami is hounded by an army of spider men. The episode is filled with inspired action and haunting sequences, with the Gorgom walking on walls, the army of spiders creeping into a building with a viscerally disquieting series of shots, and some punishing action sequences. The Rider’s awesome bike can also operate independently and attack the episode’s critter armies without Black astride. In the battles, Minami really gets thrown around, and later the impressively armored Black appears and gets his licks in—and it’s satisfying seeing the dude bust face for revenge and justice. That crunchy satisfaction is heightened by an alternating synth-and-rock score that creates a truly delicious first episode and had me craving for more.
Kamen Rider Black RX (1988-1989) Episode 1 : “The Child of the Sun! RX”, and episode 2 “Bathed in Light! RX”
When I was a kid, I remember when Masked Rider appeared in Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers, and how cool I thought he was—at first. The commercials that showed some cool monster suits also had my heart pumping, especially an impressive insect monster that battles Masked Rider in a warehouse. Well, that show ultimately disappointed me, but going back and watching the original Japanese show from which Masked Rider was adapted, those old memories came springing back to me–for better or worse. Kamen Rider RX, the last Showa Kamen Rider, and a show that JUST crossed over into the Heisei period, is a continuation of Kamen Rider Black, and even without my negative childhood memories, it seems obvious this is a bit of a step down. The first episode doesn’t have nearly the visceral impact of Kamen Rider Black, with a much tamer tone. Where Black was creepy and cool with armies of deadly spiders, RX has mutants stealing kids’ bicycles. The story takes place after Black, and Minami is now a helicopter pilot. When he encounters strange energy-emitting spikes jutting out from a lake, a series of events is triggered, and crystalline growths begin cropping up around the city (ala Godzilla vs. Space Godzilla five years later). The Crisis Kingdom has come to take over the earth, and they have already analyzed Kamen Rider Black and devised a way to neutralize him. They capture him, destroy his ability to transform, and chuck him into space—but the sun apparently mutates him, and he returns in a slightly new form to do battle again.
One of the innovations of this series is that now the rider is powered by the sun (like some incarnations of Superman) rather than by the wind. Whereas the old Kamen Rider and many of his offshoots gained strength by letting wind rush through a turbine in their belt, now RX gets power whenever he is exposed to sunlight—which becomes apparent in the second episode. Instead of turbines, I suppose the red circles on his belt are more like solar panels. The second episode explains some of these aspects of the new rider as he faces off against a scary-good, Terminator-esque cyborg who chases our hero down in a yellow car. RX further has a lightsaber (sunsaber?) and his “Rider Kick” has evolved into a drop kick instead of the usual flying kick. In the first two episodes, there seems to be a theme in which the badguys are tying to analyze the Rider’s abilities so as to discover the best way to defeat the hero, which I like, too—though the assembly of goofy villains in a dark base feels a bit too Power Rangers. Still, something about that driving rock-and-synth soundtrack and that heroic theme song sends me, man.