Last year, in preparation for watching Shin Ultraman, I thought it would be great fun to watch the first episode or two of all the Ultraman series ever made–which proved so enormously delightful that, about eight shows in, I started writing my impressions of each show as I went along. They were just short impressions, but as the shows progressed, and I became more and more familiar with the tropes and themes and character types, and as I saw the special effects evolve, and the different eras, and monsters, and designs, the enterprise just delighted me more and more. I want to go back and write up impressions for the first eight shows, and then share what I put together here or in another venue, but as they are not ready yet, I will instead share another project that I started up this year–this one involving the equally famous Kamen Rider franchise.
Those following the world of sci-fi and fantasy films will know that Shin Kamen Rider was released about a month ago in Japan. The latest in legendary anime-and-film director Hideaki Anno’s (and sometimes Shinji Higuchi’s) oeuvre of reimagined Japanese science-fiction media properties, it hasn’t done as well as the previous three, and I didn’t care for the movie so much myself… but I still used its release as an excuse to visit the first episode or two of all the Kamen Rider shows. It was such a good time last year with Ultraman, I thought it would be equally fun to do the same in 2023 and educate myself on the grasshopper-themed hero on a bike.
I was wrong. It’s been even more fun so far! Though visiting them all can be a bit exhausting (there are over thirty Kamen Rider shows, plus more streaming originals–and adapted versions, and… well, you get the idea), and I am not quite finished yet, I have been flabbergasted to find if anything I prefer Kamen Rider over Ultraman now in some significant ways. Whereas Ultraman shows often feel quite similar to one another, with limited experimentation, the Kamen Rider shows constantly reinvent themselves with utterly outlandish new versions and worlds. While Ultraman also teased more adult oriented shows (sometimes with a lot of success, such as with Nexus), Kamen Rider has had darker and scarier stuff from the start, so when they dive deeper into adult territory, it feels more natural. But KR plays the gamut–from bloody and scary, to utterly juvenile, from Japanese Tarzan, to detectives, to medical doctors, to space travel, video games, ghosts, and more. It’s been so much fun for me to taste test these shows, and I want to share what I noticed bit by bit here in a series of posts. Enjoy!
Kamen Rider episode 1: The Eerie Spider Man (1971)
The very first episode of any Kamen Rider series is a shock to the tokusatsu universe, at least for me—here we have what amounts to a horror tokusatsu hero. Takeshi Hongo, super-scientist (with an IQ of 600!!) and motorcyclist, is kidnapped by SHOCKER, an evil organization along the lines of James Bond’s SPECTRE, but with more monsters. SHOCKER transforms Hongo into a cyborg to serve their evil ends, but before they can finish and fry his brain, he escapes, and in the ensuing carnage vows to fight SHOCKER and its evil manifestations. The atmosphere of the episode is surprisingly eerie and sometimes downright frightening, with dark shadows and shrieking sound effects from the baddies, as well as bubbling gruesome deaths wherein humans boil into nothing. The effects are captured with primitive measures (such as reverse photography of soap bubbles), but something about that analog feel makes the scenes more spine-tingling. Spider Man, apparently a deliberate poke at Marvel’s hero, is a colorful red-and-black fiend with webs and darts and a trio of gorgeous femme fatales in nasty face paint. One of the most inspired plot points has the daughter of Hongo’s friend convinced that he (Hongo) killed her father in a tussle towards the end of the first episode, leaving our hero in an emotional state. A powerful and provoking first episode.
Kamen Rider V3 Episodes 1 and 2: “Rider No. 1: His Name is V3!” and “Last Testament of the Double Riders” (1973-74)
Kamen Rider V3 is a direct sequel to the astonishingly long Kamen Rider series, which nearly ran one hundred episodes before concluding. Hongo is back with his partner, a new rider named Hayato (who must have turned up in the last series at some point—when transformed, he looks virtually identical to Hongo’s Masked Rider cyborg form). A new evil group has now assembled from the ashes of SHOCKER. The new group, called Destron, is targeting Hongo and Hayato’s student, Shiro Kazami. Kazami wants Hongo and Hayato to transform him into a third rider so they can fight together more effectively, but the “Double Riders” don’t want to put Kazami through the miseries of cyborgness. However, as more and more monsters appear, Kazami gets critically injured, forcing the Double Riders to rescue him through cyborg surgery. V3 is a more colorful version of the rider, with twin fans in his belt to power him up with wind. The new two-part pilot story is not QUITE as spooky and weird as the first episode of the previous series, with more bright skies and a decidedly more cheerful palate, but still—we get goosebump-inducing catacombs and a “scissor jaguar” that kills multiple people via his stabby hands. Ultraman Leo would seemingly ape this idea of previous heroes training and being replaced by newer versions the very next year, and the end of the pilot arc provides another startling cliffhanger involving a turtle and a nuke. Not quite as impactful or revelatory as the first episode of the first series, but memorable nonetheless.
Kamen Rider X (1974) Episode 1 “X-X-X Rider is Born!”
This episode feels like a complete reboot rather than a continuation of the previous story. Here, Keisuke Jin (our hero) arrives back in Tokyo from a trip only to be attacked by goons. He manages to escape, and visits his nutty professor father in a hidden freaky laboratory. The goons, led by a Neptune-themed monster man who can vomit white foam that disintegrates humans into bone, go on a rampage, eventually tracking down Jin and his father and mortally wounding both. This time, dad transforms his son into a Kamen Rider cyborg, and there is some convoluted stuff, and it turns out Papa Jin has a secret island base with mega technology. Soon, Kamen Rider X is zooming around on his aquatic super bike and fighting the Neptune guy. A rollicking good time with intrigue and insanity to spare, not to mention even nastier deaths (Blood! Bones!) and surprising betrayals, I really enjoyed the bombastic chutzpah with this entry.
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